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Granados: Goyescas - El pelele
Javier Perianes
Classical - Released December 1, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Choc de Classica
The Goyescas of Enrique Granados are a suite of six pieces plus a seventh of similar inspiration, El pelele, that is often performed with the set (as here by pianist Javier Perianes). These are technically difficult pieces, surely among the heights of the Spanish piano repertory. The Goyescas were inspired by the art of Francisco Goya, but only two works -- the tenebrous "El amor y la muerte" and El pelele -- can be traced to specific Goya works. Both the performance by Javier Perianes and the excellent notes by Claire Fraysse illuminate why this is not the problem it might seem. Goya's paintings captured a whole milieu, forming a picture of what might be called hip Madrid society around 1800; both Goya and Granados, in Fraysse's works, were fin-de-siècle artists. Granados' pieces also have a stream-of-consciousness quality, seeming to tell a story even when the story is not there. It is this quality that is captured in Perianes' playing, which is not only technically confident but also moves forward as if animated by buried thoughts. Sample the second Goyesca, "Coloquio en la reja," which has the flavor of a conversation at the window, even if one does not know what is being talked about. If it wasn't based on an actual Goya painting, it could have been, as it were. Perianes is brilliant when he needs to be, but it is the small subtleties that put this performance across. There are plenty of performances of the Goyescas, many of them Spanish, going back to that of Alicia de Larrocha, but this one has what it takes to stand out.© James Manheim /TiVo
Enrique Granados – Goyescas
Kun-Woo Paik
Classical - Released September 18, 2022 | Universal Music Ltd.
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Granados : Goyescas
Jean-Philippe Collard
Classical - Released January 17, 2020 | La Dolce Volta
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4F de Télérama -
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Granados: Goyescas, Op. 11
Viviana Lasaracina
Classical - Released May 21, 2021 | Dynamic
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There are dozens of active recordings of Enrique Granados' masterpiece Goyescas in the catalog, and the standard one by Alicia de Larrocha is still entirely viable, but this 2021 release by pianist Viviana Lasaracina has hit the charts, and it's easy to see why. The Goyescas (Pieces Inspired by Goya) tell a little love story; Granados specified paintings for only two of the seven movements, but the work is a bit like Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. It has hints of flamenco and other Spanish folk forms, and its glittering ornamentation brings to mind Domenico Scarlatti. However, the major influence is Liszt, and it is by appreciating this that Lasaracina manages to stand out from the crowd. Her technical equipment in this score, one of the most difficult in the entire piano repertory, is superb, yet it is her way with the improvisatory quality of the music that brings it alive. Her playing is charismatic even with no physical presence of the pianist involved. Listen to the fourth goyesca, "Quejas, ó La Maja y el ruiseñor" ("Complaints, or The Girl and the Nightingale"), for a scene that will unroll before the listener's mind's eye (and bring out the relationship to the song Bésame mucho besides). Lasaracina closes the program with the Allegro concierto, Op. 46, a showpiece work that resolves the Goyescas' dreamlike atmosphere. The Dynamic label's rather closed-in studio sound doesn't fit the ambiance in which Granados, a great touring virtuoso, would have performed these pieces, but Lasaracina's precision and power come through undisturbed. An entirely absorbing recording of these pieces.
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Enrique Granados : Goyescas - Valses poeticos
Luis Fernando Perez
Classical - Released November 22, 2011 | Mirare
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Alicia de Larrocha plays Granados
Alicia de Larrocha
Classical - Released April 28, 2017 | RCA Red Seal
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Le Choix de France Musique -
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Granados: Goyescas
Alicia de Larrocha
Classical - Released January 1, 1977 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
Enrique Granados – Goyescas
Kun-Woo Paik
Classical - Released September 18, 2022 | Universal Music Ltd.
