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.

Anna Fedorova is among the greatest pianists performing and recording today. Sure, my opinion. But well judged. Anna plays organically, self-effacingly. She consistently lets the music flow forth for its own sake, never as a way of saying “look at me, look how technically perfect I am.” No, she gives voice to the composer, to the music, never to herself. And in doing so, she creates landscapes seldom viewed in performances by other, often more extensively promoted, pianists. 

And, while her technical perfection is second to none, it is the emotional content of her playing that is captivating. She plays powerfully where called for, but with great delicacy where otherwise suitable. Her dynamic swings are immense, but always controlled, always with precision, always with intention. And it is perhaps the intention with which she plays that I find most consistently engaging. She creates meaning in every phrase, with every touch.

Over the years I’ve been listening to her recordings, and eagerly awaiting the next, I am never less than delighted with her performances and the programming of her recitals.

Anna Fedorova, Intrigues of the Darkness, works by Scriabin, Ravel, De Falla and Mussorgsky. Channel Classics 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and multichannel). HERE

This new release is a marvel of artistic interpretation, pianistic excellence, and communicative value as Anna takes us on a journey from darkness to light. She opens the 77+ minute recital with a fully engaging performance of Scriabin’s terrifying “Black Mass” Sonata, the Piano Sonata No. 9. It is as complex and challenging a composition as I know, and moments in the music are purely terrifying. She then flows smoothly into a compelling delivery of Ravel’s romantic Gaspaard de la Nuit, which Ravel so rightly described as requiring “transcendent virtuosity”—which Anna assuredly displays. She follows this with the mysterious world evoked in De Falla’s El Amor Brujo and its powerful concluding “Ritual Dance of Fire.” What a thrilling ride across these three well known works.

And this is all in just the first 43 minutes. The remaining 33 minutes is filled with as insightful and powerful performance of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (his original version for solo piano) as any I’ve heard. Her characterizations are delicate, creative, fun, terrifying, overwhelming powerful. All rolling, roiling, reeling from one brilliant interpretation to the next. 

In her performances she is blessed with playing a truly powerful, sonorous and tonally beautiful Steinway that has been meticulously set up for this recording. It is just gorgeous. The lovely, natural acoustic environment of MCO Studio 1, Hilversum, Netherlands, is a full partner. And is taken to full advantage as Anna allows the massive walls of sound from the Steinway to swell, fill and reverberate in that excellent performance venue.

Jared Sacks captures this as only Jared does—balancing the direct and reverberant sound fields beautifully for some of the most impactful, and beautiful, sound of piano that one can hope to experience. Jared responded to a congratulatory email from me with: “Great playing by Anna. We used a great hall with natural acoustics. Piano and technician were tops. I just used a A/B with a m/s in the middle. trying to capture the right balance between the piano and the ambience of the space. No post productions except for some simple edits from Anna.”

And capture the “right balance between the piano and the ambiance of the space” he most certain did—in spades!

On top of all of this goodness, Jared was able to release this recording in Pure DSD256. No PCM post production whatsoever. As a result, all of the sound from the performance is captured and delivered to our ears in utter purity. It is as transparent and natural sounding a recording of a concert grand piano as I have heard.

Here are sonics that are truly a credit to the outstanding musicianship that Anna Fedorova shares with us in this very remarkable recording. Kudos to all involved.

For those who have not yet discovered Anna Fedorova, take 8 minutes and indulge yourself by viewing this video as Anna plays the concluding two tracks from the album, Pictures at an Exhibition: The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yagá) and The Great Gate of Kiev. This will knock your socks off.

Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova (b.1990) showed an innate musical maturity and amazing technical abilities from an early age. She regularly performs at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, New York’s Carnegie Hall & Lincoln Center, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Tonhalle Zürich, Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, and London’s Barbican Centre & Royal Albert Hall.

This is her fifth solo piano album. She additionally has released  four chamber music albums and all of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos with the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen under Modestas Pitrenas. Her Rachmaninoff concerto albums are superlative performances of these works. Available on Channel Classics Records, I treasure them all and highly recommend them to you. 

My prior reviews of Anna’s recordings can be found in these articles:

Anna Fedorova performing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concertos 1, 2, and 4

Anna Fedorova and Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto

Anna Fedorova Shaping Chopin in Pure DSD256 from Jared Sacks

Anna Fedorova: Four Fantasies for Piano

Anna Fedorova: Storyteller – Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin

Anna Fedorova – With Magic in the Air

Dutch Hidden Gems – With the Excellent Dana Zemtsov, Viola

Notes from Recent Finds, No. 17 – Releases from NativeDSD (“Fathers & Daughters”)

The post Anna Fedorova – Among the Greatest Pianists Performing Today appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

With some of the best sonics you will ever experience, I’d like to introduce you to six recently released Pure DSD256 recordings from Eudora Records, Hunnia Records, and Yarlung Records. All of these albums are originally recorded directly to DSD256 and not to analog tape and then transferred to DSD. If you value the ultimate in recorded sound quality available with some of today’s best available technology, these are albums you should add to your music collection. But only if you actually hear them in their Pure DSD256 resolution, which you can get only from NativeDSD.

And, while I enthuse over the absolute wonderfulness of the sonics delivered by each of these albums, they are even more worthy because of the excellent music and performances.

Mysterium – Noelia Rodiles, Oviedo Filarmonia, Lucas Macías.
Eudora Records, 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and multichannel)

As much as I like the vintage jazz tapes transferred in Pure DSD256 by HDTT, such as the Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section about which I wrote recently (HERE), technology has advanced over the past 70 years. The new Pure DSD256 recordings directly off the microphones have a clarity and transparency of sound that improve on the vintage 15ips analog tapes. Electronics are quieter and with lower distortion, microphones are more resolving, more care is applied with cables and power supplies. These factors combined with DSD256 allow for a transparency of recorded sound that makes today the golden age of sound recording. 

For classical music fans, the recordings by Gonzalo Noqué on his Eudora Records label are paradigmatic examples of great recorded sound—some of the best being done today. This new release, Mysterium, is an example of full orchestra and piano recorded direct to DSD256 with no PCM processing at all. It is recorded, edited and mixed purely in DSD (for the technical purists, the more precise terminology would be “PDM” with multi-bit PDM for mixing). In these Pure DSD256 recordings from Eudora Records, there is an utterly transparent quality to the sonics that I find compelling and addictive. 

Of course, the great Spanish pianist Noelia Rodiles is always a special treat to hear. She opens this album with Julián Orbón’s Partite No. 4, Symphonic Movement for Piano and Orchestra (1985), a masterpiece for orchestra and piano. And the sound quality is utterly transparent and compelling. Orbón incorporated into this single-movement work for piano and orchestra elements of the motet setting of O magnum mysterium by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611). It is an intense piece opening with unaccompanied brass setting out Victoria’s chorale and a feeling of peace that returns in different ways throughout. The piano enters in mournful rage, conveying grief in all its tragic energy and sweetness.

Cloches (“Bells”), a concerto for piano and orchestra by Manuel Martínez Burgos (b.1970) was written in 2023 and was premiered on November 24 that same year by Noelia Rodiles with the orchestra and conductor on this album. This is the first recording of the work. Writes the composer, “This piano concerto explores the expressive possibilities of bells as carriers of messages over long distances. Through the spectral analysis of different bells from all over Europe, including the bells of Notre Dame de Paris, in this composition I propose a spiritual and magical dialogue between the piano and the orchestra.”

Noelia Rodiles weaves magic throughout these performances. As ever, her playing is technically brilliant. But it is the warmth and humanity of her interpretations of the music that makes her performances (both here and in other recordings) so compelling.

Here are several of the albums of Noelia Rodiles on Eudora Records that I highly recommend to you. All are recorded and released in Pure DSD256 and available at NativeDSD.

New Worlds – Javier Laso
Eudora Records, 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and multichannel)

Pianist Javier Laso (b. 1975) opens this album with Federico Mompou’s lovely and highly evocative Variations on a Theme of Chopin (1957). As described in the liner notes, “Uninterested in either avantgarde or narrative pretensions, and sharing an affinity for the piano with his Polish forebear, Mompou focused on a haiku-like miniaturism. Life in Paris had introduced him to the sonorities and audacity of Impressionism, as well as to Satie’s desire to reinvent the musical wheel, but Mompou also drew inspiration from the landscapes of his native Catalonia, and borrowed folk tunes from the region that were also part of Javier Laso’s childhood.” I admit to being endlessly fascinated by Mompou’s compositions. As with Variations, so many of his works are evocative miniatures. Not that they are short. No, it is because they compact so much meaning in so few notes. And phrasing is all. Get the phrasing wrong, and the compositions don’t work. But get them right, as does Javier Laso, and they are just magical.

Complementing, and contrasting, with this opening work are pieces by Berg, Bartok and De Falla. Together, Laso’s selections make for a compelling recital of twentieth century piano pieces. Full of nourishment is this album. 

Alban Berg’s first piano sonata follows. With it’s first notes it sounds as though it might flow seamlessly from the Mompou Variations, but no. With that first discordant chord, one knows immediately that we are treading onto different territory. And the difference, the contrast is delightful. Not jarring. It seems almost a natural variation to Mompou’s sensibilities, perhaps better said “an alternative.” It is quintessential early Berg. Restless, searching, never quite settling, this work is elusive. Hints of Romanticism, the passing lyricism that transforms to something that is yet different, undefined, and unsettled. This is music that is intriguing, captivating, intellectually stimulating. It is the perfect illustration of Berg’s appeal. And an excellent work with which to enter his music opus. But pay attention because in just 14 minutes, it’s gone.

Manual de Falla brings us resolutely back to Spain with his energetic Fantasía Baetica (Andalusian Fantasy, 1919). Gone is the lush Impressionistic orchestration of Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain). Replacing it is a more concise, incisive use of the rhythms of popular music. At times so concise it is acerbic. But Laso’s interpretation never loses sight of the composition’s modernity and originality. In so doing, he brings a freshness to this work that so often is swamped by other pianists’ focus on the folk music rhythms that suffuse the work. 

Awaken – music for Piano Trio by Haydn, Schubert and Ravel by Yugen Trio
Eudora Recorcds, 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and multichannel)

An apropos title for a group of promising musicians embarking on their international performing career as a trio. Choosing such a diverse set of works around this common theme of “awakening” is a most promising entre. But even more promising is the excellent ensemble playing and high technical proficiency of the group.

The Yugen Trio was founded in 2018, earning several international chamber music competition awards in 2019-2021. But this is their first recording, as far as I know. And it is a most exciting premier. With a lively performance of Haydn’s Piano Trio in A Major reflecting the jubilation, expectation, and joy towards the new day, the recital launches with great élan. Nicely played! 

The transition to Schubert’s youthful Sonatensatz in B-flat Major, places us in different territory. With the abruptness of the opening chords, and a richer tonality, we move to different musical setting while equally seeking what will be coming.

And then comes the unrestrained fantasy of Ravel’s Piano Trio. For me, this was the pièce de résistance of the recital. A marvelous work delightfully and insightfully performed by the Yugen, with all the care and delicacy it deserves to fully contrast with the impactful, driving, highly charged sections of the work. Our performers shift smoothly, elegantly, from one mood to the other. All as the music demands. Just delightfully performed.

Recording engineer and producer Gonzalo Noqué gives us a remarkable sonic landscape in which to enjoy these performances. I have been listening and enjoying his recordings for a number of years, and I think this album is among his very best recordings to date. Again recording in the lovely natural acoustic of the Auditorio de Zaragoza, Sala Mozart, Zaragoza, Spain, Gonzalo has gifted these fine performers with a sound quality that enriches the listening experience most decidedly. That he has chosen to do all of this as a Pure DSD release, with no PCM processing, is a significant factor in giving us the immediacy and transparency of sound which makes this recording very special. Thank you! 

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 – János Balázs, Budafok Dohnányi Orchestra, Gábor Hollerung conducting
Hunnia Records 2024 (Pure DSD256)

What a delightful new recording of this great warhorse! I am firmly of the opinion that I cannot have too many different recordings of this great concerto. And when a wonderful new recording comes my way, I celebrate. And this is truly a wonderful one. Recorded in Pure DSD256, it has the clarity and transparency of sound that only a Pure DSD256 recording delivers.

But importantly, this is a very nice performance. Does it exceed the performance qualities of some other recordings of this work that I admire? No. But it is good. It has it’s own very distinct merits. And this is what is so very special about Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. It lends itself to different interpretations, different styles of play, different sensibilities. And each performance gives me something new to hear and understand about this music.

Conductor Gábor Hollerung writes about this work, “If one were to describe the work with a single simile, the conquest of infinity would come to mind. This can be interpreted equally as the work’s emotional dimensions, its dazzling virtuosity, its composer’s exacting demands, its consistent dramaturgical contrasts, its theatricality in the best sense and, of course, its captivating realization of one of the most puzzling questions of Romanticism: glorification.”

With so much content to encompass, no single performance will express it all. Here we have a dramatically Romantic interpretation that plumbs the poignancy of the brooding melody, but takes the dramatic moments head on, with urgency and directness of communication. 

Pianist János Balázs (who Hollerung says can clearly be regarded as the heir to György Cziffra, a huge compliment) takes possession of his role with ease. He clearly has the technical proficiency needed to meet the huge demands Rachmaninoff creates for his soloist.

Sibelius Piano Trio (Double Album) – music of Sibelius, Schissi, Wennäkoski, Saariaho, and Lefkowitz
Yarlung Records 2016 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and multichannel)

This double album release from the Sibelius Piano Trio and Yarlung Records is an utter delight. It was recorded in 2016 to DSD256 and analog tape and released shortly thereafter on vinyl and CD in two volumes. The full content of those earlier albums is finally released in Pure DSD256, as originally recorded. A huge thank you is due to Yarlung founder, producer and principal recording engineer, Bob Attiyeh, for this release.

Now, every subtle gradation of sound and resonance and timbre is transparently present to the ear. The detail and the clarity is simply stunning. All in service to some glorious music and music-making by these three very accomplished Finnish musicians: Juho Pohjonen (piano), Petteri Iivonen (violin), and Samuli Peltonen (cello).

While the chamber music of Sibelius forms a core for this album, the twentieth century compositions by Argentine composer Diego Schissi (b. 1969) and American composer David S. Lefkowitz (b. 1964) provide even greater interest to someone like me who greatly enjoys contemporary music.

The Sibelius Trio moves easily between these contemporary works and the two trios of Jean Sibelius. As J.P. Markkanen writes in the accompanying booklet: “When they play Nene, written for them by Argentine composer Diego Schissi, you hear Latin musicians offering you South American sunlight and Argentine dance rhythms. When Sibelius Piano Trio performs Ruminations by David S. Lefkowitz, the Trio conjures Persian poetry, musical instruments including the oud, nose flute and the Eastern European Klezmer. Petteri, Juho and Samuli perform these works from the other side of the world from where they were born as fluently and seemingly effortlessly as they play celebrated Sibelius trios or modern classics by Finnish composer virtuosi Lotta Wennäkoski and Kaija Saariaho.”

These are just a delight! And for me, the highlight of the album.

The Sibelius trios are youthful works written during the summers he spent vacationing with his brothers and sisters on various islands in off the southwest coast of Finland. The Sibelius siblings formed a trio. Sibelius played the violin, his sister Linda played the piano, and his brother Christian played the cello. As much enjoyment as these works must have given the Sibelius siblings to play together, we gain even greater benefit hearing them today in these excellent performances by this trio.

Takács Assad Labro
Yarlung Records 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and multichannel)

This album is tour de force—it demonstrates of the marvels that can be achieved when talented performers and composers collaborate, when folks committed to highest possible excellence in sound quality are in charge of the production, and dedicated music lovers invest in funding the efforts. It is worthy of our time as listeners and the beneficiaries of these efforts.

This is a collection of contemporary chamber works for piano, strings, vocalization, and bandoneón. Buckle your seat belts—it’s a challenging fun ride! The album includes compositions by Clarise Assad, Julien Labro, Bryce Dessner, Kaija Saariaho, and Milton Nascimento—all of whom are contemporary composers. All of whom are well worth one’s time to become acquainted.

The famous Takács Quartet has given us many wonderful recordings over fifty years since its formation in the 1970s at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gabor Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gabor Ormai and András Fejér. András remains cellist to this day. Gradually other original members have retired from performance but the groups has remained a vital part of our musical landscape as it has evolved with new members. 

They are joined in performance by Clarice Assad (pianist and composer) and Julien Labro (accordion and bandoneón). Julien Labro is a world famous French accordion player based in New York, but he is also known for his virtuosity on bandoneón, which he wanted to feature with string quartet in these new compositions. Clarise Assad instigated this recording project with a phone call to Yarlung founder and producer, Bob Attiyeh, who describes the call this way:

“Bob,” Clarice said, “I have an idea… I wrote a piece for Takács Quartet and bandoneón virtuoso Julien Labro. It’s a wild piece. The five of them have been performing it all over the world on tour, and I think you would like it. Actually, I know you would like it. Julien wrote a companion piece, and the third work is by Bryce Dessner. I think you know Bryce; he lives in Paris. What a trio! I want you to record these three works, plus another piece I have in mind for violin and piano. When can we do it?”

And, thus, a recording project commenced. And the result is outstanding: an immensely enjoyable collection of new music, exciting performers, and excellent recording sonics. 

It was important to me that we record natively in DSD 256fs as well as on our analog tape format. The liveliness and precision of this playing warranted as transparent a sound as we could deliver, and DSD did not disappoint!

