Alan Blyth

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau & Gerald Moore - Wolf: The Italian Songbook (2019) [24/96]

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau & Gerald Moore - Wolf: The Italian Songbook (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | Time - 79:19 minutes | 1.53 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front Cover

Italian songbook is a collection of 46 Lieder (songs for voice and piano) by Hugo Wolf (1860–1903). The first 22 songs (Book 1) were composed between September 1890 and December 1891, and published in 1892. The other 24 songs (Book 2) were composed between March and August 1896, and published the same year. The time lag between the two volumes was caused by Wolf's long-proposed opera, Der Corregidor (1895), which might have been inspired by his personal love triangle with his friend’s wife Melanie Köchert.
Carlo Maria Giulini, New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra - Benjamin Britten: War Requiem (2001)

Carlo Maria Giulini, New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra - Benjamin Britten: War Requiem (2001)
EAC | FLAC | Tracks (Cue & Log) ~ 348 Mb | Total time: 79:11 | Scans included
Classical | Label: BBC Music | # BBCL 4046-2 | Recorded: 1969

This performance is a revelation. Philip Reed, in his authoritative note, points out that, unbeknown to many, Britten and Giulini had a mutual respect for and an admiration of each other’s work. Here they combine to give a performance that is a true Legend, as this BBC series has it. Giulini’s reading is as dramatic and viscerally exciting as any I have heard. The music leaps from the page new-minted in his thoroughgoing, histrionically taut hands, the rhythmic tension at times quite astonishing. For instance, the sixth movement, ‘Libera me’, is simply earth-shattering in its effect, every bar, every word, every instrument sung and played to the hilt – and so it is throughout, with the live occasion added to the peculiar, and in this case peculiarly right, acoustics of the Albert Hall adding its own measure of verite to the inspired occasion.
Marc Minkowski, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala - Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem serail (2007)

Marc Minkowski, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala - Mozart: Die Entführung aus dem serail (2007)
NTSC 16:9 (720x480) | Deutsch | LinearPCM, 2 ch | Dolby AC3, 6 ch | DTS, 5 ch | 7,74 Gb (DVD9) | 138 min
Classical | Bel Air Classiques | Sub: Deutsch, Francais, English, Espanol

This lively production originated at Baden Baden in 2003 and moved to the Aix-en-Provence Festival the following year. Marc Minkowski is the moving spirit of the performance and “moving” is the right epithet, as most of his speeds are on the fast side. No harm in that when the work is so lengthy. He assembled a fine young cast, all of whom are up to their taxing parts, headed by Malin Hartelius as Konstanze, who is at once a visually attractive performer, absolutely tireless in her three arias, and at the same time projects a very moving portrayal. She is partnered by a promising young tenor in Matthias Klink as Belmonte. He is deprived of one of his arias but sings the rest with fluency and makes an eager young lover. Magali Léger is a bright-buttoned Blonde with voice to match, and her Pedrillo, Loïc Felix, is a suitable partner.
Anne Sofie von Otter, Thomas Quasthoff, Claudio Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker - Gustav Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1999)

Anne Sofie von Otter, Thomas Quasthoff, Claudio Abbado, Berliner Philharmoniker - Gustav Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1999)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 225 Mb | Total time: 57:04 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | # 459 646-2 | Recorded: 1998

A finely balanced recording places the voices in ideal relationship with the orchestra which itself is given a well-aired, clean sound (although the Amsterdam sound of 13 years ago for Bernstein is no less truthful). It supports a performance that is predictably – given the BPO/Abbado partnership – shipshape in execution, nothing in Mahler’s highly original scoring overlooked. As is customary with this conductor’s Mahler, the approach tends to be objective and disciplined. In that respect it is at the opposite pole to the concept of Bernstein who, in my favourite version among many available, is more yielding and, to my ears, more idiomatically Mahlerian in mood and in subtlety of rubato, those little lingerings that mean so much in interpreting the composer – yet Bernstein is no slower as a whole.
Otto Klemperer, New Philharmonia Orchestra - Mozart: Cosi fan tutte [2012/1971]

Otto Klemperer, New Philharmonia Orchestra - Mozart: Cosi fan tutte [2012/1971]
Classical | EMI 5099955 985222 | TT: 49.55+75.00+65.39 | EAC (FLAC, cue, log) | Covers | 842 MB

