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  Sarahbanda
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The Sarahbanda was an idea born from the Mozart y Mambo trilogy. Could you tell us about your thought process during and after those 3 albums and the formation of the Sarahbanda? Also, what inspired you originally to make the Mozart y Mambo albums? 

The short answer to this question is that I fell in love with Cuban music when I heard the Buena Vista Social Club for the first time. I went to Havana in 2017 to dance salsa, but met the Havana Lyceum Orchestra who were playing a concert of works by W.A. Mozart that evening. I was so impressed with how they played Mozart, but I was sad at the state of the instruments they were playing on, and I decided on the spot I wanted to do something to help. So together, we came up with a plan to record the Mozart horn concertos in Havana and, also, because I love Cuban music so much, mix some Mozart with Cuban rhythms, thus creating a whole new repertoire for the French horn. My Cuban band, The Sarahbanda, was formed during the Mozart y Mambo project basically because, although I also wanted to get closer to the band culture of the Cuban popular music.

There are no French horns in any band in Cuba. I am not sure if there is any French horn in any salsa band all over the world. Ever since I was little I wanted to play in a band, and here it was Cuban band culture that I wanted to experience. The only way I could do that was to form a band of my own and I asked some of Cuba’s most talented popular musicians to join me. On every Mozart y Mambo album, the Sarahbanda recorded one piece. When all the Mozart horn concertos were recorded and our album trilogy was completed we decided that we wanted to take our band to the next level. That’s when we decided to release an album of our own. Sarahbanda was released on September 6th, 2024. 

Mozart y Mambo was received extremely well both in the classical community and the pop and Latin community. Is it safe to say that this new album is even more firmly rooted in traditional and modern Cuban music? And if so, in what ways did you intentionally achieve that goal?

We are absolutely thrilled and happy that Mozart y Mambo reached all kinds of different communities. The people who were interested in me playing Mozart also discovered Cuban music. And the people who were interested in Cuban music listened to classical music on the albums as well. So it was a win-win situation!

For us, this new album Sarahbanda is a journey through Cuban musical history. We have included Cuban classics like Chan Chan and Pare Cochero up to the present day with covers of famous songs like Sandunguera and Contigo en la Distancia. We also include two new wonderful compositions by two of our band members, Yuniet Lombida and Aylín Pino. 

Everything about the album is Cuban (except for me!) including the cover and booklet artwork design done by a wonderful Cuban designer, Rubén Cabrera. All the songs are Cuban or arranged by Cuban musicians – Jorge Aragón, our pianist and Edgar Olivero. 

Jorge and Edgar were also the two main arrangers for the Mozart y Mambo project. So, yes, the album is very firmly rooted in traditional and modern Cuban music. Because of my classical music background, I wanted to add a little classical twist as well, and that’s where the Romanza and the Habanera come in. My Cuban musician friends enjoy playing that as much as I enjoy playing their music.

How did you select the players whom you invited to join on this adventure?

Well, as I said before, I invited some of Cuba’s most talented, wonderful and well-known popular musicians to join me. A couple of the musicians I knew already from the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and Yuniet Lombida, the saxophonist, is our musical director. He is the boss because he has his feet firmly in the popular music scene, and he knew whom to ask to play in the band. He is also the one who told me: “Sarah, if you can’t dance Cuban music, you can’t play Cuban music”. So learn to dance all these different rhythms I did!

I’ve never had so much fun in a recording studio in my life as I had whilst recording Sarahbanda. And I’m so grateful to these musicians for going on this journey with me, because – as Aylín says in the promotion video – you can’t explain Cuban music. You have to listen to it, and you have to play it”. I’m learning every day with them and I am very grateful for that. 

Can you give some specific examples of how your playing needed to change in order to fuse with the band? Did the band have to adapt to fuse the horn? 

The first album came out in 2020, and now we are in 2024, so we’ve had an album every year. I could play the horn already before I went on this journey, but being with these Cuban musicians, there are a few things that I’ve really had to improve and my playing has certainly evolved in the past 4 years. My rhythm is better – there’s no way you can get slower or drag in Cuban music. You must have fantastic rhythm to play with a Cuban band, otherwise they just leave you behind. I had to find a different way of articulation, to project my sound and also to blend with the saxophone better. So, I’ve had to work on that. I’ve also had to find a different position for the horn – I stand facing with my bell more out to the audience. Otherwise, they just wouldn’t hear me because usually we horns point backwards.

Now this is a very interesting thing about Sarahbanda. We are a completely acoustic band. We don’t record like most salsa bands with everything amplified and also musicians recording their parts in different places – one guy recording something in Miami who sends the track to a guy in Havana who records on top of it, etc, etc.

We recorded Sarahbanda all in the same room – our recording engineers Andreas Wolf and Marcus Mittermeyer are geniuses. How they did that, I really don’t know, but every instrument sounds amazing. There is no interference between different instruments on each microphone. I’m not sure how to explain that, but I think you know what I mean. And the mix is really, really fantastic. The other thing that my musicians do which is unusual in a salsa band is to play dynamics. Salsa bands usually start loud and finish even louder. But with me, they have to do some echoes, make colours, make diminuendos, crescendos. They say they’ve really enjoyed that part as well, putting the colour into what we’re playing. So, yes, the band has also adapted. They listen. The radar in this band is incredible. It is a give and take on both parts, and I love it.

You recorded in the Traumton Studios in Berlin. Why was this location chosen? 

Our recording engineer Andreas Wolf knew this recording studio. I had heard of it, but I’d never been there. It’s about half an hour train ride from my house, and it was February when we recorded there, freezing cold and snow outside. Cubans don’t like cold weather, but we made it into the studio every day and then the temperature went up inside. It got very hot in there with all these fiery Cuban Latin rhythms happening. We forgot that outside it was cold, so it was always a shock when we went home in the evenings. Our promo video on YouTube makes me smile every time I see it – Cubans in the cold!
We have great memories of Traumton and I will definitely be going back there to record again. Maybe the next Sarahbanda album… who knows?

Can we expect more music recordings of the amazing Sarahbanda in the future?

Yes you can! We’re already planning our next album and are happy to receive any repertoire suggestions from your readers! We want to keep it as Cuban as we can because we want to promote Cuban music all over the world. My own personal mission is to take these amazing musicians all over the world. Right now, I’m answering these questions from Switzerland where we are playing in the Swiss Chamber Music Festival. We just did an educational concert this morning where we demonstrated Cuban music to a whole school. We were told beforehand how the Swiss children are a little bit reserved, a little bit quiet. But the kids went completely bananas at the end! They clapped, stood up, danced, sang with us – it was very touching. It’s also so special for me to watch my musicians discover different countries and cultures. Here in Switzerland we had to stop and take photos of the cows… there are not many cows in Cuba anymore. It made me laugh. So it’s a real cultural experience for us all here as well as a musical one.

The whole point of the Sarahbanda is that we’re a family. Each time we make music together, we can’t wait to meet again. Our concerts are always one big party on stage and where there is big love, there is great music. 

We want to thank Sarah for her time in answering our questions. Please visit her website for extra information about everything she is doing, and to contribute to her charity Instruments for Cuba.

www.thesarahbanda.com
www.sarah-willis.com/instruments-for-cuba

The post Interview: Sarah Willis on recent album ‘Sarahbanda’ appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Best Latin Jazz/Jazz Album

Best Latin Jazz Performer

My Heart Speaks from 2xHD Mastering and Resonance Records is the most extravagantly lush album of Ivan Lins’s career. Performing rare gems from his catalog, the composer is backed by the 91-piece symphony of Tbilisi, capital of the Republic of Georgia.