Bob Attiyeh, Yarlung Records

A further note about these Pure DSD256 releases…

Each of these albums has an immediacy and transparency of sound that I hear only with Pure DSD256 recordings. They are available only from NativeDSD. The albums from Eudora Records are especially notable because they have been mixed in DSD (technically, PDM) which we used to believe could not be done. NativeDSD’s Tom Caulfield does the final editing and mastering for Eudora using Signalyst HQ Player Pro and the mixing instructions provided by Eudora’s principal, Gonzalo Noqué. No PCM ever touches the original DSD256 recording tracks. If you’re inclined to learn more, I invite you to explore these earlier articles in which I’ve explored this important topic:

Pure DSD256 – What We Hear

Mixing in Pure DSD – No PCM Allowed 

Pure DSD256 Large Orchestra Recording from Eudora Records – With Free Sample Download

Native DSD has released a sampler of Pure DSD recordings, made up of tracks from 8 albums released in stereo Pure DSD256. This is an easy way to explore the sound quality that is being achieved if your DAC can play DSD256. “All songs included in this compilation album were recorded in DSD 256 and delivered to us from the original edit master… We classify Pure DSD albums as recordings where mixing and balancing are performed in the Analog or DSD domain prior to digitizing.”

Keep in mind that DSD recordings are often mastered with a bit lower gain than PCM recordings due to the massive dynamic range they can cover. Don’t be fooled by that when comparing to your PCM files.

Pure DSD Recordings, Vol. 1 from NativeDSD, 2024 (Pure DSD256)

And if you want to purely overdose on Pure DSD256 recordings that I’ve recommended in the pages of Positive Feedback over the past few years, here’s a search link that should catch most of them: Rushton’s Pure DSD256 recording recommendations. Enjoy wading in!

All images provided by the respective recording labels.

The post Notes on Recent Finds, No. 22 – Six Marvelous Pure DSD256 Recordings appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

As David Robinson and I were discussing a couple of weeks ago, we truly are living in the golden age of recorded music and home audio—both in the equipment available to us and, most importantly, in the wealth of wonderful performing artists and recordings. You may note that many of the recordings I recommend are not the artists in the flashing lights of over-hyped marketing budgets. And yet, these artists, who record for labels without the immensely rich marketing budgets, are supremely talented and immensely engaging. I feel so honored to listen to their recordings and to share with you some of the bounty that is available in the acoustic music world in which I spend most of my time. Below are some of these supremely talented artist making richly rewarding recordings.

Adrift, Delphine Trio. TRPTK 2024 (32bit DXD, DSD256)

The Delphine Trio brings together three passionate young musicians from opposite ends of the globe: Australian clarinetist Magdalenna Krstevska, Dutch cellist Jobine Siekman and South African pianist Roelof Temmingh. Founded in 2020 at the Royal College of Music, London, the Delphine Trio regularly perform across the UK and the Netherlands. This is their debut album, and it is a stunner.

TRPTK recording and mastering engineer, Brendon Heinst, writes in his blog post, “I still remember the day we received an email from the Delphine Trio, asking us if we’d be interested in recording an album with Kenneth Leighton’s Fantasy on an American Hymn Tune on it. Of course we were—it’s an incredible piece, and the trio itself (comprised of clarinet, cello and piano) is remarkable as well. Other pieces still needed to follow, which was TBD, but a little while later we finally set out to MCO Studio 1 to make the recording.” (See HERE for his article and description of the recording process used.)

Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988) was a British composer and pianist. His compositions include church and choral music, pieces for piano, organ, cello, oboe, and other instruments, chamber music, concertos, symphonies, and an opera. I’ve always found his music intriguing and enjoyable. And Brendon is absolutely correct about his composition Fantasy on an American Hymn Tune, which opens the album. Delphine Trio open the work with an beautifully sung acapella rendition of the Robert Lowry’s American Spiritual Shall We Gather by the River, the tune for which is woven throughout Leighton’s piece. And then for the following 19 minutes they pursue an intriguing journey with Leighton as his music searches, through often jazzy segments, the nature and meaning of this world around us. It is an emotionally charged exploration.

The Delphine Trio continues with twentieth century compositions by Robert Kahn (1865-1951)), John Psathas (b.1966), Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), Robert Delanoff (b.1942), and Mátyás Seiber (1905-1960).

Piazzolla’s Oblivion is a classic and likely the most well-known work in the program. Here, the Delphine Trio make their own interpretation of the work in an arrangement by Roelof, the pianist, based on Piazzolla’s original recording from 1984. As I listened to the familiar notes of this piece, it was a pleasure hearing a different take on the work in Roelof’s arrangement for these instruments. Nicely done.

It is such a pleasure hearing an entire recital of twentieth century compositions that, while often less well known, are dramatically good works. The works are varied, frequently dramatic, and contain unexpected twists and turns that consistently piqued my interest for more. I applaud their programming choices! The less frequently heard combination of clarinet, cello and piano makes for a welcome bit of aural recreation. 

Importantly, the performance qualities of the Delphine Trio are very high—they are excellent musicians who perform with both a high degree of technical proficiency and a clearly evident pleasure in creating music. There is a joyful elan to their performances that is to be cherished. This is music-making of the highest caliber. I look forward to more recordings from this excellent trio.

This is another excellent recording by Brendon Heinst, who continues to excel in his very natural sounding capture of the performers and their instruments together with the air and reverberation of the natural acoustic space in which they are performing. Just gorgeous.

Amsterdam 1850, Geisler Ensemble with Florencia Gómez. Navis Classics, 2024 (32bit DXD, DSD256)

The Geisler Ensemble is an international ensemble of wind players that has its main focus in the historically informed performance of music from the 18th and 19th Centuries. Each musician plays on original instruments or copies of original instruments, and the ensemble strives to find a fresh sound in old repertoire and in discovering new works to share with its audiences. And their performances on this album could entice me to listen to more performances by wind ensembles if others can be found who are as engaging as this group.

Perhaps I am so attracted here because of the sound of the original instruments. Always distinctive as compared to modern instruments, there is a very enticing piquancy and texture to the sound of these instruments that brings out so much more in the music conceived with the sound of these original instruments in mind. With modern wind instruments, there is so often much of a blended uniformity of sound that ultimately, to my ear, begins to sound bland, sometime even banal. Not here. Here, the sound resonates with a woodiness, resonance and texture that is simply missing from modern instrument wind ensembles. (Sorry, modern instrument performers. This is just how my ear reacts.)

Surprisingly to this baroque music lover, this music is solidly of the 19th Century and I find it immeasurably interesting and delightfully different. No doubt contributing to this feast of timbre are the original Christian Gottfried Geisler manufactured flutes (ca. 1850) included in the ensemble. 

Unlike historic stringed instruments, early wind instruments have tended not to survive into the present. And modern instruments have evolved with very different capabilities and sound unless intentionally built as copies of historic instruments. That flutist Florencia Gomez came to possess two original Geisler flutes is most unusual. As she says in the liner notes, “Other instruments made by Geisler are currently kept in museums like the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Kunstmuseum in The Hague and the Edinburgh University Collection of Historic Musical Instruments.” For Gomez, one was a gift from the daughter of a long time owner of the flute, the other was a chance find in a curiosa musical instruments shop in Amsterdam. 

Geisler wood flute detail. Florencia Gomez.

Both wooden flutes are 9-keyed instruments. Gomez says, “They play fantastically together and still have their own organic and vivid sound even after these many years.” And this is decidedly demonstrated in the Duo Concertante of Benoît Tranquille Berbiguier (1782-1835) performed on tracks 5 and 6.

The album closes with a special treat, the delightful Rêverie for flute and piano by Mathieu-André Reichert (1830-1880). Why “delightful” you ask? Because the piano part is performed by played by Liene Madern-Stradina on a wonderful Dutch square piano fortepiano made in Amsterdam in ca. 1830-1835. The combination of timbre from the flute and fortepiano is simply a pleasure to hear, a true aural treat with which to finish this fine recital.

And, I must make a shout out for natural horn player Federico Cuevas Ruiz. His playing on a very difficult instrument is a notable contribution to the success of this album. Not to short-change the other terrific members of this ensemble, who all play beautifully, I would be remiss not to particularly mention Ruiz because each time he was called on, his contribution was nigh on perfect and made such a huge difference for the overall success of these performance. 

The sound of the Geisler Ensemble is beautifully captured by Navis Classics founder and recording engineer Daan van Aalst who captures both the instruments but also the marvelous acoustics, air and natural reverberation of the Lutherse Kerk Haarlem. His attention to microphone placement and not messing up the very subtle harmonic overtones captured at those mikes allows for the reproduction in the released album of the remarkably unique and diverse timbre of the instruments played by this ensemble. So many recording engineers lose that fine fragile and delicate level of resolution. Daan has preserved it beautifully.

Beethoven Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’ & Coriolan Overture, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Ivan Fischer. Channel Classics 2024 (32-bit DXD, DSD256).

I was so pleased to find out that Ivan Fischer was moving forward to record Beethoven’s Eroica, continuing his cycle of Beethoven’s Symphonies. I am a huge fan of Fischer’s recordings with his Budapest Festival Orchestra. And all of his recordings are made so much the more enjoyable due to his long-standing relationship with Jared Sacks and Channel Classics. And the resulting recording is well worth the wait. It is immensely engaging and well crafted. 

Ivan Fischer brings his usual intelligence and musical sensitivity to this performance, and the BFO is spot on in their ensemble and technical excellence. The propulsive energy of the opening movement is perfectly judged—excellent tempo shifts, high energy, but never rushed or out-of-breath. Throughout the performance, all is maintained in carefully judged balance. Lots of nuance, time to linger where warranted, tension and high energy as appropriate, lines and phrases never stretched out of shape. The entire performance is simply an utter delight.

And the sound quality! Ah, gorgeous. Full dynamics, broad deep soundstage, immense detail. The inner detail and the micro-dynamics are particularly well captured—this is where that sense of life comes from. Jared has outdone himself with this recording. I’m just rolling with joy as I listen to this recording—both with the performance and with the sound quality.

How many Beethoven Eroica recordings do I have? Oh, way too many, I’m sure. (Answer: I checked, I’m well past 30.) Each is different. But Ivan Fischer’s performance here rises right to the top of my list, and Jared’s recording trounces all the others. 

Oh, how about the Coriolan Overture, you ask? My basic answer is, yes, okay, it’s on the album. It’s good. Thrilling even. It’s as good as performances of this work get. But do I really care about the Coriolan? Will I make an album decision based on whether it’s there or not, good or not? I don’t think so. But, it’s nice. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very nice performance. But, you need this album for the Eroica.

And clearly, I don’t care how may copies of Beethoven’s Eroica you may have, you need this one! Its superb.

She Composes Like A Man, tenThing Brass Ensemble, Tine Thing Helseth. Lawo Classics 2024 (32bit DXD, DSD256)

This album features the music of 13 female composers performed by Tine Thing Helseth and the tenThing Brass Ensemble. It takes its title from an outdated quote once made by a music critic attempting to praise Ethel Smyth’s music. This is trumpeter Helseth’s third album with Lawo, and she comes once again with great music and musicianship.

From Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn to Florence Price and Ethel Smyth, this program celebrates the work of female composers from around the world in world premiere transcriptions for the brass ensemble. The success of this album, and indeed it is a success, is not a gender thing. It is a matter of great music being performed by a superb ensemble.

Two words: astounding virtuosity. 

This is what immediately came to mind as the first bars of this album began to play. As with other Tine Thing Helseth albums, the brass playing is simply phenomenal. Helseth is an amazing talent. And she is able to pull together a similarly impressive group of fellow brass magicians.

For a real treat of great ensemble playing, precision and technical chops, play Grazyna Bacewicz’s Mazovian Dance, track seven. It builds gradually. And then beginning about 0:55 it launches and will knock your socks off by the time it concludes two minutes later.

Tine Thing Helseth opens the liner notes with an introduction worth sharing:

“I started tenThing sixteen years ago along with three friends. My dream was to create a ten piece brass ensemble comprised solely of girls. And so it was. It was mostly for fun, but there also was a clear agenda to convey the message that brass is for everyone, regardless of gender. When I was growing up, it was entirely normal for girls to play both trombone and tuba, and for me playing trumpet felt like the most natural thing in the world. However, in the professional music world this was not necessarily the case. In many countries, there is still a long way to go in terms of gender equality in the brass world. I am often asked if it’s different to play brass only with girls, and if it would be different than playing with boys. The only thing I do know is that it feels incredibly good to play with the other musicians in tenThing. We trust each other. Without a doubt, trust and security are some of the things I value most when making music with others, and this applies to life in general.”

I am so glad to hear each album she releases. As with this album, the music selections are diverse, interesting, and need to be heard. The inclusion of works by Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn are easy, natural choices. But, delightfully, Helseth has ranged much further afield to highlight engaging works by Lili Boulanger, Cecile Chaminade, and Melanie Bonis (also known by her gender-neutral pseudonym, Mel Bonis) who are all French composers important in their own ways during their times. And Florence Price, the first African-American woman recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have her piece played by an American orchestra. And then Joy Webb of England (whose music I’d not heard before), American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, Graznya Bazewich, Maria Theresia Paradis and Norwegian composer Agathe Backer Grøndahl. And, of course, Ethel Smyth, that crucial voice—a composer, conductor, and not least, suffragette.

What a wonderful array of composers and music to savor. Thank you, Tine Thing Helseth.

Cuando el Fuego Abrasa (When The Fire Burns), Ensemble Bayona, with María José Perez (singer). Eudora Records 2024 (Pure DSD256). 

Music of the Swiss composer, pianist and organist Joseph Lauber (1864-1952) opens this album. His Quintett über schweizerische Themen (Quintet on Swiss Themes) Op. 6, for two violins, viola, cello, and piano draws on late German Romanticism and includes some virtuoso piano writing. A main theme, a lyrical and expressive folk-like melody, recurs time and again throughout the work. The liner notes tell us that “this is the Guggisberglied, probably the oldest known Swiss folk song.” The work continues with a lighthearted and spirited “Scherzo” and several immediately ingratiating melodies presumably of Lauber’s own invention. Overall, a thoroughly engaging work for piano quintet, performed as a quite masterful introduction to this ensemble.

The focus on music grounded in folk themes continues with an engaging contemporary work by Swiss composer Christoph Blum (b. 1990), Wildwüchse aus Schweizer Volksliedern (Wild growths of Swiss folk songs) for string trio which he wrote in 2023 and dedicated to the Ensemble Bayona. Blum writes “I wanted to bring the compositional principle by which Lauber bases an ambitious chamber music score on folk song themes, into the present day… I chose to write ten seamless miniatures based on Swiss folk songs that propose new music full of contrasts and escapades… And hence the title: Swiss folk songs sprout wildly.” Blum achieves a humorous, sometimes wry, sometimes jovial, creation that the Ensemble say “deconstructs the harmony, rhythm, timbre and melody of the folk tunes without renouncing virtuosity, by using extended techniques on the violin, viola and cello.” Most engaging! Most enjoyable!

The Ensemble continues with Cantos (2017) for string quartet by Valencian composer and conductor Francisco Coll (b. 1985). This work is also inspired by popular tunes from Spanish and other origins. Since its premier in 2017 by its dedicatee, the Casals Quartet, it has become one of his most performed works worldwide. Coll describes Cantos as a piece “whose written cadences are intended to imitate the inflections of the human voice, hence its title.” As the Ensemble writes about this piece, its “evocative harmonic clashes generate an iridescent texture in which time seems to be suspended.” Again, another most engaging contemporary work.

The concluding work on the album again mines traditional folk tunes and melodies. The well known El amor brujo by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946) is here heard in a compelling transcription for cantaora (singer) and piano quintet dedicated to the Ensemble Bayona in 2022 by José Luis Turina (b. 1952). Cantaora María José Pérez joins the ensemble to deliver an evocative performance in this compact transcription, which manages to capture so much of Falla’s original composition. It veritably shimmers. Very nice!

Ensemble Bayona made their debut in the Konzerthaus Berlin in October 2021. The Ensemble focuses on the repertoire of the first half of the 20th century, exploring the bridges between classical and contemporary music, just as evidenced in the programming for this, their inaugural, recording project. With Eros Jaca, its artistic director, the ensemble has a flexible formation, combining strings, winds, piano and percussion according to the requirements of each program. 

Gonzalo Noqué worked with the ensemble to make this recording July 31 – August 3, 2023, in the Auditorio de Zaragoza, Sala Mozart, Zaragoza, Spain. And sonic results simply don’t get much better than this! Full, very natural sound, capturing the nuance of the deliciously different timbre of all the instruments involved. With a wonderful soundstage, air, natural reverberation, immense detail and resolution. And in the Pure DSD256 resolution to which I’m now listening, can you say transparent. Oh, indeed yes.

As with many other recordings Gonzalo has released, this album is available in Pure DSD256 if downloaded from NativeDSD (only). Any other release you may find will not be Pure DSD. I’ve written about the immense effort Gonzalo invests to achieve these Pure DSD recordings in some earlier articles HERE and HERE. This Pure DSD256 album with the Ensemble Bayona, and the many other Pure DSD256 releases from Eudora Records, are albums to treasure.

Nocturne, et lumineux, Eline Hensels (cello), Daniël Kramer (piano). TRPTK 2024 (32bit, DXD, DSD256).

Music for cello and piano by Charles Koechlin, Nadia Boulanger, Leoš Janáček, Henriëtte Bosmans, and Francis Poulenc—oh, my! It just doesn’t get much better and more diverse a recital program than this. I was so looking forward to playing this album. And I am absolutely delighted in hearing it.

The album opens quietly, softly, with the first gentle chords of French composer Charles Koechlin’s Cello Sonata, Op.66 (1917). That he could write such gentle, loving music, at the close of WWI has always been something of a surprise to me. Melodies seem to flow effortlessly in and out of the musical landscape. The time signature itself seems fluid. After a number of climaxes evidencing some amount of tension during the third movement, that never quite resolve, the sonata ends in calm and soothing gentleness once again.

Eline Hensels’ cello rises and flows as she beautifully communicates the changing landscape of Koechlin’s vision. Daniël Kramer supports the cello, occasionally leads it, in a well matched partnership of vision for how the music should play itself out.

This excellent partnership continues in Nadia Boulanger’s Trois Pièces (originally written for organ in 1911 and transcribed for cello and piano in 1914). Again, another largely gentle and somewhat contemplative work—until the third movement which launches like a rocket with percussive power. Wow. An utterly satisfying work out, performed brilliantly.

