Post by Vaan April 30, 2014 (3731 of 4131)
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It was recorded in 2006 and 2007 and has been remastered for this release.
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Post by krisjan April 30, 2014 (3732 of 4131)
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Thanks Vaan.
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Post by Chris May 3, 2014 (3733 of 4131)
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samayoeruorandajin said:
Stenhammar!
http://www.bis.se/index.php?op=album&aID=BIS-2058
Interestingly the info about this recording starts with the same question I asked in a post here recently: Who do we in Sweden have to compare with Sibelius,Nielsen or Grieg? The answer from BIS is Stenhammar.
I don't quite agree with that conclusion.Although Stenhammar's works on this release are certainly worth hearing mainly as a comparison to the others,they also clearly show that his music,while mostly well scored,is not in the same league as any of the other three composer's music imho.
The first work, Excelsior would imho better fit the description "Vaan" ie Thomas Roth, imo wrongly gave Sebastian Fagerlund's music a few years ago "The engine is running but we are not getting anywhere" or something along those lines if I remember correctly.
Excelsior is quite well scored yes,but too full of empty repetitive string figures and equally empty bombastic percussion effects in a simple predictable meter.
This is music one could conduct without ever having heard it for long stretches.Nor does it help much that this is unfortunately once again one of those multimic'd "push and pull" at the mixing desk,not very realistic,recordings from BIS. A balance where only occasionally,during some tutti passages,one gets to to hear a more natural and realistic,zoomed out sound picture than the flat in your face,basically,airless,very close up,take of every group or instrument that happens to "carry the tune".
The second work "Mellanspel ur Sången" is,again in my personal opinion, musically more interesting and quite beautiful music. But in this recording it also suffers from rather hard and thin not very flattering,massed string tone at the few forte passages.
Or is the string section of this orchestra simply not very good?
The third and final work,Serenade is considered one of Stenhammars best works and is again well scored but can not really compete musically with mature Sibelius or Nielsen or Grieg imo.
I find it more musically interesting that Ondine has just finished their Leevi Madetoja series.Leevi Madetoja was a finnish composer who also composed in the shadow of the same giants,but whose music I find more inspired at its best,than anything at least I have heard from Stenhammar,actually.
The big plus from Ondine compared to BIS,is that Ondine as usual from that,unlike BIS,sonically very consistent label,give Leevi Madetoja's music very realistically balanced, full,rich and airy,almost three-dimensional sound in plain stereo,even via headphones,and superb playing by the Helsinki Philharmonic conducted by John Storgårds.
This 24/96 BIS recording sounds almost like an rbcd in comparison to Ondines clearly more refined sound. The difference between the recordings is really quite striking.
From Ondine one gets a realistic,believable very stable clear open and transparent soundstage of high resolution while the BIS recording mostly sounds as if it has been done by DGG,ie close,compact and apart from during a few zoomed out tutti, rather airless.
But unlike Stenhammar from BIS,the two Ondine Madetoja releases will probably never appear on SACD although originally recorded in DXD.
Once again,I am afraid,I really wish BIS would listen a bit more to the competition from the likes of Chandos,Ondine,Pentatone,and Channel Classics,to mention some other labels which imo all deliver consistently better,much more realistic stereo recordings than BIS generally does these days.
Sorry,this may not be very patriotic of me. But I am not exactly overwhelmed, neither by the music nor by the recording.
But as the saying goes,"The proof of the pudding is in the eating" so I look forward to hearing what others here may have to say about this SACD release.
Personally I would rather choose a ? than an ! for this disc.
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Either way, it's time that these two were put up on the site here.
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Post by aoqd22 May 19, 2014 (3735 of 4131)
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Congrats to BIS their BIS-1643 SACD Shostakovich Syms 1 & 15 Wigglesworth was one of the two BBC CD Review 'Discs of the week' (17 May 2014 broadcast). A great series of recordings!
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Post by Boilers May 19, 2014 (3736 of 4131)
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I agree regarding the Wrigglesworth. The No.15 extract played on the radio seemed to capture the spirit of the music. I look forward to playing it at home.
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Post by bissie July 31, 2014 (3737 of 4131)
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From Aho Theremin thread.
Fits better here and - yes - bumping the thread...
Deribas said:
Robert, BIS releases only a portion of their recordings as multichannel SACDs, the rest as RBCDs (and stereo downloads). Of the latter group, are most also recorded in multichannel, such that there will be NEW (to SACD afficionados) mch recordings once 5.0 downloads are a reality? I, for one, would jump as a chance to hear the Balys Dvarionas violin concerto with Gluzman in surround, among many others. I had attended the Dvarionas music school in Vilnius as a youth and have a lot of fondness for the composer, mostly unknown in the West.
========================================
Correct. As long as it isn't 100%, it is but a portion. However, going through last business year July 13/June 14 I count 57 new releases.
Out of these 49 were SACD:s, making it 86%.
Of the 8 "mishaps"
4 are the "towards the end" of superlong series with keyboard music by CPE Bach, where we did start with RBCD. Why change now?
1 same with the keyboard music by Albéniz
1 contractual thing
2 external productions, taken on because of interest.
So I'd say that we are pretty consistent when it comes to SACD, and the proportion is almost 100%.
No, the non-SACD:s were not recorded in Mch, which is also why we haven't released them as SACD:s, in spite of 24/96.
Robert
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Post by Deribas July 31, 2014 (3738 of 4131)
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Robert, thank you for taking the time to research your answer, though regarding the music I was asking about, it comes as a bit of a disappointment.
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bissie said:
. . . the non-SACD:s were not recorded in Mch, . . . in spite of 24/96.
Robert
A little off topic, but. . . we are going to start to see Mch downloads available from eClassical. . . soon. . . right? ;-)
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bissie said:
Robert
Well, trusting we value the merit of authenticity, photo of you is from the Patrick Jovell interview :
http://www.pianostreet.com/blog/articles/forty-years-in-perspective-the-bis-labels-pianists-5571/
Your supporters, and critics, should link through to read, not least of :
"When it comes to sound quality and dynamics, we at BIS have but one answer: whatever the composers demanded and the artists performed. We simply don’t tamper with whatever the artists are doing. That’s the only way I know how to be honest, both to the artists and to the listener. Why should the listener be presented anything that has gone through the “filter” of a recording engineer, with or without talent, when it comes to the dynamics? And, having arrived at the conclusion that this simply is not on, we can extend this to the other part of sound quality as well, like bit-rate. Previously there were technical limitations that one simply had to accept, but, with the ever-increasing speed of Internet, this no longer is so. Therefore, after looking at what the “normal” sites are offering people in the form of down-loading, especially with the sharply constricted dynamics and the tampering through compression, I decided that this is not for us, at least not without giving the public-at-large an alternative to choose from. Therefore BIS bought eClassical.com and completely rethought the principles, after which a downloading site should be run – for classical music, nota bene – and implemented the changes, all of which are devised for two purposes:
—to present the music completely unadulteredly and
—in a way that makes sense for the customer from the points of view of expeditiousness, quality, guarantee and price."
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