Let me first quote the great Josep Colom, who has written the fantastic accompanying album notes: “Javier Laso is inspired”, for “he connects directly with the music. A music which shows us a mysterious place which extends beyond the vicissitudes of life and only a performer who sees that place can reveal it to us.” I think Colom has beautifully summarized the greatness of Javier Laso’s playing. There is something that transcends the technical and even the musical side. There is a profound and deep spiritually side in his performance that connects directly with these masterpieces’ core message. 

On a more, let’s say, “superficial” view, there is a subtlety and poetry in his playing that is deeply moving and rare. When listening to him, I don’t hear a piano anymore, I simply hear what lies beyond the music.

I thank NativeDSD for this opportunity to share my feelings about this album. I really hope you enjoy and feel the profoundness of this album, especially in these changing and challenging times.   

– Gonzalo Noqué
Producer & Recording Engineer, Eudora Records

The post Personal Letter from Gonzalo Noqué appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

That is what makes this album so exciting and unique to me: when listening to Liszt monumental Sonata through the prism of Colom’s vision, you enter a new sonic world where the spiritual side of Liszt’s genius illuminates the whole piece. As with all recordings made with Josep Colom in the outstanding Symphonic Hall in Zaragoza, Spain, a 1957 Steinway piano was used; a piano that it is full of nuances, a piano with a glorious wood timbre from another time. 

Colom was born in Barcelona, Spain, in the difficult years of the Spanish post-war. He began piano lessons in Barcelona with his aunt Rosa Colom, and later moved to Paris to study at the École Normale de Musique. His many awards include First Prize at the Paloma O’Shea Santander International Piano Competition (1978) and First Prize at the Jaén and Épinal International Competitions. Since his debut at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris in 1979, he has regularly toured the five continents giving recitals and concerts with orchestras and performing chamber music with a wide variety of ensembles and artists.

He made his first recordings in 1982 with the complete Sonatas of Manuel Blasco de Nebra (Etnos), for which he was awarded the Spanish Ministry of Culture Prize. In 1989 he recorded the complete works of Manuel de Falla (Circe), an album that Fanfare magazine hailed as the best version of Falla’s works. He has also recorded the complete works of Frederic Mompou, the complete concertos and variations of Johannes Brahms, as well as works by Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and Brahms in collaboration with the pianist Carmen Deleito.

Mr Colom has served as jury of many important piano competitions, including the Paloma O’Shea International Piano Competition and the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. In 1998 the Spanish Ministry of Culture awarded him the Premio Nacional de Música. Since 2010 he regularly teaches in Valencia at the Musikeon Postgraduate Programs,[2] and gives masterclass in Spain (Aula de Música de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares), Switzerland (Cours International de Blonay) and France (École Normale de Musique de Paris), among others.

Brand New DSD Release

Blog Cover photos of Josep Colom by Paz Fernandez

The post A journey through Chopin and Liszt’s spiritual sides appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

I can proudly introduce to you what I think it is sonically my best piano album so far. What you’re hearing is as pure as it gets: one microphone per channel, no DXD conversion, a pure DSD256 recording with so few editing points as I had never saw. Main pair are my beloved Sonodore RCM402. And I’m really happy that it came up so well with Noelia Rodiles’ project; Noelia is a superlative pianist who has got involved in the development of this project with such commitment and love that I truly think you can hear it in every note she plays.

This album brings together three of her favourite Romantic composers – Schumann, Mendelssohn and Schubert – and three of the best-known Spanish composers of recent years – Jesús Rueda and David del Puerto, both of whom have been awarded the country’s National Music Prize, and Joan Magrané, winner of the Queen Sofía Composition Prize. All three are composers with whom Noelia feels a great affinity, which is why she decided to commission them to write works freely inspired by Schumann’s Papillons, Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte, op.30 and Schubert’s Adagio, D178 respectively.

The result is one of the albums I feel most proud of, and a rare sonic experience, were newly composed works and Romantic works are interrelated.

— Gonzalo Noqué, Eudora Records

The post One mic per channel- no DXD conversion- pure DSD256 recording appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

Enrique Bagaría plays Haydn

I’d like to start by introducing an album that I feel specially connected to. As both musician and producer, I’ve been lucky to know many great musicians, but it is very rare to find someone like Enrique Bagaría, who transcends the instrument and “simply” speaks the language of music. When he plays, you just forget thatthere’s an instrument at play, you connect with the language of the music at a higher level. Enrique gives each note he plays the importance it has in the musical context, there’s not a single note played carelessly, everything just sounds as it should in order to communicate the musical idea. These Haydn sonatas are outstanding, some of them Beethovenian “avant la lettre”, and I chose a microphone technique that highlighted Bagaría’s outstanding pianism and Haydn’s compositions, getting slightly closer to the piano than I would usually do, and letting all the refined details of the playing be clearly heard.