This nicely communicative partnership between Hensels and Kramer continues over the remaining works on this album. They both play with technical excellence, but the beauty of the recital lies in how well they work together. There is no tension for dominance or priority, there is simply this easy, elegant collaboration that makes listening to them a pure pleasure. With works with which I was familiar (such as Janacek’s Pohádka and Poulenc’s Cello Sonata) and the performances of which I found very satisfying, to works that were new to me even if the composers were not, I found this album to make for a very interesting, very engaging, hour of music. 

In re-reading my draft, I find I simply must add a further word about the Poulenc Cello Sonata. This is a work I find endlessly fascinating. It is played so many different was by different artists. Perhaps this is so because there is so much ambiguity in the work, so many twists and turns, so many changes of direction, so many wry moments, so many shifts in mood. Hensels and Kramer navigate through this work in a manner I find completely compelling. For now it lies at the top of the various alternate (and very completive) performances in my music library.

Once again, recording engineer Brendon Heinst gives us a sonic picture that places the artists in our listening rooms, with excellent detail and superb resolution. The balance of the two instruments is superbly managed. Each articulate, neither overwhelming the other, just a lovely rendition of two beautiful instruments being performed live in a very nice natural acoustic of Westvest90 Church, Schiedam (NL).

Highly recommended!

à Amsterdam, by Postscript. TRPTK 2023 (32bit, DSD256)

Ann and I fell in love with this album when we first heard it in a pre-release sample file that Brendon sent to us for our thoughts. The performance, the sound quality, the music—all just to die for. We’d heard an earlier recording by Postscript and enjoyed it very much (Introductio, HERE). But this later set of performances and recording from three years later rides at yet a higher level of excellence.

The ensemble Postscript is comprised of Aysha Wills and David Westcombe (transverse flute), Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde (cello), and Artem Belogurov (harpsichord). In this album, they selected a number of works of the 18th century published (and in most cases also composed) in Amsterdam. They additionally chose to use Amsterdam-built instruments or copies thereof. And they settled on a historical venue with wonderful acoustics in the heart of the city: the Waalse Kerk. Thus the name of the album.

So, would an album so single city centric as this have enough musical interest and content to capture an audience’s attention? Well, I will say with certainty that it captured my and Ann’s full attention. We both sat raptly through the entire album when we first played it together. We found it just a marvelously enjoyable music experience. And in our listening we both felt ourselves transported into the presence of these four fine musicians. Even after nearly and hour and twelve minutes, we didn’t want the recital to end.

The composers on the album included some with whom I was quite familiar such as Carl Rosier (1640-1725), Jacob Klein (1688-1748), Willem de Fesch (1687-1761), and Pietro Locatelli (1695-1764). But then others who were completely unknown to me. No surprise, just opportunities for pleasant introductions. And pleasant introductions were indeed made by Postscript.

As I considered the several composers with whom I was not familiar, I had to remind myself that Amsterdam in the 17th and 18th centuries was an international city of commerce and wealth. As the liner notes comment, “In building on its success in book publishing in the 17th century, Amsterdam became fertile ground for music as well: at one point in the 18th century, there were no fewer than 76 houses publishing music!” Corelli’s Concerti Grossi Op. 6 and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons were both published in Amsterdam. That the quality of the compositions found on this album is quite high should not be any surprise.

In sum, this is a delightful album and well worth you taking a journey of discovery with Postscript. I highly recommend the exploration.

As always, the sonics captured by TRPTK founder and recording engineer, Brendon Heinst, are simply stellar. No, more than that. They are transportive. His care in making sure that he has the most accurate and timbrally natural capture of the sound heard in the recording session is obsessive. And his efforts pay off in recordings that are very often the highlight of my music listening in any given week. Kudos on this one, Brendon. It is superb.

Addendum

So, why did it take me so long to write about this album if I like it so much? Well, truth to tell we heard à Amsterdam first in it’s raw Pure DSD256 pristine state, straight off the microphones. Not something that was ready to be released commercially in that raw state, but simply gorgeous sonically. I harbored a hope that it might be released as TRPTK’s first Pure DSD release. But it was not to be. In Brendon’s judgement, work was needed that he could only accomplish by taking the files into PCM and then exporting from there. When the finally mixed 32-bit DXD file was released, it was and is indeed gorgeous. But it wasn’t that pristine utterly transparent Pure DSD256 file which we’d first heard and in which we were so much in love. So, Brendon, I apologize for not moving ahead with a review for such a long time. But I’m over that. And listening again this week, I am in love with this album all over again in this 32-bit attire. (Hmmm, should I share any of this? Perhaps not. But it is backstory about how these wonderful albums get made that I think many may find interesting and, so, I think I shall leave this addendum in place.)

All images courtesy of the respective record labels.

The post Notes on Recent Finds, No. 21 – New Joys from NativeDSD appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Homeland – Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor and De Falla’s Noches en los Jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain)
Judith Jáuregui (piano), Kaspar Zehnder, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León.
Eudora Records 2024 (Pure DSD256, stereo and 5.1 channel surround).
Available only from NativeDSD.

Utter transparency. Abundant detail. Extreme delicacy and nuance. A soundstage to die for. Unrestrained dynamics and immense power. This is a recording to cherish, a recording to celebrate.

Such were my reactions when first listening to this amazing new recording from Gonzalo Noqué and Eudora Records. After repeated listenings, my initial reactions hold. This album is a tour de force of orchestral recording magic.  And it is entirely recorded, edited and mastered in Pure DSD256*. Not a bit of PCM processing anywhere in the production chain. From microphones, to editing, to mixing, to mastering, all is accomplished entirely in the DSD domain. 

*Technically, this is pure PDM (pulse density modulation) using both single-bit and multi-bit PDM, with the final output being the single-bit PDM standard that is known under the Sony marketing name “DSD”. But for simplicity, I refer to this as DSD in the title and throughout the article. Whether multi-bit or single-bit, it is all PDM and not PCM (pulse code modulation). See Tom Caulfield’s explanation HERE.

This is perhaps the only large orchestral recording made to commercial standards (with a full complement of 22-27 microphone channels mixed post-production in the studio) that has been produced in Pure DSD256 throughout. Yes, I have heard some other wonderful Pure DSD256 recordings of large orchestral performances. The Pure DSD256 recordings from Hunnia Records come most immediately to mind, such as the remarkable Bartok Piano Concerto No. 1 with László Borbély (HERE). But most Pure DSD orchestral recordings that I’ve heard have been non-commercial recordings, and most have been minimally mic’d, with limited post-production mixing—truly special, but not commercial, recordings. 

I’ve been told over the years that making a large orchestral recording to commercial standards is simply not possible with DSD. Supposedly, you can’t mix DSD.

Well, I’m here to tell you it is possible.

And the result is the most transparent verisimilitude of an orchestra that I have heard in a commercial recording. Ever. It simply sounds like the real thing: no compression, full dynamic range, incredible detail, beautiful capture of the timbre of the full range of instruments found in a large orchestra performance. Most apparent is the utter transparency of the sound. There is nothing between you and the instruments themselves. For me, “transparency” is an ultimate goal in the recording of natural acoustic instruments. And this recording delivers that transparency in spades with its Pure DSD256 heritage.

And you can hear it for yourself with the free download sample at full DSD256 resolution that Gonzalo has graciously agreed for Positive Feedback to make available to you. More about that below with my further discussion of how this recording was made.

But first, let me tell you about the music on this album.

The performances by Spanish pianist Judith Jáuregui are invigorating, brilliant and an utter joy to hear. She plays with power, precision, and technical mastery. But, more importantly, she plays with emotion, fluidity, and a striking singularity. She clearly has something unique to say. Born in San Sebastian in northern Spain, she has grown up in a multicultural environment through her Basque mother and her Mexican father who grew up in France. After initial studies and a debut recital at the age of just 11, she moved to Munich to study with the Russian pianist Vadim Suchanov at the Richard-Strauss Konservatorium. 

When asked about the music she plays best, she replied, “I am comfortable in general in the romantic light of Brahms, Liszt, Chopin… where the piano sounds in all its glory. I feel very natural also in French music since I have a french side: my father was born in Mexico but grew up in France, and I was born in San Sebastian, just 20 km from the border between Spain and France. Many of my childhood memories are from the other side of the border, where Ravel was born. I am attracted to everything that has to do with the Paris of the beginning of 20th century. I have also a very special link with the music of Spanish composer Federico Mompou, with its purity, its essence.” (HERE)

In performing the music of Norwegian Edvard Grieg and then the music of Andalucían Manuel de Falla, Jáuregui demonstrates remarkable comfort traversing cultures to find the common love of homeland, the title of the album. Says Jáuregui, “A homeland is the profound affective bond between a human being and their land, their culture, their nature. It is the root from which our initial experiences grow, leaving an indelible mark on our identity. It is also the ensemble of physical and emotional homes that we construct throughout our lives… On this album we find two authors who made of their love for their homeland a musical message: Edvard Grieg and Manuel de Falla. Both scholars of the folklore of their respective origins, Norway and Andalucía, they knew how to introduce and emphasize elements of this in their music, creating a new, unique, original and personal register.” 

And throughout, Judith Jáuregui’s expressive refinement and infectious brightness of being bring to us a joy in the music that she seems delighted to share.

Conductor Kaspar Zehnder and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León provide excellent partnership in this musical journey. Orchestral ensemble playing is tight. There is overall a fluid flow and ease with which the orchestra approaches the music, very aptly complementing Judith Jáuregui’s own fluidity and ease.

Oh, and did I say that these are large orchestra works? Yes, indeed they are. De Falla scored Nights in the Gardens of Spain for piano, three flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and tuba, timpani, cymbals, triangle, celesta, harp, and strings. The variety of timbre is an aural delight.

The one sonic weakness of this album is the overly forward piano sound in the Grieg Piano Concerto. It is too prominent, too divorced from the overall soundstage of the orchestra. Fortunately, the sound of the orchestra is just fine. Very balanced, very well integrated, very natural. 

In contrast, the piano sound in Nights in the Gardens of Spain is beautifully well integrated with the overall sound of the orchestra. It sounds here as I assume Gonzalo wished for all of it to sound. And, accordingly, it is  this selection, the opening movement of Nights in the Gardens of Spain, that I have chosen to offer to you as a free download sample. You can hear for yourself what a brilliantly mixed and mastered Pure DSD256 recording is capable of delivering.

Free Sample Download
This free sample download, all 10:32 minutes and 1.7GB of it, is available courtesy of Gonzalo Noqué and NativeDSD. It is track four from the album Homeland, Manual de Falla’s Noches en los Jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain): En el Generalife (the jasmine-scented gardens surrounding the Alhambra):

Use this link to download the Pure DSD256 file. This file is a Pure DSD file with no PCM processing. (For best results, please be sure your DAC is capable of playing a DSD256 data stream without remodulating or converting it.)

Use this link to download the track as a 352.8kHz DXD/PCM file. This DXD file is provided for those who cannot play DSD256 and for those who’d simply like to compare formats. This DXD file is the original edited PCM session mix, with no intermediate conversions or remodulations. 

Please note that only albums downloaded from NativeDSD will be in Pure DSD. Any other release you may find, including any SACD, will have been PCM processed. This is because the Pure DSD mixing and mastering of the album is accomplished by a collaboration between Gonzalo and NativeDSD’s mastering engineer Tom Caulfield. Tom actually creates the Pure DSD mixes in Signalyst HQPlayer Pro from the Pure DSD tracking channels and mixing instructions provided by Gonzalo. You can’t obtain it anywhere else.

The Recording Process and Pure DSD – a deeper dive for those similarly obsessed

I start with a format bias. For me, DSD256 presents a level of audio excellence unmatched by any other digital format. DSD256 delivers a degree of ultimate transparency and fidelity to the timbre of the instruments that subtly eludes DXD and any of the PCM resolutions. I wrote about my wife’s and my experiences in this back in 2021: Pure DSD256 – What We Hear.

There is a reason Bob Witrak (High Definition Tape Transfers) makes all of his tape transfers in DSD256 even when further PCM post-processing will be required due to issues in the vintage tapes. There is also a reason Gonzalo Noqué (Eudora), Jared Sacks (Channel Classics), and Brendon Heinst (TRPTK) all lay down their microphone tracking channels in DSD256 even though they typically apply PCM post-processing in their classical music recordings to achieve the final results they are looking for. In all four cases, these exceptional audio engineers tell me they use DSD256 because it most accurately captures the sound of the source. 

The problem with Pure DSD final releases is not that they can’t be accomplished. It is because, as Gonzalo tells me via an email conversation, the problem is practicality. The mixing process for a Pure DSD release “is very time-consuming and impractical compared to a DXD mix workflow, which is very fast and straight forward.”

And, in the Pure DSD realm, “you cannot use limiters or compressors, which is becoming more and more common in the Classical music recording world.”

But, when I asked if he would make another Pure DSD recording of a large orchestra, his reply was, “Yes. In fact I have another orchestral recording coming before summer where we’ll do it again. As I said in the article you wrote about this topic (Mixing in Pure DSD – No PCM Allowed), there’s something that I love conceptually about remaining in DSD256 for the whole process. Maybe it’s just the idealistic, utopic side of me, but I do think a Pure DSD256 release represents the best quality achievable in the digital world right now. Whether the difference is large or small, noticeable by many or few, I find it very rewarding having the opportunity to work this way.”

I asked about microphones and Gonzalo explained, “The main sound (I’d say at least 90% of the overall mix) comes from the main orchestral pair (2 x Sonodore LDM-54) and the four microphones used for the piano (2 Rens Heijnis modified Neumann U89 relatively close to the instrument and two Sonodore RCM-402 further away). The rest of the mix (around 10% of the overall mix) includes several spot microphones for the different orchestral sections: Schoeps MK4, Pearl CC22, Gefell, Neumann… There are overall 22 channels/microphones in Grieg’s concerto and 27 channels/microphones in Falla’s Noches en los Jardines de España.

In describing the mixing process at this scale, Gonzalo said that it was exactly as described in that last year’s article discussing how Gonzalo and Tom Caulfield create a Pure DSD recording: Mixing in Pure DSD – No PCM Allowed. Just many more microphone channels! “Once I found the mix I was happy with within a DXD project in Pyramix, I then started “translating” the visual representation found in Pyramix’s mixer into the command line-style found in HQPlayer.” Tom then takes these command line mixing instructions into HQPlayer Pro and generates the Pure DSD256 file. The process clearly works. But as Gonzalo observes, “It is definitely a very impractical workflow.”

As explained to me most patiently by Tom, “Recorded music post processing and mastering is done using tools named Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). These provide the function of editing and microphone channel mixing to the final channel format, plus the numerous sweetening provisions like channel equalization. With the exception of HQPlayer Pro, they all convert a continuous DSD bitstream into discrete PCM samples for processing. HQPlayer Pro uses remodulation at the original DSD bitrate for channel mixing and EQ. For acoustic recorded music, requiring minimal channel sweetening, HQPlayer Pro is the ideal DAW for channel mixing without the incurred filtering effects of PCM conversion.”

What Gonzalo and Tom have done is remarkable. Gonzalo has essentially mixed this album twice. Once in PCM in Pyramix to create the channel mixes he wants for a final product, and again to copy out the mixing and EQ parameters for HQPlayer Pro.

Gonzalo could stop once he has his Pyramix PCM mix. He has a fully satisfactory commercial release of the album and he can make all of his format renders from this PCM mix using Pyramix Album Publishing, including a DSD256 render. Most labels do stop here.

But, Gonzalo does not stop. He goes that major step further. He uses all of the settings that he’s determined in his Pyramix final PCM mix, every channel, every fade, every mix, and translates those settings into line by line coding for the command language used in Jussi’s Signalyst HQPlayer Pro.

Tom then loads the original DSD256 channels into HQPlayer Pro with command language parameters Gonzalo has created to mix again, but this time entirely in the DSD/PDM domain. Tom will then send the Pure DSD256 mix out of HQPlayer Pro to Gonzalo for approval. If Gonzalo approves, Tom will start this process all over again from the original DSD256 channels to generate each format render of this album that appears for sale on the NativeDSD website: DSD512, DSD128, DSD64, DXD, 192kHz PCM, and 96kHz PCM. Every file format is a separate independent render directly from the master DSD256 channels, so every format render found at NativeDSD will be as close in purity to the original DSD256 channels as is possible to make. (The DXD sample file download above was created this way.)

For both Gonzalo and Tom, this is an act of pure dedication and love for the art.

As an audiophile who has always valued the highest quality sound reproduction I can possibly achieve, I absolutely delight in Gonzalo’s and Tom’s willingness to strive for the pinnacle of what is currently achievable in digital sound recording and playback. Yes, it is impractical from a purely commercial standpoint. But, so are the single sided, 45-rpm, high purity vinyl discs that I was always eager to obtain in my days of listening to vinyl. It is the love for achieving excellence, to strive to create something that is as close to the maximally accurate reflection of the real acoustic event as possible using today’s technology. And I feel so utterly grateful to fellow sound quality fanatics who are willing to take this effort.

So, I hope you will listen to this Pure DSD256 file from Eudora for yourself! I hope you will hear in your own system that which Ann and I hear, and that you will find in it the same joy of discovery that we find. And, I hope that you will encourage their continuing efforts to create for us such glorious recordings as this. 

Here are some additional Pure DSD256 albums from Eudora that I’ve reviewed elsewhere in Positive Feedback (see search results HERE). I’d highly recommend any of these to you:

The post ‘Homeland’ – Pure DSD256 Large Orchestra Recording from Eudora Records appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Originally written for Positive Feedback
(view original source)

Stones in my Passageway
Carmen Gomes Inc.,
Sound Liaison 2023 (32bit DXD, DSD256) HERE

Wonderfully fantastic! Carmen Gomes at her inimitable best performing highly personal interpretations of the songs of legendary blues singer Robert Johnson. Gomes is a master communicator. “Imagine Robert Johnson walking alone late at night in the 1930s United States of America, enroute to his sad demise in Greenwood, Mississippi. As he walks, he reflects upon his life, accompanied by the sounds of of the night and the echoes of his memories.” That is the excellent summary of the theme of this album. But it still fails to fully capture the magic of Gomes and her band as they pay homage to these songs in their contemporary reimagination honoring this music. 

