How does a medieval Bavarian town of 70,000 have an orchestra this good?

It doesn’t hurt that one of the great maestros, Herbert Blomstedt (92 this month), is on the podium. Blomstedt is the Honorary Conductor of the Bamberger Symphoniker. For the past few years, Blomstedt has been busy conducting in Berlin, Dresden, a few miles south of Bamberg in Munich, and other major musical centres. So, good for Bamberg that they keep enticing the great man back to what is a provincial German town.

The orchestra, formed shortly after the war in 1946, was originally made up of Czech expatriates. Many believe Bohemian style cultivates a unique sound to this day. I’m not sure about that. The players sound to me of international standard and must be living an idyllic life in a beautiful Bavarian town where they make music and teach. Nice, if you can get it.

The wonderful Toronto Symphony Orchestra is in another Golden Age, built from near bankruptcy 20 years ago by a talented backroom team, superb hires and a brilliant orchestral trainer in Peter Oundjian. Oundjian hired almost half the orchestra present on this recording. He was an inspired choice at the time when it was more of an Iron Age than Golden in The Big Smoke.

Replacing Oundjian is the recently appointed Spaniard Gustavo Gimeno. He was a Concertgebouw section percussionist who jumped into conducting quite late and is enjoying a very fast upward trajectory via Luxembourg and now the plum TSO gig.

Renée Fleming is a glorious singer of lieder, showcased here in a 2019 CD release of Romantic and late Romantic art songs. Works by Brahms, Schumann and Mahler are included, with the latter represented by his ‘Rückert-Lieder’ in the orchestral version. The Brahms and Schumann songs are accompanied by pianist Hartmut Höll. His playing, and the Münchner Philharmoniker conducted by the very musical Christian Thielemann are spectacular.

In conjunction with a stellar recording by Decca—I’m hard pressed to think of a recent recording with a better piano tone—Fleming in mainstream repertoire is pretty hard to beat.

Just as Rossini had accomplished with his brilliant String Sonatas twenty years earlier, Mendelssohn, too, was absurdly young when writing his wonderful String Symphonies (1821–3).

The repertoire was hitherto unknown to me. The music is charming and belies the youthful years in which they were composed.

There are 12 string symphonies, and record label cpo (based in my old stomping grounds of Osnabrück, Germany) has spread them over three volumes. I’m late to the party with Vol. 3. No matter when the music is performed and recorded so brilliantly. And I have no reason to think the other two volumes are at least as good. So, fans of Mendelssohn and beautiful string music, grab Vol. 1, 2 or all three.

Last month, I received a very pleasant email from Parisian-born, Manhattan-based tenor sax player Jerome Sabbagh asking if Audiophilia would be interested reviewing his latest release on vinyl. If it’s jazz, blues or classical vinyl, I’m usually a hard yes. No Filter is a collaborative project with guitarist Greg Tuohey (songs are original and about 50/50 on the record between Sabbagh and Tuohey) with bassist Joe Martin and Kush Abadey on drums.

I received the album promptly and scheduled it for some late night listening and a full review session the following day. The album had me at late night. And while this wonderful record was playing, I checked out the back cover. I discovered some serious vinyl and analog shenanigans going on. The LP was recorded live to 1/2 inch, two track analog tape at 30” per second and was mastered and cut by no less than the master himself, Bernie Grundman. The quality shows in the artwork, the gentle and tactile recording quality and the mastery of the performances from all four players (no edits or overdubs on the album).

I have been a long time fan of Claudio Abbado’s Brahms since my father bought me an early Abbado DG Brahms LP in 1972 (Serenade No. 2; Academic Festival Overture). Grade 8 in Canadian School years. I was never a fan of the Serenade, but Abbado’s Academic was stunning and sounded as such with Karajan’s remarkable band. This new Esoteric release is a remaster of the late 80s, early 90s DG Brahms set recorded at the beginning of Abbado’s reign with the Philharmoniker.

I never owned this particular set, but I very much admire anything Abbado conducted in those days with the LSO, Boston, Chicago, Vienna or Berlin. Such a consistent standard with five great orchestras over a large repertoire. His consistency can be found in this re release through all four symphonies and sundry orchestral works.

