SACD / DSD

Jean-Fery Rebel – Ballets Sans Paroles – Pratum Integrum Orchestra (2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:00:00 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: SACD ISO |  @ Caro MitisItem Number: CM 0052005
Recorded: 5-7.11.2005 5th Studio of The Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR) Moscow, Russia

In 1711 Jean-Féry Rebel published his orchestral Caprice. This piece immediately achieved great popularity among the Parisians and attracted attention of the celebrated Françoise Prévost who set her solo dance to the music of the Caprice. Her performances were so successful that soon after that each ballet dancer, making her debut, had to know Rebel’s Caprice. The transformation of an instrumental piece into a dance was not an extraordinary occurrence for the French Baroque theatre. In this domain it was common to sing a Chaconne or to dance an aria, court performances envisaged vocal numbers together with dances. For that reason, the appearance of Rebel’s Caprice merits special attention: apparently this piece was the first ballet without singing. A year after the Caprice, another piece by the composer, the Boutade (fancy, whim, joke in French), was turned into a dance.

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Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 8 (9) in C major D.944 “Great” / Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 88
Berliner Philharmoniker / Wilhelm Furtwängler
SACD ISO (Single Layer/Mono): 3,05 GB | 24B/88,2kHz FLAC: 766 MB | Full Artwork: 80 MB | 3% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Deutsche Grammophon, Universal Music LLC # UCGG-9019 | Country/Year: Japan 2011 (Germany 1951)
Genre: Classical | Style: Viennese School, Historical Recording

Artist Biography by David Brensilver

Although born in Berlin, conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler spent his childhood in Munich, where his father was a professor. After his talents were recognized at an early age, he was removed from school and educated privately. Furtwängler’s teachers included the composer Joseph Rheinberger and the conductor Felix Mottl. By the age of 17, the young musician had written numerous works and had his conducting debut three years later with the Kaim Orchestra, where he directed the opening Largo from his own first symphony, Beethoven’s overture Die Weihe des Hauses, and Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. The ambivalent response to his music and the financial instability that composition offered caused him to focus his energies on conducting.

Furtwängler’s first position was at the Breslau Stadttheater in 1906 and 1907. He went to Zurich the next season, followed by an apprenticeship at the Munich Court Opera under the auspices of his teacher Mottl. From 1911 to 1921, Furtwängler served as music director of various ensembles in Lübeck, Mannheim, Frankfurt, and Vienna. From 1920 to 1922, he served as conductor of the Berlin Staatskapelle. At the age of 35, the conductor took the baton at the celebrated Berlin Philharmonic and concurrently held the same position at the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, where he remained until 1928. Furtwängler led the New York Philharmonic from 1927 to 1929, but eventually declined an offer to remain there. It was during those years that Furtwängler was appointed music director of the Vienna Philharmonic. As the 1920s drew to a close, he held positions throughout Europe, including those at the Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals (1931-1932) and the Berlin State Opera (1933). In 1932, he was awarded the Goethe Gold Medal.

When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Furtwängler strongly and publicly opposed the Nazi agenda, despite pride in his German heritage, and refused to give the Nazi salute, even in Hitler’s presence. In 1934, when Hindemith’s Mathis de Maler was banned by the Nazi party, Furtwängler unilaterally resigned from all of his posts, aided numerous Jewish musicians under Nazi persecution, and refused to conduct in Nazi-occupied areas. Furtwängler eventually fled to Switzerland at the suggestion of Albert Speer. When, in 1936, the New York Philharmonic offered him the position of music director, he was dissuaded from accepting the position by anti-Nazi sentiment. After the war’s conclusion, the Allied command cleared Furtwängler of charges of being a Nazi sympathizer, although the American government did not “denazify” Furtwängler until 1946. In 1949, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra courted the German conductor, but its board of directors quickly withdrew its offer under the heavy and largely unjustified criticism from the orchestra’s musicians.

Always welcomed in Europe, Furtwängler enjoyed continued success throughout the region. While uninterested in recording live performances, citing the impossibility for technology to capture a mood or aesthetic, he was responsible for countless recordings, most of which were made after the war. His dedication to the works of Beethoven was unsurpassed, and his enthusiasm towards the contemporary compositions of the time impressive, evidenced by his aggressive programming. Furtwängler’s idiosyncratic approach to the repertoire and spontaneous interpretations were unique to say the least. Furtwängler remained a popular artist and kept a busy schedule conducting throughout Europe until his death in Baden-Baden in 1954. According to his second wife Elisabeth Ackermann, he died a darkened and melancholy man, troubled by the atrocious history his beloved Germany had written. allmusicguide (more…)