This album deserves recognition as one of the best vocal albums released in 2023.

Carmen Gomes Inc. previously paid tribute to blues great Robert Johnson on their excellent album Up Jumped The Devil, released in 2020 (HERE). With Stones in my Passageway, Gomes and her compatriots move to a further high level of music interpretation. As always, the highly communicative Gomes makes these songs come alive in a very personal way. Her phrasing, dynamics and inflection are simply remarkable. She sings directly, honestly, without unnecessary embellishment or vocal manipulation. Her sultry delivery of inspired interpretations of this music simply immerses one into the soundscape being created by the collaborative work of Gomes and her band members. And the work of her accompanying band members truly shines in this recording. The percussion work of drummer Bert Kamsteeg makes a strong contribution, often a central one, complementing the vocals of Gomes. Contributions from guitarist Folker Tettero and double-bassist Peter Bjørnild are equally strong. These four musicians are beautifully in sync with each other, consistently complementing and extending each other’s contributions to the music.

The recording quality is among the best recordings I’ve heard from Sound Liaison recording engineer Frans de Rond. And he’s made quite a few of my favorite recordings. But, when recording Carmen Gomes, Frans seems to rise to yet another level of masterful work capturing the sound of this band. Frans has been Carmen Gomes’ preferred recording engineer for 27 years for good reason! In this recording, Frans again applies his One Mic + recording technique to virtually immersive effect, but with some variation on the process, as described by Frans below in an extract from the enclosed booklet.

The album is 15 tracks of pure enjoyment—excellent contemporary blues that honors the traditions of the genre and the music of Robert Johnson. If you’re a blues fan, get this album. If you love female vocals, get this album. If you simply enjoy great music making, get this album. Did I say this enough? Get this album. You’ll love it. 

Frans de Rond, writing about the microphone placement choices and recording process for Stones in my Passageway in the enclosed booklet:

“There are several reasons I call this a ‘One Mic+’ recording.

“In this recording, the role of drummer Bert Kampsteeg is very important. We wanted him to be able to play as freely and dynamically as possible. I realized that if we had Carmen up close to the one mic she was creating an acoustic baffle that covered up certain frequencies. The same was true for Peter Bjørnild’s double bass.

“By moving Carmen and bassist Peter Bjørnild further away and supporting them with two Josephson C700A microphones, the drum sound got much more present. We wanted the small ‘soundscape’ vignettes to have a very dark atmosphere (Peter said he wanted them to sound as dark as the Mississippi night), so I decided to add a spaced pair of Josephson C617 microphones up very high in the studio and let them be our main source of ambiance. That worked very well. And also the deep drop-tuned low notes from the double bass that Peter employed on some of the soundscapes got picked up very well by that pair. Such low notes are almost impossible to hear close up, somehow you only hear the upper harmonics generated, so that was an extra benefit of the ambient pair. And it made me fall even more in love with the sound of Studio 2.

“You could argue that this is a return to old-fashioned multi-mic recording but I don’t think that is true. The drums, guitar, and the main part of the double bass sound are still coming from the Josephson C700S. The microphone is key to the sound stage we have created.

“The two C700A support microphones are identical to the C700S except that each has only one figure of 8 capsules. The special quality of the C700A is that spill coloration is much less of a problem. So it is a perfect spot microphone.”

The sonic results of Frans’ choices are remarkable and imminently enjoyable. Well done!

The First at Last
Jasper Staps Rembrandt Frerichs Quartet
Just Listen Records 2023 (32bit, DSD256) HERE

When excellent musicians, who have known and performed with each other for decades, come together for a debut album we can expect something very special to happen. And this is what we have here. Jazz in its most subtle, complex, and entrancing best. With Jasper Sachs blowing softly, emotively on his sax, and Rembrandt Frerichs complimenting, sometimes leading, on his delicately voiced 1903 Erard fortepiano, what we get is simply superb jazz at the highest level. 

Original works by Staps or Frerichs alternate with standards from Ruud Bos, Billy Strayhorn, Gerry Mulligan, Cole Porter and Jerome Kern to take us on a very enjoyable, somewhat laid back, but definitely swinging musical exploration.

Frerichs’ vintage fortepiano combines with Staps’ saxophone for a lush, complex, mix of timbre. Frerichs comments, “I chose the piano because of Jasper’s sound. Jasper has such a beautiful timbre—when he plays you step into a bath of sound. I wanted the same vintage tone, and playing on a first-rate instrument that they might have played on in the fifties—it’s a nod to classical chamber music, historical performance practice, as well as the jazz we listened to as boys.”

I’ve not previously listened to Jerome Staps play, but I am quite enjoying his free flowing rhythm and nuanced tone. Rembrandt Frerichs is a musician whose recordings I know well, and whose new recordings I always seek out as a special treat to enjoy. For some of his other albums, I encourage you to explore from among these various reviews previously posted HERE.

All of this wonderful music making is enhanced by the excellent sonics achieved by the ever-excellent recording engineer, Jared Sacks. In a “live” recording session, with all the musicians performing together in a natural acoustic setting, Jared has worked his magic to achieve a perfect balance of direct and reflected sound that is alive with energy and detail. As listeners, we are invited to the front row chairs to enjoy music making at the highest level in the best recorded sound available today! Outstanding work by all.

Fathers and Daughters
Fedorova and Zemtsov
Channel Classics 2023 (32bit DXD, DSD256) HERE

Two of the more engaging and immensely talented performers on the current musical scene are pianist Anna Fedorova and violist Dana Zemtsov. I have been enjoying their respective recordings for several years and am always happy to see another release. I particularly enjoy the several recordings they have made together: Silhouettes (2020) and Dutch Hidden Gems (2022). And in this album, we not only get to have them recording together once again, we also have their highly respected fathers (each of whom has had very successful music careers) joining them for a fathers and daughters recital.

The album opens with a thoroughly delightful work, Armachord-Childhood Memories, written by Borys Fedorova and performed by Dana and Anna. Then we have a softly nostalgic, lyrical and quite pretty work composed by Mikhail Zemtsov, Melodies im Alten Stil, performed by Mikhail and Anna. From here we move to music of Chopin, Scriabin, Glazunov, Roslavets, Tsfasman, and Kugel (the last three completely unknown to me, but most enjoyable). The closing work, Tango Suite, composed by Mikhail Zemtsov, brings everyone together with fathers joining daughters in a piano duo, viola duo quartet.

Throughout years of friendship, violist Dana Zemtsov and pianist Anna Fedorova discovered many similarities in their upbringing. Their parents each met their respective spouses in Moscow’s conservatory. Dana’s parents—Julia Dinerstein and Mikhail Zemtsov—are renowned violists and professors. Anna’s parents—Tatiana Abayeva and Borys Fedorov—are renowned pianists and professors. Both of their fathers are composers, too. 

But don’t get the idea that this is simply some gimmick of an album. No, this is an album made by technically masterful musicians who come to share a love of their art in truly engaging performances. And we are the beneficiaries of these magnificent artists across two generations as they perform together with a joy that is infectious. When Borys and Mihail perform the Roslavets Viola Sonata one clearly hears two master musicians collaborating as they perform of work of most enjoyable depth and complexity. When Dana and her father Mikhail perform the Tsfasman Es Tut Mir Leid, there is a tangible frisson in the air as the two playfully bounce phrases from one to the other. This give and take continues as they conclude their duo performance with the Mexican dance Cielito Lindo (arranged by Dana). And when Anna and her father Borys perform the Scriabin Fantasy in A minor, op. Posth., one feels that special emotional tie as they share the keyboard. It is all a truly remarkable recital.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of the generational duos, but I have to admit that my engagement came to full attention each time Anna and Dana returned to the stage together. I find that they make magic happen when they perform together. There is an ineffable quality about their music-making as a duo that I find completely enthralling, even if I can’t define what is affecting me.

Get this album and partake in the joy these fathers and daughters share with us!

A word about the recording…

This is yet another masterfully engineered recording by Jared Sacks. I don’t know how many superlatives I can include in a single article, but I must share my enthusiasm for the wonderful sonics with which he has captured this music making. The balances are all superb—direct to reflected sound, and instrument to instrument. Jared has a remarkable ear for capturing the natural acoustic of the recording venue. He allows the delicate harmonics to bloom and fully develop so that the instruments sound like real instruments being performed in a real space. It is all simply marvelous. And he does this consistently with recording, after recording, after recording. Elsewhere in this article, I include a review of his superbly good jazz recording on Just Listen Records, The First at Last. He commented to me that he thought that recording was one of he was particularly, and it is indeed an excellent recording. This recording is just as good, if not better. 

Insects & Machines
String Quartets of Vivian Fung, Jasper String Quartet
Sono Luminus 2023 (DXD) HERE

This is a very special recording by the always excellent Jasper String Quartet because they give us three outstanding modern compositions for string quartet by JUNO Award-winning composer Vivian Fung (1975). Born in Canada, Fung received her doctorate from The Juilliard School. She currently lives in California. NPR calls Fung “one of today’s most eclectic composers,” and The Philadelphia Inquirer said she has a “stunningly original compositional voice” through her blending of Western musical forms with musical ideas from many cultures, including Balinese and Javanese gamelan, and folk songs from minority regions of China.

As always, Sono Luminus’ recording and mastering engineer Daniel Shores has captured the sound of these performances superbly. There is lovely air and space around the performers as he captures their playing in the excellent acoustics of the wonderful wooden sanctuary of the old church in Boyce, Virginia, that is Sono Luminus’ recording studio. 

Don’t miss this album. It is truly special.

Fantastissimus
Castello Consort
Navis Classics 2023 [32bit DXD] HERE

How about a trip on the wild side with music of the Baroque and period instruments? Can you take things a bid sideways? This is Fantastissimus—an album filled with music that is just a bit twisted. And I’m loving it!

Not all music from the Baroque is harmonious; there are many examples of composers who loved to tug at our sensibilities. When you then couple them with the fecund creative mind of 20th century Dutch composer Martijn Padding (b. 1956), the results can be quite unexpected and delightfully unusual.

The core of the album is the Padding’s 2022 composition Stylus Phantasticus, commissioned by Castello Consort for this release. Entwined and alternating with movements from Padding’s work are compositions by 17th century composers including Biagio Marini, Antonio Bertali, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Heinrich Ignaz von Biber, Giovanni Valentini, and Johann Rosenmüller. The resulting rich, delicious mix of Baroque and contemporary is a pure delight to enjoy. In perfect sympathy with the performance expectations of the 17th Century, members of the Castello Consort freely extemporize and ornament, applying their own creativity and musical sensibilities to create something very fresh and consistently engaging. For a real trip on the twisted side of music creativity, go listen to Padding’s “Hommage to Biber,” track 16. It if filled with allusions to Biber’s more outlandish forays and fully explores the various instruments represented among members of the Consort.

Particularly put to work in the “Hommage” is the Consort’s portable organ modeled after 17h-century North Italian examples. While the organ finds itself central to many of the tracks, this album is not inherently an organ concerto. The included works and instrumentation are too diverse for such a simplistic interpretation. The Consort includes two violin, two viola da gamba and cello, sackbut (yay!), 17th century style harp, dulcian (a Renaissance woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore), and organ. The variety of timbre makes for continual discovery as different instruments together weave a sonic tapestry of immense richness.

This album is a stunning success. As Castello Consort’s debut album, they are off to a great start and I wish for many more recordings to follow. 

And, while the music and performances are immensely pleasurable, my enjoyment is greatly enriched by the excellent sonics captured by producer and recording engineer Daan van Aalst. Recorded in DXD in stereo and multi-channel, I am luxuriating in the 32-bit DXD stereo release. The recording balances across the multiple instruments (including balancing the organ with the various string instruments—a challenge to get right) very nicely, and provides a nice balance of direct and reflected sound. The reverberation and decay of instruments within the acoustic of Doopsgezinde Kerk Haarlem is extremely well captured—just listen to the resonance of the struck bells (0:12 and 2:52) at the end of the final movement, for example. Daan is an independent recording producer and sound engineer. He graduated from the Royal Conservatoire The Hague in 2002, where he studied Art of Sound.

The record label Navis Classics, on which this album is released, was started by Daan in 2013 and currently has over a dozen titles listed at NativeDSD, including the excellent Zemtsov Viola Quartet, Joachim Eijlander’s performance of the Bach Cello Suites, and three albums by the eminent pianist Naum Grubert. See HERE. Both the performance quality and the sound quality of the Navis Classics albums is very high. You will see me including more reviews of their releases.

Zemtsov Viola Quartet
Navis Classics 2014 (DSD64) HERE

I was drawn to listen to this album because it includes violist Dana Zemtsov and her family members (see Fathers and Daughters above). I’ve so come to enjoy Dana’s performances, I needed to hear this. And I’m very glad I did. This is a delightful album filled with interesting music and supremely well performed. 

Much of the music is from twentieth century composers, but the pieces are largely tonal, lyrical and accessible, with a few challenging bits to keep things interesting. All are pieces originally written for viola, not transcriptions. The composers include range from Astor Piazzolla, Arne Werkman (b. 1960) (in a piece written for the Zemtsov Viola Quartet, and perhaps the most challenging), Lithuanian composer Arvydas Malcys (b. 1957) (in another piece written for the Zemtsov Viola Quartet), Danil Zemtsov (b. 1996) (in yet another lovely piece written for the Zemtsov Viola Quartet; Danil is not a member).

The Quartet plays with excellent ensemble, meaningful interpretive communication, and a joyful elan. The recording by Navis recording engineer and producer Daan van Aalst is a sonic delight. He captures an excellent balance across the instrumentalists plus a nice balance of direct and reflected sound in the natural acoustics of the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep, Hilversum, where the performances were recorded in October 2013.

This album is entirely the sound of four violas, no other instruments. But don’t let that lack of variety of timbre put you off. The compositions and the performers provide a wonderfully varied sonic landscape of constant musical invention. They held my attention completely for the full 57 minutes of the album’s content. Highly recommended!

The First and the Last Romantic, Schumann and Strauss
Noé Inui (violin) and Vassilis Varvaresos (piano)
Navis Classics 2015 (DSD256) HERE

And here is yet another album from Navis Classics to which I’ve been listening. Also recorded by Daan van Aalst, this album is a pleasure sonically. And, importantly, the music for violin and piano by Robert Schumann and Richard Strauss is a joy to hear. Inui and Varvaresos play intelligently and with excellent intonation, each providing great support to and consideration of the other. If I were to pick a nit about the recording quality, I might say that I feel sometimes that my ears are a bit to far inside the sound box of the piano. But that is a nit. The overall sonic image is most enjoyable.

Performed are two monumental sonatas for violin and piano: Schumann’s Sonata no. 2 for Violin and Piano in D Minor Op. 121; and Strauss’ Sonata in E-Flat Major Op. 18. Both are significant works of the literature. Each is from musical giant of different generations at each end of the Romantic period. And both get their proper due from these two performers. 

Strauss’ work (Opus 18) comes from early in his career and may be considered a youthful work, but it is an uncompromisingly demanding piece which saw the composer at the top of his game at this point in his development. The piece by Schumann (Opus 121) emerged after frustration in his failure to establish himself as a conductor in Düsseldorf but during a period of ongoing compositional productivity before his final illness took hold. Written almost immediately after the First Violin Sonata it can be seen as the big brother to its predecessor. A work of even more ambitious musical exploration.

In all, an album which I have very much enjoyed! Particularly given the programming of these two great works back-to-back. For a backstage look at the making of this album, see:

Celebrating Franck and Scriabin
Naum Grubert (piano)
Navis Classics 2022 (DXD) HERE

Okay, one last album from Navis Classics—I couldn’t resist adding this given my love of Scriabin’s piano music, which is so well performed here by Latvian born pianist Naum Grubert (1951), a prize-winner in the 1978 Tchaikovsky Competition who today holds a professorship in piano in the Amsterdam Conservatory. That he would combine on the same album two such divergent composers (Franck and Scriabin) intrigued me. What was he up to?

Well, what he was up to is making music! 

Of his Scriabin’s selections, Grubert writes, “All the compositions on this disc but one (Op. 45) go back to the early period of Scriabin’s work, from 1894 to 1898… Scriabin composed small-form music throughout his life. The Preludes Op. 74 (1914) were his last completed opus. He wrote more than 80 preludes altogether. All these small compositions are poetry itself. Rather than analysing them, one only wants to confess one’s love. I have omitted from the early preludes the twenty-four of Opus 11, since they are a self-contained work in their own right. Of the others, I have selected my 12 favourites and placed them in an order in which they sound best, creating, I think, an impression of unity, a cycle of some sort. The two études of Opus 8 are among the most famous ones.”

Of his selection of César Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue for this album, Grubert says, “The Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (PC&F), one of Franck’s masterpieces, was written in 1884, during the most productive decade of his life. This work is startlingly original, especially considering when it was composed… and it is certainly no wonder that the PC&F is an utterly architectural, Gothic work. Just as a Gothic cathedral reaches for the sky, as if eager to rise from the ground, so does Franck’s composition inexorably move to its ringing conclusion, to the triumph of the Transfiguration.”

Two highly different composers whose works nevertheless find a synergistic crossing of paths in these performances by Grubert. This is a very engaging album and if you have any affinity for solo piano, I recommend you spend time with this album. You will be rewarded.

Beethoven Complete Symphonies and Overtures, Volumes 1-6
Jos van Immerseel, Anima Eterna Brugge
Alpha Classics and Northstar Recordings 2005 2023 (DXD, stereo, multichannel, immersive, Auro-3D) HERE and HERE

As a DSD Bundle, the albums included are already available at a reduced price. Therefore, they are exempt from the 1 Week Special from this article.