Ricardo Gallén – En Silencio

As a guitarist myself, I knew how fortunate we were to count Ricardo Gallén for our very first album. Ricardo is a unique guitarist, one that frees the instrument from its complexity to flow with all its magic. Several years later, Ricardo and us work together for this great album that it’s just a pleasure listening to. Ricardobrings poetry to each note he plays on a copy of a 1864 Antonio de Torres guitar by Paco Santiago Marín. We recorded it in the 13^th Century Church of San Francisco, in Ávila (Spain), a location which has one of the most amazing acoustics I know of.  For this recording the outstanding Sonodore microphones were used, unbelievable microphones for unbelievable artist and acoustics!

Josep Colom – Confluences

Every time I listened to this album, I feel like I’m having a single narrative experience, not an album made up of several tracks or works, such is the unique idea and vision of Josep Colom. He brings out Bach and Chopin connection by pairing Bach’s Preludes and Chopin’s Études and Nocturnes on the basis of shared or contrasting key signatures, similar instrumental treatment or texture, subtle harmonic links, dialectic oppositions or spiritual affinities, and with the help of finely-drawn improvisatory passages that either connect a prelude to an étude or act as a transition into a new pairing. For this project, recorded with an outstanding 1957 Steinway & Sons piano (a full-bodied and with a unique wooden sound piano), we were lucky to work in the amazing Mozart Hall, in Zaragoza, Spain, which has huge, ethereal and magical acoustics. Like with Ricardo Gallén’s albums, we used the extraordinary Sonodore microphones: listen to the low register of Chopin’s Étude op.10/9, it is hard to hear more corporeal basses, you can almost feel them in your body!

The Brahms Project – The Complete Piano Quartets

I’m in love with Brahms’s Piano Quartets, a fact that made this project an intense journey. Such profound and transcendental compositions, such lyrism, formal perfection and inspiration are emphasized by The Brahms Project, four of the foremost Spanish musicians of their generation who joined forces in exploring this repertoire. We were again lucky to record in the amazing Mozart Hall, in Zaragoza, Spain, and I feel especially proud that you’re listening to just two microphones (or five in the case of the surround version); I was extremely meticulous with the microphone positioning and worked hard looking for right spot where the perfect balanced could be achieved, it wasn’t easy!

Brahms & Franck – Ana María Valderrama & Víctor del Valle

I left to the end our latest release, which you can enjoy as an exclusive early release here at NativeDSD. Ana María Valderrama & Víctor del Valle are winners of the Pablo Sarasate and the ARD Competitions respectively, and the two main works recorded here are amazing masterpieces. For this recording, I used for the first time my Neumann U89 microphones after the modification made by Rens Heijnis: he changed the electronics and made it active (with their own power supply), and the results are simply amazing; the U89s are now an amazing pair of microphones I’m in love with, such a pure, neutral yet silky and magical sound that it’s so hard to find.

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When we came up with the crazy idea of starting a classical music label (Eudora Records) we were extremely lucky to start with such an outstanding artist as Ricardo Gallén. His album of Guitar Sonatas composed by Fernando Sor remains our best-selling album at NativeDSD. Now, almost four years later, it is an immense joy for me to present this new album by Ricardo, En Silencio. It features a selection of some of the best-known pieces of the Latin American guitar repertoire as well as some rarities. All of them played on a copy of a 1864 Antonio de Torres guitar by Paco Santiago Marín.

Every time I record in DSD in the 13th Century Church of San Francisco, in Ávila (Spain) I marvel at the acoustics of this location and the ability of the DSD256 format to capture the nuances of the instruments and the natural space acoustics. For this recording the outstanding Sonodore microphones were used with the Horus Analog to DSD 256 Converter from Merging Technologies and of course, no DXD conversion and processing was applied. This is a pure DSD 256 recording.

To bring you the full benefit of this native DSD 256 recording, all the DSD files for En Silencio at the NativeDSD Music store use DSD rendering from the master DSD 256fs Stereo and Surround Sound recording. No DXD conversions, balancing and processing are present on this release.

Watch this breathtakingly beautiful video to get an idea of the new DSD Album ‘En Silencio’

The post En Silencio by Ricardo Gallén appeared first on NativeDSD Music.

This project was recorded direct to Stereo and Multichannel DSD 256 with an outstanding 1957 Steinway & Sons piano. The piano brings a full-bodied and unique wooden sound to Josep’s performances. We were lucky to record again in the amazing Mozart Hall, in Zaragoza, Spain, which has a huge, ethereal acoustic but at the same time allowing for an outstanding clarity. We use the extraordinary Sonodore microphones which reproduce the nature of both the instrument and the hall with utmost accuracy, highlighted by the DSD256 format we used to record the album using the Horus Digital Converter and Pyramix software from Merging Technologies.

To bring you the full benefit of this native DSD 256 recording, all the DSD files for Confluences at the NativeDSD Music store use DSD rendering from the master DSD 256fs Stereo and Surround Sound recording.  No DXD conversions, balancing and processing are present on this release. 

I hope you will enjoy the music!

The post Josep Colom’s Confluences: Bach & Chopin appeared first on NativeDSD Music.