The Bolshoi Experience: Highlights from Russian Operas, Vol. 1 – Soloists, Chorus & Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, Alexander Vedernikov (2006)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 01:15:38 minutes | 3,00 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Digital Booklet | © Pentatone Music B.V.
Recorded: Moscow, November 2005 & February 2006

Alexander Vedernikov leads the orchestra, soloists and chorus of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on this first volume of Highlights From Russian Operas, including works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Glinka and others.

(more…)

Tchaikovsky & Bloch – Piano Trios – Osiris Trio (2007)
DSF 5.0 Surround DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 00:53:42 minutes | 5,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Digital Booklet |  © Cobra Records

All his life Tchaikovsky struggled against what he himself called ‘the inability in gene- ral to maintain a good grip on form. I have fought this innate weakness and – some- thing I’m proud of – not without some decent results. Nonetheless I will go to my grave without having produced anything at all which has a perfect form.’ Dilettantism was anathema to him: ‘You really have to outdo yourself if you want to avoid lapsing into dilettantism, of which even someone as gifted as Glinka was not entirely free…’ Although Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky is generally seen as belonging to the Western-orientated Russian school, as indeed are most of his professional colleagues in Moscow, his musical art was not in fact very far removed from the ideals of the so-called ‘Mighty Five’ (or ‘Mighty Handful’.) In 1869 he met Balakirev, the actual founder of this national school in Petersburg. Balakirev recognized the young Tchaikovsky’s talent and would ideally have liked to include him in his group. But the greatest problem as he saw it was that Tchaikovsky had received a formal conservatoire education, and that clashed with his ideals of an uncultivated, original Russian music.
Ernest Bloch belongs to the large group of twentieth-century composers who, though not wishing to be associated with the avant-garde, equally did not distance themselves from the latest developments. He studied violin and composition in his native city Geneva, and later in Brussels and Frankfurt. His early compositions reveal a great curiosity about everything that was new and unknown at the time: Wagnerian chromaticism, the orchestral expansivity of Richard Strauss, and then the subtle timbres of Debussy and the block chords of Stravinsky.

(more…)

Sviatoslav Richter Plays Prokofiev, Debussy and Chopin – Live at Mosque Theatre, December 28, 1960, Part II (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 00:41:22 minutes | 778 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | ©  RCA Records
Recorded: Mosque Theatre, December 28, 1960

(more…)

Sviatoslav Richter Plays Haydn, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Ravel – Live at Mosque Theatre, December 28, 1960, Part I (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:03:38 minutes | 1,15 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | ©  RCA Records
Recorded: Mosque Theatre, December 28, 1960

A sturdy box set of 18 CDs in cardboard sleeves with original cover art, this 2015 Sony collection of Sviatoslav Richter’s Columbia Masterworks and RCA Victor recordings is a valuable resource for admirers of the great Russian pianist. Prevented from leaving the Soviet Union in the 1950s, despite his growing international reputation, Richter finally came to the United States in 1960 for a marathon series of concerts. These recordings were drawn from his five dynamic performances at Carnegie Hall, a recital at the Mosque Theatre in Newark, and appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Charles Münch. Also included with these landmark performances are two studio albums Richter made for RCA, and a special 1988 live recording he made with Christoph Eschenbach and the Orchestra of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Because most of these recordings have only been issued as original vinyl pressings that have been unavailable for decades, this set is an essential item for collectors of Richter’s rarities. –Review by Blair Sanderson

(more…)

Sviatoslav Richter Plays Prokofiev – Live at Carnegie Hall, December 26, 1960, Part II (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 00:36:47 minutes | 355 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | ©  RCA Records
Recorded: Carnegie Hall, December 26, 1960

(more…)

Sviatoslav Richter Plays Haydn, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Ravel – Live at Carnegie Hall, December 26, 1960, Part I (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:02:02 minutes | 589 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | ©  RCA Records
Recorded: Carnegie Hall, December 26, 1960

A sturdy box set of 18 CDs in cardboard sleeves with original cover art, this 2015 Sony collection of Sviatoslav Richter’s Columbia Masterworks and RCA Victor recordings is a valuable resource for admirers of the great Russian pianist. Prevented from leaving the Soviet Union in the 1950s, despite his growing international reputation, Richter finally came to the United States in 1960 for a marathon series of concerts. These recordings were drawn from his five dynamic performances at Carnegie Hall, a recital at the Mosque Theatre in Newark, and appearances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Charles Münch. Also included with these landmark performances are two studio albums Richter made for RCA, and a special 1988 live recording he made with Christoph Eschenbach and the Orchestra of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Because most of these recordings have only been issued as original vinyl pressings that have been unavailable for decades, this set is an essential item for collectors of Richter’s rarities. –Review by Blair Sanderson

