Bavarian Girl

Oscar-nominated director Robert Dornhelm lends the story a darker glow, with Bertrand de Billy's soft-centred but warm conducting and two superb star performances. Villazón as Rodolfo, less… sings with a focused intensity which at time recalls Caruso, and makes a scruffily credible hero… Netrebko's creamy-voiced Mimì is no naïve little seamstress; her scarlet satin and glamour-girl make-up suggests she's been around… but her anguish in Act III is no less heartfelt. Dornhelm's sombrely sumptuous images capture a credibly chilly, squalid, yet defiantly romantic milieu.

Rafael Kubelik truly remains a conductor for the here and now, with his classic recordings of Beethoven, Dvorak, Mahler, Janáček, Orff and Smetana cycles setting the gold standard. His approach to phrasing and keen attention to orchestral inner frameworks left no musical stone unturned. Kubelík is the last of the great conductors from Deutsche Grammophon's early stereo age to receive the "Complete Edition" treatment.

In 2014 Deutsche Grammophon celebrated the 20th anniversary of its flagship series, The Originals, with a limited edition collection featuring some of the labels greatest albums.
This second volume concludes the labels survey of its iconic series by presenting more legendary analogue albums. Including key recordings such as Beethovens Late Sonatas with Pollini, Berliozs Symphonie Fantastique with Markevitch, Brahmss Hungarian Dances with Karajan, Dvoraks New World with Fricsay, Chopin Preludes with Argerich…

Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention - Beat The Boots, Vol II (1992) {Rhino R2 71017~023 rec 1968-1978}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.07 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 899 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 312 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1968-78, 1992 Rhino / FOO-EEE | R2 71017~023
Rock / Experimental Rock / Art Rock

This is the second (and final) bootleg-gone-legit box that was actually sanctioned by Frank Zappa. But rather than go to the expense and time to use better sources – which the artist presumably had access to – he simply ripped off the illicit recordings that had been doing the same to him for decades. And voila, Beat the Boots was born. Zappa enlisted Rhino Records to manufacture and distribute the anthologies – which were packaged to appear as if the contents were being sold in a low budget cardboard box. However once inside Beat the Boots!, Vol. 2 (1992), consumers were treated to a full LP jacket-sized 40-page memorabilia scrapbook, a black felt beret and a red pin/badge bearing the hammer-in-fist artwork emblazoned on it.

The name of Georg Kreisler is not much known in English-speaking countries, but his death in 2011 occasioned considerable notice in his native Austria. Of Jewish background, Kreisler fled Vienna in 1938 for the U.S., where he served in the army fighting his former homeland. He wrote songs in English, one of which, Please, Shoot Your Wife, is recorded here. That song was rejected by American publishers, however, and Kreisler returned to Europe and eventually to Vienna. He has been compared to Tom Lehrer, and indeed several of his songs, notably Tauben vergiften im Park (Poisoning Pigeons in the Park) are close enough to Lehrer's to have inspired charges (and counter-charges) of plagiarism. Actually his range was greater than Lehrer's, and he was more prolific, even if he lacked the deadly satirical accuracy.