Raw Double Entry

Blue Chamber Quartet - Chick Corea: Children's Songs
SACD ISO (2.0/MCH): 2,36 GB | Full Artwork
Label/Cat#: Stockfisch Records # SFR 357.4067.2 | Country/Year: Germany 2009 | 5% Recovery Info
Genre: Jazz, Classical | Style: Contemporary Jazz, Chamber Music

"…The music works beautifully in this arrangement by group member Thomas Schindl, scored for piano, harp, vibraphone, and double bass, along with a part for guest percussionist Sven von Samson. The colorful and unusual instrumentation creates an even broader expressive palette than the piano version, and the evocative percussion atmospherics that surround some of the pieces add about 10 minutes to the total duration of the suite. The playing is delicate and spirited throughout, and the sound quality of the SACD is balanced and detailed." ~allmusicguide

Tim "Ripper" Owens, who had previously sung in a Judas Priest tribute band called British Steel, was hired in 1996 as Judas Priest's new singer. This line up released two albums, Jugulator and Demolition, as well as two live double-albums – '98 Live Meltdown and Live in London…

Midem Classique Award winner Christian Zacharias continues his survey of Mozart Piano Concertos as both performer & conductor. Featuring arguably 1 of the most famous, the A Major. MDG’s complete recording of Mozart’s piano compositions with Christian Zacharias in the double role as pianist & conductor of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra continues with KV 488, certainly the most-performed piano concerto by the great Salzburg composer, complemented here by KV 246 & KV 175, Mozart’s very 1st piano concerto.

The popular Prelude & the so-called Liebestod (“Mild und Leise”) from Richard Wagner’s music drama Tristan und Isolde are the most familiar parts orchestras play, most often in the 1859 concert arrangement by Wagner. (He preferred that the term Liebestod be applied to the Prelude only, & originally titled his concert version Liebestod und Verklärung, or “Love-death & Transfiguration.”) The featured work of this Chandos SACD is the 1994 suite arranged by Henk de Vlieger, fashioned from key parts of the entire opera, not just the beginning & end. Tristan und Isolde: An Orchestral Passion is a lengthy tone poem that includes key passages, in much the same manner as de Vlieger’s other symphonic syntheses on Der Ring des Nibelungen, Parsifal, & Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Loaded with German Romanticism & including variations on a Bach cantata, Brahms’ final symphony is a remarkable example of his mastery of symphonic composition. A rich, warm work that builds on a sense of movement & intensity right up to the final bars. This release also represents the completion of Bernard Haitink’s celebrated LSO Live Brahms cycle that has included the symphonies, Double Concerto, Tragic Overture & Serenade No 2.

The 1st & final movements of Brahms’s 3rd Symphony contain some of the most dramatic music he was to compose, yet both end serenely & enclose 2 beautiful inner movements. The equally exquisite Serenade No 2, unusually scored for wind instruments, violas, cellos & double basses, was 1 of his own personal favourites & both receive superb performances under Bernard Haitink in the 3rd part of his internationally acclaimed LSO Live Brahms cycle.