Best Contemporary Classical Work/Composition

“I called Julien Labro last night with the news that Takacs Assad Labro earned a Latin GRAMMY nomination for Julien’s piece which we premiered on the album. Julien wrote the evocative Meditation No.1 eliciting intoxicating tango rhythms conjuring Astor Piazzolla and other Argentine masters of the golden era. Julien performs bandoneón with legendary Takács Quartet on their first Yarlung Records release. Listen again to track 03 at NativeDSD, mastered up to DSD512 by our very own Tom Caulfield.
Thank you Takacs and Bravo Julien!”
– Bob Attiyeh, producer

Andrew Quint gives the recording Five Stars in The Absolute Sound:

This release Yarlung Records hits the trifecta—engaging unfamiliar music, committed performances, and spectacular sound. Clarice Assad is a Brazilian-American composer/pianist, who moves effortlessly between classical, jazz, and popular idioms. She accompanies her own scat singing on two selections (Luminous and Milton Nacimento’s Cravo e Canela) while Constellation for violin and piano features a touchingly songful slow movement. Completely different is the slashing, angular Clash for bandoneón and string quartet. Bryce Dessner’s quasi-minimalistic Circles is scored for the same forces, and Julien Labro, the album’s featured bandoneón virtuoso, contributes Meditation No. 1, an eight-minute reverie for this instrumental grouping as well. Kaija Saariaho’s Nocturne, for solo violin, fits the program’s aura of anxious melancholia. The Takács Quartet is approaching their semicentennial, and although only the cellist remains from the original ensemble, the group’s intensity and technical fluency is intact. Yarlung’s sonics are revelatory. Balances are believable, and although the recorded perspective isn’t immediate, Assad’s first vocal entrance on the Nascimento piece made me jump. …vinyl options are also available.

The post 2024 Latin Grammy – Nominations appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Originally written for Positive Feedback

The labels represented in NativeDSD’s catalog continue to deliver outstanding performances in great sounding recordings. NativeDSD is just a stunning resource for those who love immaculate high resolution recordings made by some of the best recording engineers working today (Jared Sacks of Channel Classics, Brendon Heinst of TRPTK, Gonzalo Noqué of Eudora, Jake Purches of Base2, Bert van der Wolf of Northstar Recording, Daan van Aalst of Navis Classics, just to name a few). And the artists represented by these labels are just phenomenally good. It is a treasure trove of artistic talent that rivals and often exceeds the performance qualities of the better known labels with larger marketing budgets.

I wrote most recently about several Pure DSD256 recordings from Eudora, Yarlung and Hunnia (HERE) and the recently released Pure DSD256 recording from Channel Classics of Anna Fedorova’s impressive Intrigues of the Darkness (HERE). Today I have for you some outstanding recent releases from Cobra Records, TRPTK, APSoon, Sound Liaison, Linn, Outer Marker, Reference Recordings, Just Listen, and Channel Classics (once again)—all highly recommend.

The Muses Restor’d, Rachel Podger with Brecon Baroque. Channel Classics 2024 (32bit DXD, DSD256)

Already recognized in the British music press as one of the best chamber music recordings of 2024, this is yet another sterling example of the artistry of Rachel Podger, “the Queen of the Baroque violin,” and her Brecon Baroque ensemble. I eagerly await each new recording she releases for two simple reasons: they will be musically superb and they will be exceptionally well recorded. Plus, I really enjoy music of the Baroque performed on period instruments. 

And no one has been doing this better over the past two decades (and more) than Rachel Podger. The Brecon Baroque group that she founded is similarly outstanding, and all performing on period instruments or reproductions. But more than this, Rachel plays with emotional intelligence—never indulgent, but filled with feeling and the simple joy of making music. Her music making is infectious. And the lovely thing about her artistry is that she applies her technical brilliance in support of the music and the ensemble. She could be the prima donna, but she never seeks that role, never assumes that role. Instead, she is the consummate soulmate with her fellow musicians—never assuming the spotlight, but always supporting and enhancing the ensemble.

Traversing nearly a century of English and Scottish music from the 17th to early 18th centuries, this album is a scrumptious banquet of musical sounds, moods, and texture. The album opens firmly in the high-baroque style of George Frideric Handel’s (1685-1759) Sonata in D, but then transitions back in time to the surprisingly modern sound of William Lawes’ (1602-1645) Fantasia-Suite, John Blow’s (1649-1708) Ground in G Minor, and Matthew Locke’s (1621-1677) Little Consort in two parts for several friends. By the time the music making gets to Henry Purcell’s (1659-1695) Sonata in G Minor, we are firmly within the aesthetic popular English chamber music of the 17th century. And such a rich and delightfully varied musical landscape this is!

This music is certainly “led” by the violin, but it is enriched by the timbre of various combinations of theorbo, archlute, guitar, harpsichord, organ, bass viol, baroque cello, and lute. For the listener who simply luxuriates in sonic textures, this album is a pure delight. For the music historian, it is a masters class in the history of English chamber music. For the simple music lover, it is pure magic.

And once again we are treated to the technical magic of recording/mastering engineer Jared Sacks. Recording in The Church of St. John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood, London, these instruments are beautifully captured in this very natural sounding acoustic space. Detail is abundant, but not at the expense of air and reverberation. It is the epitome of the enveloping sonic landscape Jared so frequently captures in his excellent recordings. (For more about Jared’s recording philosophy, see my earlier conversation with him, HERE.) The musical partnership Jared and Rachel have shared over the years once again delivers a marvelous gift to us as listeners.

Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (Live), Hanna Shybayeva piano. TRPTK 2024 (32bit DXD or DSD256)

This recording of the People United Will Never Be Defeated! is dedicated to all people all over the world who are fighting for their fundamental rights: people who stand up and protest against dictatorship and injustice, against violence and abuse of power. It was recorded live at the soundsofmusic festival, Lutheran Church, Groningen (NL), by Byelorussian pianist Hanna Shybayeva. 

Composed in 1975 by American pianist/composer Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021), this work turned out to be his most successful piece. A piano solo of just over an hour, it includes all music the composer could imagine and had internalized. It is a grand stylistic synthesis, a postmodernism traversal of diverse musical concepts and ideas. Rzewski’s compositions illustrate the desire for contemporary music with greater accessibility, comprehensible for working class people. He applied minimalist techniques before the term minimal music was coined. A virtuosic pianist himself, Rzewski was described by music publicist Nicolas Slonimsky as “a granitically overpowering piano technician, capable of depositing huge boulders of sonoristic materials across the keyboard without actually wrecking the instrument.” This composition as performed by Hanna Shybayeva gives one a clear sense of the experience Slonimsky must be referencing.

“Music probably can’t change the world.” Rzewski wrote. “But it is a good idea to act as if it could.” And it is this sensibility that attracted Shybayeva to perform this work, writing “The emotional and technical richness of the piece allows me to express pretty much everything I felt and continue to feel about the events in Belarus in 2020 and today… The immense variety and sometimes sudden changes of musical styles, the complex and versatile emotional world of the cycle calls for a straight connection with our human nature and mirrors the struggles we all go through during our lifetime. All of this makes this music accessible to any ear and even bewitches the unexperienced listener. Remaining complex, but also unexpectedly simple at times, Rzewski’s music reaches his goal to be understood by everyone, speaking directly to our hearts.”

And speak to us this music, and Shybayeva’s performance, does indeed. It is a pianistically demanding work. But it is a work that also demands compassion and interpretive heart to deliver successfully. Hanna Shybayeva does so brilliantly. She makes this a deeply affecting, emotional experience. What a wonderful hour spent in the presence of a great composer who is so effectively communicated.

…Into the Light, Sasha Witteveen, double bass. TRPTK 2024 (32bit DXD, DSD256)

This album by double bassist Sasha Witteveen is a journey—a journey from the darkness into the light. Sasha quotes Martin Luther King in her liner notes: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” And thus we have the theme around which the music in this recital has been selected.

The album opens with the sonata for double bass and piano by Russian-British composer Dmitri Smirnov, …Into the Light, composed in 2018. The sonata commences with a deep and atmospheric sound, developing into a chaos in the low register, and ending with high flageolets like angels singing in heaven. And this 12-minute work gives the album its title.

