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Welcome to Audiophilia. We publish honest and accurate reviews of high end audio equipment and music.
Welcome to Audiophilia. We publish honest and accurate reviews of high end audio equipment and music.
All in Music
Berliner Philharmoniker
Gustav Mahler Symphonies Nos. 1–10
Daniel Harding
Symphony No. 1
Andris Nelsons
Symphony No. 2
Gustavo Dudamel
Symphony No. 3
Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Symphony No. 4
Gustavo Dudamel
Symphony No. 5
Kirill Petrenko
Symphony No. 6
Sir Simon Rattle
Symphony No. 7
Sir Simon Rattle
Symphony No. 8
Bernard Haitink
Symphony No. 9
Claudio Abbado
Symphony No. 10 (Adagio)
L’Orchestre National de Lille (ONL) performed its first concert in 1976 under the baton of Jean-Claude Casadesus, who retired as music director in 2016. Since then, French conductor Alexandre Bloch has taken the reins. Bloch’s career is impressive; he is principal guest conductor for the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker (2015) and winner of the LSO Donatella Flick Conducting Competition (2012). Bloch has recorded 3 albums with the ONL, all for Alpha Classics: works by Ravel, Chausson and the recording reviewed here, Mahler Symphony No. 7 (2020). The ONL was also shortlisted for the Gramophone Classical Music Awards ‘Orchestra of the Year’ in 2020. A good pairing to take on a highly complicated symphony.
Mahler’s Seventh: The enigmatic symphony.
It’s been only a few years since I started listening to Mahler, although it does feel much longer. My first experience with Mahler, was with the First Symphony, under the direction of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. I was confused about what I was listening to, those first notes of expanding, sustained high As. Nature sounds from a symphony I hadn’t heard before—a clarinet cuckoo call, a free fall of dangerous notes. It was an amazing moment. By the third movement, I was completely hypnotized—this is the ‘Mahler Effect’.
The new recording from classical guitarist Martin Van Hees (on the TRPTK label), brings together compositional works from prominent Dutch composers: Roderik de Man, Aart Strootman, Jan-Peter de Graaff, Christiaan Richter, Leo Samana, Louis Andriessen, as well as Van Hees himself. There’s such diversity of tone and colour in these works, I decided to briefly review each of them. All, I believe, complement the concept of the album. The expressive layers of each composition come through the guitar of Martin Van Hees, who plays the instrument with excitement and precision.
I found the idea very interesting of having all composers the same nationality. There are a few details in the album notes where Van Hees comments a little about each composer. Intrigued, I researched more and found several writings from the soloist dating back to his Master’s degree studies at The Royal Conservatory in the Hague. Since then, he showed a growing interest in these composers. A desire to learn about their work, questioning how the composers imagined the playing style of their compositions. This important work paves the way for a unique and coherent sound throughout the album. As such, he invested himself into each composition, its complexities, and even conducted interviews and played the work for some of the composers (de Man, Andriessen and Samana). The pairing of soloist and composer is for our benefit as we listen to a faithful interpretation of the score.
The finest recordings/performances we listened to this year. We discussed some of the recordings on our social media channels, used them in equipment reviews, reviewed them on YouTube or they received full reviews at Audiophilia. For the latter and YouTube, clicking on the image will take you to the review.
Format and initials of nominating reviewer appear under the selection. The CDs and LPs are available at many online or artist sites (recordings must be released or rereleased in 2020), or, as streamed on Qobuz or Tidal HiFi (available presently in their libraries).
Here we take a new approach to the Audiophilia's Streaming the Classics series. Instead of highlighting top recordings of a classical work we shift to popular music to explore the live catalog of the Grateful Dead on high resolution streaming services.
During their 30 year career from the mid-sixties to the mid-nineties, the Grateful Dead evolved from a psychedelic garage band to the ultimate jam band and became loved worldwide for their myriad contributions to music and popular culture. Although the music itself is quite approachable, the vast discography of the Grateful Dead can be overwhelming.
Anne Bisson’s talents cover many musical and dramatic styles. The French Canadian chanteuse sounds as good singing and playing The American Songbook as she does singing the songs of her native language. She’s a fine songwriter, too, in addition to a mainstay on Quebec TV as an actress and a presenter. It’s an LP showcasing her multi musical talents that I bring to you in this review. Keys to My Heart is a set of Bisson’s own songs, with one standard (‘Killing Me Softly)’ and a French song (Charles Aznavour’s ‘For Me, Formidable’) included to add a different style, a different spice. The balance of the eleven songs are all by Bisson in collaboration with lyricist Pierre Lenoir. The sum makes for engrossing listening.
My home province of Quebec has produced jazz/popular singers such as Nikki Yanofsky, Ranee Lee, Diane Dufresne, Diane Tell, Martine St. Clair as well as megastar Celine Dion. And while each is very talented, all have focused on one style, sometimes, one songwriter. The great Luc Plamondon comes to mind (Dion did a whole album of Plamondon songs before she conquered the world of popular music). However, far fewer artists combine a great voice with equally wonderful (jazz) piano chops—with jazz, a much more difficult proposition than a songsmith/singer banging out simple Tonic/Dominant on the ivories. Canadians are particularly good at this marvelous combination. In addition to the superb Bisson, I give you Diana Krall (Nanaimo, BC) and my supremo in this genre, Carol Welsman (Toronto, ON, now Los Angeles-based).
2020 is shaping up to be a fine year for humanity to collectively ponder our mortality as a species. The global coronavirus pandemic, climate change, violent political unrest, accelerating wealth inequality and—for those of us in California—good old fashioned wildfires foreshadow how the end might come about. But what would the end times sound like? Shabaka & The Ancestors have the answer. On their epic double LP We Are Sent Here By History, Shabaka Hutchings, leading his octet of South Africa based musicians, channels the tradition of the african griot to narrate the extinction of the human race from a future perspective. Heavy, right?
Within the universe of jazz, We Are Sent Here By History is a momentous record released with appropriately high expectations. After all, it is the most ambitious record yet from the biggest name in the most exciting jazz scene in the world. Shabaka Hutchings, and his global collective of three groups, The Ancestors, Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, are the de facto torchbearers of the fertile South London jazz scene.
As Julius Baker would say when hearing of 600 applications for the next top flute job, ‘there’s always room for a great player’. I feel the same about Beethoven symphony cycles. James Norris’ review of the Steinberg/Pittsburgh/DG Beethoven cycle was published here only a few weeks ago.
This very fine Barenboim set with his Staatskapelle Berlin (the opera orchestra rejuvenated from the pit of East Berlin’s Unter den Linden opera house, equally rebuilt umpteen times since commissioned by Frederick the Great in 1741) was originally released on Teldec CDs twenty year ago. Warner re-released them in 2017.
Do you ever type a streaming query in Roon for a classical work and are overwhelmed by the choices? Rather than clicking on any old recording or the first one you see, Audiophilia will make things a little easier for you and do the heavy listening.
These choices are for streaming only. Is the best in streaming also the best vinyl recording and performance? That’s for another article.
A few criteria:
Recording must be on Qobuz and/or Tidal HiFi.
It does not have to be HiRes or MQA.
No more than ten recommendations in no particular order, then my top three for streaming in order of preference.