Alpha Classics and the original recording engineer Bert van der Wolf, Northstar Recordings, have gone back to the archives to find the original DXD masters of these wonderful performances that were originally released only on CD back in 2005. Bert has painstaking remastered those original files to release for them for first time in full high resolution stereo, multichannel (5.1, 5.1+4 Immersive, and 5.1+4 DXD Discrete Immersive) and Auro3D formats. Only now can we hear the terrific sonics Bert captured in DXD, one of his earliest recordings using this then new recording technology.

These new releases in full high resolution sound are stunningly good! And, for the first time, listeners who value multichannel (5.1, 5.1+4 Immersive, and 5.1+4 DXD Discrete Immersive) or the lower resolution but more accessible Auro-3D, can now hear these highly regarded performances in the most advanced playback formats available today for home listening.

When first released, these performance received high praise. The level of historical insight and dedication of the Flanders-based Anima Eterna Brugge and their leader Jos van Immerseel regarding historically informed playing on period instruments is really remarkable. Today these performances remain imminently competitive in the catalog, but now in high resolution and multichannel they are simply stunning. In fact, if you are looking for one historically informed recording of these masterpieces by Beethoven, look no further. This set can be the solution for your search. The Anima Eterna Brugge do play at modern pitch of A=440 (which they have established was done in Beethoven¹s Vienna) and this may be part of what makes these performances immediately relatable.

Of course, if you have other HIP performances, these by Van Immerseel and the Anima Eterna Brugge are a worthy complement that will bring out new insights to Beethoven’s possible intentions in composing any of these works. They are a joy to hear, with a warmth, humor and humanity that is so often missed. It is a richly rewarding cycle.

As Andrew Farach-Colton wrote in naming this an Editor’s Choice for Gramophone in June 2008, “(I)n this richly rewarding cycle of Beethoven symphonies (Van Immerseel’s) progress from the Baroque via the classical to the early Romantic eras is evident in these elegant performances, which are more for the historical purist than the full-on romanticist. The tempi are measured, the playing delicate, painting a portrait more of Beethoven the master craftsman than the fiery visionary.” Van Immerseel’s interpretations are always exciting, but never strange idiosyncratic departures from the norm. And in his subtle restraint, new depths and complexities from the score are unveiled.

And the sound quality of these new files in full DXD resolution is stunningly good. Don’t be fooled by the 2005 original recording date into thinking these will have that early digital signature so often heard—they don’t. They are marvelous.

Upon releasing these remastered files, Bert van der Wolf wrote:

“Having the privilege to artistically produce and record their performances was an honor and the results are wonderful and rather unique.

“The original High Resolution Immersive versions have been kept secret far to long and are really hidden gems to be enjoyed now by many.

“These recordings were amongst the first made in DXD, after I adopted this format as basic recording resolution in 2005 (dCS prototype ADC’s) and most likely is one of the first recordings fully processed in 352,8kS/s/24-bit; this was even before the name DXD existed. I remember drawing a logo for the format for an audio show, later to be almost exactly coherent with the now official DXD logo…

“It offered fantastic possibilities and transparency in the production process and an optimal master quality for SACD releases and formats beyond that.

“After retrieving the files from the archive, I decided to have another go on the mixes, now 16 years later with the progressive insight and acquired tools over the years for this stunning high resolution. 

“It was a tremendous pleasure to find the true hidden gems within these tracks and I am thrilled to finally share those with the world.”

And I give great thanks to Bert for all of his efforts to get these new files released. They are a treasure!

A Handful of Stories
Angelo Verploegen Quintet
Just Listen Records 2023 (DXD, DSD256) HERE

Says Angelo Verploegen about this album, “It’s not really in my nature to look back. For me, being a musician is mainly about staying in shape, preparing for upcoming projects, and finding an outlet for my inspiration and ideas. So, it’s a constant flow of forward motion.

“But… turning 60 last year suddenly led me to look back, to reflect on what I’ve been doing all these years. In this moment of retrospection, I felt the urge to select some of the compositions I’ve written over the past 25 years for various formations and occasions and perform them with a classical jazz quintet lineup.”

And so he gathers about him four fellow musicians and gains the enthusiastic support of Jared Sacks and Just Listen Records to make this outstanding retrospective album. Filled with wonderful tunes, played my master musicians who work so synergistically with one another, this is an album to simply settle back to enjoy. The album reunites Angelo Verploegen with drummer Jasper van Hulten who previously appeared together at NativeDSD on The Duke Book (a wonderful album also recorded by Jared Sacks and released on Just Listen Records). And joining them is the exceptional jazz pianist and composer Marc van Roon. With the further addition of saxophonist Nils van Haften and bassist Guus Bakker, the quintet makes for freely swinging, upbeat collaboration.

Verploegen is a very special musician in my book. When he picks up his flugelhorn, magic happens. He brings a subtlety of phrasing combined with a relaxed warm energy into which I can happily soak and be refreshed. When playing with fellow musicians, he never dominates the aural picture. He seems to encourage and facilitate the creative energies of those with whom he is collaborating. And “collaborating” is the correct word for what he appears to do. He’s facilitating, he’s making space, he’s encouraging the creativity of those with whom he’s playing. One hears this time and time again on the albums he’s recorded with Just Listen Records.

Hearing Verploegen perform is simply a very special treat. I first heard his work on his 2018 album The Sweetest Sound (earlier review and discussion HERE) and I was hooked by his playing and his musical sensibilities. I’ve eagerly awaited each of his succeeding albums from Just Listen Records. And I’ve never been disappointed.

The other thing that makes Verploegen’s albums so special for me is the outstanding sonics captured on each by master recording engineer Jared Sacks. These are not airless studio recordings. They are recorded as the musicians would be performing in a live acoustic performance on stage before an audience. Not in isolation booths. Not isolated from each other with headphones in their own separate worlds. But live. Having to perform together and balance the sounds of their instruments live, dynamically, as they play together. 

So, if you enjoy jazz of the highest caliber, performed by excellent musicians who collaborate and “get” one another, get this album! You won’t be disappointed.

For an introduction and some comments by Angelo Verploegen, here’s a nice preview he taped:

Little Dancer
Angelo Verploegen and Jeroen van Vliet
Just Listen Records 2024 (DXD, DSD256) HERE

This next album, Little Dancer, from Angelo Verploegen is a duo with pianist Jeroen van Vliet. It is quieter, more reflective, than A Handful of Stories (see above).

Writes Verploegen: “My grandson. His birth, in early 2023, had an overwhelming emotional impact on me. I experienced an unspeakable feeling of sheer joy and happiness, but there was also an almost unavoidable underlying sense of worry. What challenges await him and his generation? I had no choice but to start looking for songs of love, hope, comfort, life, and childhood, and perform them in the most intimate and vulnerable setting.”

Where the tunes on A Handful of Stories were written by Verploegen (all but one), the songs on Little Dancer are a collection of standards from various other composers including Irving Berlin (“Always”), Harold Arlen (“Over the Rainbow”), Wayne Shorter (“Infant Eyes” from his 1966 album Speak No Evil), Eben Ahbez’s “Nature Boy” made famous by Nat King Cole, Mabel Wayne’s “Little Boy, You’ve Had a Hard Day” which we know from recordings by Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Sarah Vaughan with Count Basie, and Eric Clapton.

The album is an indulgent journey through emotions of love, life and joy. As Vergplogen writes, they are performed in the most intimate and vulnerable setting one might imagine. And Angelo’s and Jeroen’s performances are thoroughly engaging, moving, and utterly delightful. As always, Verploegen’s playing is creative, innovative and subtle. There is nothing pedestrian about his interpretations; they are fresh natural extensions of his personality, and always come with a subtle twist, a playful fillip.

Recorded once again by Jared Sacks, the sound quality of this album is exceptional. Jared balances the sound of Verploegen’s horn and Van Vliet’s piano delicately and deliciously naturally. They are in the room with me as I listen. Just marvelous!

Major Works by Franz Liszt (Live Concert Recording)
László Borbély
Hunnia Records 2024 (Pure DSD256) HERE

Hungarian pianist László Borbély is an artist whose recordings I look forward to finding. He plays with strength, conviction, and dynamic propulsion. Yet he knows when to dial it down with delicacy and finesse. His various recordings for Hunnia Records are always welcome, and very much enjoyed, in our listening room.

Most recently we’ve enjoyed his live recording of Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with conductor János Kovács and the Savaria Symphony Orchestra on Hunnia Records. It also is a Pure DSD256 recording and the performance is stunningly good. I apologize for not having written a review (HERE), but I highly recommend it.

In this album, Borbély returns to Franz Liszt in gorgeous performances of three major compositions: Vallée d’Obermann S.160/6; Après une lecture du Dante, S.161/7; and Sonata in B Minor, S.178. 

His playing is propulsive, technically precise, emotionally charged. That this is a live performance adds to the energy of the performance. That this is a live performance it is remarkable the technical perfection of Borbély’s playing throughout. If he’s made any mistakes of articulation, I’ve not picked up on them. Instead, I’ve simply reveled in the music and the wonderful sound quality that Hunnia recording engineer Balázs Tóth has captured.

Live recording at Hunnia Records Studio A, 26 August, 2023, as Borbély plays their very excellent Hamburg Steinway D model concert grand. On occasion, I’ve complained to Hunnia’s producer and owner, Robert Hunka, that the sound captured in Studio A has been too much “inside the box of the piano.” Not here! The sound is captured with a delightful degree of openness, air, and natural acoustic reverberation. Well done!

All sounds very natural and realistic. I am thoroughly caught up by the music, the performance, the sound quality and the realism of the recording. Bravo! That this is a Pure DSD256 recording no doubt adds immensely to this listening experience: the sound is utterly transparent, dynamics are immense, transients are brilliantly well defined, the timbre of the piano sounds spot on. Recordings of piano are hard, and this recording is truly exceptionally excellent.

Highly recommended! If you don’t know Liszt, or you somehow think you don’t like Liszt, you should get this album as a great introduction. If you do enjoy Liszt, get this album for a truly special treat. And if you can playback DSD256 files, get this album in it’s Pure DSD256 format for a spectacular aural extravaganza.

All images courtesy of the respective record labels.

The post Notes from Recent Finds, No. 17 – Releases from NativeDSD appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

I am in love with this stunningly great Pure DSD256 recording from Gonzalo Noqué at Eudora Records! Gonzalo has made some excellent Pure DSD256 recordings over the past several years, but this is perhaps his best recording to date. Two things have changed over the years: 1) the addition of his Sonodore LDM-54 microphones, which are remarkable, and 2) recording in the Auditorio de San Francisco, Ávila, with its very open and supportive natural acoustic. In Cartografía del Mar, Gonzalo has simply nailed the sonics. Plus we have two outstanding musicians on guitar and flute that will simply knock your socks off.

There is something very special indeed about the best-of-breed modern Pure DSD256 recordings. As much as I like transfers from analog tape to high resolution digital (think of the great releases coming from High Definition Tape Transfers), the sound quality of a modern Pure DSD256 recording is yet even more alive and immediate. The best of modern Pure DSD256 recordings deliver a transparency, a quickness, an accuracy to the live event, that exceeds what I hear from any other media. This new recording from Gonzalo Noqué and Eudora Records delivers all of that in spades. It is “ear opening.”

Ann and I find ourselves regularly extolling to each other the virtues of this or that recording to which we’ve recently been listening. This is a recording on which we both immediately agreed: it’s superb, it’s a treasure both musically and sonically. Several months ago, I wrote an article about “What we hear in HDTT versus modern recordings” (HERE). As I commented there, “All of the best preamps, amplifiers, mixing boards, cables, power supplies, filters, in use today are simply more transparent than those of six decades ago—whether tube or solid-state. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the best of the current day recordings are more transparent, more open, more resolving, than the recordings of 60 years ago.” When you next compound that difference with Pure DSD256 recording with no PCM post-processing, the divide becomes even more stark. This album perfectly demonstrates the divide between best-in-class modern recordings and vintage analog records. 

Gonzalo achieves a near perfect balance of the instruments vis-à-vis each other and within the overall acoustic space of the venue. Do you have any idea how difficult it can be to capture the full range of the modern flute without harshness or breakup? For such a small instrument, the immense dynamics, the delicacy of harmonic overtones, and the extremely high frequencies of its range can be an ultimate challenge for a recording engineer. Add to this the soft delicate sounds of a classical guitar and you have an ultimate challenge to find the right balance that pays respect to both performers. This recording simply nails it.

If you have a DAC that is adept at playing DSD256 files (not all are), you really need to listen to this album for the pure sonic bliss it demonstrates. This is not a HiFi spectacular—far from it. Instead, it is spectacularly authentic and honest in its presentation of the natural timbre and extreme dynamics of these two instruments. A feat we rarely hear with this degree of fidelity.

But I have been carried away by the recording quality. Let me give similar credit to our performers and to the music. André Cebrián (flute) and Pedro Mateo Gonzalez (guitar) have selected several brilliant works of the twentieth century by Astor Piazzolla (1921 – 1992),  Mario Castelnuovo-Tedeso (1895 – 1968), Tōru Takemitsu (1930-1996), Robert Beaser (1954), Leo Brouwer (1939), and Felio Gasull (1959). Quite a treat! 

Cebrián and Gonzalez perform with immaculate technical skill, but more importantly they play to communicate. They play with intelligent emotion, a phrase I use most intentionally because while their playing has a lot of emotional content, it is imbued with a cerebral framework that pays homage to the composers. Their playing honors the music and is not a flight of their own fanciful imagination. Only two instruments throughout, but constantly changing and consistently engaging.

With a total time of 72:15, this a generously full album. The fact that the music is engaging and extremely well performed makes this album a joy for listening and a treat to savor through multiple replaying. Each time I listen to it, I find it rewarding, revealing new insights. Highly recommended!

Originally written for Positive Feedback. View original article HERE.

The post Cartografía del Mar (Maps of the Sea) (Pure DSD) appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

September arrived and so has a flood of wonderful new releases from some of my favorite artists and recording labels. Any one of these albums might qualify for “album of the year” recognition in their respective genre, and I’ve been spending time in seventh heaven listening to them. So, allow me to share.

1823 – Piano Works of Schubert and Allú, Noelia Rodiles. Eudora Records 2023 (Pure DSD256) HERE

The remarkable Moments Musicaux. D. 780 of Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828) are not better played than in this marvelous new recording from the ever rewarding Spanish pianist, Noelia Rodiles. With fierce competition among various excellent performances, all vying for our attention, it is sometimes hard to consider yet another. But one would utterly miss one of the greatest and most rewarding recordings of this work if one fails to spend time with this new release from Noelia Rodiles. She plays with complete conviction, delicious nuance, and delightful subtlety of phrasing, making these works as fresh and engaging as I’ve ever heard them. Brava!

I admit to having been smitten by Noelia’s recordings for Eudora Records. With her first release in 2020 of her solo piano album, The Butterfly Effect (HERE), I thought her to be a truly special pianist. Her release in 2021 of Slavic Soul (HERE), with cellist Fernando Arias, heightened my respect for her and confirmed her ability to rewardingly perform a wide range of music. Since that 2021 release, I’ve eagerly awaited another album.

And, finally, here is this new recording, 1823, in which she pairs Schubert’s Moments Musicaux (published in 1828) with the first recording of Martín Sánchez Allú’s Piano Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 1 (1853).

So why the title “1823″? For Noelia, this is a crossover year. In April 1823, the French royalist army crossed the Pyrenees intending to end the constitutional regime in Spain and restore absolute power to King Ferdinand VII. Meanwhile, in Vienna, Franz Schubert was recovering from the first symptoms of a disease that would accompany him until the end of his days and he published a small work for piano under the title of Air Russe. A few years later, that unnoticed piece would appear as the sixth of his Moments Musicaux D.780. And this same year, Spanish composer Martín Sanchéz Allú (1823 – 1858) was born in Salamanca.

Allú’s first Piano Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 1 (1853), while written later in the century, was intentionally composed very much in a Classical-form stylistically, in honor of the masters of “wise” German music. Given this was his first foray into compositions within this stylistic genre, he applied Opus 1 to the title. And in this release, Noelia gives its first recorded performance.

For an Opus One composition, this piano sonata is exceptionally well crafted and musically interesting. Allu was an established composer in Madrid at the time he composed this work, he’d just never undertaken solo piano compositions in Classical-form before this. For me, this is a very satisfying work, with excellent variety, inventiveness, changes in pacing and dynamics, and a “development that plays with seemingly irreconcilable materials in witty and poetic passages” (as described in the liner notes and with which I concur).

The Recording

Eudora’s owner and recording engineer, Gonzalo Noqué, gives us a recording of exceptional clarity that enhances immensely my enjoyment of Noelia’s performances. Recorded February 27—March 1, 2023, in the Auditorio de Zaragoza, Sala Mozart, Zaragoza, Spain, and playing the same 1957 Model D Steinway & Sons piano with which Josep Colom made so many of his wonderful recordings for Eudora, Gonzalo applies his exceptional Sonodore LDM-54 1″ capsule microphones to create one of the most tonally perfect piano recordings I have in my collection. The timbre, dynamics, and subtle detail of the piano are captured brilliantly. As is Noelia’s performance!

Recorded and released in Pure DSD256 (with no DXD processing), this is as beautifully accurate a capture of the sound of a Steinway Grand Piano as one is likely to hear. You owe it to yourself to hear this recording in all of it’s Pure DSD256 wonderfulness! Piano recordings just do not get better than this.

Atomos: the art of musical concentration, music of Haydn, Beethoven, Bartók and Kurtág, Cuarteto Quiroga. Cobra Records 2023 (DSD256, DXD, stereo, binaural, multi-channel) HERE

This past January I wrote about the marvelous recordings released by the Spanish string quartet, Cuarteto Quiroga. In that article I shared my impressions of six superb albums they released from 2011 to 2021 on the Cobra Records label, and ran on a bit a bit about what so energized me in listening to this group. You will find that article HERE.