From this introduction, the album moves to a work by contemporary American composer Xavier Dubois Foley, The Falling Seagull, composed for double bass and influenced of the erhu, a Chinese string instrument. Then to Rachmaninoff’s Elegy, Op. 3 No. 1, originally written for piano in 1892. And then to a series of Seven Double Bass Duets written by American composer and double bassist David Anderson (b.1962), each of which tells a different humorously playful story. The recital closes with Bottesini’s Variations on Nel Cor Più Non Mi Sento based on an aria from the opera La Molinara by Paisiello. “The aria sings cheerfully and with humor about a broken heart and desperate love, because love is something we have to celebrate!” concludes Sasha’s notes.

Sasha Witteveen (2003) grew up in a musical family and started playing the piano at the age of five under guidance of her mother. She started with the double bass at the age of ten, being fascinated by the instrument after seeing it in the film Some Like It Hot, and graduated with the highest possible grade at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Her playing is deeply personal, emotionally intense, technically brilliant. I hope Brendon Heinst and Maya Fridman at TRPTK will be able to entice her to another recording project. I would love to hear more from her.

The sound quality of this album is quintessentially TRPTK excellence—what we have come to look forward to with each new TRPTK release. Brendon Heinst is the recording and mastering genius at TRPTK. Maya Fridman is the guiding spirit for artist talent and musical content for TRPTK, and she an extremely talented cellist with many released albums in her own right. Together, they have built one of the most innovative recording labels bringing us music of high excellence today. I wrote about Brendon’s work with TRPTK as things stood back in 2020 (HERE) and below you will find a link to a more recent interview by David Hopkins of NativeDSD. David’s article is well worth reading to learn more about their current philosophy as they continue building TRPTK.

Viriditas, Sibil•la Ensemble. TRPTK 2024 (32bit DXD, DSD256)

This is a captivating album of hauntingly ethereal, mystical music. Opening with Hildegard von Bingen’s “O virtus Sapientiae” the album pursues as its theme the mystical concept of Viriditas which originates from the theological writings of the German Benedictine abbess, composer, philosopher, mystic, and polymath Hildegard von Bingen. In Hildegard’s writings, Viriditas symbolizes the vibrant, life-giving energy that permeates the natural world and the essence of greenness and flora. This divine force, both physical and spiritual, was believed to be experienced in moments of ecstatic connection, where the boundaries between humanity and nature blur.

The album contains a collection of 12th and 13th-century chants and secular songs from Germany, Spain, France and Cyprus centered around this concept of Viriditas. Each is a tribute to the generative power of nature that the Sybils, those the female prophetesses who have captivated the human imagination from ancient pagan times, embodied. Revered across cultures for their divine insights and prophecies, they were seen as conduits between the mortal realm and the divine. And thus the source for the name of the Sibil-la Ensemble.

Whether one wishes to engage in the philosophical musings underlying the texts of these chants and songs, the music is pure medieval wonderfulness. Performed on voice and a host of instruments of the medieval period (Gothic harp, vielle, cittern, rebec, medieval lute, hurdy-gurdy, and percussion), the album is an aural delight constantly titillating ones aural senses.

The vocal performances by Kristia Michael, artistic director of the ensemble, are top notch. Were you ever a fan of Lisa Gerrard with Dead Can Dance? Well, if so, you will have some sense of what you might expect. Kristia focuses on the experimental use of the voice and the spiritual elements of sound. Guido van Oorschot, de Volkskrant, says of her: “Kristia Michael is a vocal artist who navigates between piety and the raw Mediterranean. Subtle are the guttural arabesques with which she adorns the music.”

If you enjoy early music and the playing of instruments of that period, this is an album that should be a must buy on your list of future acquisitions. If you enjoy a bit of the mystical with your rebec, all the better!

Plus, the performances are gorgeously captured by TRPTK’s masterful recording engineer Brendon Heinst.

In addition to the music album release, there is additionally a visual album of Viriditas in 4K and HD Video (HERE). It is a very enjoyable visual journey with these musicians by videographer Jonas Sacks. Very well done! You can watch the trailer on YouTube:

For a “behind the scenes” look at how this album and video were made, don’t miss reading Brendon’s blog post, Behind the Scenes: Recording Viriditas.

I’ve reviewed many albums released by TRPTK. If you’ve enjoyed their recordings, or want to learn more, don’t miss this interview with Brendon and Maya, the principals at the label: “Meet the Magicians: Brendon Heinst and Maya Fridman of TRPTK,” by David Hopkins, NativeDSD (HERE).

Haydn String Quartets Op. 74, Folk Music from Scotland, Maxwell Quartet. Linn Records 2024 (96kHz, DSD64, DSD128).

This release includes a nice selection of works in excellent performances by the Maxwell Quartet. It is an intriguing juxtaposition of Haydn string quartets with traditional Scottish folk music once again forms the basis of the program. There is no logical connection between the three Haydn quartets of Op. 74 and three Scottish folk tunes that have been selected and arranged by the Maxwell Quartet. Haydn never made it to Scotland and there is no indication that his musical life was in any way impacted by Scottish folk music. But, the combination works! It creates an interesting, and excellent, recital program. 

The Maxwell Quartet was founded in 2010 by friends who grew up playing classical and folk music together in youth orchestras and music schools across Scotland. The founding members lineup changed in 2014 with the addition of a new violinist and violist. This is the group we hear today, composed of Colin Scobie, violin 1st, George Smith, violin 2nd, Elliott Perks, viola, and Duncan Strachan, cello.

Based across the UK and touring regularly in Europe and the United States, the Quartet’s performances are set apart by the tribute they pay to their Scottish folk music heritage. From 2019 to 2021, the Quartet is Associate Artist at both the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Music at Paxton festival.

And yet, and yet… This wonderful set of performances is limited by the original recording format of 96kHz/24-bits that Linn Records has stubbornly committed itself to using. According to Linn, there is no reason for higher resolution. Well, I disagree–vehemently. It is so saddening to me that this excellent music is hamstrung by sounding as if it is being playing inside a sock in the original 96kHz format. Fortunately, NativeDSD’s mastering engineer Tom Caulfield has applied his “Higher Rates Program” magic to remaster the original file from Linn to DSD128. This is not a full saving grace, but it helps immensely. Normally in my system I prefer to play the original edit master whenever possible and allow my Playback Designs MPD-8 DAC to handle conversions in the digital realm before outputting its analog signal. In this case, Tom’s remastering using the magic of Jussi Laako’s Signalyst HQ Player Pro algorithms accomplished the more listenable result.

Singing Bells Meditation, a Tibetan Sound Healing Journey. Just Listen Records 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and binaural).

Performed by meditation and singing bell artist Leonie Schuurman (Body & Sound Sister), this is a one hour+ meditative escape. According to Schuurman, “Bells have a toning effect that offers therapeutic relief to the body such as muscle tension release, improved concentration and overall positivity as well as reducing stress, improving sleep quality, boosting immunity, or increasing creativity.”

For best effect, NativeDSD Founders Jared and Jonas Sacks recommend us to “lie down if possible using headphones (best with the Binaural version) or speakers. Start with some deep and calm breathing. Make sure you are comfortable. It is nice to maybe remind fellow housemates or family that you will be ‘offline’ for the next hour and ask them not to disturb you. If you are into scents or candles, this is the time to light them!”

I listened to the binaural files on headphones and it was, indeed, a completely immersive experience. Very nicely performed and beautifully recorded.

The binaural version was recorded with the Neumann KU 100 Dummy Head with Binaural Stereo Microphone, modified by Rens Heijnis, on loan from Tom Peeters whose binaural recordings on Cobra Records I’ve recommended numerous times. See a discussion with Tom of binaural recording HERE.

Bruckner Symphony No. 7 and Mason Bates Resurrexit, Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Reference Recordings 2024 (32-bit DXD and DSD256). HERE

The Manfred Honeck recordings from Pittsburgh are getting better and better and better. These are recorded live in concert and one reason I’m finding them better and better is that the SoundMirror recording team (John Newton and Mark Donahue) are getting more proficient in capturing the sonics in Heinz Hall and doing so in front of live audiences over the course of three days of performances. They now have their recording process nailed down, and the sonic results are impressive. They are now recording in DXD using five omnidirectional DPA 4006 microphones as their main microphone array, with judicious spot miking to pull out detail where needed. The result is a superb sonic image of the orchestra: wide and deep, with a superb capture of inner detail, and tremendous dynamics. This team are simply masters of their craft.

