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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Sonata for bassoon and fortepiano – Peter Whelan, Kristian Bezuidenhout (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 00:12:29 minutes | 248 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: LINN | © LINN Records
Recorded: July 2014, St Monan’s Church, East Neuk, Fife, United Kingdom
Bassoonist Peter Whelan has won many fans through his recordings with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Marsyas and his own debut recording The Proud Bassoon, whilst his recent recording of Divertimenti with the SCO Wind Soloists was chosen by Gramophone as a ‘Top 10 Recent Mozart Recording’. Peter has returned to the music of Mozart with a recording of the Sonata for bassoon and cello (realised here on the fortepiano by Kristian Bezuidenhout).
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Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra – Into Forever (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 00:39:08 minutes | 772 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: Bandcamp.com | @ Gondwana Records
Over the course of five albums, Manchester based trumpeter, composer, arranger and band-leader Matthew Halsall has carved out a niche for himself on the UK music scene as one of it’s brightest talents. His languid, soulful music has won friends from Jamie Cullum and Gilles Peterson to Jazz FM and Mojo as well as an ever-growing international following. His new album Into Forever, puts the spotlight on Halsall the composer, arranger and producer. Halsall draws on a diverse range of influences from Alice Coltrane, Dorothy Ashby, Phil Cohran and Leon Thomas to the more contemporary sounds of The Cinematic Orchestra, Max Richter and Nils Frahm to deliver his most complete recording to date. Into Forever features renowned Manchester based soul poet Josephine Oniyama and rising star vocalist Bryony Jarman-Pinto (Werkha) as well as regular collaborators, flautist Lisa Mallett, harpist Rachael Gladwin, koto player Keiko Kitamura, pianist Taz Modi, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Luke Flowers (The Cinematic Orchestra) and two percussionists Sam Bell and Chris Cruiks. The result is arguably Halsall’s finest record, asublime melding of stripped back soulful funk and deep, minimalist, spiritual jazz, that will take you on a journey deep into forever!
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Machaut-Transkriptionen – Genevieve Strosser, Jurg Dahler, Muriel Cantoreggi, The Hilliard Ensemble (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:05:25 minutes | 582 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: Q0buz | @ ECM Records GmbH
Recorded: November 2010, Radio Studio DRS , Zürich
Swiss composer Heinz Holliger’s Machaut-Transkriptionen is comprised of a spacious cycle of pieces written over a ten year period beginning in 2001. An imaginative re- investigation of the work of the great 14th century French composer-poet Guillaume de Machaut, it is scored for four voices and three violas. Note-for-note transcriptions of Machaut give way to Holliger’s increasingly creative refractions of the music. As Holliger notes, his in-depth study of Machaud opened up new vistas for his compositional activity and his admiration for the source material is mirrored in the outstanding performances of the violists and singers. The Machaut-Transkriptionen proves a perfect vehicle for the Hilliard Ensemble’s set skills as interpreters of both old and new music, and this recording, made in 2010 in Zürich, captures the vocal group at the heights of its powers. (Their own affinity for Machaut is also documented on their album of his Motets, ECM New Series 1823)
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Franz Liszt – The piano of tomorrow – Roger Muraro (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:14:43 minutes | 1,00 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: Q0buz | @ La Dolce Volta
I waited a long time before listening to interpretations of the Sonata in B minor by my great predecessors, the masters of the art – all so different. For I very quickly made the Sonata my story, so caught up was I in the event I was living through. This sonata can be all things to all people, according to the inspiration, the character, the mood of the performer; it can follow the instant, the fleeting sentiment, or be straight-backed and noble! Every interpretation is different, yet they all remain the Liszt Sonata.’
From the B minor Sonata to the Wagner transcriptions, the Romanticism of Franz Liszt finds an outstanding interpreter in Roger Muraro. Accustomed to conceiving chords as colours, the pianist transports us from shadows to light with highly nuanced playing, dazzling energy and prodigious virtuosity.
A performance deeply moving in its simplicity, transcended by a recording of demonstration quality for his first release on La Dolce Volta.
L’heure exquise: A French Songbook – Alice Coote, Graham Johnson (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:28 minutes | 1,21 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: hyperion-records | @ Hyperion Records
Recorded: October 2012, All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Alice Coote is the darling of the world’s opera stages and recital halls—to the extent that her solo recordings are rare events. In this much-anticipated French Songbook, Graham Johnson lends his incomparable insight to this most remarkable of talents on an emotional rollercoaster through twenty-three songs of Gallic love in all its guises.
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Les McCann – Another Beginning (1974/2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 42:30 minutes | 1,45 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: HDTracks | @ Rhino Atlantic
Recorder, West Los Angeles, CA, May 20-23, 1974
Packed full of McCann’s raspy vocals and funky riffs, Another Beginning finds jazz pianist/vocalist in top form. The soulful album released in 1974 peaked at #15 on Billboard’s Top Jazz Albums. Included on the album are the extraordinary “Someday We’ll Meet Again,” “My Soul Lies Deep” and “Maybe You’ll Come Back.” This mind-bending recording has never sounded better.
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Le Concert royal de la Nuit – Ensemble Correspondances, Sebastien Dauce (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:33:26 minutes | 2,79 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: eclassical.com | @ Harmonia Mundi
Recorded: janvier-février 2015 à Grenoble, MC2
The King dances. In late February 1653, just after the Fronde rebellion, the most influential spectacle of the early reign of Louis XIV was created at the Louvre: the Ballet Royal de la Nuit. Grandiose, and carefully elaborated at the highest levels of the state, the libretto by Bensérade called upon the finest artists of the time. Banishing the troubles of Night, Louis XIV danced in the Sun King costume that would henceforth be for ever associated with him. An indispensable world premiere recording!