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Granados: Seis piezas sobre cantos populares españolas; Escenas Románticas; Allegro de Concierto
Alicia de Larrocha
Classical - Released March 16, 1985 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Scenes of childhood: Sleeping child
Douglas Riva
Classical - Released November 18, 2020 | Naxos
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The Stranger
Billy Joel
Pop/Rock - Released September 1, 1977 | Columbia
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Billy Joel teamed with Phil Ramone, a famed engineer who had just scored his first producing hits with Art Garfunkel's Breakaway and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years for The Stranger, his follow-up to Turnstiles. Joel still favored big, sweeping melodies, but Ramone convinced him to streamline his arrangements and clean up the production. The results aren't necessarily revelatory, since he covered so much ground on Turnstiles, but the commercialism of The Stranger is a bit of a surprise. None of his ballads have been as sweet or slick as "Just the Way You Are"; he never had created a rocker as bouncy or infectious as "Only the Good Die Young"; and the glossy production of "She's Always a Woman" disguises its latent misogynist streak. Joel balanced such radio-ready material with a series of New York vignettes, seemingly inspired by Springsteen's working-class fables and clearly intended to be the artistic centerpieces of the album. They do provide The Stranger with the feel of a concept album, yet there is no true thematic connection between the pieces, and his lyrics are often vague or mean-spirited. His lyrical shortcomings are overshadowed by his musical strengths. Even if his melodies sound more Broadway than Beatles -- the epic suite "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" feels like a show-stopping closer -- there's no denying that the melodies of each song on The Stranger are memorable, so much so that they strengthen the weaker portions of the album. Joel rarely wrote a set of songs better than those on The Stranger, nor did he often deliver an album as consistently listenable.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo
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Richard Wagner: Famous Opera Scenes
Nikolai Lugansky
Classical - Released March 8, 2024 | harmonia mundi
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It shouldn't take listeners long to get over the novelty of hearing Wagner on the piano. After all, piano transcriptions were the primary way opera, in general, and Wagner specifically, were spread around Europe in the 19th century, and the composer's primary champion in this medium was none other than the greatest pianist of the age, Franz Liszt. Liszt's own transcription of the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde is the pièce de résistance on this release by pianist Nikolai Lugansky; it is not terribly often played, and it has lost none of its imposing scope over the decades. Lugansky leads up to this with transcriptions by Louis Brassin, upon which Lugansky has elaborated, and with a quartet of transcriptions from Götterdämmerung that come from his own hand. These are quite artfully done, incorporating the familiar leitmotifs of the Ring cycle while filling them in with technically fearsome connective tissue. Lugansky has done nothing less than put the listener in the place of an audience that might have heard Liszt play Wagner in the composer's own day, and ideal sound from the small Scuola della Carità reproduces the aristocratic Paris salons where Liszt would often have held forth. A bold, fresh release from Lugansky that made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Atys
Christophe Rousset
Opera - Released January 5, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Backed by the Sun King despite a lukewarm audience reception at first, Lully's Atys (1676) went on to become one of the composer's most successful operas, with revivals at French court theaters as late as 1753. In modern times, however, it is a considerably rarer item due to the massive forces and time required. Christophe Rousset was in the pit as harpsichordist when conductor William Christie gave the first modern revival of the work in the late '80s. That experience marks this 2024 release, which made classical best-seller lists at the beginning of that year. That is not common for a hefty five-act Baroque opera, but even a bit of sampling will confirm why it happened: Rousset, from the keyboard, brings tremendous energy to the opera. He pushes the tempo in the numerous dances and entrance numbers, and the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and the singers of the Choeur du Chambre de Namur, all of whom have worked closely with Rousset in the past, keep right up. The singers in the solo roles are all fine; haut-contre Reinoud Van Mechelen in the title role and Ambroisine Bré as the goddess Cybèle, who sets the tragic plot in motion, are standouts. The sound from the increasingly engineering-expert Château de Versailles label is exceptionally clear in complex textures, and the sensuous cover art (representing, it is true, not the Roman mythological figure of Atys but Hippomène and Atalante) is a bonus. In the end, this is Rousset's Atys, and that is a very good thing.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Love Scenes
Diana Krall
Vocal Jazz - Released January 1, 1997 | Impulse!
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Vocalist/pianist Diana Krall was a very hot property by the time this Impulse CD was released. Teamed in a trio with her regular guitarist Russell Malone and bassist Christian McBride, Krall here mostly emphasizes ballads having something to do with love. She is at her best on "I Don't Know Enough About You," "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance With You," and "How Deep Is the Ocean." However, Krall's earlier Nat King Cole tribute had more variety in tempos and moods and is recommended first. A decent but not essential release.© Scott Yanow /TiVo
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Parry: Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, Blest Pair of Sirens
London Mozart Players
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released September 8, 2023 | Chandos
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Gramophone: Recording of the Month
Hubert Parry's Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, from 1880, here receives its world-recorded premiere. Perhaps recording companies thought there wouldn't be much of a market for a heavy 19th century choral work with, it must be said, a ponderous text by Percy Bysshe Shelley (Prometheus was a play intended to be read, not performed, just to give an idea). How wrong they were. This release made classical best-seller lists in the summer of 2023, and it is altogether enjoyable. At the time, Parry was under the spell of Wagner, whom he traveled to Bayreuth to meet. That influence certainly shows up in Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, with its basically declamatory text, partly through-composed music, wind-and-brass-heavy orchestration, and splashes of chromaticism. Yet what is remarkable is that the music does not come off as an imitation of Wagner at all. Rather, it uses elements of his style to match a specific kind of English literary text. The work gradually disappeared, but it would be surprising if Elgar, whom it clearly prefigures, did not know it well. The performances here are luminous, with William Vann using the lighter-than-expected London Mozart Players to create transparent textures against which he can set the substantial voices of Sarah Fox, Sarah Connolly, and other soloists. Parry did write some shorter pieces that remain in the repertory; one of these, Blest Pair of Sirens, is included here as a finale. However, the Scenes from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound are the main news here, and this performance, showing how this kind of thing should be done, may generate a new life for the work.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory
Dream Theater
Metal - Released January 1, 1999 | Atlantic Records
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The Golden Ring: Great Scenes from Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen
Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra
Classical - Released October 28, 2022 | Decca Music Group Ltd.