This recording has received rave reviews elsewhere. I’m late to the game. But I add my concurrence. Honeck gives a masters class in performing the Bruckner 7th, it is just beautifully done. David A. McConnell writes in The Classic Review, “The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s playing is dazzling on all fronts, its sound as refined and resplendent as Vienna.” (HERE) David Allen writes in the New York Times, “If this Seventh is one of Honeck’s least interventionist readings, it is hardly less formidable than his Beethoven or his Tchaikovsky. Even more than in his terrifying account of the Bruckner’s Ninth, you get the sense that he holds the composer in awe.” (source) I’ll simply applaud their comments and say “+1.”

Mason Bates (b.1977) is the second composer presented on this album with his 2018 work Resurrexit. I’ve been a big fan of his compositions since I first heard two of his shorter works in a local chamber music recital in Richmond, Virginia, and then again with his more expansive work, Art of War, in its 2019 premier by the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gianandrea Noseda in Washington, DC. Resurrexit demonstrates his continuing maturation as a composer. It has color, energy, and that probing intellectual curiosity that I hear consistently in his works. Honeck and his Pittsburgh players perform it brilliantly.

J.S. Bach, The Art of the Fugue on two harpsichords, Gavin Black and George Hazelrigg. Outer Marker 2008 2024 (remastered from the original DSD128 recording files, Pure DSD128 and DSD256).

The work is performed on two harpsichords. In each movement, the musical lines are shared essentially equally between Gavin Black, playing a two-manual German style harpsichord by Philip Tyre, and George Hazelrigg, playing a two-manual German style harpsichord by Keith Hill.

In the four-voice pieces, for example, each player (and thus each instrument) takes two of the voices. The use of two large harpsichords makes available dozens of different sound combinations, and permits the movements of The Art of the Fugue to be brought to life in a colorful and vivid manner. (From the enclosed booklet.)

Music on harpsichord is among my numberless guilty pleasures. And these instruments are magnificent. If you think of harpsichord as annoying and abrasive (that is, if you’re in Sir Thomas Beecham’s camp who famously described the harpsichord as sounding like “two skeletons copulating on a tin roof”), I encourage you to listen to this recording and gain a new respect for the musical magic that is a large harpsichord well played.

When Bach died in in June of 1750, he left his great final work Die Kunst der Fuge unfinished. The final movement breaks off abruptly in the middle of a line—never to be completed. He did not explain what instrumentation he envisioned for this work, nor his intention for the order of the movements. Perhaps he never intended to specify, which was not uncommon in the period. Black and Hazelrigg’s decision to perform this on a pair of large two-manual harpsichords of the German tradition (both of modern construction) is very satisfying.

If you know The Art of the Fugue but have only heard it played on a single instrument, this two harpsichord performance may be an eye-opener for you. This rich complexity of sound that the two instrumentalists create as they each take on different voices makes for a very special journey down some otherwise familiar music.

Bonus Tracks 21 and 22 of Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, Movements 2 and 2, (recorded in DSD256 in 2021) is indeed a lovely bonus. I had to download the DSD256 version of the album to hear those newer Tracks 21 and 22 recordings in their DSD256 original form. And it is indeed a very special treat. The greater transparency that DSD256 delivers over DSD128 make this edition the preferred release for me.

Some of the great music of the European tradition, beautifully performed on superb instruments, and very nicely recorded. Recommended!

About the performers: Gavin Black is the Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center and an organist and harpsichordist best known for his recordings of seventeenth-century keyboard music. He has been a teacher of organ, harpsichord, clavichord and continuo-playing since 1979, teaching from time to time at Westminster Choir College and at the Westminster Conservatory of Music. He currently writes a monthly column on organ and harpsichord teaching for The Diapason.

George Hazelrigg performs with Hazelrigg Brothers, an instrumental trio that melds jazz, rock, and classical music. From age 8 to 15 George studied organ and harpsichord at Westminster Choir College under Mark Brombaugh and Gavin Black; at 16 he studied jazz piano with Grammy-nominated composer Laurie Altman. He also attended New York’s Center for Media Arts and later Manhattan School of Music, where he studied under Garry Dial. With his brother, Geoff, they are proprietors of Hazelrigg Industries, which manufactures and markets high-end audio gear for the D.W. Fearn company, in whose studio this album was recorded. They record in their home studio and do production and session work for artists in the rock and pop world.

In Terra Aliena (in alien territory), Música Temprana. Cobra Records 2024 (binaural, stereo, multichannel, DXD, DSD256).

The baroque and early music group, Música Temprana, are consistently excellent. They are worth seeking out if you have any interest in music of this period played on period instruments. Started in 2001 by the Argentine-Dutch musician Adrián Rodríguez Van der Spoel, Música Temprana aims to highlight the Latin-American Baroque music repertoire. Most of Música Temprana’s repertoire comes from the archives, cathedrals and Jesuit missions of Latin America. Woven throughout the fabric of Música Temprana’s music and instruments is the rich cultural diversity of Latin America, with the threads of many Creole, Indian, African and European influences. Over their years of performance, they have built a rich recorded portfolio of interesting music. For other albums, see this listing.

This is their seventh album for Cobra Records. In this album, they come to the archives in Spain and Portugal to explore the expression “in terra aliena,” which occurs frequently in Spanish poetry after 1500. In 1492, Spain conquered the Nazaré dynasty of Granada, putting an end to the Muslim rule on the peninsula. In that same year, the Jews were driven out of Spain or forced to convert to Christianity. All this caused Muslims and Jews to flee to the north of Africa. Roman Catholics from Castile and Aragon left for America. Large numbers of seafarers and invaders were never to return to the peninsula. It is no wonder that poetry, and consequently song, of the era became imbued with this sense of longing for home and family from “in foreign territory.”

The poems collected in this album are about the themes of the exile: the letters, the moment of departure, being a captive in a foreign country and searching for a suitable place for a grave, to avoid the eternal suffering of the exile.

Somber stuff—reflected in achingly beautiful music and poetry. Beautifully performed, supremely well recorded. 

Recorded in the Pieterskerk, Utrecht (The Netherlands), April 13 -16, 2024, we have a natural acoustic venue that complements and enhances the music, instruments and voices. Cobra Records owner and recording engineer, Tom Peeters, captures this superbly.

I’ve been listening to the binaural DSD256 recording of this album. The clarity and precision with which this binaural recording reflects these performances is uncanny. It’s addictive. If you listen on headphones, you really should hear these binaural files. Tom has outdone himself in both the binaural and stereo recordings of these wonderful musicians. I’m sure the multichannel version must be similarly entrancing. While recorded in DSD256, Tom tells me that he was unable to master the release without some PCM editing, so this is not a Pure DSD recording. Nonetheless, his results are quietly stunning in the transparency, the accuracy of timbre, and the organic sense of “realness” captured on the instruments and voices. Plus, when listening on headphones to the binaural version, I feel as though I could simply reach out and touch the performers in the space around me. I find it all utterly transportive. Find a darkened room and a quiet time to be transported as well.

For more information about Tom’s recording process and his binaural recordings made concurrently with his stereo and multichannel microphones setup, see: Stunning Binaural Recordings from Tom Peeters at Cobra Records

Tallinn Cathedral Organ, Aare-Paul Lattik organist. APSoon Recordings 2024 (DSD256). 

For lovers of great organ recordings, don’t miss this album with Aare-Paul Lattik playing the superb late Romantic organ in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Tallin, Estonia. This recently (1999) restored organ is a marriage of German traditions. Originally built in 1878 as a three-manual tracker organ, it was modernized in 1913 to expand it to around 4,500 pipes and electo-pneumatic action. The pipes of the 1878 organ were retained and integrated into the new configuration. The result is an organ of great orchestral power and color. 