Over the past few days I’ve been listening to their most recent release, Atomos: the art of musical concentration—music of Haydn, Beethoven, Bartók and Kurtág. And once again I am beside myself with excitement about their performances and the quality of the recording. They have again created a masterpiece of an album.

As Cobra Records owner and chief engineer Tom Peeters says of this quartet, “This is one of the best quartets, I think, in the world. Their goal is go for the best with main repertoire. And main repertoire is already recorded so many times everywhere, and still the Quiroga have something to add to it.” 

The Quiroga play with a perfection of ensemble, a combined delicacy of articulation, a uniformity of intonation, and an endless reservoir of technique—it is an unalloyed joy to hear them play. And to hear whatever music they choose. Their albums are always intellectually challenging, educationally rewarding, and emotionally deep.

In this album they deliver to us the gift of immaculate Haydn, ethereal Beethoven, intense but ever musically interesting Bartók, and the challenge of Kurtág. All in one delicious package.

The album opens with Haydn’s String Quartet in D Minor, op.42, which simply dances in the hands of these artists. This is a relatively short, compact work of immense transparency. Don’t blink. Pay close attention. There is a lot happening in the course of these brief 18 minutes. And while compact, it is intensely dramatic, as demonstrated in the energy which bursts forth in its opening notes. Each movement is filled with wit, intelligence and beauty—intensely Haydn at his creative best.

We then are moved briskly along to the heady heights of Beethoven’s soaring conceptions in his String Quartet in F Minor, op.95, in which the Quiroga treat us to an incomparable intensity of emotion which this work so completely requires. Christened “Serioso” by Beethoven, this work from 1810 reverses earlier explorations of long discursive compositions (e.g., his op.59) to deliver an intensely compressed work in the same form, “expanding the limits of language by contracting them” as the Quiroga write. 

This theme of musical compression to its most succinct (and succulent) elements continues with the work by Bartok selected by the quartet. Bartok’s String Quartet No.3, they write, “is a radical, unique and utterly enthralling exercise in musical compression. Bartók manages to squeeze a work of towering complexity into a score lasting under sixteen minutes, designed in a single span, an impeccably worked musical arc that brings together in a single indivisible gesture…everything that anywhere else would require mammoth extension.” And the Quiroga perform with all of the intensity and precision demanded by this challenging work as it dances, ever faster, with an energy that builds to explosion. Then fades to deep introspection. Then builds again into “an unbridled, almost apocalyptic coda, whose fabulous sounds and wild dances go hand in hand with bursts of astonishing expressive power and dazzling flashes of musical lightning that careen towards the explosive final climax.”

Of Bartok’s six string quartets, the third is perhaps my favorite, but it is so hard to name just the one. The Quiroga have given us a recording of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 2 in their album Terra from 2017 (HERE), and it is a wonderful performance of the work, as fine as any in my library. I would love to have an integral cycle of the six performed by Cuarteto Quiroga because hearing what they might bring to each of these quartets, arguably the greatest chamber works written in the twentieth century, would be an unalloyed joy.  More please!!

The album closes with the intimate, very quiet, and almost inaudible, performance of György Kurtág’s Secreta: funeral music in memoriam László Dobszay. In this journey of compactness, of compression to the most intensely distilled essence of the music, this final epitaph does seem fitting. To find “the humility to pare oneself down to the minimal essence and allow the music speak for itself, with the most persuasive eloquence and the most moving kind of beauty.”

As always in their albums, Cuarteto Quiroga brings to us not just a recital of compatible musical works. They bring an education, an insight, a discovery of mysteries. And for this I am always grateful for their albums, to be listened to all the way through, to be treated as an integral work of art unto itself for the message these marvelous artists have to share.

A further note about Cuarteto Quiroga

For me, all of the selections on this album come to life due to the extraordinary shared musical sensitivity and style of these superb musicians. Never mere technicians, never simply mechanical perfection. The Quiroga play with perfection while fully exposing the essential beauty of the music they share with such joy. Spending an hour with the Quiroga is like time spent in the open pristine natural areas of our most beautiful natural preserves—they refresh, invigorate, and bring joy. And such a joy is this new album. How more emphatically can I say, get this album!

The Recording

Tom Peeters, Cobra Records owner and recording engineer, has for many years now consistently recorded in stereo, multichannel and binaural. In making binaural recordings, Tom is unique. And for headphones listeners, his binaural recordings are really special. Heard through headphones, a binaural recording may give up a bit of ambiance from the rear channel microphones that can be mixed in during post-processing, but what one gets is an utterly transparent sound that precisely localizes all of the instruments in the sound field. If you listen to headphones, you really ought to experience these binaural recording from Cobra Records. Consider reading my earlier article, Stunning Binaural Recordings from Tom Peeters at Cobra Records. 

If you’d like to sample the music and wonderful performances, give this treat yourself to this snippet from their performance of the Bartok String Quartet No. 3:

Intizar, songs of longing, Rembrandt Trio, Mohammad Motamedi. Just Listen Records 2023 (32-Bit DXD) HERE

When the sounds of ancient Persia meet the instruments of Europe, delightful cross-cultural synergies arise. When musicians of the caliber of the Rembrandt Trio and Iranian born singer Mohammad Motamedi collaborate, the senses delight. Thus we have one of the more interesting, engaging and musically satisfying releases of this year: Intizar – Songs of Longing.

Motamedi, a celebrated singer in Iran, is a masterful improviser. He brings a deep repertoire of Iranian poetry around which these various songs revolve. The Rembrandt Trio has spent decades traveling and performing in the Middle East, absorbing the sounds and rhythms of that complex world. This album combines the more spiritual, traditional Persian repertoire, as well as a number of more contemporaneous arrangements of songs, in a  fascinating collaboration by musicians from different continents exploring a shared love of the music and improvisation.

When they first discussed working together on a complete album, no one was quite sure how this might proceed. Motamedi writes in the enclosed booklet:

“My first rehearsal with the Rembrandt Trio took place at Rembrandt’s house. I didn’t know what they would play and what I should sing. Practice started. They started playing. It was a strange experience. Baroque style instruments, but the music that was played was in the style of old Iran. It was a unique dream sense. I had to sing something impromptu. I always imagine myself in a certain place and atmosphere to sing. That day, I didn’t know to imagine myself in a theater in a European city or in the old architecture of Iran. I closed my eyes and stood in the sky where I could see both Iran and Rembrandt’s house from above.”

The opening track of the album, “Intizar” (Waiting) evidences this shared exploration of cultural traditions and improvisation.  It is one of two beautifully melancholic songs Mohammad suggested for the recording, songs he remembered from his early childhood. Rembrandt Trio double-bassist, Tony Overwater, creatively proposed adding three guest musicians, cellist Maya Fridman, violinist Myrthe Helder and clarinetist Maarten Ornstein, to flesh out a full new arrangement for this piece. It works brilliantly.

The ever-remarkable cellist Fridman, clarinetist Ornstein and violinist Helder continue with the Trio and Motomedi on several other tracks, adding extraordinary additional depth and complexity to the music. It is fascinating to hear the complex interactions of instrumental timbre that is sensitively brought to play by these very gifted artists.

This album is a very engaging mix of planned composition and improvisation at the highest level of music making. Ann said most succinctly, “This is extraordinarily well done. It is simply delightful to hear. And the singer, Mohammad Motamedi, is just very, very good.”

If you enjoy World music or have any interest in expanding your musical horizons, I highly recommend this album. I can’t imaging anyone being disappointed. 

Instrumentation

The sound qualities of the instruments in this recording are a unique blending of Persian and European musical traditions. This note in the booklet about the pianos played by Rembrandt Frerichs illustrates the unique sound qualities of the instruments in this album: “Rembrandt plays two historical pianos on these recordings. Firstly, the Anton Walter fortepiano, a copy by Chris Maene after the instrument that Mozart had in his house (1790), built especially for Rembrandt, supported by the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation (NMF). Secondly, the Erard concert grand, built in 1889. Both instruments’ strikingly ‘slender’ sound comes from parallel stringing and a low pressure of the strings, making them a perfect match for Persian music.”

And more information from the NativeDSD album page:

“The musical system of Persian music differs from the Western European system in that it is modal in nature and uses microtonal ranges, while European music uses harmony and tempered tuning. The piano, designed as a tempered instrument, is not ideal for microtonal music. Nevertheless, an Iranian piano school has emerged that experiments with the piano because of its similarity to the santur, a hammered dulcimer. In this, Rembrandt Frerichs has developed his own language by using the old fortepiano (from the time of Mozart) as a starting point. This instrument is more closely related to the santur and, because of its construction and more subtle sound, allows itself to be better used for the modal Persian ranges.

“Rembrandt Frerichs played several instruments on this album: the Walter fortepiano (from 1790), an Erard fortepiano (from 1889) and a number of organs from the Orgelpark. For the piece “in the Middle of the garden,” he tuned the Walter fortepiano to the dasthgah Nava, using microtones. Tony Overwater uses both the violone, forerunner of the double bass and related to the viola da gamba, and the double bass on the album. Vinsent Planjer plays a self-assembled set of percussion instruments that he calls the Whisperkit.”

The Recording

Recorded by inestimable Jared Sacks at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam, the sound quality is superb. Balanced, detailed, and transparent. The recording reveals all of the wonderfully distinctive timbre of these instruments. And the very open, natural acoustical environment of Orgelpark allows the full harmonic overtones of these instruments to be set free and fully develop.

A note about format: I’m listening to the 32-bit DXD file, which is the native format of the Pyramix Workstation used to mix the originally tracked DSD256 channels. On my system, it sounds better than any of the other released formats. But your mileage may vary depending on the capabilities of your DAC, so do some listening tests. On our second system using a chip-based DAC, the DSD256 file sounds best.

For a preview and some additional insight into the making of this album, I highly recommend this 3:20 minute video released by the group:

Mozart and the Organ, Anders Eidsten Dahl. Lawo Classics 2023 (32bit DXD) HERE

This is a completely delightful album of charming, energetic music. The first track opens with a sprightly performance of Mozart’s Church Sonata in E-flat Major, K.67/41h for 2 violins and bassoon. And it is such a treat! The music rollicks along through thirteen more of his Church Sonatas, each a lively and engaging as the first. This combination of instruments is supplemented in various of the sonatas by a small chamber organ providing continuo. The contrasting timbre of the bassoon and chamber organ is a continuing entertainment in these teasingly irreverent compositions. Performed in chronological order, one hears the organ gain a greater and greater role in succeeding compositions, each of which is only two, three or four minutes in length.

Mozart’s seventeen church sonatas are infrequently performed, but their neglect has nothing to do with their music quality—which is of high excellence. Rather, it has been difficulties in deciding where and how to program such short pieces, the first being only 1:37 minutes in length! Perhaps this album, as an integral recital, is that perfect setting for them today. I found them eminently enjoyable in this arrangement.

The first three of these pieces date from 1772, when sixteen year old Mozart had been appointed Konzertmeister to the Archbishop in Salzburg. The Archbishop insisted that Mass last not longer than 45-minutes, and thus these Church Sonatas fulfilled a need for brief instrumental works that could fit between readings as the Mass moved briskly to completion. Ever the disruptive influence, Mozart rarely distinguishes between sacred and secular musical styles, as these sonatas aptly demonstrate. By the time we reach track 6 with K.212 we hear that maturing of Mozart’s musical language, he had written his Symphony 29 just a year earlier and one can hear that greater compositional complexity reflected in K.212. To suggest that these are works Mozart “composed in his sleep” is just decidedly not so—they are complex works creatively compacted to serve a very specific purpose, and to that end they are brilliant.

Following the Church Sonatas, this album treats us to the magnificent Adagio and Allegro in F minor, K.594 for full organ in solo. Written on commission in 1790, Mozart complained bitterly in a letter to his wife that he lacked inspiration to complete the piece: “It is loathsome…it bores me.” Well, bored as he may have been, he nonetheless created a work of great intelligence that is both deeply expressive and subtle. The beauty of this work makes one wish we had more organ compositions from his pen.

And then comes a work that could hold pride of place in any organ recital, the Fantasia in F minor, K.608. It is an impressive work of great scale and I’ve long valued hearing it. To hear it so well performed and on such a lithe and subtle organ as the Tomaž Močnik built organ of St. Margaret’s Church in Oslo is enjoyment to savor. 

The Recording

The sound quality captured by Lawo Classics recording and mastering engineer Thomas Wolden is once again superb. The balance among the instruments in the Church Sonatas is exemplary, with excellent detail and beautifully natural timbre. The capture of the organ of St. Margaret’s Church in Oslo is a nicely managed as any organ recording in my collection, and is greatly enhanced by Wolden’s respect for allowing the natural acoustic balance of the church itself fully resonate with the notes of the organ while maintaining utter clarity. This is simply superb engineering and a complete sonic delight. 

A note about format: I’m listening to the 32-bit DXD file, which is the native format of the Pyramix Workstation used to mix the originally tracked DSD256 channels. On my system, it sounds better than any of the other released formats. But your mileage may vary depending on the capabilities of your DAC, so do some listening tests. On our second system using a chip-based DAC, the DSD256 file sounds best.

All photos provided courtesy of the respective record labels.

The post Notes from Recent Finds, No. 13 – Gems from Cobra, Eudora, Just Listen, and Lawo appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Continuing the conversation about what I’ve found recently that you might also be interested in checking out. Starting off with two very excellent releases from Yarlung Records, both in Pure DSD256, and then moving to Karina Canellakis’ excellent new Bartok Concerto for Orchestra in her premier recording release as a conductor, the marvelous 2014 release from 2L of the TrondheimSolistene performing Magnificat, three further recordings from Yarlung Records by the exceptional percussion ensemble Smoke & Mirrors, and, and, and…

A recent Pure DSD256 release from Yarlung. The sonics in the recordings of solo piano pieces are outstanding. Nathan Ben-Yehuda is a compelling young pianist (Julliard graduate) whose performances of Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit and Knussen’s Variations are simply among the best (if not THE best) I’ve heard.

A very special treat is Ben-Yehuda’s performance of Villa-Lobos’ Rudepoêma, about which Ben-Yehuda writes: “Inspired by his friendship with Arthur Rubinstein, Villa-Lobos intended the work to be an intimate portrait of the pianist’s temperament. The brutality in this work can be especially shocking to people familiar with the nobility and elegance of Rubinstein’s recordings; indeed Rudepoêma demonstrates a raw, often violent character.” 

Overall, the performance are well done, powerfully performed—Ben-Yehuda is a young artist to watch. I will certainly be paying attention to any new recordings from him.

The recording quality is also top-drawer, just as I’ve come to expect from Bob Attiyeh’s recordings. The Pure DSD256 sonics are open, clear and detailed, with great resolution of the timbre of the Steinway grand piano played here.

The last two tracks are with Astral Mixtape, is a quartet in which Ben-Yehuda plays and they were invited to contribute two performances to the album. Yarlung says “We are so proud to announce the debut release on Yarlung Records of the brilliant young pianist Nathan Ben-Yehuda together with his classical-fusion ensemble Astral Mixtape. Nathan has curated a fascinating program, creating an expansive sound world spanning the centuries.” 

I last heard Paul Livingstone, sitar, and Pete Jacobson, cello, in the Yarlung release of Sangram (Confluence: Music from Inside the Heart of Raga), review HERE. This new outing by the duo builds upon what I so much enjoyed in that earlier album—it’s a pleasure to welcome them once again to my listening room. The performances are a blending of traditional raga and improvisations incorporating western music elements. The combination of sitar and cello really work well for me. When Ann listened, she said simply, “Oh, I really like this.” 

As with Sangram, this is a Pure DSD256 recording with a single stereo microphone. Its as pure as pure gets. Just the musicians, their instruments, and us as listeners. Highly recommended.

This release continues NativeDSD’s gradual release of the Reference Recordings catalog of albums recorded in PCM rates lower than DXD (see HERE). In this release we have a very lovely and entertaining recital by the Quartet San Francisco recorded by “Prof” Keith Johnson May 14­-16, 2018 at Skywalker Sound. The music selected by QSF encompasses a range of styles reflecting their love for the string quartet in all it’s many variations. Beginning with Jeremy Cohen’s Tango Eight, then Helmut Lispsky’s Fiesta!, and continuing with an arrangement of Gershwin’s Rhaspsody in Bluegrass, this is a most enjoyable romp. The music is light, tight and fun. QSF member Jeremy Cohen has either composed or arranged the majority of works performed, and his touch is most engaging and very welcome here in our home.

Did I say this album was fun!? Yes, it is. Fun, entertaining, occasionally impish, and nicely diverse—just an overall good time.

Plus, it is beautifully recorded. One of “Prof” Johnson’s best efforts, in my opinion. The 24/176.4kHz digital resolution is clean, open, extended and very dynamic. This is the sound of a string quartet captured delightfully well.

This album opens with Philip Glass’ (b. 1937) The American Four Seasons (Violin Concert No. 2), which was composed in 2009. The work is inspired by Antonio Vivaldi’s famous set of violin concertos, The Four Seasons, but Glass offers his own unique interpretation and contemporary take on the concept. Written in four movements, each representing a different season, Glass infuses his minimalist style and repetitive motifs into the composition. Violinist Sara Övinge provides a master’s class in violin performance with tremendous technique and full-on, take-no-hostages, drive. She delivers the full package in performing the demanding, virtuosic and intricate solo violin passages–just Wow! The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra provides a rhythmic, fully complementary orchestral backdrop. (And, as a side note, you could have knocked me over with a feather when telling me this work was composed by Philip Glass. This composition is winning me over!)

The second work on this album is the Violin Concerto No. 1 “Patientia” by Kjetil Bjerkestrand (b. 1955). This is music I found myself coming back to several times over the weeks after I first listened to it. And each time, I found more to appreciate. It has layers upon layers of musical complexity to explore and to come to grips with. Each new listening session was rewarding as I became more aware of the warp and weave of his design. There is an underlying strength to this work, beyond the rhythmic complexity, that I’ve come to find most gratifying. 

