Tír Na HiFi

Bruckner - Te Deum (Anne Pashley/Birgit Finnila/Robert Tear/Don Garrard/Daniel Barenboim, New Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus, EMI)



^^ Fergus, this is equally compelling when compared to the accompanying Mozart. The sound offered is quite malevolent at times and offers a particular earth-shattering thrill to the listener that I wouldn't want to do without....

I think these are my only choral recordings by Barenboim - I will look out for him when I next source a choral recording...

I get the impression you're interested in this disc Fergus? ;-)

fergus wrote:What an interesting comment Darren....let me know how you get on with the Bruckner Te Deum if you decide to listen to it as that may well be a clincher.

Funny... that's exactly why I wouldn't want it to be fair... I like my Mozart choral works to have at least some pretence at belonging to the classical era. If you want something scored large, beefy and overly Romantic in its textures and volume, then try Karl Bohm's version on DG!

bombasticDarren wrote:

I get the impression you're interested in this disc Fergus? ;-)

I certainly am Darren and I will watch out for it!

Jared wrote:

bombasticDarren wrote:Delius - Violin Concerto (Tasmin Little/Andrew Davis, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Chandos)

how are you doing with these Concerti now, Darren?

It would be fair to say I owed Sean one... ;-)

Spurred on by the 2012 Proms' focus on Delius, I am giving him an extra special effort at the moment.

I like the works the more I hear then - I gather that this is the key for an appreciation of Delius...

Jared wrote:

fergus wrote:What an interesting comment Darren....let me know how you get on with the Bruckner Te Deum if you decide to listen to it as that may well be a clincher.

Funny... that's exactly why I wouldn't want it to be fair... I like my Mozart choral works to have at least some pretence at belonging to the classical era. If you want something scored large, beefy and overly Romantic in its textures and volume, then try Karl Bohm's version on DG!

Tbh a couple of years back I was a big advocate of HIP interpretations and would look down on attempts to 'modernise' the performance of classical pieces. Now, I find them rather appealing; I won't attempt to explain why, it's just the way it is...

Schumann - Symphonische Etuden (Maurizio Pollini, Deutsche Grammophon)

bombasticDarren wrote:

Jared wrote:

fergus wrote:What an interesting comment Darren....let me know how you get on with the Bruckner Te Deum if you decide to listen to it as that may well be a clincher.

Funny... that's exactly why I wouldn't want it to be fair... I like my Mozart choral works to have at least some pretence at belonging to the classical era. If you want something scored large, beefy and overly Romantic in its textures and volume, then try Karl Bohm's version on DG!

Tbh a couple of years back I was a big advocate of HIP interpretations and would look down on attempts to 'modernise' the performance of classical pieces. Now, I find them rather appealing; I won't attempt to explain why, it's just the way it is...

I think that it is best to listen with an open mind in this regard in order to get to one's favourite interpretation of any work.

bombasticDarren wrote:Schumann - Symphonische Etuden (Maurizio Pollini, Deutsche Grammophon)

A great disc!

I shall be listening to works from this boxset, quite a lot over the coming few weeks... now I appreciate it isn't the most flattering cover of Angela ever to have been taken, so I'll promise a little restraint in the number of occasions I post it.. ;-)

Fantasia In C Minor - Two & Three Part Inventions - Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue

I recently "liked" a Facebook page of an organ builder in the US named Robert I Coulter, and as I was the 600th person to like their page, he very kindly sent me a CD:



It's really very good, the organ is incredibly versatile for a relatively small instrument, and I'm delighted to have a CD of a Rosales organ, having read so much about them. US organs seem to sound a little differently to European organs (or maybe it's more a question of the acoustics in which the organs play -- generally pretty dry in the smaller US churches) and this is notably less strident than many of my other recordings of similarly-sized instruments. Anyway, isn't facebook marvellous?!