Out Royal Blood

Jordi Savall & Le Concert Des Nations - Handel - Water Music & Music For The Royal Fireworks (2008) {Alia Vox AVSA 9860}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 412 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 173 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 76 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1993, 2008 Alia Vox | AVSA 9860
Classical / Baroque / Orchestral

This is a reissue of a recording from 1993 (re-released a few years ago and deleted in 2003), recently remastered for SACD, and it really impresses with a renewed presence and impact, even on standard CD playback. As I said in my original review, Savall's reading "comes as close as these things can to placing us in the best seat in the house and treats us to a rare experience: the sensation of believing we're hearing a ruggedly familiar piece for the first time. Literally bursting with energy, scintillating strings, blazing horns, and incisive winds, and never boring even for one second, these performances give you Handel at his most exciting." If you have the earlier release, you probably don't need this one–unless you now own an SACD system–but it does deserve a place in every Handel collection, not only for the unsurpassed performances, but also for the effect of Savall's several decidedly "non-standard" tempos(!), and of course for the phenomenal sound, which now must have reached its ultimate realism in this format.

After the great success of Steve Hackett's "At The Edge Of Light" studio album (#13 in Germany, #3 UK Rock charts, #28 UK album charts, #7 UK vinyl charts), "Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra: Live" now encourages you to discover a stunning new dimension of Hackett's own and classic Genesis material! "Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra: Live" was recorded in October 2018 at London's Royal Festival Hall featuring classic Genesis & Steve Hackett solo material performed alongside a 42-piece orchestra!…

Great compilation for those who appreciate the different faces of rock music, from the gentler, the more pop through the independent to the hardcore, hard rock. 80 songs recorded on the four CDs. For rock fans, Fleetwood Mac and Do not Stop, alternative fans can savor The Smith and their classic "How Soon Is Now?". There are also Dr. Feelgood ("Milk and Alcohol"), Echo And The Bunnymen (The Cutter), The Darkness ("I Believe In A Thing Called Love"), Royal Blood ("Out Of The Black"), Biffy Clyro ("Mountains").

Three orchestral works by Ottorino Respighi are gathered here. Ballata delle gnomidi (‘The Ballad of the Gnomes’) was composed in 1920 and was inspired by a poem depicting satanic rituals, sexual abandonment and blood sacrifice. The Ballata is here framed by two later and longer works. Respighi composed Metamorphoseon in 1930, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it is in fact something of a concerto for orchestra, the 30-minute long work consisting of a theme and twelve variations or 'modes'.

François-Xavier Roth, not this time with his ‘period’ ensemble Les Siècles but with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, conducts a performance of César Franck’s Le chasseur maudit that has dramatic thrust, demonic intensity and clearly defined textural detail as well. There is a very real sense, in listening to this performance, that Roth and his orchestra have the dark narrative in their very blood, so that its frenzy, its tensions and the cursed hunter’s wild chase towards death come vividly before the mind’s eye.

Georgian composer Giya Kancheli is often pigeonholed as a "holy minimalist," blood brother to such practitioners as Arvo Pärt and John Taverner. While sharing the spiritual searchings of those two through the medium of music, Kancheli's art retains a distinctive profile, as evidenced by the two works on this stimulating disc. Simi explores the multicolored cello of Rostropovich, whose halting, otherworldly lines intersect with orchestral comments that range from sympathetic sound cushions to abrupt interruptions.