What are you listening to?

[Jose Echenique]

It´s raining in Mexico City too, so I´d better stay home and listen to some 3 and a half hours of Cavalli.
This is a live recording from the Antwerp Opera, and Dynamic has released it in both, cd and dvd formats.
The star is the young countertenor Christophe Dumaux, but the large cast acquits very well.
Conductor Federico Maria Sardelli, a baroque specialist, manages to make the musicians of the Antwerp Opera play like life-long hip players.
The opera is gorgeous.

I only have a small amount of music by Cavalli but I really like it I must say.

But of course Fergus. Cavalli was Monteverdi´s successor in Venice, and a most excellent composer in his own right. Cavalli was so famous and well regarded in his own time that the powerful Cardinal Mazarin of France invited him to Paris to conduct some operas there.

[Jose Echenique]

An extraordinary Australian soprano.

[jaybee]

so I have discovered a cd that utterly overwhelms my pc speakers...!!!

(not built in mind you... one of those logitech 2.1 do-hickeys pressed into service when one channel of the built ins went kaput)

one my favorite choral cd's

[Jose Echenique]

In Memoriam. This is an unlikely recording to remember Fischer-Dieskau. He was already past his prime in 1985 when this recording was made, and Handel didn´t figure prominently in his repertoire, but it´s typical of his superior intelligence and versatility. Unlike many others, DFD recognized Harnoncourt´s importance in the development of Baroque Music. He was one of the first important singers to record with him, even at a time when doing so was not unanimously applauded.
And there´s another reason to hear this live recording in this sad day. It includes a superb funeral march that is only too fitting to hear today.

[bombasticDarren]

Beethoven - Symphony No.8 (Karl Bohm, Wiener Philharmoniker, Deutsche Grammophon)

[bombasticDarren]

Arnold - Symphony No.1 (Andrew Penny, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Naxos)

[bombasticDarren]

Saint-Saens - Symphony No.3 Organ (Anita Priest/Zubin Mehta, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Decca)

[Jared]

Orchestral Suites... a little dated now yes, but certainly ahead of it's time when recorded...

[jaybee]

one for all of the HIP-sters out there....

The playing is beautiful, how you manage to direct an orchestra while playing I don't know!

[jaybee]