This Is Awkward

The series of Janacek's operas conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras for Decca has become one of the most exciting gramophone projects of the day, with each issue a major event. The new digital recording of the last opera he composed, From the House of the Dead, is no exception: indeed, for reasons that lie beyond the excellence of performance and recording, and also lie apart from the fact that here is the first version to appear for nearly eight years, this is an historic occasion, a significant contribution to musical knowledge.

The disc under review here is the fourth in a series, called ‘The Stradella Project’. I don't know which parts of Stradella's oeuvre will be included in this project. He was a prolific composer, and his extant output comprises music for the stage, liturgical and non-liturgical sacred music, madrigals and cantatas. It also includes six oratorios, and two of them were the subject of volumes 2 and 3. I am sure that the two best-known oratorios, San Giovanni Battista and Susanna, will be recorded at a later stage. As these are available in several performances, it was a good idea to start with those oratorios which are seldom performed. That also goes for Santa Pelagia.

David Bowie - Never Let Me Down
Release: 1987 | Label: Disky | Number: VI 795622
Genre: Pop/Rock, Rock | Mono/Stereo: 2 Channel
EAC Rip | Included: EAC Log + CUE + Flac + Full Covers (300dpi)
Size: 376 MB | RAR 3% Rec. | RS.com

David Bowie has claimed that Never Let Me Down is one of the worst albums of this career. He has claimed that he went into the studio for this album without really knowing why he was doing it, nor really caring that much about how it turned out. Indeed, the eventual realization that he was simply "going through the motions" on this project caused him to form Tin Machine, keep Tin Machine together much longer than he should have, and refrain from releasing another solo album until 1993's Black Tie White Noise.

June 8, 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of robert Schumann, one of the most important romantic composers of the 19th century. To celebrate his vast and impressive output, Deutsche Grammophon and Decca have compiled this 35-CD box set of his most important masterworks. Though this is not a complete edition, it includes every major work and a number of rarities covering every aspect of Schumann’s output.