(more…)

Sviatoslav Richter Plays Schumann, Chopin & Ravel – Live at Carnegie Hall, October 30, 1960 (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:12:53 minutes | 658 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | ©  Columbia Records
Recorded: Carnegie Hall, October 30, 1960

(more…)

Sviatoslav Richter Live at Carnegie Hall, October 23, 1960 – All Prokofiev Program (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:20:31 minutes | 751 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | ©  Columbia Records
Recorded: Carnegie Hall, October 23, 1960

(more…)

Sviatoslav Richter Live at Carnegie Hall, October 19, 1960 – All Beethoven Program (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:48:31 minutes | 0,98 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Q0buz | Front Cover | ©  Columbia Records
Recorded: Carnegie Hall, October 19, 1960

Sony Classcial celebrates the art of Sviatoslav Richter (1995-1997) – one of the 20th century’s greatest pianists – with the first-ever release of his complete Columbia Masterworks and RCA Victor live and studio recordings in an 18 CD original jacket edition, underneath Richter’s legendary five October 1960 Carnegie Hall recitals.
Richter was already a legend in his native Soviet Union when he concertized in the West for the first time in 1960. Richter’s American tour that year not only consolidated the pianist’s international reputation, but also resulted the memorable recordings gathered together in this collection.

Richter’s five October 1960 Carnegie Hall recitals showcased the breadth of his repertoire from Haydn and Beethoven to Debussy and Rachmaninoff, with one program completely devoted to Prokofiev, a composer with whom Richter worked closely. Indeed, Richter’s success inspired Arthur Rubinstein’s ten-concert Carnegie Hall marathon the following season. The series yielded nine LPs, including two that only were released in Japan. Long treasured as rare collectors’ items, they appear here for the first time on CD mastered from the original analogue tapes.

Along with the December 26th Carnegie Hall recital brought out by RCA in 2001 as Richter reDiscovered, Richter’s December 28th Newark Mosque Theater recital receives its first integral release. The pianist’s 1960 RCA studio solo and concerto sessions, too, are justly acclaimed, and feature highly distinctive accounts of Brahms’s Second Concerto, Beethoven’s First Concerto, and three Beethoven sonatas.
Two RCA discs from 1988 concerts return to the catalog, revealing the veteran pianist’s undiminished power and concentration in Brahms’ early C major Piano Sonata, selections by Liszt, Etudes from Chopin’s Op. 10, plus a new recording of the Beethoven First Concerto. As a bonus, three Schubert works released in a 1977 Aldeburgh Festival anthology make their CD debut.

(more…)

Igor Stravinsky – Pulcinella Suite; Apollon musagete; Concerto in D for strings – Tapiola Sinfonietta, Masaaki Suzuki (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 01:04:55 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: eClassical | Digital Booklet | ©  BIS Records
Recorded: April 2015 at the Tapiola Concert Hall, Finland

Masaaki Suzuki is firmly established as a leading authority on the works of Bach, both in his capacity as director of the Bach Collegium Japan and as an organist and harpsichordist. In recent years he has also been appearing in front of eminent orchestras worldwide, however, conducting repertoire as diverse as Britten, Fauré or Mahler. For his first recording of 20th century repertoire, Suzuki has chosen to collaborate with the acclaimed Tapiola Sinfonietta in an all-Stravinsky programme. The disc begins with the music for Pulcinella – here in the concert suite devised by the composer – which Stravinsky later described as ‘the epiphany through which the whole of my later work became possible’. Pulcinella was commissioned in 1919 by the Ballets Russes, for which Stravinsky had already written The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring. For this adaptation of an early eighteenth-century commedia dell’arte libretto, he based his score on existing music, initially ascribed to Pergolesi although material by other baroque composers is also included. Stravinsky’s approach is never that of a faithful transcriber, however: in Pulcinella the material is slanted harmonically, rhythmically and texturally in a manner reminiscent of cubism – and it was indeed Picasso who provided the decor and costumes for the ballet’s first performance. The neoclassical (or neobaroque) spirit remained a vital part of Stravinsky’s compositional armoury for a long time, and also informs the other two works presented here. The formal design of Concerto in D, composed some 25 years after Pulcinella, pays homage to the baroque concerti grossi of Vivaldi and Bach, while the score for the ballet Apollon musagète (also known as Apollo) contains references to French music from the 17th- and 18th-century – but there are also echoes of Tchaikovskian lushness in the work which is richly scored for a string orchestra which is often subdivided, and with many distinctions between solo and tutti lines.

(more…)