Jordi Savall's recording of Handel's "Water Music" and "Royal Fireworks." Best version(s) I ever heard by a long way - terrific.





Philippe Herreweghe's recording of Mozart's Mass in C Minor




DVD of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin" conducted by Valery Gergiev with Renée Fleming, Ramon Vargas and Dmitri Hvorostovsky

It arrived in yesterday's post, long-awaited - Sir Adrian Boult's complete Vaughan Williams symphonies. Way back in vinyl days, my introduction to VW was through Boult, but when eventually I ditched all my vinyl, I plumped for Handley and Haitink on CD instead. It was a mistake. The Handley is OK, but the Haitink versions just don't seem right to me, quite apart from the absurdly high dynamic range that renders many of the recordings effectively unplayable. So I've been bleeding for Boult for years, really - and now here he is at last, and the world is just a bit closer to being 'right' than it was.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vaughan-Will...0215445&sr=8-1

Thrilled to bits when this arrived in the post today. From the little I've heard so far (selections of Bizet, Gounod, Verdi, Charpentier, Puccini), it's going to be an incredibly beautiful exploration - 4CDs in a box, with a booklet, covering a huge range of her repertoire:

Cool. Freni is one of my faves too.

Well... this was a slow train coming. Do you remember that back in May, I posted:Well, the delay has come to an end. I think it's a worthy companion to the parallel dozen-disc sets from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. As one might expect, the most interesting find for ME so far has been the Kirsten Flagstad (Bruno Walter, conductor) Immolation Scene from Wagner's Götterdämmerung. Liner notes say-- 21 minute standing ovation(!) Applause, it was reported, did not stop until the audience was told that Flagstad had 'Elvis'ed' (i.e.: left the building).

AWESOME.. with a capital A!

Speaking of that, here's one I've finally gotten around to ordering.



I'm hoping that it has been worth the wait.

Just bought this. I believe it's one of the best recordings of The Four Seasons, and what a lovely design!

The Red Priest on steroids.

Haha. True indeed...

I ordered these awhile ago but they're not due to come until October...


Beethoven: Symphonies 4&5, Osmo Vänskä/Minnesota Orchestra


Elgar: Violin Concerto, Elgar/LSO/Menuhin; Enigma Variations, Elgar/Royal Albert Hall Orchestra

I also bought these scores that I actually have... Mozart's 40th and 41st symphonies and Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto. They have CD's also, but the audio is really terrible... I almost thought they were MIDI files at first...

__________________
"Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
Was du geschlagen
zu Gott wird es dich tragen!"
-Gustav Mahler

3 weeks are up and I have the CDs! Lots of new repertoire for me, including organ works from the Renaissance.

The downside to these sets focussed on an artists is that you get a very thin booklet in place of good liner notes, with only a few paragraphs about the musician and nothing more.

__________________
Regards,
Navneeth

I couldn't wait for Beethoven's 4th and 5th to get here, so I just went ahead and bought 3 and 8. Excellent stuff in this.

Since my last post, I've bought a few... here are some of my latest buys though:

Since I've been in this Beethoven kick lately:

Karajan conducting Beethoven's 9th - this is the 3rd version of Beethoven's 9th I have and from what I can tell, from the infamous 1963 cycle.



Then there is:

Horowitz plays Tchaikovsky and Beethoven



Then I got:

Du Pre's work on Dvorak Cello Concerto and Saint-Saens Cello Concerto (causeI luv me some Cello Concerto's!)



I slipped and bought:



In the words of my significant other: "please don't do that again".... Honestly the verdict is still out on it for me.

And finally a recent buy that is really good IMO as far as soundtracks go:

The Dark Knight Sountrack

__________________
Remember the 3 SW's: Some Will, Some Won't, So What!

Double post - my bad.

Just bought EMI's new release: Evgeny Kissin's complete Beethoven concertos with Colin Davis/LSO. Also found the footage of the recording session and interviews:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkXIO8Hr8-Q

I missed this entire cycle of the live concerts but got to see another two of Kissin/Davis/LSO performing Schumann concerto and Mozart's #24. At times I felt that comparing with Kissin's dynamic playing Sir Colin Davis was a little restrained and the orchestra less engaged, but all in all they made a good team. With Beethoven, they seemed to be on a better term, at least that's how I felt on the first listening.