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Gary Cooper – Haydn: Late Piano Works (2009)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 / 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 01:17:48 minutes | 3,85 GB
Genre: Classical | Publisher (label): Channel Classics (CCS SA 26509)
Gary Cooper is one of our foremost performers on the fortepiano, well-known for his wonderful series of Mozart Violin Sonata discs with Rachel Podger. In his booklet for this recording, he tells us that “The inspiration for this recording was derived from that all-too-rare occurrence: a perfect marriage of instrument and composer’s music.” The piano in question is a Viennese instrument from an unknown maker, dated 1785, from the collection of Edwin Beunk. It is not a copy, as commonly found on recordings, but a lovingly restored original. Cooper might well have added that there is also a clear “marriage” between piano and performer, as these carefully prepared and superbly executed readings of Haydn’s late keyboard works demonstrate.
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Rachel Podger, Gary Cooper – Mozart: Complete Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin (2004-09)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 09:22:52 minutes | 22,2 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Channel Classics Records | Front Cover
We bundled the eight Mozart cd’s that Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper recorded over the last ten years into an atrractive box, with an informative note from producer Jonathan Freeman-Attwoord. The duo partnership Gary Cooper and Rachel Podger has taken them worldwide. These recordings of Mozart’s Complete Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin have received countless awards and accolades, including multiple Diapason d’Or awards and Gramophone Editor’s Choices, and hailed as ‘benchmark’ recordings.
“Finally, one asks why there hasn’t previously been a complete recording on historical instruments. From my ‘privileged’ position as listener-in-chief, I can tell you it is because no pair can make such transparent and difficult music sound so effortless, elegant, witty, emotionally persuasive and enjoyable. Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, producer
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Gary Cooper – Beethoven: Diabelli Variations (2011)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 01:12:28 minutes | 2,91 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:28 minutes | 1 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital booklet | © Channel Classics
The decision to use a historic Viennese instrument for this recording – built in the very year Beethoven completed his Diabelli Variations – is, in one sense, self-explanatory. Newly & magnificently restored by Edwin Beunk, the Walter und Sohn grand piano featured here is both a beautiful & charming instrument. In approaching the timeless, expansive sound world of Beethoven’s late, great works, any piano is constantly tested; historic instruments not far off two hundred years old additionally so! This is the first commercial recording, to my knowledge, which attempts to place this particular masterpiece firmly in the sound-world of the early 1820s, when it was conceived and first played. In the process of doing so, previously hidden colours and textures may well be revealed to the listener: for pianos of this period have everything to do with colour, while at the same time having very little to do with sheer power, brilliance of clarity, or a capacity to sustain effortlessly: the sound-world to which we are mostly accustomed in the C21st. Therefore, the challenge to both instrument and performer using historic pianos is appreciably great (including occasional moments of audible pedal & action noise, for which I ask the listener’s patience and understanding) but I feel well worth the effort, since only additional rewards can be attained in serving to illuminate areas of this immense, mystical, timeless work of art from differing perspectives.
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