Maurice Duruflé’s great Prélude Adagio et Choral varié sur le theme du Veni creator op. 4 opens the album and Aare-Paul Lattik fully leverages the huge resources of the Ladegast-Sauer organ. This is music for which organs such as this are created—just massive walls of sound, but flowing from the most delicate, even mystical, beginnings. And all with the clarity and definition that is easily be lost by similar large organs in less skilled hands (both organist and recording engineer). Be prepared to be blown out of your listening chair (and jumping for your volume control) beginning around 14:06 as Duruflé and Lattik begin to pour it on. Following the Duruflé are shorter works by Pierné (a tumbling, turning, somewhat playful, prelude), Grison, and Lattik himself in his Revaler Totentanz, a riotous, brutal, wailing dance of death. 

Aare-Paul Lattik has set up the organ for each of these works to fully exploit the color and texture of all of these works, while not shying away from applying the full power (and deep bass) of which this great instrument in capable.

Recording engineers Priit Kuulmen and Aular Soon have captured the color, resonance and power of this organ beautifully. The balance of direct sound and reverberation is exceedingly well judged. The recording is eminently clear and detailed while still conveying the resonance of the huge space into which the organ projects. This is definitely one of a small group of great organ recordings that I have heard. Well done. Highly recommended.

Carlos Simon, Four Symphonic Works, Gianandrea Noseda, J’Nai Bridges, National Symphony Orchestra. NSO 2024 (DSD256, 32bit DXD).

Carlos Simon, the current John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Composer-in-Residence, paints an orchestral canvas filled with color, percussion, and panache. This is music that engages, challenges, and tells stories.

Ann and I had the very great pleasure of hearing the fourth symphonic work on this album, Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra, live at the Kennedy Center in January 2024. We were stunned by the impact of the music. And the performance by Noseda and the NSO was simply breathtaking from our second tier right seats, just above the orchestra. It is simply a “knock your socks off” work, with tremendous dynamics and vast amounts of percussion. I’d love to tell you that the recording made that night for this album will have the same impact as we heard it live, but no audio system reproduces the impact of a full orchestra playing for all they are worth. Still, the recording in 32-bit DXD and DSD256 is whoa jiminy good. The Soundmirror recording team of John Newton and Mark Donahue have done a great job capturing a good portion of what we heard live in the hall.

The other works on this album, all recorded live on various dates in 2022 and 2023 similarly have great character. Tales is an exploration of African American folklore and Afrofuturist stories. Songs of Separation, for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, uses the translated text of four poems by the 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic Jalāl al-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī to create a song cycle focused on themes of separation and loss. Fittingly so as it was composed during the COVID-19 pandemic. “We all, as humans, experience separation in a variety of forms,” Simon writes in his note to the score. “Whether it be through the death of a loved one, a break-up, a divorce, or a permanent relocation from family and friends, a parting of ways is a part of life for us all…” But the pain of loss can lead to gaining something as well: “What hurts you, also blesses you.” Which, he concludes, is “the real inspiration and hope of the piece…”

The opening work of the album, The Block, is a short orchestral study based on the visual art of the late painter Romare Bearden. Most of Bearden’s work reflects African American culture in urban cities as well as the rural American south. Although Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, he spent most of his life in Harlem, New York.  The Block is based in the inspiration of six Bearden paintings that highlight different buildings (church, barbershop, nightclub, etc.) in Harlem on one block. As in Bearden’s paintings, this musical piece explores various musical textures that highlight the vibrant scenery and energy that a block on Harlem or any urban city exhibits. 

All of these works are well worth seeking out. As NSO Music Director and conductor Gianandrea Noseda says, “This composer and his music must be heard, not only because he speaks to important issues but because his music is deeply evocative.” And I agree. 

Time For Ballads The Studio Sessions, Rob van Bavel. Sound Liaison 2024 (32-bit, DSD256).

Time For Ballads: The Studio Sessions is Jazz Pianist Rob van Bavel‘s 3rd album from Sound Liaison. Following his earlier albums We Got Rhythm: The Music of George Gershwin and Time For Ballads: The Maene Sessions, Rob van Babel continues to draw from seemingly endless wells of creativity. His music making is a joyful dance of changing rhythms, contrasting chords, and interesting twists on what would otherwise have been familiar themes. Except for the joy with which he and his trio play, he is unpredictable. In listening to his albums, I can never anticipate what he will do. And that is clearly the fun in listening to his music making.

Unusually, Sound Liaison’s Frans de Rond has chosen to record in MCO Studio 1 rather than their more usual Studio 2 location. Studio 1 is a larger space with greater reverberation time. I’ve heard many wonderful recordings made here, but I found this an interesting choice for small piano, double bass and drums trio. Before listening I thought to myself, “They’re going to be swamped by the long reverb times.” But no. Rather than be swamped by it, the trio and Frans seem to lean into it, to use it. They create a warm, almost lush, sound with all the transparent resolution of detail that I’ve long loved in Frans’ recordings. It all works. Perfectly.

The post Notes on Recent Finds, No. 25 – New Recordings at NativeDSD appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

There was a special one-mic sampler released, thereafter.

When playing two takes of the very same performance, our audience consistently preferred the one mic version over the conventional multiple microphone array take. This blind test underlined the importance of microphoning in the entire recording-replay chain.

We want to encourage (young) sound engineers to look into this exciting topic and hopefully supply us in the future with more sensibly microphoned music, to be enjoyed.

Young sound engineers, please feel encouraged to immerse yourselves in this non-mainstream technique and engage with one-mic experts, have fun, and send us your masterpiece.

Our jury will nominate the winner of the LINKWITZ Minimal Microphoning Medal 2025.

Read more from our partnership with LINKWITZ.audio

The post LINKWITZ Minimal Microphoning Contest appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Why did you feel the urge to record an album exploring such dark pieces?

It’s part of human nature to have certain attraction to darkness. Darkness in many meanings. For instance the night – is the time of magic, mystery, it’s the time when the hustle of the busy day disappears and one can listen to the quiet, connect to the space and get insights to something grander than life. Certain things which are invisible during the daylight appear at night. In my album however I am not just exploring darkness as the time of the day, but also the side of it where the supernatural beings come to life, when unpredictable frightening things happen and beautiful seductive but very dangerous creatures lure you with irresistible magical powers towards doom. As the performer it’s very exciting to dive into this magical, mysterious, frightening but at the same time beautiful world. It’s interesting, often some great actors are more excited about the roles of villains over heroes because they are limitless in terms of interpretation and always give room to try new things and go to extremes in search of your character. I guess I could relate to that.

And it’s so fascinating to explore the different ways of four composers I chose for this album and their approach to the darkness, mystery and supernatural. With Scriabin as always I’m fascinated with his vision, imagination and philosophy, it almost feels as if he is taking a glimpse into the circles of hell. Ravel opens for us enchanting and terrifying world, full of irresistible colors, beauty and danger, while De Falla is taking us to the mystic spicy nights of Spain, ghosts and magical rituals. And with Mussorgsky I just can never get enough of his incredible vividness of images and incredible characters. There is a definite battle in the music between the darkness and light – close to the end we get an intense concentration of darkness – the catacombs, Con Mortuis in Lingua Mortua, Baba Yaga… But in the end the light wins and triumphs through the glorious Great Gate of Kyiv.

How did you prepare for this recording? Did songs of this nature require a different mindset or energy from you?

Not really, I always try to get into the character of the music to the maximum, but only when I am performing it. It is quite interesting to play all of these very intensive emotionally and technically pieces next to each other as usually they would be a little more spread in the different concert programs but it’s definitely exciting and very impactful.

Do you find that darker themes lend themselves to virtuosity better than lighter pieces?

That’s an interesting question – I haven’t noticed. I think it all depends on writing of the particular composer, not of the mood of the piece. We all know that Ravel for instance didn’t go easy on us pianists with the technical aspects of the Gaspard de la nuit. 😀 But what helps me with performing any kind of music – is to dive fully into its world, characters and use the technique just as a tool to create the strongest artistic impact.