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Georg Solti's recording of Wagner's Ring Cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic and a galaxy of star singers, made between 1958 and 1965, has twice (by Gramophone magazine and the BBC) been called the greatest recording ever made. Among opera fans, a notoriously fractious bunch, there is, of course, debate over this, but no one considers it anything other than a stupendous engineering achievement. It is probably the only opera recording where an engineer is credited in the blurb title; Decca refers to it as the "Solti Culshaw Decca recording," in honor of original engineer John Culshaw, for whom no detail was too small to be attended. Decca is reissuing the original operas in 2022 and 2023, together with the present single-disc set of excerpts. For audiophile listeners, this will be pretty much essential, and the booklet is full of fascinating details about the sound (the Sofiensaal in Vienna, which Decca used as its studio for many years, was a former bathhouse -- the Sofienbad -- and its acoustics were due to "not just the high-vaulted ceiling of the original baths but also because the pool was covered over, creating a cavity beneath the floor and stage area"). Even after almost 65 years, these early stereo recordings sound great; the brass pop and the singers are very sharply defined. Those singers -- Kirsten Flagstad, Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Christa Ludwig, Joan Sutherland, and the list goes on and on -- still leave one wondering who is going to fill their shoes. This is a remastering from the original tapes that has sharpened the sound still further; a good deal of restoration work was done, including baking some tapes at 55 degrees Celsius. A nice touch is the reproduction of the cheesy original album art. The bottom line is that this recording is not only for audiophiles but also for anyone wanting a single-album summary of the Ring; sample the famous numbers, like the "Ride of the Valkyries," Siegfried's horn, and perhaps the final number from Götterdämmerung, which ties some of the cycle together, and one gets a glimmer of what Wagner is really all about.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Ori and the Blind Forest
Gareth Coker
Film Soundtracks - Released November 6, 2020 | Microsoft Studios Music
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Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor
David Schreurs
Pop - Released January 29, 2010 | MVKA
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Caro Emerald came out of nowhere in 2009 with the summertime hit "Back It Up," a catchy jazz-pop song with a dance beat. The follow-up single, "A Night Like This," was an even bigger hit, topping the Dutch charts. By the time Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor came around, Emerald was well established as one of the most exciting new artists to emerge from the Netherlands in some time, and her full-length album debut was eagerly awaited. It includes the smash hit singles "Back It Up" and "A Night Like This," both written by Vincent de Giorgio, David Schreurs, and Jan van Wieringen. The latter two Dutchmen are Emerald's producers. They released Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor on their Amsterdam label Grandmono Records. In addition to the pair of singles, the album includes ten new songs quite varied in style. "Just One Dance" is straight dance-pop with dashes of jazz, and "The Lipstick on His Collar" draws from both Amy Winehouse circa Back to Black (2006) and Portishead circa Dummy (1994). "The Other Woman" is another song that brings to mind Winehouse and Portishead. Other songs like "Dr. Wanna Do" go heavy on the jazz. Emerald is a talented singer and she sings in English well, but in the end, the varied jazz-pop productions and the slick dance beats are what set her apart from the crowd. Fans of the initial singles should find plenty else to enjoy on Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor, which finds Emerald trying out a number of different jazz-pop styles.© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo
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Live at Yankee Stadium
Billy Joel
Pop - Released November 4, 2022 | Columbia - Legacy
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Suppose you have a more precise idea of what you want. If you are searching for the album "Bad" by Michael Jackson, type michael jackson bad. The album in question will be displayed at the top, as it is the most relevant.
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