Tír Na HiFi

Tippett - Fantasia Concertante on a theme of Corelli, Little Music for String Orchestra & Concerto for Double String Orchestra (Neville Marriner, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Decca Eloquence)

Saint-Saens - Violin Concerto No.3 (Jean-Jacques Kantorow/Kees Bakels, Tapiola Sinfonietta, BIS)

Janacek - String Quartet No.1 Kreutzer Sonata (Vlach Quartet Prague, Naxos)



I am trying something different; namely, my speakers. I am a stubborn headphones only type of guy, but a change is as good as a rest!

I like this Schumann cantata a lot, like his "Scenes from Faust" it´s untypical, a little strange even, but there´s undeniable great music in it.
Benjamin Britten and Giuseppe Sinopoli have recorded it, but my favourite version for many years has been the John Eliot Gardiner in Archiv. It´s superb from every point of view, and soprano Barbara Bonney is still unmatched in the leading part, mostly because it´s very oddly written and she is one of the very few who can cope with the weird writing.
The Harnoncourt recording is also excellent. He, like Gardiner, has the enormous advantage of outstanding forces, in his case the Bavarian Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra. His soloists are also excellent, and Dorothea Röschmann could have had matched Bonney if she had recorded the part a few years earlier when she was in her prime and her voice was a wonder. She is still good of course, but not as good as she was when she made her heavenly recording of Handel´s 9 German arias for Harmonia Mundi.

Schumann - Symphony No.4 (Guido Cantelli, Philharmonia Orchestra, EMI)

Mozart - Piano Concerto No.17 (Mitsuko Uchida/Jeffrey Tate, English Chamber Orchestra, Decca)

A wonderfully restrained and beautiful recording. This was my introduction to this work and it has yet to be beaten for me. It just strikes the right balance between choir and orchestra for my prefered practice of this Requiem. The inner movements, Sanctus, Pie Jesu and Agnus De are a thing of beauty.

I had my brother over this afternoon for a music session and he brought this Bartoli CD with him:



It is stunning, I love every single minute of it.