Can you give some details about the recording experience? How was the venue, the team, the experience as a whole?

As it always happens when we record together with Jared Sacks – it was an incredibly inspiring and smooth process. We were recording at Muziekcentrum van de Omroep in Hilversum. There are wonderful studios with great acoustics there, and a beautiful Steinway which was lovingly taken care of by Charles Rademaker. I must say at times it was quite exhausting to record certain moments as a lot of the music on the Cd has a very high energy and requires a lot of power. One thing is to play it once through at the concert, but something quite different is to record when you make a few takes and at each one I have to be giving not less than 100%. We finished the recording with De Falla’s Ritual Dance of Fire and the bloody keyboard as the final page full of glissandos was quite cruel!

Your last solo album was released in 2021. Had you missed making a solo recording?

Indeed, the last few years I was focused on recording all the Rachmaninoff concertos and a few chamber music Cds. Of course, I love recording solo repertoire but to be honest the time flew by so quickly that it’s hard to believe the last solo album was released already three years ago!

How are you looking forward to the upcoming live performances of Intrigues of the Darkness?

I am just hoping the audience will not be too terrified! 😀 But there is so much beauty in all of this music as well as mystery, enchantment and magic that I’m sure that it will end up being an incredible journey for all of us!

The post Anna Fedorova interviewed about ‘Intrigues of the Darkness’ appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

• 
  Williams: Violin Concerto No. 1 [DSD EP]
  HK$79.49 – HK$163.49
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This Stereo & 5 Channel Surround Sound DSD EP has been sourced from the DXD original edit master and is available only at NativeDSD!

Check out the full album that was put out by Pentatone, which also contains Berntein’s Serenade:

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t know John Williams’s music for Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film ‘Schindler’s List’ and notably its ‘Theme for Violin and Orchestra’. Still, I wonder how many are familiar with his two Violin Concerti, the first of which is recorded here with one of the better and second oldest American Orchestras and one of the best Canadian violinists, both conducted by Stéphane Denève, risen to stardom in only a few years. I, for one, didn’t know the concerto, which, I think – and with hindsight – is a big shame. I was perhaps too focused on the idea that film music composers are ‘different’ from sheet music composers. With Korngold as an example, I should have known better! 

It poses the question of to what extent music and film are different. Many composers have said that they ‘saw things’ when composing, and some even went as far as to say – and insist – that music must have a Programme. If the ‘programme’ is a ‘film’, Williams must be a perfect composer because able to look both ways. 

In this release, however, there is no film reference. Or is there? I think there is. In my view, this violin Concerto is as much about music as it is about film. Not literally, but all the more so in spiritual expression.  Listening to the recording with an open mind and not having heard it before, it dawned on me that there was something intangible, a sense of emotion connecting me to filmed episodes. 

The funny thing though, is that Williams doesn’t seem to agree. At least not if we accept what he says in his programme notes to his Second Violin Concerto (2022 DGG Blu-Ray Pure Audio release): ”And while music has many purposes and functions, I’ve always believed that, in the end, it (what the music is about) ought to be interpreted through the prism of every listener’s own personal history .. ”.  Modesty? I believe so. Williams conceded in the end: “ I took my inspiration and energy directly from this great artist (Anne-Sophie Mutter, for whom he composed the concerto) herself.” Ergo: Music doesn’t come out of nothing.

It is real and it is beautiful

In the Hi-Res EP download release, there is no booklet, but in the RBCD release (26/04/2024, coupled with Bernstein’s ‘Serenade after Plato’s Symposium’) there is. It says: “ .. hints of his work as a film composer; the slow movement brings to mind a scene of emotional gravity.” Of course! Williams’s music is not abstract. It is real and it is beautiful. And the performers do all they can to honour the composer.

In the good old Super Audio days, Leonard Slatkin and the St Louis Symphony graced the young Hi-Res community with some excellent releases, and it is great to have the orchestra back in the picture and blossoming like Spring. And with Ehnes holding the fiddle and Denève the baton, the stage is set for a stellar performance. 

I‘m sure that many discerning classical music lovers will value a concerto that may not be at the cutting edge of experimental composition but is instead at the zenith of emotional creation based on the same traditional values that have marked all truly sensitive and inspirational composers over the ages.  

This short release brings the best of two worlds, real and imaginative, making it, despite the missing Bernstein Serenade, worth all your while.

Blangy-le-Château, Normandy, France

Copyright © 2024 Adrian Quanjer and HRAudio.net

The post Music, Film or Both? appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

We have created a special album from the music demonstrated at AXPONA 2024!

At AXPONA 2024, the first series of speeches at the LINKWITZ®-parlor became a hub of knowledge and insight. It hosted a series of enlightening talks featuring legendary industry professionals, including Grammy winners. 

These discussions offered the audience a unique perspective into the less-explored “opposite end” of the music production-reproduction chain. We highlighted minimalistic recording techniques, the remarkable enhancements achieved through the restoration of old master tapes and much more.

On Friday, the audience was privileged to hear from Doug W Fearn, a veteran with over six decades of recording experience. He shared his expertise on minimalistic recording techniques, with a special focus on the One Microphone technique, using an A.E.A. R88 ribbon stereo microphone. 

Music samples from the same performance were presented on LINKWITZ® LX521.4MG as A/B comparisons. The “A” version represented the traditional multi-mic recording, while “B” represented the one mic recording. The difference was discernible within the first few seconds of the song.

The LX521.4MG holographic dipoles, with their profound and authentic soundstage presentation, appear to illuminate the minimalist recording techniques in an exemplary manner. Their ability to reproduce sound with such depth and naturalness truly enhances the auditory experience, allowing the subtleties of these recording techniques to be fully appreciated. This synergy between the LX521.4MG dipoles and minimalist recording methods results in a sonic experience that is nothing short of perfection.

As we continued to showcase Doug W. Fearn’s A/B comparisons of microphone techniques throughout further days of the show, we found that the audience consistently preferred version “B”, the One Microphone (R88) take of the recording. The reasons for this preference can be better phase coherence of instruments and voices and the subjective feeling of more naturalness, the musicians were truly playing together, interacting, and “talking” to each other.

Doug W Fearn’s nature recording of birds, titled “Spring Birds” captured in the forest with a single R88 microphone, was particularly impressive. The pure nature recording provided a relaxing and refreshing experience for those, hearing the same type of music repeatedly in many other rooms.

We continued to showcase further One Microphone recorded gems from the nativeDSD catalogue:

The audiences favorites included “Nature Boy” by Evening Sky feat. Leland Brown, “Take Five Reprise” by Feenbrothers  and “Dream Dancer” by the Gidon Nunez Vaz Trio.

We are thrilled to continue our collaboration with nativeDSD.com. You´ll find nativeDSD representatives in the GRIMM room in Munich, from May 9th to 12^th and you can hear selected One Microphone recordings by native DSD as well, just across the street from High-End fair, in a huge 65m² showroom: Room “Scheunenfund” https://maps.app.goo.gl/cWrDKE6xq7PTDsVUA

Expect a relaxing atmosphere, where you can enjoy selected One Microphone recordings from NativeDSD.

Special ‘One Microphone Recordings’ compilation album from the music demonstrated at AXPONA 2024

One Microphone Recordings on NativeDSD

The post Final Thoughts on AXPONA 2024 with LINKWITZ appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

We have created a special album from the music demonstrated at AXPONA 2024!

AXPONA countdown is running…

Come to Chicago and encounter a vibrant showcase of audio equipment, presentations, and live demonstrations. The LINKWITZ parlor #1421 promises an intriguing exploration of the music chain, spanning from the artist’s studio to the speakers in your listening space.

On Friday, April 12^th we will feature the minimalistic recording techniques. Notably, only a small portion of contemporary recordings are captured using single (stereo) microphones or minimalistic techniques. These recordings are celebrated for their authenticity, natural sound quality, intricate nuances, and the emotional expression conveyed by the artists. 

