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I have been looking forward to an SACD of Music of the Spheres for a long time.
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Windsurfer said:
I have been looking forward to an SACD of Music of the Spheres for a long time.
Langgaard's Sfaerernes musik (Music of the Spheres) was written during the period 1916-18. I have a Danacord LP of it with the Symphony #6. I played the "Sfaerernes musik" frequently - not so much the symphony. It would seem Langgaard experimented rather boldly with this work. "When Gyorgy Ligeti saw the score for Music of the Spheres he commented that he had discovered that all along he had been a 'Langgaard imitator'!" (excerpted from Rob Barnett's review of an earlier Chandos recording:)
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/apr00/langgaard.htm
Yet I wouldn't associate this work with what little I know of Ligeti. The above mentions Mahler but to me this does not sound like Mahler.
It is effectively atmospheric as a sound picture, depicting, one supposes, the composer's dreams of worlds and space beyond our own. I find it effective and moving. Barnett finds it "mystically rich" and I would say it is eerily so.
I have found mixed success with Dacapo SACDs. I have the entire set of Langgaard Symphonies. I hope this one proves the equal of Channel, PentaTone, Chandos, and the better examples from BIS. Standing apart from the rest of Langgaard's oeuvre, this music deserves the finest sound.
The admittedly clever cover photo hardly expresses my feelings and thoughts about this music.
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Post by Chris June 3, 2010 (3 of 23)
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Windsurfer said:
Langgaard's Sfaerernes musik (Music of the Spheres) was written during the period 1916-18.
I have found mixed success with Danacord SACDs. I hope this one proves the equal of Channel, PentaTone, Chandos, and the better examples from BIS. This music deserves the finest sound.
Out of curiousity after hearing most of his symphonies as downloads from Dacapo, I have added the Music of the Spheres to my wishlist.
But since they record in PCM anyway, I see little reason to buy the SACD.
I will wait for the HI RES download instead.
IMHO, their download of Rasmussen´s Oceanic Days and his Saxophone concerto compares favourably with the SACD.
With recording dates over several years for the Langaard set ,the sound is still surprisingly consistent and never less than good.
And I agree more with Gonzostick than Flanagan in their respective reviews of the symphonies.
After repeated hearings there is quite a lot to like about Langaard´s admittedly conservative and not exactly Avant Garde style.
But if you ignore when the music was actually composed,they are definitely appealing and easy listening " late romantic style" symphonies worth discovering.
Ok I got them at super bargain price before they discovered that they had priced the whole set as one single download.
20€!
The price now is 80€!
To be quite honest I would probably not have downloaded them at the current price.
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Chris said:
But since they record in PCM anyway, I see little reason to buy the SACD.
Are these downloads available in the 5.0 multi-channel format?
What does one need to add to one's multi-channel system to use multi-channel downloads?
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Post by Chris June 3, 2010 (5 of 23)
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Windsurfer said:
Are these downloads available in the 5.0 multi-channel format?
What does one need to add to one's multi-channel system to use multi-channel downloads?
Sorry , as far as I know they are so far only available in Stereo.
I don´t really know what you need to play downloads in MCH.
I do most of my music listening via Headphones anyway.
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Post by Claude June 3, 2010 (7 of 23)
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Since there are now more and more PCs capable of playing Blu-ray discs and outputting lossless multichannel sound through HDMI, that would be the obvious solution for playing multichannel downloads, without having to burn them to a DVD-A.
Streaming clients could also be adapted for multichannel playback in the future.
But for the moment, multichannel hi-rez downloads are still too large to be convenient and replace SACDs.
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Post by Vaan August 6, 2010 (8 of 23)
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What can one say about The Music of the Spheres? It came from nowhere and left nothing behind. It is a totally unique piece of music, nothing sounds like it. And it was written in 1916-18! I wonder how 20th century music would have evolved if people like Stravinsky, Schoenberg or Bartok had heard it. Yes, it is that special and if you haven´t heard you are in for a bit of a surprise, to say the least.
This new Dausgaard recording is marvellous. At first I thought that the timpani was a bit loud, but after digging out my full score I saw that Dausgaard was right. The recorded sound is terrific with a wide dynamic range. It sounds far better than the symphonies, with more impact. A mandatory purchase! And if you are lucky enough to be in London on August 11th it will be performed at the Proms in Royal Albert Hall.
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The cover has nothing to do with the music.
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Post by krisjan August 6, 2010 (10 of 23)
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LOL!
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