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Lang Lang – The Chopin Album (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:15:35 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: Q0buz | @ Sony Classical
The Chopin Album is Lang Lang’s first recording for Sony devoted entirely to the solo piano music of the Romantic master, focused on the Études, Op. 25, with three of the most popular Nocturnes and a handful of other pieces included for good measure. While Lang Lang’s phenomenal popularity guarantees this CD’s success, and his ability to play the technically demanding Études will impress his fans, devotees of Chopin’s music may be skeptical of the pianist’s interpretations, which at their best are flashy and extroverted. While it’s not necessary to play Chopin close to the vest, with the expressive reticence of a wallflower, Lang Lang is no introvert, and it shows in the pieces where sensitivity and poetic refinement are desirable. He plays with his customary bravado in the loudest Études, the Grande Valse Brillante, the Grande Polonaise, and even in the inaccurately nicknamed “Minute” Waltz, but his expression at softer levels seems affectless, uninvolved, and rather uninteresting. While connoisseurs may balk at this fairly showy album, it is sure to appeal to a wide audience, perhaps most especially because of the inclusion of Lang Lang’s duet with Danish singer Oh Land, “Tristesse,” which is based on Chopin’s Étude in E major, Op. 10/3, and taken from the soundtrack for the film The Flying Machine. Sony’s sound is generally good, though Lang Lang’s dynamic range is wide enough to make setting the volume a little tricky. –AllMusic Review by Blair Sanderson
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Lang Lang – Liszt: My Piano Hero (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:30 minutes | 0,97 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: Q0buz | @ Sony Classical
Recorded: April 23-28, 2011, Teldex Studio, Berlin, Germany (#1-10); June 4 & 5, 2011, Großer Saal, Musikverein, Vienna, Austria (#11-12)
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Franz Liszt’s birth, virtuoso pianist Lang Lang has selected some of the composer’s most characteristic pieces for his 2011 Sony release, Liszt: My Piano Hero. Prominent on this album is the Piano Concerto No. 1 in E flat major, which features Lang Lang in a high-energy performance with Valery Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic. Without a doubt, most of Lang Lang’s fans will savor this Romantic showpiece, and for technical brilliance and drama, the performance doesn’t disappoint. He is especially lively and vivid in this work, and his interactions with the orchestra seem spontaneous and playful, as one might well imagine Liszt would have been. But Lang Lang seems more introspective and personally involved with the solo keyboard pieces that make up the greater part of the album. Here also is the flashy side of Liszt, but there is a greater emphasis on the poetic and rhapsodic, so Lang Lang indulges in reflective pieces as much as the flashy encores. Highlights include La Campanella, the Grand Galop chromatique, Liebestraum No. 3, the Hungarian Rhapsody No. 6, and the arrangement of Schubert’s Ave Maria. –AllMusic Review by Blair Sanderson
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Kiss – Killers (1982/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 56:54 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: HDTracks | @ Mercury Records
Kiss’ second compilation album originally released in 1982. Killers was originally released internationally, but quickly made its way to the U.S. after the success that followed abroad. The album featured four new titles by the American hard rock group including “I’m a Legend Tonight” and “Nowhere to Run”, in addition to other known songs. (more…)
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Joao Gilberto – Amoroso (1977/2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 44:22 minutes | 1,7 GB | Genre: Jazz, Bossa Nova
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: HDTracks | @ Rhino/Warner Bros.
Recorded: Rosebud Studios, New York, November 17th, 18th & 19th, 1976; Capitol Records, Hollywood, January 3rd, 4th & 7th, 1977
The originator of Brazilian Bossa Nova delivered Amoroso to the public in 1977. It displayed the ethereal, fine-tuned quality of his vocals and wonderfully complex and daring string arrangements. This spacious, mellow album is now available in 192kHz high definition audio!
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Jimmy Scott – Dream (1994/2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Time – 44:02 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Source: HDTracks | @ Rhino/Warner Bros.
69 year old Jimmy Scott still possesses one of the most original voices of today. A condition called Kallmann’s Syndrome has resulted in an eternal Soprano, akin to a Lena Horne alto, but altogether not comparable to anything. His timbre and phrasing style come through in the exception quality of this high-definition release.
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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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Norwegian metal band Pagan’s Mind perform live at Centre stage in Greenville, South Carolina. Filmed on 20th September 2014, the tracks performed include ‘Through Osiris’ Eyes’, ‘New World Order’, ‘Full Circle’ and ‘United Alliance’.
Track Listing
Set 1:
1. Approaching
2. Through Osiris Eyes
3. Entrance Stargate
4. Of Epic Questions
5. Dimensions Of Fire
6. Dreamscape Lucidity
7. The Seven Sacred Promises
8. Back To The Magic Of Childhood I: Conception
9. Back To The Magic Of Childhood II: Exploring Life
10. In Brilliant White Light
11. Aegean Shores
12. The Prophecy Of Pleiades
Set 2
13. New World Order
14. Intermission
15. Enigmatic Mission
16. Live Your Life Like A Dream
17. Hallo Spaceboy
18. Full Circle
19. Walk Away In Silence
20. Eyes Of Fire
21. God s Equation
22. United Alliance (more…)