One-Microphone Recordings on NativeDSD

Special Guest: D.W. Fearn

The renowned recording engineer, is set to provide valuable insights into recording methods during his live video presentation. D.W. Fearn’s meticulous techniques ensure exceptional sound quality, and his work can be experienced through the holographically immersive LINKWITZ LX521.4MG reference system.

Don’t miss this opportunity to engage with D.W. Fearn during the Q&A session following his speech. Join us for D.W. Fearn´s live video presentation on Friday, April 12^th , 3 p.m. , LINKWITZ parlor #1421

Mark your calendar for this captivating event and immerse yourself in highend audio! 

The post Gearing Up for AXPONA 2024 with LINKWITZ (Part 2) appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Had you heard of DSD before making this album?

To be honest, I hadn’t heard of it until HR Recordings mentioned it to me. They are known for recording in high resolution, capturing every detail, down to the sound of the fingers on the strings.

Was that a new experience for you?

Yes it was! It felt more exposed than when the microphones are farther away- but also somehow really true. It was very nice to have a small intimate team also- my husband was my Tonmeister- as in the one looking after that everything was covered- he and Augustin, the sound engineer and owner of HR records, were inside the church with me while I was playing. Originally I was planning to record this more slowly- but Agustin inspired me to go for recording all 12 now – it required a big push to go for it in quite a short time but I’m glad we went ahead and finished them!

So, the project began with transcribing the 12 Fantasies for solo viola. What inspired you to undertake this?

The viola has a unique history, especially during the early Baroque and classical periods. Initially, it was primarily a harmony filler instrument due to its size limitations. Unlike the violin and cello, the viola’s acoustical characteristics differ, giving it a distinct mellower tone but also posing challenges in tone production and clarity. In the world of solo viola music there is limited original repertoire from the 18th century, prompting me to explore transcriptions and adaptations. Discovering Telemann’s Gamba Fantasies, originally composed for the viola da gamba, intrigued me. The viola’s journey from a supporting role to a solo instrument fascinated me, leading me to transcribe and adapt these pieces for the viola.

 What was the process like for transcribing these pieces?

Transcribing these pieces was a labor of love. I stumbled upon existing transcriptions but found discrepancies and compromises that deviated from the composer’s original intent. Utilising modern technology like Staffpad, I meticulously transcribed the pieces, striving to remain faithful to Telemann’s compositions. Each fantasy presented its own challenges, especially in adapting chords and multiple string techniques characteristic of the viola da gamba. My aim was to preserve the integrity of Telemann’s music while making it accessible to contemporary viola players.

Your efforts have resulted in a significant contribution to viola repertoire. How does it feel to have your name associated with these transcriptions?

It’s a humbling experience. Throughout my career, I’ve interpreted and performed numerous works, but seeing my name associated with these transcriptions feels special. It’s a testament to the collaborative efforts with scholars, editors, and publishers who recognized the value of these adaptations. As a viola player, expanding the repertoire and exploring lesser-known works is immensely gratifying.

Moving to the recording process, what was your experience like working with Agustin and HR Recordings?

It was a very comfortable collaboration. Agustin’s husband is a very old friend of mine and he mentioned that HR Recordings was looking for new projects. He asked if I had anything I would like to record, and I did! The recording process was intensive yet rewarding. We chose a picturesque location, a quaint church north of Madrid with amazing acoustics and ambiance. Recording all twelve pieces in three days was a challenge, requiring meticulous preparation and focus. Despite the time constraints and physical strain, the experience was enriching, allowing me to immerse myself fully in Telemann’s music.

Did you encounter any unique challenges during the recording process?

Recording solo pieces was a departure from my usual ensemble or orchestral work, requiring a different mindset and approach. The intimate setting and single microphone setup made me feel exposed, intensifying the focus on every nuance and detail. Playing in a cold environment presented physical challenges, I had to wear extra layers and use a little heater next to me to stay warm. However, the solitude allowed for introspection and deep connection with the music, resulting in a profoundly personal recording experience.

Did you find it easier or more challenging to connect with the music in a solo recording setting?

I think it was a bit of both. With someone else, you can feed off each other’s energy, although there’s also the potential for conflict. Going solo is definitely an inward journey, allowing you to really immerse yourself in the music. It’s about bringing the composer’s intentions to life and understanding the story within each piece. For me, it’s crucial not to impose too much of my own interpretation but rather to honor the composer’s vision.

So, you mentioned initiating the recording process. Did that involve a lot of preparation, perhaps with Agustin, or was it more spontaneous? Did you just fly in, assess the space, and dive into it? You mentioned earlier that what you initially thought would take around six days was condensed to just three by Agustin.

Yeah, essentially, I would have preferred more time. It was a bit of a mixed feeling because, of course, it’s great to get things done efficiently. However, having more time would have been preferable. I had been living with the pieces for about three years, so they were deeply ingrained in me, but I needed to translate that understanding into my playing, which required a lot of extra effort, especially considering my other commitments like teaching. Yeah, and I had a minor injury just before the recording.

Oh, really? In your hand?

Yeah, just one finger. I overdid it with practice. Thankfully I discovered something called Body Mapping – without which I’m not sure I would have been able to record solo music for hours like that! With the knowledge of how to use your body in an optimal way one can play with much more freedom and much less danger of injury and pain! Even if I managed to hurt one my fingers on the left hand from over working it – it would have been much worse had I not had the understanding of why it occurred and how to handle it…

Were there pieces that required more time than others, or was it a balanced distribution?

Well, in terms of time, they were done sequentially. However, towards the end, I made a decision. Number eleven—I postponed that to the following morning when I was feeling fresh. So instead, I tackled number twelve in the evening when I was a bit fatigued. But indeed, each piece presents its own set of challenges. What’s fascinating about these twelve fantasies is their individuality. None of them feel repetitive. Starting from C minor in the first one and ending in the relative major, it’s quite significant in terms of harmony if you’re interested in that aspect.

Besides being dedicated to his amateur gamma player friend, is there a backstory to these pieces?

I’m not sure. He must have shared copies with someone. Others must have played them. Considering he composed such an extensive body of work—3000 pieces in total—calculating how many were out there is quite a task. This particular fantasy, however, disappeared for about 300 years until it resurfaced in 2015.

Incredible. It was found in someone’s private collection, correct?

Yeah, there was some documentation that led to its discovery in a private collection. Remarkable, isn’t it? It makes you wonder how much more lies undiscovered. Anyway, these fantasies he wrote for solo instruments are truly unique. There are twelve for flute, twelve for violin, and thirty-six for keyboards. They’ve gained popularity over time, with numerous recordings and editions available. Since I began my work, there have been at least three new editions. 

One of my students, about two years ago, came to a lesson with a new  edition of the same twelve fantasies for viola—edited by my colleague Brian Schiele in Scotland who plays in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It was funny because I was on my way the following week, to guest lead the viola group in the SCO. He had a quicker publishing process compared to mine. And he made different choices so we had a nice nerdy conversation about “why did you do this down the octave there?” And  “how did you solve this problem?”

And did you stand by your decisions after you spoke with him about it?

Oh yes, I did and I still do. I’m very happy with how this project turned out. 

Well we are too, Asdis. It’s great to add another solo viola work to the collection. Thanks for joining us.

The post Ásdís Valdimarsdottir speaks about ‘Telemann: 12 Fantasies for Solo Viola’ appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

I think it’s really important to listen to this Stabat Mater album in DSD … What more can one wish for than to hear this intimacy of what we experience through your speakers? I think that’s possible in DSD.

I recently had the enormous pleasure of sitting down with countertenor and PRJCT Amsterdam founder Maarten Engeltjes. We spoke about his musical past, the creation of his orchestra, and especially their latest release on Pentatone. Maarten’s passion for music is infectious and I think you will enjoy getting to know him.

Can you please give us a bit of background on yourself?

Well, I’m Martin Engeltjes, I’m a countertenor, a singer of classical baroque music since I was four years old. I sang in this boys’ choir as a starter, and suddenly I heard the first openings choir of the St. Matthew Passion from Bach. I was blown away and I was deeply touched by it. It sounds very strange when I think about it because I was five years old, but my mother writes in my little diary that she doesn’t understand what’s happening to me because I was fully taken away by this music. 

