Sir John Barbirolli & (Dame) Janet Baker – Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38 (1965/2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:38:27 minutes | 3,79 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916. His conducting career began with the formation of his own orchestra in 1924, and between 1926 and 1933 he was active as an opera conductor at Covent Garden and elsewhere. Orchestral appointments followed: the Scottish Orchestra (1933–36), the New York Philharmonic (1936–42), the Hallé Orchestra (1943–70) and the Houston Symphony (1961–67). Barbirolli guest conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras and was especially admired as an interpreter of the music of Mahler, Sibelius, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Puccini and Verdi. He made many outstanding recordings, including the complete Brahms and Sibelius symphonies, as well as operas by Verdi and Puccini and much English repertoire.
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(Dame) Janet Baker – Mahler: Kindertotenlieder & Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1968/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:11 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
“I have cherished Janet Baker’s performance of Rückert-lieder for many years (coupled with Elgar’s sea images on vinyl), but so far I have resisted the purchase of her other Mahler song cycles, believing that these are only suitable for a male singer, and I have also cherished Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s performances. However, after listening to these songs Wayfarer and Kindertotenlieder, some 40 years after their first issue, I now see what I was missing. We soon forget the possible absurdity of a woman singing from the point of view of a jilted lover and a grieving father respectively. Janet Baker’s art simply transcends such considerations. It is a Lieder song of the highest quality, coupled with a superb play by the orchestras of John Barbirolli. I had not heard the separate recording of Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen with the Hallé before; it is even better than that of the group of five with the Philharmonia. The recording remains excellent and so I give the highest recommendation. But listen to Fischer-Dieskau too.”
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(Dame) Janet Baker – Purcell: Dido and Aeneas Z. 626 by Dame Janet Baker (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:25 minutes | 997 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alexandre Bak – Classical Music Reference Recording
Dame Janet Abbott Baker CH, DBE, FRSA (born 21 August 1933) is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.
She was particularly closely associated with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten. During her career, which spanned the 1950s to the 1980s, she was considered an outstanding singing actress and widely admired for her dramatic intensity, perhaps best represented in her famous portrayal as Dido, the tragic heroine of Berlioz’s magnum opus, Les Troyens. As a concert performer, Dame Janet was noted for her interpretations of the music of Gustav Mahler and Edward Elgar. David Gutman, writing in Gramophone, described her performance of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder as “intimate, almost self-communing.”
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