Tír Na HiFi

Seán wrote:Wonderful music, I love it. My only misgiving is that classical musicians on the first movement of the Symphonic Dances have the alto saxophone sound like a foghorn: I dislike the tone that they get from the instrument.....do they never listen to Jazz musicans, I wonder? :o

I would have thought that many woodwind and brass orchestral players do indeed play jazz so perhaps it is something else?

Listening tonight to some wonderful chamber music by Schumann and Brahms. First up was a recent release on the Audite label comprising Schumann's Piano Quartet and Piano Quintet featuring the Mandelring Quartet (whose Shostakovich cycle I really must investigate) with pianist Claire-Marie Le Guay. These are wonderfully fiery performances of some of Schumann's most inspired music. Then I played Kim Kashkashian and Robert Levin's spellbinding recordings of Brahms's two viola sonatas on ECM. There's a bewitching sense of intimacy about Kashkashian's playing which is supported beautifully by Levin's forceful yet never overbearing accompaniments.

fergus wrote:

Seán wrote:Wonderful music, I love it. My only misgiving is that classical musicians on the first movement of the Symphonic Dances have the alto saxophone sound like a foghorn: I dislike the tone that they get from the instrument.....do they never listen to Jazz musicans, I wonder? :o

I would have thought that many woodwind and brass orchestral players do indeed play jazz so perhaps it is something else?

Forgive my rather turgid prose.....I was very tired when I wrote that comment. I never cease to be impressed by the gorgeous clean sound that classical musicians get from oboes, clarinets, trumpets, violins et al; yet I find it baffling why they cannot do the same when it comes to playing the saxophone. Perhaps it's a Russian thing, I don't know.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Variations (15) and Fugue for Piano in E flat major, Op. 35 "Eroica"
Sonata for Piano no 20 in G major, Op. 49 no 2
Alfred Brendel - Piano

Mahler – 5 Ruckertlieder and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen....




These are absolutely beautifully sung with very sensitive accompaniment.

Seán wrote:Forgive my rather turgid prose.....I was very tired when I wrote that comment. I never cease to be impressed by the gorgeous clean sound that classical musicians get from oboes, clarinets, trumpets, violins et al; yet I find it baffling why they cannot do the same when it comes to playing the saxophone. Perhaps it's a Russian thing, I don't know.

Nothing to forgive, my friend, and if the truth be known you would know a lot more about the sound of a saxaphone than I would!!

fergus wrote:Mahler – 5 Ruckertlieder and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen....




These are absolutely beautifully sung with very sensitive accompaniment.

A wonderful record. I got the Rückert-Lieder and LefG with Barbirolli's magnificent M5 on LP more than 30 years ago: I must dig them out as I haven't listened to them in a while!

Symphony No. 1

I adore Rachmaninov's Etudes-Tableaux, and while in many ways Idil Biret on Naxos is still my first choice for her sheer sense of melancholy, this recording brings something different to the table.

fergus wrote:


Symphony No. 1

'tis my favourite version of the Titan.