For those of you not familiar with vinyl Direct to Disc technology, think of it as cutting out the recorded medium middle man. New to me Berliner Meister Schallplatten explains the process as:

The recording is made onto a lacquer disc. With a galvanic process this lacquer disc is turned into an extrusion die. Every vinyl disc is thus an original copy of this recording. Because lacquer discs and extrusion dies are destroyed or worn out during the manufacturing and multiplication process, the pressed vinyl discs are ultimately the best possible reproductions of a direct-to-disc recording.

Lacking a storage process on tape or as a computer file, there are very short and direct signal routes. The instruments' sound waves are transformed into electrical oscillations by microphones, and cut into a groove on the lacquer disc by the cutting stylus directly and without any delay. Direct-to-disc recordings do without digitizing the music, and also without a lossy storage on analogue tape.

I usually write music reviews, especially classical, with my classically-trained hat on, commenting on performance, interpretation, comparables, etc. My audiophile nature kicks in at times and posts commentary in each review, for sure, but the main event is always the music.

For this review, it’ll be primarily about the sound.

What is the lover of classical music, Brahms, von Karajan, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and especially of reissue vinyl, getting from yet another version of their legendary performances? Karajan’s Brahms cycle was released originally on vinyl by Deutsche Grammophon in 1964. There were variations/pressings of the vinyl, both individually and in box sets, then on DG CD, followed by lots of different releases in that form. More recently, streaming, and now the limited edition vinyl reissue.

Seong-Jin Cho is the young Korean phenom who won the XVII International Chopin Piano Competition in 2015, joining such winning luminaries as Martha Argerich, Maurizio Pollini and Krystian Zimerman. A healthy ratio of winners of this particular competition go on to renown and legendary status.

Even though the 2015 competition was filled with very gifted pianists, Cho was the jury and audience favourite. He’s a very refined musician with a wonderful aesthetic and great technique. A worthy winner.

Recordings of The Nutcracker usually come thick and fast around the holidays. Orchestras and ballet companies have made fortunes performing the perennially wonderful music and telling the story. If only Tchaikovsky knew? And, what about Disney?

I usually bin the idea of listening to the ‘Suite’, be it Nutcracker or Firebird—both Russian fairy tales sound much better in their original, ‘full’ guise. As for ‘Suites’, composers and publishers like to cover every financial angle, Stravinsky, especially! As for The Nutcracker, there is so much glorious music in the full ballet, it’s the way I think it should be enjoyed. If you must have the Suite, The Royal Ballet Gala on RCA vinyl or Rostropovich/Berlin/DG on CD are the way to go.

As chosen by Audiophilia's Publisher,  Anthony Kershaw. 

Images link to Audiophilia review for your information. 

Available at most online sites. Reviews have to be published in Audiophilia during 2017 and the recording released internationally in 2017. Media and label noted under the image.

If you visit the top vinyl sales websites such as Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds among others, the quality vinyl lists are fairly similar. All the familiar suspects—RCA, Lyrita, EMI, Mercury, Blue Note, Argo, Decca—populate the must haves. And many fabulous reissues also are cross referenced (Testament, Speakers Corner, Classic Records, etc). 

I’ve been reviewing lots of cartridges and phono stages lately and have been deep diving into my vinyl collection to add a little spice to the reviewing process. 

I began the subject of this list in Vol 1 and continued with Vol 2 with individual record releases. We’ll continue with box sets that may or may not be famous, but should be in any audiophile’s collection.

If you visit the top vinyl sales websites such as Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds among others, the quality vinyl lists are fairly similar. All the familiar suspects—RCAs, Lyritas, EMIs, Mercurys, Blue Notes, Argos, Deccas—populate the must haves. And many fabulous reissues also are cross referenced (Testament, Speakers Corner, Classic Records, etc). 

I’ve been reviewing lots of cartridges and phono stages lately and have been deep diving into my vinyl collection to add a little spice to the reviewing process. 

I began the subject of this list in Vol 1.

I began this review period disliking much of what I heard from the first, casual run through of this new set of Brahms Symphonies by Daniel Barenboim and his Staatskapelle Berlin. My ears were perked, but the style was not what I was used to.  

A few weeks later, with many cycles heard under my belt, I felt far more comfortable with Barenboim’s very Romantic and 'urtext'  approach.  

Some of my initial reservations were clouded by my reverence for the Brahms of Karajan and Joachim—full bodied and played with a Ferrari orchestra, the Berlin Phil.