Funeral Music

In the repertoire on this new disc… Cleobury, King's College, and the AAM prove currently unbeatable. King's College Chapel provides a glorious acoustic, splendidly recorded, bathing the music in resonance but retaining every detail.

In the summers of 1903 and 1904, Mahler was as happy as ever in his life. Yet it was then he wrote his darkest music, the Sixth Symphony (which he himself may or may not have called the “Tragic,” though others certainly have) and the two final songs of the Kindertotenlieder (Songs on the Deaths of Children).

Leslie De'Ath has taken up the banner for the music of Cyril Scott, which many feel is long overdue for unfurling again, with a series on Dutton of his piano music. It is easy to hear in the pieces on this first volume why Scott was called "The English Debussy." The extremely colorful, translucent harmonies he uses make his music entrancing, sometimes mystical.

RCO - Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vol 3, 1960-1970 (2005) {14CD Box Set RCO 05001, Limited Edition}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 4.67 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 2.40 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 230 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1960-70, 2005 Radio Netherlands Music / RCO LIve | RCO 05001
Classical / Orchestral

Despite rumors some months ago that the RCOA series might be discontinued (fortunately unfounded), here we have Volume III, a 14-CD set that contains much of interest, but surely—for this collector—doesn't live up to its potential. For me, ideally that would concist of some of the outstanding performances of great symphonic music played by this magnificent orchestra, recorded in the extraordinary acoustics of the Concertgebouw with the usual Radio Nederland sonic expertise. During the decade represented in this set (1960-1970) the Concertgebouw Orchestra's programming often emphasized contemporary music and that surely is reflected in this album. We have well over five hours of music by Martin, Varèse, Berg, Webern, Henze, Lutoslawski, Nono and Dallapiccola as well as Dutch composers Ketting, Escher, and Vermeulen, and Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz's Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion, an 18-minute three-movement work of imagination and vivid scoring.

Rather than play any single complete suite (of the three) that Prokofiev extracted from the complete ballet, Myung-Whun Chung makes his own selection of numbers, roughly following the plot line and including music representative of all the major characters. Although some other collections offer more music, this hour of Romeo and Juliet makes a satisfying presentation on its own. What makes the performance special is the spectacular playing of the Dutch orchestra. Frankly, it's never been done better. From the whiplash virtuosity of the violins to the bite of the trombones and the firm thud of the bass drum, this is the sound the composer must have dreamed of.

Jordi Savall - Anthony Holborne - The Teares of the Muses, 1599 - Elizabethan Consort Music, Vol. II (2000) {Alia Vox AV9813}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 338 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 158 Mb
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© 2000 Alia Vox | AV 9813
Classical / Renaissance / Chamber Music

This release is titled as Elizebathan Consort Music, Vol II and we have already savoured the flavours of that previously immensely successful release which reads like a roll-call from the 'greats' of English 16th century music. This time Jordi Savall and his splendid Hesperion XXI have devoted a whole CD to the talents of Anthony Holborne, a rather obscure figure but one who evidently was held in great esteem in those days.

Mozart was admitted as an apprentice to the Viennese Masonic lodge called “Zur Wohltätigkeit” (“Beneficence”) on 14 December 1784. He was promoted to journeyman Mason on 7 January 1785, and became a master Mason “shortly thereafter”. Mozart’s position within the Masonic movement, according to Maynard Solomon, lay with the rationalist, Enlightenment-inspired membership, as opposed to those members oriented toward mysticism and the occult...