Itās been wonderful to see so many excellent new releases on Native DSD– āAn Embarrassment of Riches!ā Well, here I am with even more! The Complete Beethoven Piano Concertos Garrick Ohlsson, Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra, Sir Donald Runnicles Last year I was totally entranced by Peter Takacsā complete Beethoven Sonatas (here), and the […]
This is one of my Audiophile Italy publications, translated to English. The original section name is “Audiophile Alerts”. And all of these albums are available at NativeDSD! A very fresh release is this one from LSO Live, the label that records the best concerts of the London Symphony Orchestra. The occasion is invaluable for listening […]
Mari Kodamaās profoundly nuanced yet natural musicality and her unique ability to unite tonal expressivity with a clear sense of form have made her a leading international pianist. An authoritative Beethoven interpreter, Mari Kodama earns consistent praise for her virtuosity across a broad range of repertoire that includes orchestral, chamber, and solo works by composers […]
Over the years interpretation of Baroque music has seen some considerable changes, moving from slow, almost dragging performances to the more recent agitated, almost aggressive versions, all in the name of Historically Informed Practice, with a wide variety in between. A notable example is Hermann Scherchenās 1960 LP set of Bachās Brandenburg Concerti. At the […]
Is it a crime to listen to ALL of the Fifth Symphonies by the various composers that are available at the NativeDSD Music Store today? Well even if it is, Senior NativeDSD Reviewer Bill Dodd decided not to plead the fifth!Ā He walks you through his favorite interpretations of Fifth Symphonies by Beethoven, Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, […]
Accompanying her debut at NativeDSD, cellist Alisa Weilerstein writes a personal note about the repertoire, ensemble and recording session. An intensely beautiful account of the thoughts and experiences behind this new DSD Release from PENTATONE: Alisa Weilerstein & Trondheim Soloists: “Transfigured Night”. Schoenberg fled Vienna in 1934, four years before my grandparents escaped. So, as […]
I donāt often listen to suites from Tchaikovskyās beloved ballets. Over the many years I was a mainstream commercial broadcaster I overdosed on those parts of The Nutcracker that are ubiquitous at Christmas time. But I recently decided to put on the complete ballet and it turned out to be a wonderful discovery. Discovery #1 […]
Some things you just canāt get away from. Over the years Iāve acquired a rather silly number of recordings of Mussorgskyās Night On A Bare Mountain (orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov) and Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestrated by Ravel). They get included with other works a lot. And I do mean a lot! Then thereās Rimsky-Korsakovās Scheherazade. […]
Jaap van Zweden, the newly named Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in a dynamic and emotional performance of Benjamin Brittenās War Requiem. There have been a number of quite fine new recordings of this massive work in the last few years, and some would say that the […]
Mahler, Khachaturian, Take One Here’s something special: Mahler Symphony No. 1 (Hamburg, 1893 version) Jan Willem de Vriend conducts The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra in a very early version of Mahler’s First Symphony, complete with the later-deleted āBlumineā movement. I have about 20 different recordings of the Mahler 1st, and I probably listen to one of […]
Thereās a myth that only French conductors and orchestras should perform French music, or only conductors and orchestras from the UK should be doing British music, and so on. I donāt believe it. Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony are extraordinarily fine with their āThis Englandā set: Ralph Vaughn Williams (1872-1958) had been working on […]