Everyone loves Chopin and he wrote so much instantly likable music it is hard to pick a favorite. But for me it is probably one of his less well know works, the Cello Sonata.



On CD.

Janos Starker and the Mercury crew do a great job, of course.

Great description! Tomorrow I will have time for a listen, but tonight you get an "A" for descriptive writing ✍️ Loved the Koufax line.

One more bit of Americana for the 4th.



On CD.

Those of us who were around for early digital will no doubt remember the hoopla about the "Telarc Bass Drum" and Fanfare for the Common Man one of the recordings that made it a thing. Honestly, I'm not that impressed, and if necessary could prove mathematically that even 15" woofers just aren't going to hit you as hard as the 3 foot drum head beaten with mallet. But I digress. Mostly I'm interested Appalachian Spring and Rodeo, which are concert arrangements of ballets, and just about the most fun you can have in a concert hall.

New page, next Beethoven Symphony. The Ninth. The Big Kahuna.



DSD rip from Tower Japan SACD

There are many, many great recordings of The Ninth, but for me Ferenc Fricsay runs up the score on all them with his early stereo recording, with the Berlin Philharmonic made in the early sixties. The only possible downside is the DG stereo sound is not close to what RCA or Mercury were doing at time. Even Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (of whom I am no fan) is (mostly) on his best behavior. But really Fricsay is the star of the show. The way he highlights the woodwind parts in the ethereal first movement (which a lot times just sounds like a warm up exercise) to the absolute precision of rhythm and articulation in the 2nd to the way he coaxes the last measure of unutterable beauty from the slow movement, to the heroic finale which becomes a runaway freight train in the very best possible way.

There are a lot of really cool things about Beethoven, including that the very first chord of his first symphony is a dissonance. And the last 20 seconds of his last symphony, after the magnificent setting of Schiller's Hymn to a joyous  vision of humanity, is a bit of a shambles. Like Beethoven is saying there are no easy answers and even in the best case things are going to be a little messy. YMMV.