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Joseph Haydn – If Haydn Had Written For Oboe, vol. 2 – Alexei Utkin, Hermitage Chamber Orchestra (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 00:51:43 minutes | 993 MB | Genre: Classical
Source: SACD ISO |  @ Caro MitisItem Number: CM0012007
Recorded: 12-16.05.07 5th Studio of The Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR) Moscow, Russia

There’s hardly anyone not familiar with Haydn’s canonical image, omnipresent in his popular biographies: the endlessly jovial old man, ‘Papa Haydn’, pious, amiable, easy-going and industrious, without a hint of a tortured soul, that hallmark of genius in new European culture since Romanticism. This deliberately contrast-free, and yet remarkably truthful image of the great master, created towards the end of his life, corresponds well to his artistic career, also apparently devoid of storms and crises. In the composer’s lifetime, his music was greeted with enthusiasm not in Europe alone, but in overseas colonies as well. He died a venerable old man, having known in full the sweetness of recognition and the love of his contemporaries. A telling example of the attitude towards Haydn in the classical age are the words by Ernst Ludwig Gerber that introduce the master in his Historischbiographisches Lexikon der Tonku?stler from 1790: “Our greatest man, great in every small thing and even greater in big things, the pride of our times.”

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Joseph Haydn – If Haydn Had Written For Oboe, vol. 1 – Alexei Utkin, Hermitage Chamber Orchestra (2007)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 00:55:14 minutes | 0,99 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: SACD ISO |  @ Caro MitisItem Number: CM0042006
Recorded: 2006, April: 13, 15, 16, 18–19 5th Studio of The Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR), Moscow, Russia

Here’s another delectable SACD from Caro Mitis—oboist Alexi Utkin playing music of Haydn, one of his favorite composers. The Oboe Concerto actually wasn’t written by Haydn although attributed to him, the oboe plays a relatively insignificant part as one of four soloists in the well-known Sinfonia concertante, and the oboe d’amore here replaces the cello in the Divertimento. Exquisite performances, beautifully recorded. The only negative feature is the relatively short playing time of the disk (55:14).

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – The Last 6 Symphonies
Philharmonia Orchestra / New Philharmonia Orchestra – Otto Klemperer
3xSACD | ISOs (2.0): 6,52 GB | 24B/88,2kHz Stereo FLAC: 2,90 GB | Full Artwork
Label/Cat#: EMI Classics # 50999 9 55932 2 | Country/Year: Europe 2012 (1956-1962) | 3% Recovery Info
Genre: Classical | Style: Viennese School, Orchestral, Historical Recording

In the online discussions about the best recorded versions of the Mozart symphonies there is little reference made to Otto Klemperer, although at one time his EMI recordings of the last several Mozart symphonies were considered the epitome. His various recordings have been available in one form or another ever since his first LPs came out in the late 1950s.

After Klemperer escaped Germany when Hitler came to power, he had a difficult time in the U.S., even getting himself arrested. In 1954 a young agent in NYC arranged for him to conduct a concert in Portland, Oregon. He became famous overnight with his superb performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, and he ended up in London, where he was asked to conduct EMI’s house band, the Philharmonia. Most British orchestras of the period played well enough to get by but were not first rate. Klemperer fired up the Philharmonia and made London a benchmark for orchestral excellence during the 1960s.

These recordings were originally made in 1956 thru 1962. The first couple of Mozart Symphonies were done in mono in 1956, but then stereophonic recording hit the record business and Klemperer did them over again in stereo for a set of the last six. (No. 37 was discovered in 1907 to have been actually by Michael Haydn, not Mozart.) These are full-bodied performances of great power and knowledge, yet with sensitivity when required. Klemperer may have a reputation for stodgy tempi, but actually the rhythm force of his conducting relieves any of these movements from sounding too slow. The music can still be light and graceful when required – such as in the minuet movements.

Klemper divided up the string sections, making for more interesting spatial effects in stereo, and although the EMI Great Recordings of the Century series did an OK job with reissuing these Mozart performances, they don’t begin to reveal the thrilling and highly detailed sonics heard on this new SACD remastered series. This time EMI’s engineers did it right, playing the original tapes on refurbished Studer open reel decks, using noise reduction judiciously if at all, and converting to 96K/24-bit PCM before mastering to stereo SACD.

This is what might be called big band Mozart, with none of the modern early music refinements coming into play as in the cycles of Pinnock or Hogwood. This is Mozart on modern instruments in a large-sized orchestra – not just 40 musicians like some so-called “authentic” recordings. On the other hand, Klemperer has a different approach to this music that he obviously adored and was fully familiar with. While cycles by Mackerras, Bohm, Karajan, Bruno Walter and others may compete in some ways, Klemperer’s efforts stand up amazingly well now that one can hear details in the recordings which were never exposed before except in the mastering studio. And like the RCA Living Stereo SACDs, they are available at bargain prices!

—John Sunier ~audiophile-audition

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