The accompanying booklet has an in-depth discussion of the construction of Bjerkestrand’s music. If I were a musician or musical theorist, I might begin to understand the technical explanation. But, I’m just a listener. However, one thing the booklet says that resonates with me is: “However technical this may sound, Kjetil manages to distill a music of his own which seems both familiar and foreign; instantaneous, yet profound. Where many would succumb to the saccharine and pathos-filled, he creates an undercurrent of something that, for want a better definition, I would call a sensitive matter-of-factness.”

And yes, here it is. There is a fundamental profundity to this composition. The simplicity of certain elements is ultimately overtaken by this undercurrent. The music is therein both complex and ultimately quite straight-forward and satisfying. So, I encourage you to come back to this music for a second and a third or even a fourth time before passing judgement. I think you will be rewarded, as I have been. As the liner notes describe, “Kjetil manages to distill a music of his own which seems both familiar and foreign; instantaneous, yet profound.”  

Sara Övinge is a member of the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and the contemporary music ensemble Cikada and has been guest Concertmaster for Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra. I look forward to hearing more performances from her.

Beautiful and extraordinary. These were my first reactions on listening to this new recording by Karina Canellakis in her recently appointed position as Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. As I continued listening, I found her fully exploring the extensive range of emotions to be found in these two orchestral works by Bartok. But her approach is not to hit one over the head. Instead, she slides in from the edges, sneaks up on you, then brilliantly clobbers you with full orchestral impact or with dry, sly wit—as the music may demand. And then she may completely surprise with the most beautiful lyricism one may hope to hear. And this is Bartok! In a full ration of different dimensions to these compositions.

Bob Attiyeh of Yarlung Records has written a penetrating and thoroughly enjoyable review of this album. His insights and commentary go well beyond my ken. All I can say is that I completely agree with his comments. I encourage you to read his full review and discussion posted in the NativeDSD blog HERE.

This album surprised the dickens out of me—and delightfully so. Canellakis is off to a tremendous start in her conductorial role with the NRPO. Perhaps, as Bob Attiyeh suggests, her long familiarity as a violinist playing the music of Bartok has developed in her insights that only those deeply immersed in his music might achieve. I will get very interested to hear more of her work as a conductor. If you know and love the recordings of Concerto for Orchestra by Reiner (HERE) or Dorati (HERE) or Leinsdorf (HERE), then you should indulge yourself in yet another top drawer performance that brings yet a slightly different perspective on the music.

Pentatone’s recording is top notch. Producer and recording engineer Everett Porter is not a name I know, but he has delivered a superb piece of work in this recording. I will definitely be watching for his name in production credits in the future.

Strongly recommended in the most urgent way! If you love orchestral music of the twentieth century, this recording should be in your collection.

Ye Olde Editor, Dr. David, has commented about this recording before (HERE), but this is the first time I’ve listened to it. And I should have done so much earlier! It is magnificent and very beautiful. Morten Lindberg outdoes himself with his immersive recording efforts and I’d love to hear it in a full immersive speaker setup. But even in stereo one can hear just how very nicely the acoustic environment of these performers is captured by this recording.

These are late twentieth century compositions for chorus and chamber ensemble. The album opens with the Magnificat by Kim André Arnesen (b. 1980), which is an ethereal work if ever there was one. Arnesen writes about this work, “My Magnificat is therefore a prayer for the sick, the poor, a song for help and hope for those who are struggling.” It is a moving piece. Magnificat was commissioned by the Nidaros Cathedral Girl’s Choir and their conductor Anita Brevik to be performed in the large acoustics of the Nidaros Cathedral, in which we hear it in this recording. Joining the choir is soloist Lise Granden Berg who contributes just brilliantly as her voice rises above and beyond the choir in movingly rendered passages that add value to the whole without distracting from the integral nature of the work.

Two other contemporary composers’ work is also included: Aaron Jay Kernis’ Musica Celestis, and Ola Gjeilo’s Tundra and Song of the Universal. These works move from the contemplative, ethereal sounds of Magnificat (which quite happily embraces the sounds of the baroque and classical periods) into a truly more contemporary choral music aesthetic. They make a nice complement and contrast to Arnesen’s work to flesh out a fully enjoyable choral concert.

For those who enjoy excellent choral music, this is an album well worth seeking out. Beautiful, engaging music that is gorgeously performed—it is simply delightful. As David said so eloquently in his earlier review, which I encourage you to read, “this recording…is a contemplative experience of the very highest order, stunning both spirit and soul with a sweetness and pleasure that reminds me why I love the possibilities of the audio arts so passionately.”

These are delightful performances by the Baroque Ensemble of the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. Superbly recorded (as always) by Morten Lindberg. Just a complete pleasure to hear!

This album includes a selection of contemporaneous music that is preserved in the Gunnerus Library, Norway’s oldest scientific library, located in Trondheim. Held in the library’s special collections, these manuscripts are reported as probably belonging to the musician Johan Daniel Berlin (1714 – 1789) who was employed in
Trondheim in 1737. The quality and variety of the music illustrates the musical sophistication that existed one of Denmark and Norway’s largest provincial towns in the decades preceding the nineteenth century. It also illustrates the considerable benefits of increasing wealth as merchants set about exporting timber, stockfish, and copper from the mines of the region. As Trondheim’s wealth grew, and it’s merchant class prospered, luxury and the latest fashions, literature and music from the Continent found their way to Trondheim.

If you enjoy music of the Baroque, I encourage you to scoop this album straight up. The music is diverse, enjoyable, and very well played. 

I have a fondness for the early gut strung harps from before the development of pedals. Kit Samara plays a wonderful sounding modern interpretation of a 17th Century “triple” harp built by Rainer Thurau, a harp builder located in Wiesbaden, Germany (HERE). No pedals, no levers, but three ranks of strings to allow for the full chromatic range of sound.

The album opens with a demonstration of the true chromatic capabilities of this instrument with Fabritio Fillimarino’s Canzon Cromatica. This is followed by two lovely works, recorded here on the harp for the first time, by Rinaldo dall’Arpa, a renowned harpist and singer. These works were published as keyboard repertoire, but are beautifully performed here on dall’Arpa’s instrument of personal choice. The four remaining works are by Rocco Rodio, of the Neapolitan school that developed at the Spanish court of Naples during the 17th century. It was a world culturally vibrant and scintillating with new ideas. Rodio fit right in. While being an accomplished and learned theorist, believed that “…our obligation is to a more pleasing and sweet effect than to simply follow rules…”

Together, these piece bring to life another time and another world. And Kit Samara continues to be our most pleasant guide. This is her second album with HR Recordings and it follows nicely after her first recital of sonatas for harp and bass lute by Antonino Reggio with lutenist Konstantin Shenikov, also recommended.

The Viennese concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm at the front in 1914. He persevered with incredible persistence. These works were written for him so that he could continue to perform with composition uniquely crafted to fit his situation. Maurice Ravel’s famous Concerto for the Left Hand was commissioned by Wittgenstein, but is not included on this album.

Dutch pianist Folke Nauta recently lost the use of his right hand due to focal dystonia. As did Wittgensten, Folke Nauta persevered to bring back to audiences the trove of chamber music written for piano with the left hand that Wittgenstein had accumulated up until his death in 1961. Many of these works had been premiered by Wittgenstein in the 1920s and 1930s, but had lain unplayed since then.

There is quite a variety of music and variety of instrument combinations to be found here, from the piano left hand and violin Sonata No. 3 by Joseph Labor, to the Quartet in A major for piano, violin, viola and cello by Hans Gál, to Franz Schmidt’s Quintet in A major for piano left hand, clarinet, violin, viola and cello (itself a massive work of over 72-minutes). 

The album opens with Ernest Walker’s Variations on an Original Theme (1933) for piano left hand, clarinet, violin, viola and cello. It is quite an impressive work that I’ve never heard before, which is quite understandable given that it was commissioned by Wittgenstein and then locked away only to be performed by Wittgenstein, who was quite protective of the works he’d commissioned. This is a world premier recording of the Variations on an Original Theme as is the Joseph Labor’s Sonata No. 3 with follows it.

The sound quality of this album is what I’ve come to expect from Tom Peeters in his Cobra Records releases. I feel almost spoiled by the consistent beauty of his recordings as he captures very natural string tone and great piano sound in a nicely resonant acoustic environment. It all sounds like one is present before the performers—just decidedly well done!

This is a rather remarkable album all the way around. I was hesitant as I sat down to listen the first time around. But I am now a full-throated fan of this release! It is really rather remarkable and far exceeded my expectations.

Why was I hesitant? Well, because an hour and eighteen minutes of it is an arrangement for large brass and percussion ensemble of Wagner’s The Ring Cycle—music I love, but which does not always transfer well in arrangements. Here, however, arranger Timothy Higgins has successfully navigated many pitfalls to create an arrangement I thoroughly enjoyed. He writes in the liner notes that his arrangement “is intended to form a largescale symphony for a brass and percussion ensemble. The tone of each opera serves the symphonic format quite well, especially the slow and reflective mood of Die Walküre and the scherzo-like Siegfried.” I think he succeed very well! And the performance by the National Brass Ensemble with conductor Eun Sun Kim truly delivers the goods. This is a performance very much worth hearing.

Also on the album are new works written for brass ensemble: Jonathan Bingham’s (b. 1989) Deified (which was commissioned by the National Brass Ensemble); and Arturo Sandoval’s (b. 1949) Brass Fantasy. Both works receive their premier recordings with this album. And leading off the recital is Richard Strauss’ Vienna Philharmonic Fanfare, written in 1924. Together, these works give us a nice balance of something old, something new and something borrowed. I didn’t find the “something blue,” however.

The recorded sound by the Soundmirror team (producer Blanton Alspaugh, recording engineer John Newton, and mixing & mastering engineer Mark Donahue) is some of the best sound I’ve heard this team deliver. And they’ve delivered some extraordinarily nice sounding recordings. 

Jonathan Bingham won the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and San Francisco Symphony’s Emerging Black Composers Project competition with his composition Deified. Composer/trumpet player Arturo Sandoval is a legend in the brass world. Together with Timothy Higgins’ The Ring, these pieces are a showcase the exceptional expressive range that brass and percussion can provide. I think you will enjoy your time listening to this recording over the best sound system you have available to you. Don’t rely on earbuds to hear this album and don’t just go for low res streaming either!

An excellent performance of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 is coupled with Erwin Schulhoff’s Five Pieces, newly arranged for large orchestra by Manfred Honeck and Tomáš Ille.

Austro­-Czech composer Schulhoff’s (1894 – 1942) career ended in a concentration camp during the Nazi rise in Germany, but not before composing a number of pieces inspired by jazz and dance influences. His 1924 Five Pieces for String Quartet is his most frequently performed work, and it is tremendous fun to hear in this new arrangement for large orchestra. Each of the pieces evokes a different style of dance music:

• Piece 1: Viennese Waltz
• Piece 2: Serenade
• Piece 3: Czech folk music
• Piece 4: Tango
• Piece 5: Tarantella

This creates a framework for Honeck to flex fully the vast resources of a large orchestra, which he seems to revel in doing. What we get as listeners is a playful, often joyful, ride through many styles and cultural flavors all while leveraging a kaleidoscope of changing instrumental timbre and impact, filled with wit and a good bit of parody. The fifth piece, “Alla Tarantella,” is perhaps the best example of all of this. The pieces certainly reflect what Schulhoff wrote in 1919: “Music should first and foremost produce physical pleasures, yes, even ecstasies. Music is never philosophy, it arises from an ecstatic condition, finding its expression through rhythmical movement.” And Honeck/Ille’s arrangement for large orchestra fully engages with this aesthetic. Just get aboard and enjoy the ride!

Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is, of course, the lengthier work on this album and for some will be the primary reason to consider acquiring the album. Honeck’s interpretation is fresh and lively, with a sinewy strength that I quite enjoyed. Far from being mired in romantic indulgences, this performance lives, breathes, and dances with vigor. It is a welcome addition to my music library. And, still, I’d get the album for the wonderful Schulhoff Five Pieces.

Recorded June 17-19, 2022 at Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, Pittsburgh, PA, by the Soundmirror team of producer Dirk Sobotka and sound and mastering engineer Mark Donahue, this is another very nice capture of large orchestra sound of a given style of recording. The Soundmirror teams are wizards in post-processing massively multi-miked recordings, as this sounds to be. The tradeoff is a somewhat more “artificial” sound; but, the nature of the hall may have required this approach. Regardless of my sonic quibbles, I fully enjoyed this album and heartily recommend it.

I’m loving this recording. Nicely captured piano sound. Plus, Dávid Báll is just very, very good. And he is definitely the highlight of the album. His Debussy scintillates, dances, ducks and weaves, and keeps one completely engaged to explore what will be coming next. At the same time, this is not light delicate Debussy—Báll plays with a muscular power that reminds me of Ivan Moravec (a high compliment). And, yet, like Moravec, he is able to slip into the most delicate and nuanced of moments. Oh, yes, I am very definitely enjoying the playing of Dávid Báll!

Happily, I understand that Hunnia has scheduled Dávid for a recording of Debussy’s Preludes, Book I, and some Bartok. I can’t wait!

Recording engineer Tibor Lahó seems to have found his groove with this recording. The balance of direct and reflected sound is very nice—the notes of the piano have a very nice extension of harmonics so the full timbre of the piano comes across in the recording. This does not always happen with piano recordings, particularly in studio recordings that don’t have all of the air and reverberation of a large recording hall. But Lahó has managed it all quite nicely here.

How about a wonderful adventure with music of contemporary composers who are still walking amongst us!?! Yes, I love it. I love hearing excellent contemporary music that is clearly “classical” music, no matter how edgy and “way out there” it may be. What is the saying? “All music was modern once…”—Peter Warlock, English composer.

About this album, the Jasper String Quartet write: “The seven pieces on this album represent a collection of treasures we’ve discovered from this century. One of these pieces, Annie Gosfield’s The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon was written expressly for our quartet. The rest we unearthed as we sifted through the vibrant and varied landscape of music being created today.

“We sought to find a set of pieces that were both enchanting on their own and together represent a cohesive aesthetic. From the immense technical challenges of Judd Greenstein’s Four on the Floor, the meditative contemplation of David Lang’s almost all the time, to the raw emotion and vivid imagery of Missy Mazzoli’s Death Valley Junction, these pieces represent an incredible diversity of sound and style. Yet they all reside comfortably in this wonderful tradition of string quartets, of which we are lucky enough to be a part.”

Caroline Shaw’s Valencia (2012) commences the album, providing a great introduction. It challenges, shakes and invigorates with its syncopated rhythms and abundant pizzicato. Her use of long bow strokes from the cello, occasionally astringent, brings mystery, atmosphere and contrast. At just under six minutes, the work ends almost too soon. I found myself wishing it to continue into another chapter. The more I hear of Shaw’s compositions, the more intrigued and impressed I’ve become.

This is truly a remarkable collection of contemporary music for string quartet. It enlivens me to know that such wonderful music is being composed and performed. And here, each piece stretches the string quartet in new and inventive ways. It is a program of immense originality, innovation and challenge. Highly recommended!

Enjoy a YouTube video of the Jasper performing Shaw’s Valencia and then seek out the full resolution release from NativeDSD to truly hear what is going on in this music:

Solo guitar and voice, but what a nice treat. Hunnia Records tells us that Arif Erdem Ocak “is an astonishing Turkish guitarist and one of the founders of the popular Turkish band, Seksendört. He has been a quintessential member of Budapest’s music scene for years.” Yes, I’d concur that he is quite an astonishing guitarist, and he performs with tremendous presence in this recording. The songs are all written by Ocak as he combines centuries-old Turkish music with a modern, percussive-style of guitar playing to move from contemplative, to raw, to driving dramatic emotions.

Ocak sings in Turkish. I don’t understand a thing. But I’m completely enjoying his performances. There is a flow to his music, his guitar, his voice, that simply carries me right along with him. A classic example of music being the universal language. I’m purely delighted by this album.

I’m listening to the original PCM 88.2kHz files and the sound quality is very good. I just let my DAC handle all of the upsampling internally before it converts to analog. You might prefer to get NativeDSD’s higher resolution files depending on how your DAC processes internally (particularly if your DAC is chip-based).

The album was originally released by Yarlung on LP, and it was a favorite on my music shelves where it stayed in a location easy to pull down to play for audio friends stopping by. Somehow I’ve missed entirely that NativeDSD has a Pure DSD256 transfer from the analog master tapes of this album in their catalog. When I stumble across the listing, I downloaded it immediately. And, wow! What a pleasure to hear this album once again in this superb DSD256 release.

Only three tracks, but each is a warmly welcomed composition by composers Steve Reich, Lou Harrison, and Maurice Ravel. The recording has huge dynamic range, extreme clarity, and tremendous color from the marvelous variety of percussion instruments. This recording will challenge any audio system, but if your system is up for it, you’re in for a great sonic treat.

Transferred from the 15ips 2-track analog master tape to Pure DSD256, this is superb fare.

Also available from NativeDSD is the Pure DSD256 release of a Sound & Mirrors’ Vanish and Vanish Vol. 2. The original has the more engaging mix of music in my opinion, but that’s just my preference. Both are very enjoyable and engaging. If you have one or both volumes of Vanish and like them, you really need to hear this first release—there is no duplication. 

“Oh, bother,” said Pooh. Now I’ve prompted myself to play once again the two volumes of Vanish. And they are soooo good. How can one argue with an excellent performance of Takemitsu’s From Me Flows What You Call Time, or Diego Schissi’s Juego de Relojes (Game of Clocks), or Ernst Toch’s Geographical Fugue, or an arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s Vespers? These are all great selections of music for percussion: creative, diverse,  and engaging. And the sound quality is simply some of the best available.

If you are purely a music lover, you’ll find these engaging and worth hearing. If you’re also a sound junkie, then you definitely need these Yarlung recordings!

