Tír Na HiFi

DaveF wrote:I rarely look past this set for any of Beethovens symphonies these days.

Symphony No.7 this time around. Sounds fabulous through my new system.

The best period Beethoven set I've heard is Bruggen's second cycle on Glossa. Not as much passionate fire as Gardiner but more grace, tenderness and a profound sense of eloquence (in my opinion).  I don't believe I've ever heard a more moving, more sensitively paced Pastorale than Bruggen's.  The complete set is very expensive but Glossa have recently released Symphonies 5 and 6 as a budget CD.  Very highly recommended.

fergus wrote:....Vivaldi's wonderful music played by Concerto Italiano / Alessandrini and sung by, among others, Mingardo and Invernizzi - what more can one say? I you only ever listen to or buy one Vivaldi opera I would recommend it be this!

Noted! Thanks Fergus. Opera in general is still too big a leap for me but this might be the one occasion to give it a go.

mcq wrote:
The best period Beethoven set I've heard is Bruggen's second cycle on Glossa. Not as much passionate fire as Gardiner but more grace, tenderness and a profound sense of eloquence (in my opinion).  I don't believe I've ever heard a more moving, more sensitively paced Pastorale than Bruggen's.  The complete set is very expensive but Glossa have recently released Symphonies 5 and 6 as a budget CD.  Very highly recommended.

Thanks Paul. The Bruggen set would be the only one I'd consider if I was ever thinking of adding another cycle.

DaveF wrote:

fergus wrote:....Vivaldi's wonderful music played by Concerto Italiano / Alessandrini and sung by, among others, Mingardo and Invernizzi - what more can one say? I you only ever listen to or buy one Vivaldi opera I would recommend it be this!

Noted! Thanks Fergus. Opera in general is still too big a leap for me but this might be the one occasion to give it a go.

Dave, I am very far from being an opera buff myself and know relatively little about it. However, when you think of Vivaldi's operas do not think of say Verdi, Puccini, Wagner etc. but just think of Vivaldi's music in general. The powerful rhythmic drive of Vivaldi's "normal" music is still there - but with singing!! The same applies with his Sacred music. Not a very technical assessment I know but probably the best way that I can get the message across! I am sure that you can find something on Youtube to sample before you commit. Needless to say the recording by Naive is outstanding.

fergus wrote:Dave, I am very far from being an opera buff myself and know relatively little about it. However, when you think of Vivaldi's operas do not think of say Verdi, Puccini, Wagner etc. but just think of Vivaldi's music in general. The powerful rhythmic drive of Vivaldi's "normal" music is still there - but with singing!! The same applies with his Sacred music. Not a very technical assessment I know but probably the best way that I can get the message across! I am sure that you can find something on Youtube to sample before you commit. Needless to say the recording by Naive is outstanding.

Not like Verdi, Puccini, Wagner? :-) That sounds good to me.

Now you've reminded that I have this one on the shelf:



Hasnt been played in a very long time but I do remember quite liking it.

A few years ago this was the favorite of all my classical recordings. Then an amp and speaker change relegated this to one of my most feared recordings in spectacular fashion. A slightly bright recording in nature, it has a lot oboe's, flute's and clarinets interplaying with lots of harmonics with a small orchestra backing it all up. On the wrong gear this can be a tough listen.
Not so this time. Through the new system, it sounds simply beautiful and I've never heard it this good before. There are probably 2 or 3 tiny instances were the treble peaks up and dares to poke you in the eye but everything was sublime.

Listening this evening to Paul McCreesh's powerful version of Handel's Messiah.  What makes Handel the greatest composer of secular vocal music  in my view is the level of sheer humanistic emotion instilled in his operas and oratorios.  St. Paul believed that the greatest of human virtues were faith, hope and love.  Not far behind in my opinion is compassion, empathy and tolerance.  If a man's character is indeed his fate, then the Handelian heroic character is defined by and lit from within by these noblest of human virtues and which are given gloriously inspiriting voice by Handel's incomparable music.  When we listen to Handel's greatest works, we are deeply moved by the very human nature of the struggles that his protagonists face, both personal and public crises of the profoundest magnitude.  Handel saw it as an indictment of the modern world that these most human values were often viewed with the most callous disregard and ultimately contributed to his heroic characters' tragic downfall.  I can think of no more powerful example of this than one of his greatest arias, He Was Despised:

"He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted of grief.
He gave his back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that plucked off His hair.
He hid not his face from shame and spitting."

mcq wrote:

That one I do have Paul and agree that it is a powerful performance.

Tonight I have reached the culmination of my listening to another “Ring” cycle by Wagner. This time it is Furtwangler’s famous 1950 “La Scala” live performance....






The recording quality is definitely not SACD digital quality but the performance is superlative; easily the best performance of the three complete rings that I have in my collection.

I know that he wrote much more than the “Ring”, but if this cycle was his only contribution to Music then Wagner would still be immortalised for it!

mcq wrote:

DaveF wrote:I rarely look past this set for any of Beethovens symphonies these days.

Symphony No.7 this time around. Sounds fabulous through my new system.

The best period Beethoven set I've heard is Bruggen's second cycle on Glossa. Not as much passionate fire as Gardiner but more grace, tenderness and a profound sense of eloquence (in my opinion).  I don't believe I've ever heard a more moving, more sensitively paced Pastorale than Bruggen's.  The complete set is very expensive but Glossa have recently released Symphonies 5 and 6 as a budget CD.  Very highly recommended.

I quite agree. Brüggen´s is the first truly great Pastoral on period instruments, one to stand next to Böhm´s and Klemperer´s. I think he realized that the Pastoral was the first musical work that really demanded rubato, that it was impossible to make sense of it playing everything a tempo. In his first cycle Brüggen already gave fabulous performances of the first 4 symphonies, but in his second the 5th, the 6th and the 7th also get truly magisterial performances, and now must be considered one of the greatest sets ever.