How does a medieval Bavarian town of 70,000 have an orchestra this good?

It doesn’t hurt that one of the great maestros, Herbert Blomstedt (92 this month), is on the podium. Blomstedt is the Honorary Conductor of the Bamberger Symphoniker. For the past few years, Blomstedt has been busy conducting in Berlin, Dresden, a few miles south of Bamberg in Munich, and other major musical centres. So, good for Bamberg that they keep enticing the great man back to what is a provincial German town.

The orchestra, formed shortly after the war in 1946, was originally made up of Czech expatriates. Many believe Bohemian style cultivates a unique sound to this day. I’m not sure about that. The players sound to me of international standard and must be living an idyllic life in a beautiful Bavarian town where they make music and teach. Nice, if you can get it.

The wonderful Toronto Symphony Orchestra is in another Golden Age, built from near bankruptcy 20 years ago by a talented backroom team, superb hires and a brilliant orchestral trainer in Peter Oundjian. Oundjian hired almost half the orchestra present on this recording. He was an inspired choice at the time when it was more of an Iron Age than Golden in The Big Smoke.

Replacing Oundjian is the recently appointed Spaniard Gustavo Gimeno. He was a Concertgebouw section percussionist who jumped into conducting quite late and is enjoying a very fast upward trajectory via Luxembourg and now the plum TSO gig.

Renée Fleming is a glorious singer of lieder, showcased here in a 2019 CD release of Romantic and late Romantic art songs. Works by Brahms, Schumann and Mahler are included, with the latter represented by his ‘Rückert-Lieder’ in the orchestral version. The Brahms and Schumann songs are accompanied by pianist Hartmut Höll. His playing, and the Münchner Philharmoniker conducted by the very musical Christian Thielemann are spectacular.

In conjunction with a stellar recording by Decca—I’m hard pressed to think of a recent recording with a better piano tone—Fleming in mainstream repertoire is pretty hard to beat.

Just as Rossini had accomplished with his brilliant String Sonatas twenty years earlier, Mendelssohn, too, was absurdly young when writing his wonderful String Symphonies (1821–3).

The repertoire was hitherto unknown to me. The music is charming and belies the youthful years in which they were composed.

There are 12 string symphonies, and record label cpo (based in my old stomping grounds of Osnabrück, Germany) has spread them over three volumes. I’m late to the party with Vol. 3. No matter when the music is performed and recorded so brilliantly. And I have no reason to think the other two volumes are at least as good. So, fans of Mendelssohn and beautiful string music, grab Vol. 1, 2 or all three.

Last month, I received a very pleasant email from Parisian-born, Manhattan-based tenor sax player Jerome Sabbagh asking if Audiophilia would be interested reviewing his latest release on vinyl. If it’s jazz, blues or classical vinyl, I’m usually a hard yes. No Filter is a collaborative project with guitarist Greg Tuohey (songs are original and about 50/50 on the record between Sabbagh and Tuohey) with bassist Joe Martin and Kush Abadey on drums.

I received the album promptly and scheduled it for some late night listening and a full review session the following day. The album had me at late night. And while this wonderful record was playing, I checked out the back cover. I discovered some serious vinyl and analog shenanigans going on. The LP was recorded live to 1/2 inch, two track analog tape at 30” per second and was mastered and cut by no less than the master himself, Bernie Grundman. The quality shows in the artwork, the gentle and tactile recording quality and the mastery of the performances from all four players (no edits or overdubs on the album).

I have been a long time fan of Claudio Abbado’s Brahms since my father bought me an early Abbado DG Brahms LP in 1972 (Serenade No. 2; Academic Festival Overture). Grade 8 in Canadian School years. I was never a fan of the Serenade, but Abbado’s Academic was stunning and sounded as such with Karajan’s remarkable band. This new Esoteric release is a remaster of the late 80s, early 90s DG Brahms set recorded at the beginning of Abbado’s reign with the Philharmoniker.

I never owned this particular set, but I very much admire anything Abbado conducted in those days with the LSO, Boston, Chicago, Vienna or Berlin. Such a consistent standard with five great orchestras over a large repertoire. His consistency can be found in this re release through all four symphonies and sundry orchestral works.