This is an engaging, thoughtful and rather contemplative traversal of works for solo piano by a variety of late nineteenth and twentieth century composers, including Erik Satie, Arvo Pärt, Federico Mompou, Philip Glass, John Cage, and others. The works are lovingly played, with deep sensitivity to the expressive content of each. It is such a pleasure to hear these more modern compositions rather than yet another traversal of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is nothing jarringly atonal here, all of the works have a charming tonality, frequently with great wit, and always with innovative rhythms and phrasing. 

As someone who tends to play whole albums from start to finish, I value an artist who develops a true “recital program” when assembling the included tracks. Here, Marcia Hadjimarkos has done a very nice job of complimenting and contrasting the various pieces she has selected. Her choice to insert Germaine Tailleferre’s Pastoral Inca (1929) in the middle of the complete set of Erik Satie’s Gnoissienes (1897). It makes such a nice contrast and the variety adds interest. And then she delivers another nice complementary contrast with Frederic Mompou’s Música Callada IX following the Satie. And then from Mompou, she slides us into John Cage and Philip Glass—just delightful! Marcia’s intentionality of programming adds so much to my enjoyment of her album.

The works span and slightly overlap the 20th century, with Satie’s Gnossiennes and Danses de Travers dating from the tail end of the 19th century (when the piano used on this recording was built) to Pärt’s Für Anna Maria written in 2006, and the works of Cage, Monk, Tailleferre, Glass, Mompou and Skempton falling in between. All are associated with minimalism to a greater or lesser degree, born in the United States, France, England, Spain, and Estonia. Eight approaches to resonance, pattern, repetition, layering, phrasing, form, color, touch, texture, and volume on the piano. In the end, all brought together, in Marcia’s words, “by own reactions to the mesmerizing qualities of this music in all its diversity, and the way it pulls me in time and again.” 

In the enclosed booklet, we read that Marcia Hadjimarkos performs, records, and teaches on a variety of keyboard instruments from the earliest Florentine piano to its modern  counterpart, with particular interest in clavichords and historic pianos both grand and square. A native of Oregon, she has lived in Burgundy for many years. She studied fortepiano with Jos Van Immerseel at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieurde Musique after earning degrees in piano performance and French from the University of Iowa. Recent career highlights include song recitals with Emma Kirkby, Beth Taylor, and Julianne Baird. 

The sound she achieves from her piano is surely reflective of her training and experience. There is a clarity and delicacy of touch that I find so often in recordings on early keyboard instruments, and I suspect her training and experience infuses the sound she achieves with the 1889 New York Steinway B that she plays on this recording. It is just lovely all around and a pure pleasure to hear. This is an album to which I am sure to return many times and I extend readers with any interest in solo piano performance my highest recommendation.

And the excellent sound quality of the recording is simply the cherry on top of this engaging album. Recording with a single stereo microphone, the image is completely solid and three dimensional. Plus, the sound heard by the microphone is then captured directly to DSD128 with no PCM processing. It is a pure sound, and a pure delight to hear. Well done!

*All images courtesy of the respective recording labels.

This article was written by Rushton Paul for Positive Feedback. View the original source HERE.

The post Notes on Recent Finds, No. 9 – Endless Bounty from NativeDSD appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

I’ve mentioned recording engineer Frans de Rond and the excellent recordings he makes for Sound Liaison multiple times over these past four years. Not long ago I wrote about several albums from the quite exceptional Carmen Gomes, Inc: Up Jumped the Devil (HERE), Ray! (which you’ll find HERE), and Little Blue (HERE). And most recently, I wrote about Growing Up by Simon Ritger and Wild Man Blues Plays Louis Armstrong (HERE). These are all excellent albums that are very well recorded.

What I haven’t done is actually talk more broadly about the work of of Frans de Rond, his partner and producer Peter Bjørnild, and their recording label Sound Liaison. This article is a start at correcting my oversight. I hope you will follow along with me as I discuss several additional albums I like and why I so much admire Frans de Rond’s work. 

Cuban Fantasy, Witmer Trio, featuring Jan-Luc can Eendenburg. Sound Liaison 2023 (DXD, 32bit) HERE 

This album marks a return to the origins of Witmer Trio. Delving into the salsa, cha-cha, bolero, bachata, and cumbia traditions of the music of Latin America. The Trio is joined by special guest Jan-Luc van Eendenburg on congas and bongos, completing the album’s Latin flavor.

The music is engagingly and creatively arranged, and all is superbly well performed. The addition of Jan-Luc van Eendenburg’s congas and bongos add a delightful further flavoring and are tastefully blended into the overall musical ethos of the ensemble. There is a somewhat mellow, reflective tone to the entire album, which makes for very relaxed and enjoyable listening. With considerable variety across the selections I found myself constantly engaged in the melodies, rhythms and interplay of the artists. The songs with a driving beat and greater urgency, like La Mulata Rumbera, added just enough spice to keep everything interesting while not being completely out of place. All of this is just very nicely done!

The recorded sound quality is excellent, as always from Frans de Rond. Yes, this is multi-mic’d. But it is so skillfully done that you’d not notice it. Instead, what you have is a fully integrated soundscape encompassing four musicians and their instruments—nothing spot lit, nothing sounding “out of whack.” And this result my friends, reflects very skillful placement to manage the various phase characteristics so all sounds seamless as one. Quite an accomplishment!

About the recording setup, producer Peter Bjørnild writes: “When creating the soundscape, we devoted significant time to achieving an ideal balance. We placed a pair of Josephson C700S in the ‘sweet spot’ in MCOStudios’ Studio 2 before incorporating spot microphones. Our goal was to create a sound field that felt intimate yet retained sufficient depth to evoke a visual representation of the instruments.” It is this sensitivity to the sound and this attention detail that makes these Sound Liaison recordings so very good and so very special!

Sketches of Seasons, Atzko Kohashi and Eddy Koopman. Sound Liaison 2020 (DXD, 32bit) HERE 

Jazz pianist Atzko Kohashi is a continuing source of amazement for me—she is so versatile, so flexible! Here, she partners with percussionist Eddy Koopman to create an album of great nuance and immersive engagement. Riffing off the theme of four seasons, the artists weave a tapestry of sound across the four movements of the album. As always, Atzko Kohashi’s touch is delicate, deliberate, carefully calibrated to the emotional content she wishes to convey. Eddy Koopman brings a similar delicacy and intention with his use of bells, brushed gongs and cymbals, and drums of all types. I can’t begin to identify all of the instruments he uses to bring out the most subtle accents that emphasize, complement and contrast with Kohashi’s piano—it is all a delightful interplay of sounds and timbre, superbly judged and timed. Kohashi’s magical touch keeps all moving ahead, weaving the melody and enticing one to follow along.

The recording is filled with detail and color. One clearly hears the stroke on drum skin, the deep resonance of larger drums, the sharp percussive strikes on wood, the reverberation of piano strings above the sound board—it is deliciously close to being live. This is a tour de force in recording quality that captures the full resonance and timbre of an exceptionally wide range of both piano and percussion instruments. It is a listening session that one is not often privileged to experience in the home. And, unlike many efforts at recording percussion, this album is musically satisfying and engaging.

High marks to the recording and mastering team. Even higher marks to the musical sensibilities of Atzko Kohashi and Eddy Koopman. Exceptionally well done all around!

Images, Reiner Voet Quartet. Sound Liaison 2022 (DXD) HERE

This album is everything I look for in a live jazz album: spontaneous, explorative, complex, occasionally playful, and supremely well recorded. There is nice depth to the interactions of the musicians—nothing superficial, but still engagingly fresh. It is one of those albums that you start playing and don’t want to stop. Plus, I find myself always trying to look around the corner to see where they will be taking me next.

It is one of Frans de Rond’s “Arch” style recordings, meaning that it starts with a single musician in front of a single mike. Then other musicians join in the next tracks and the number of microphones may increase accordingly, then it finishes with that single musician and a single microphone once again. All forming an arch of sonic complexity. But always sounding live, non-processed, and with perfect phase alignment throughout. By no means easy to accomplish! This outcome requires a very skilled balance engineer who listens carefully to the results being achieved.

Ballade pour la nuit, Reinier Voet & Pigalle44. Sound Liaison 2019 (DXD) HERE

This recording is a beautiful example of Frans de Rond’s “single microphone” series of recordings where the entire album is from a single stereo microphone. The image placement from these single microphone recordings is simply astonishing. They remind me of many of Kavi Alexander’s recordings (Water Lily Acoustics) in their solidity of image and focus. And that is high praise, my friends.

Captured live before a audience, the performances vibrate with energy and a good swing. Reinier Voet’s guitar is upfront but does not overly dominate the proceedings. The members of Pigalle44 (violin, guitar and double bass) contribute a strong rhythmic vitality throughout, with excellent solos interspersed. For nearly 45 minutes, the quartet moves from strength to strength.

Writes Reinier Voet: “The roles in this quartet are clearly defined, maybe you could say that the solid rhythm guitarist Jan Brouwer and steady bassist Jet Stevens represents the tradition, they know how to hold a groove, they have a deep pocket, the beat is completely secure in their hands. Karin van Kooten’s playing is refreshing: she has her own voice.” And this holds quite consistently across this performance before a very respectful and appreciative audience.

And the sound quality captured in this recording? Oh, just wow. The single Josephson C700S stereo microphone delivers phase coherence, perfect imaging, great sense of depth, and superior realism. As Fran and producer Peter Bjørnild comment, this live recording process before an audience “forces the band being recorded to really play. There is nowhere to hide, no fixing it in the mix, so this is where it helps being a real band.”

Virgo, Atzko Kohashi, Tony Overwater, Angelo Verploegen. Sound Liaison 2018 (DSD256, DXD) HERE

What a great lineup of musicians: Atzko Kohashi on piano, Tony Overwater on double bass, and Angelo Verploegen on flugelhorn. These folks together are about as sensitive and innovative a group as jazz ensembles come. I’ve been listening to these artists in combination with other performers on various recordings for several years now and I always find their work interesting and innovative. To hear them together as an ensemble on this 2018 release, transferred from analog tape, is a real treat!

This is an intimate recording, made even more so by the combination of instruments and the unadorned playing style adopted by the musicians. Recorded before a live audience, direct to a 2-track Studer A80 tape recorder in a totally analog recording chain, the sound is as alive and fresh as one can possibly achieve. No overdubs, no retakes, no post processing, this recording is just like being in the audience for these performances. The DSD256 transfer from the tape is just marvelous.

Recording live forces musicians to really create on the spot. And when it is recorded live to analog tape (as here), it is not possible to repair mistakes. The trio chose a repertoire of originals and classics. As one listens to the album, it is a wonderful experience to hear how the trio reshapes songs into a new, and completely organic, whole. All of the other formats are converted from the original 2-track analog tape.

Recorded in 2018, Virgo by the Kohashi-Overwater-Verploegen trio was the first release from Sound Liaison in a new series of albums licensed from Rhapsody Audiophile Recordings (RAR). RAR is an initiative of audiophile audio guru Harry van Dalen, producer and high-end tuning expert Michael van Polen and recording engineer and Frans de Rond. In this series, RAR records direct to a 2-track Studer A80 tape recorder. Using a completely analog signal chain to generate an organic, natural sound with a well defined sound stage. 

Where the Light Gets In, Jeremy Olivier, vocals and guitar, and Mike del Ferro, piano. Sound Liaison 2022 (DSD256, DXD) HERE

Another release in the Sound Liaison collaboration series with RAR (see above) is this album with Jeremy Olivier and Mike del Ferro. Cape Town singer songwriter Jeremy Oliver has been around for a while. He has collaborated with Hugh Masekela, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, George Benson, Katherine Jenkins and Daniel Bedingfield. 

Mixing originals with interpretations of songs from Sting, Morrison and Arlen, this is a largely quiet introspective album with spare instrumental accompaniment that nicely complements the songs while maintaining focus on the vocals and lyrics. Multiple microphones are used in this recording, but the result is nonetheless classically Frans de Rond purity with excellent image solidity. Somewhat experimentally, the original DXD recording was then mixed and mastered to 2-track analog tape (“for some additional mojo” per the Sound Liaison team) to create the final edit master for the various digital formats. As I understand it, a master DXD MTFF file was then created from the analog tape and that DXD MTFF file is the source for all the other digital formats (as is typical with digital releases not identified as Pure DSD).

Regardless of the details, the resulting sound quality is most enjoyable, very intimate, very delicate. And highly recommended.

The Gift, Michael Moore & Paul Berner. Sound Liaison 2022 (23-bit, DXD) HERE

The excellent musicianship of Michael Moore, clarinet, and Paul Berner, piano, bring life and a bit of a thrill to this album. As producer Peter Bjornild says “It’s magical listening to Michael Moore and Paul Berner play. The music seems to flow in a natural unhindered stream, each note being an obvious continuation of what was played before.” 

Featuring a rich collection of standards including songs by Richard Rogers, George and Ira Gershwin, Charlie Parker, Irving Berlin, Bobby Troup, Mel Torme, Sammy Fain, and Oscar Hammerstein, The Gift is truly that—a gift of marvelous music beautifully played by this excellent duo.

Lujon, Atzko Kohashi, piano, Frans van der Hoeven, double bass, Sebastiaan Kaptein, percussion. Sound Liaison 2014 (96kHz original format, with higher resolutions from NativeDSD’s Higher Rates Program) HERE

Okay, this recording dates from a few years ago and it’s only 96kHz in its original recording format, but please bear with me. First and most importantly, it’s Atzko Kohashi! She is one of the finer jazz pianists performing and recording today. And second, it is a truly excellent recording from a bit earlier in Frans de Rond’s recording career. The sound has a warm, somewhat reverberant, overall ambience that really pulls the performers right into my listening space. And the music is filled with Atzko’s typical inventiveness and ear for great synergies of sound, melody and timing.

The album has only recently found it’s way into the NativeDSD catalog because of their change in policy to include lower rate PCM recordings (96kHz and above now). So, many thanks to NativeDSD for this change in their policy (over which they agonized for a long time). When this and so many other excellent albums now show up in their catalog, in sound quality that I can trust, I think we all win. Highly recommended!

What I hear consistently across the albums from Sound Liaison albums

If there is one consistent factor that I hear across the various Sound Liaison albums, and that I consider a signature of Frans de Rond’s recording aesthetic, it is the absolute phase coherence he achieves. Regardless of microphones used, the sonic image is precisely rendered with tremendous solidity and three dimensionality. Whether it is a solo performer or an ensemble, whether it is a single microphone recording or a multiple microphone recording, the specificity of image placement is outstanding, rock solid, and unusual to hear so clearly. One can visualize the instrument placement precisely. Frans is obsessive about this. And his effort pays off in the results he achieves.

It is this ability to make sound visual is that makes his audio recordings so unique.

But this precise imaging is the foundation for the great results he achieves. What builds upon this foundation to create truly great recordings is the supremely natural sounding capture of the timbre of the instruments—a result I attribute in part to his selection of microphones, but mostly to his attention to trying to capture as close to the natural, organic sound of the instrument as possible through both selection of recording venue, placement in the room, and selection of microphones. His choice to use as his primary microphone the remarkable Josephson C700S may well be a significant factor today.

And, finally, Frans and co-founder Peter Bjørnild, are extremely cautious in choosing which musicians they will work with. As Frans says in the interview with David Hopkins of NativeDSD:

“We always say that the music we record is also music that we will put on at home just to enjoy. If it’s not music that we enjoy listening to then we don’t work on it. Sometimes we have to refuse projects—people may come to us with a demo and ask if it’s something we would like to work on and we literally ask ourselves that question: would I put this on and listen to it myself? If the answer is no then we have to pass on it.”

For more about Frans and Peter, plus their thoughts about various albums, artists and recording technique, I recommend reading the full interview by David Hopkins, HERE.

Frans de Rond’s Recording Style

As a friend commented to me about Frans de Rond’s recordings “I just love his recording style; he’s got this sense of almost Zen minimalism but you can hear how he thinks like a musician during sessions.” And I think this comment is well on point. Frans most frequently (always?) records small ensembles and he concentrates on selecting venues with really nice natural acoustics. His recordings all sound like there is a real synergy between him and the musicians. And his style of recording is consistently to be completely unnoticed as the recording/mastering engineer capturing the music created by the artists. He seems to adopt an attitude of “get out of their way and let them play”—that his best contribution to the end result is to be unnoticeable. But, of course he is very much noticed! All due to his intention to put the musicians first. And this is not true of a lot of recording/mastering engineers.

Try some of the albums I’ve listed above and you’ll hear what I mean.

In addition to Frans’ “standard” recordings, he also has two different series of recordings where his art as a recording engineer is given some prominence. These are his One Microphone Recording Series and his Arch Recording Series. Both very much add to my enjoyment of the albums and I encourage you to look for these. 

The One Microphone Recording Series

In the One Microphone Recording series, Frans uses a single Josephson Engineering C700S stereo microphone throughout the recording. That single point of capture means excellent phase coherence and thus excellent and rock solid placement of the musicians in the sound field. This single point of capture delivers an immediacy and organic naturalness that is hard to beat.

The various internal capsules in this microphone (see HERE for technical details) mean that Frans can select different microphone patterns while maintaining a single point of sound capture. 

The Arch Recording Series

In the Arch Recording Series, Frans creates an album that starts with a single performer using a single microphone point of capture using the Josephson C700S microphone. Then gradually more musicians may be added to the stage, with additional microphones possibly added as the music demands. The challenge as microphones are added is to maintain that absolute image stability that comes only with excellent phase coherence across all the microphones. This is the engineer’s challenge. Frans succeeds in this where many other recording engineers lose it. The album will then complete the “arch” by closing with a single performer and single stereo microphone once again. It is an artistic artifice, to be sure. But it makes for a fun listening experience across that arch of musical performance and sound.

Sound Liaison albums I’ve written about in prior articles that you should check out:

Written by Rushton Paul for Positive Feedback (view original source)

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