From that point I started working more, diving deeper into the music. And of course, at a later age, I decided to go to the conservatory in The Hague. There I got acquainted with a lot more baroque music including the Stabat Mater and Pergolesi. 

Around age twenty-one I was sort of “discovered” by some important people in the scene. One of the most famous counter-tenors back then, Michael Chance, sort of discovered me and he gave me the opportunity to do a concert with him. And then my career really took off. I traveled the world for years. I’m still young, but I did a lot of things, and I sang with all the great baroque orchestras in the great halls and venues in the world. And I feel very fortunate to have been able to do that. And at a certain point I felt that in Holland the people were not only coming to see the orchestras I was hired by, but they were coming for me. Then I thought, ‘maybe it’s wise to find my own orchestra’. That was one point that I felt that the audience was changing.

Another motivation was that I felt like the big baroque guys like Tom Cottman and Franz Brücken, they were getting older and there was no one to follow up. I suddenly realized, ‘well, maybe that person should be me’. And I remember saying on a radio show “next year I will have an orchestra”. Now we are five years from that moment and we are having quite some success. It’s highs and lows, but musically and artistically there’s a lot of joy and creativity, and it also allows me to bring the programs I want.

I know everybody is equally as important in an orchestra or an ensemble, but was there someone in the beginning that was integral in helping you build the project? 

Good question. At first it was solely me. It sounds strange but you start with a business side, because for some reason the other side felt natural. I had a lot of help with the business side because you need to have a board, you need to have funding, you need to have all these things going, the marketing, all that stuff. What came almost naturally was the thought, ‘what players do I want to play with’? I felt it needs to be a younger generation because all the people who play in the Baroque orchestras are self-employed, so they will basically never stop playing. You see a lot of Baroque orchestras consisting of old people, with all due respect, but different generation people. So you need to have a stage for young people, and I give that to them. From my orchestra you see that players sometimes fly out to the bigger orchestras. Well, at a certain point my orchestra will be the big orchestra, so it’s growing.

You started PRJCT Amsterdam back in 2017 and I read online that “Stabat Mater” was actually one of the first projects you worked on. How does it feel to come back to it and to now put it out on an album.

Yeah, well, I thought a lot about how can we change the way we bring Baroque music to audiences. We have changing generations and Baroque music was done by a lot of very good Baroque specialists, but they were so much focused on the source that they forgot the entertainment side of the music. They also forgot that the audience are not specialists, and they are searching for what the music is really about. The start of Mater is about a mother losing her child. She’s standing at the cross and her son is hanging there and he’s dying, so the essence of the emotion is a mother losing her child. So I thought, can we connect this with literature? 

I read a fantastic book, it’s called “Shadow Child” and it’s about a father who loses his daughter and he sees the mother grieving. He describes this in the most beautiful words ever. So we combined this literature with this music and suddenly the music began to live differently. 

We got a lot of reactions from parents who lost a child, who were in a hole, but also from young people who suddenly understood what Stabat Mater was about. This was the starting point of PRJCT Amsterdam but also how I wanted to bring programs in a different way. Five years later I thought, we can do this basically forever because it’s music for the millions. People love it. And there are a lot of books written about this subject so we can do this more and more. We did it one time extra last year and then I thought I have to record it. It’s just, the energetic experience was so great. That’s the great thing about music. It’s alive and yet it’s very fleeing. So you also want to have some sort of souvenir for yourself to catch the moment. So this whole being in love with the scores again, I hope we captured that on the album.

It’s also very special to record these pieces. It’s like you paint a Rembrandt again. It’s kind of heavy. It’s a burden.

Can you explain further how you linked the music to literature?

I spoke a lot with the writer and of course you think about how to do this. And we basically came to the point that we said less is more, so we kept it very simple. We put him on a nice sofa in front of the stage and the orchestra was basically surrounding him. So he was inside the orchestra and he read from three chosen points out of the book, as an upbeat to the staff of Mater. He opened the concert and the first passage he read ends with: “A man who loses his wife is a widower. A wife who loses her man is a widow. But how do they call the parents of a lost child?”

 Because that pain is so deep, there are no words for it, then we started with Stabat Mater. This was amazing. Then there is a line in the middle of the Stabat Mater which zooms in on the pain of the mother. We chose a part of the book where he sees his own wife with her child and he writes about that. Then at the end of the piece we have ‘Quando corpus morietur’ meaning ‘when my body dies, please grant me paradise’. For this we took a part of the book where he speaks about how his father taught him how to listen to the world, and when he died suddenly he didn’t know how to listen anymore. He was speaking about death in general and how he for the first time perceived it. It’s very deep, very heavy. But this is what the music is about, and we have to speak about the source. People in the Baroque era, they had such different lives than we had. There was no antibiotics, they lived in a constant pandemic. When you were forty-five it was basically considered old age. Bach lost his parents when he was 10 and 12. Then he lost 11 children, and he lost his first wife. Can you imagine? So these people were surrounded by death and misery all the time, and you hear their souls in this music. It’s very deep. 

I can only imagine how the author of the book must have felt – performing his literature in concert with the orchestra surrounding him.

Well, he’s been asked that a lot of times. When the book was published it had great success and he read it for audiences a lot. And he says it feels now as a score, which he loves, but he can distance himself from it.

I am curious if Vivaldi’s ‘Nissi Domino’, the second choice for this record, also has a deep significance to you and PRJCT Amsterdam, like Stabat Mater clearly does.

Well, this was also part of the program since the beginning. It’s not very much linked to the theme – it’s an Old Testament text, so the text is not really fitting – but on the other hand the power of the music is very strong. Vivaldi is really applicable to Pergolesi in that they were in the same atmosphere, they were in the same country. When you travel and you listen to music, you really understand why Bach wrote different music than Vivaldi. Climate is super influential to how you start behaving and how you open up and how you start to think. And Vivaldi and Pergolesi are from the same time and place, so you have to think about the expression you give to the audience.

Can you tell us a little bit about Shira Patchornik and why you chose her for the soprano part?

We sang a Handel production here in Holland with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. She has a very, I would say it’s a very beautiful voice with a sort of innocence in it. She’s still very young, but for some reason it touched me. I do these things very intuitively. Your gut feeling is always right in these things. There’s also a strange thing amongst musicians: with some great musicians, you cannot find the synchronisation and with some others you can. Basically you speak the same language. It’s the way people are wired or something, and we were wired the same way. So her voice touched me, her musicality touched me, but also you feel that you synchronise in the way you breathe, in the way you ornament, in the way you make the phrases. It’s all done intuitively, but that’s why I chose her.

How it was working with Polyhymnia and the Pentatone team, and can you tell me about the recording location?

Well, the recording location was a bit of a thing. We moved from the initial church to another because I got ill as a singer. But it was a beautiful little church and I think it worked out very well. And Polyhemia is, of course, one of the best and we love working with them. And Karl Bruchmann is the Tonmeister here. He is a young guy, I like him very much. He has fantastic ears and when we work together, we have to be careful that we don’t dive into the micro-verse. You know? Yeah. I’m speaking to audio files. So everybody knows that when you edit, you can go into seconds of sound which nobody would ever hear. Karl and I, we have this tendency to sometimes go too far, and we love that. Pentatone is new for us, t’s the first album we record here and we like it very much. I feel that their distribution is really nice and they have a very professional team. Very friendly, very open. So I’m looking forward to working more with them.

Finally, why is it important to you that this album is offered in HiRes DSD resolutions?

I think it’s really important to listen to this Stabat Mater album in DSD because in Baroque music we are looking for the highest quality of sound on period instruments. Which means that you hear instruments from the 17th century, these instruments are more than 300-400 years old and played with gut strings which is amazing. When we are in this process we are always trying to find the most beautiful sounds and well, what more can one wish for than to hear this intimacy of what we experience through your speakers? I think that’s possible in DSD.

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