"For the sisters of Ferrara, [Klemperer] had amply voiced singers very apt for his approach. Price and Minton were then in their early prime, with warm, sappy, peaches-and-cream tone, and ideally matching each other in timbre. Their duets show as much. Price's exemplary breath-control enables her to cope with the slow speeds adopted for Fiordiligi's arias and display that sovereign gift of hers for bold, long Mozartian phrases. Minton is hardly less remarkable in that respect. Alva's diction does make Muti's point (see July, page 36) that as soon as an Italian artist comes on the scene one hears the advantage of pointed, felicitous enunciation of the text; he also sings mellifluously and with character. By 1971, Evans was already an Alfonso rather than a Guglielmo, and for all his accomplishment in the latter role one wishes he was singing the former rather than the po-faced Hans Sotin. However, Lucia Popp's vivacious, smiling Despina manages to bring Sotin to life in their important exchanges." (Alan Blyth, Gramophone)
Ferenc Fricsay, RIAS Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin - Verdi: Messa da Requiem; Rossini: Stabat Mater (1993)

Ferenc Fricsay, RIAS Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin - Verdi: Messa da Requiem; Rossini: Stabat Mater (1993)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 556 Mb | Total time: 77:40+72:02 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | # 439 684-2 | Recorded: 1954, 1960

This set, issued to mark the 75th anniversary of Fricsay's birth, dates from late 1960 when the conductor was already suffering from the disease that killed him. It was to prove to be his final performance of the piece. I don't think it's fanciful to feel in this intensely dramatic and immediate reading that the conductor fully realized his own mortality. At any rate it's an interpretation of tragic force and lyrical beauty that eclipses most of its rivals. Fricsay was here working with a choir and orchestra entirely devoted to him and, as in the Shaw performance on Telarc/Conifer such familiarity pays huge dividends in terms of unified thought. Then, the circumstances of a live occasion seem to infect everyone concerned with a feeling of urgency.
Julia Varady, Peter Schreier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Schumann: Duette (1999)

Julia Varady, Peter Schreier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Schumann: Duette (1999)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 60:38 | 258 MB
Genre: Classical, Vocal | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | Catalog: 457 915-2

…interesting, neglected material performed to perfection with texts and translations provided. Although Schumann’s duets were primarily intended for home performance around the piano, they benefit enormously from readings by such fine artists as the three taking part in this recital – recorded in 1977, but sounding as if committed to disc yesterday, so excellent is the sound, so spontaneous the singing.

Peter Schreier, Andras Schiff – Mozart: Lieder (1992)  Music

Posted by tirexiss at Aug. 27, 2018
Peter Schreier, Andras Schiff – Mozart: Lieder (1992)

Peter Schreier, Andras Schiff – Mozart: Lieder (1992)
MP3 (CBR 320 kbps) | 01:09:41 | 169 MB
Genre: Classical | Label: Decca

What is one to say except that this is another triumph for this superb partnership? For years Schreier has been known as a sovereign interpreter of Mozart's tenor roles in opera. Here he devotes all his vast experience, skill and inspiration in that field to the more intimate canvas of that composer's small but significant output of Lieder, and for each finds the ideal interpretation, in terms of tone, line and phrasing, inestimably helped by Schiff's piano, a partnership seemingly made in heaven.

Elisabeth Schumann - Silver Thread of Song (2011) (6CD Box Set)  Music

Posted by murena at Sept. 14, 2023
Elisabeth Schumann - Silver Thread of Song (2011) (6CD Box Set)

Elisabeth Schumann - Silver Thread of Song (2011) (6CD Box Set)
EAC Rip | APE (Image+.cue, log) | 6 CDs, 06:45:54 min | Scans included | 1,09 Gb
Genre: Classical, Vocal / Label: EMI

The German soprano Elisabeth Schumann was one of the finest lyric sopranos of the 20th Century. She made her professional debut in Hamburg in 1909 and died in 1952, having given her last public concert the previous year. In 1985 the eminent vocal expert Alan Blyth wrote of her: "No artist so endeared herself to her public as Elisabeth Schumann. The charm of her manner is legendary; so is the attraction of her slivery voice and outgiving style. Whether in her operatic portrayals, her Lieder or her operetta offerings, she captivated her audiences."
Placido Domingo, Waltraud Meier, Myung-Whun Chung - Saint-Saens: Samson et Dalila (1991)

Placido Domingo, Waltraud Meier, Myung-Whun Chung - Saint-Saens: Samson et Dalila (1991)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 02:03:35 | 516 MB
Genre: Classical, Opera | Label: EMI Classics| Catalog: 754470 2

This is an auspicious beginning to what one hopes will be a series of recordings of French opera made with the forces of the Bastille under Chung. Without doubt this is the most subtly and expertly conducted performance of this work to appear on CD, excellent as others have been in this respect, and also the best played and sung. Chung's achievement is to have welded the elements of pagan ruthlessness, erotic stimulation and Wagnerian harmony that comprise Saint-Saens's masterpiece into a convincing whole.