David Jalbert, Denise Djokic – Rachmaninov & Chopin: Cello Sonatas (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:20 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ATMA Classique
Canadian cellist Denise Djokic has earned world-wide acclaim for her sincere, powerful interpretations and her bold command of the instrument. For her second solo CD on ATMA, she has chosen works for cello and piano by Chopin and Rachmaninov; she is joined by her regular chamber music partner, pianist David Jalbert.
Chopin and Rachmaninov are alike in several respects: both were great pianists with high-strung temperaments, and both were Slavs who were inescapably constrained to exile by revolution. Composed early in the 20th century, Rachmaninov’s music is in many ways a continuation of Chopin’s art, as this recording demonstrates.
Read moreAlexis Weissenberg, Herbert von Karajan – Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2; Franck: Symphonic Variations (1973/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:08 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics/Erato
Charismatic pianist Alexis Weissenberg has been dubbed one of the greatest performers of twentieth century music. This refined collection features a diverse range of celebrated piano pieces from iconic composers, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky. Conductor Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra join in to bring a dramatic account of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic variations. Part of the EMI Remastered Series, the album has been revitalized with inspired dynamics and rich sonics.
Read moreAlexander Kobrin, Frédéric D’Oria-Nicolas – Héritage: Works For Two Pianos (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:23:54 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fondamenta
Frédéric D’Oria-Nicolas and Alexander Kobrin present a musical event: “Heritage”, a double album devoted to Rachmaninov’s works for two pianos. The two pianists met at Moscow’s Gnessin Academy as students of Tatiana Zelikman. In 2005, while Alexander moved to the United States and won the prestigious Van Cliburn competition, Frederic was named “Artist of the Year” by the Resmusica magazine. In 2009, they performed to a full house in a recital for two pianos at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. The recital was broadcast in 39 countries on the French television channel Mezzo.
It was then that the idea of recording Rachmaninov’s two Suites and his Symphonic Dances – the composer’s last work – was conceived. The project was designed to paint a kind of portrait of Rachmaninov through these three works for two pianos written at different times in his life, and thereby create a reflection of all his work.
Read moreRachel Sutton – A Million Conversations (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 31:07 minutes | 320 MB | Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © 33 Jazz Records
Rachel Sutton’s album is a creation of beautifully crafted original compositions and covers which is by turns achingly tender, yet sassy and seductive. Lovers meet and they part. The rejected drink and forget. And loved ones are lost forever. The rich tapestry of life runs through this album in seven captivating songs that are both haunting and uplifting. Rachel Sutton – vocals with Roland Perrin piano / Michael Curtis Ruiz bass / Paul Robinson drums and trumpeter Stuart Brooks.
Read moreRachel Podger, Jonathan Manson and Trevor Pinnock – J.PH. Rameau: Pieces de Clavecin en Concerts (2002)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:06:47 minutes | 2,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Channel Classics
One of the most striking features of Rameau’s only collection of ensemble chamber music is that it seems less a tantalising essay in what French chamber music might have yielded – had Rameau not sought the bright lights of opera – than a singularly inspired genre of musical images whose significance resides almost exclusively in its own inimitable terms. The magical elusiveness of these works, so deliberately enigmatic, encourages us to ponder the significance of titles such as ‘Le Vézinet’ (as it happens, a forested suburb of Paris with a pleasure garden). We may hear a glistening carrousel but Rameau’s aqueous imagery reflects unending shards of light to ravish our senses.
Read moreRachel Podger – Mozart & Jones: Violin Sonatas Fragment Completions (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 55:45 minutes | 1,67 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Channel Classics
Jones does himself a disservice by stating that his completions ‘inevitably disfigure’ Mozart’s music; this is something far more positive and respectful, a kind of homage paid across the centuries by a sincere and thoughtful devotee. Podger and Glynn deserve no less credit for committing themselves so completely to bringing the fruits of Jones’s scholarship off the page.
Read moreRachel Podger – Guardian Angel (2013)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:20:58 minutes | 2,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Channel Classics
Rachel Podger is one of the most creative talents to emerge in the field of period performance. This disc of solo violin music is a real mixture of some favourite pieces. This extraordinary beautiful recording is one of the finest solo Baroque violin compilations.
Read moreRachel Harnisch – Othmar Schoeck: Vom Fischer un syner Fru, Op. 43 (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 36:15 minutes | 593 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Claves Records
When Othmar Schoeck began writing Vom Fischer un syner Fru (The Fisherman and his Wife) in the summer of 1928, he happened to be on an extended stay at Werner Reinhart’s holiday house on the “Fluh” in Maur on the Greifensee lake. The Winterthur merchant Reinhart (1884–1951), who worked in the Gebrüder Volkart family business and possessed a considerable fortune, was also a patron of music.
Read moreRachel Baiman – Cycles (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 32:43 minutes | 385 MB | Genre: Folk
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signature Sounds Recordings
With her 2017 debut “Shame”, Americana songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rachel Baiman emerged as a fearless voice of the American female experience. “Shame” was featured on NPR’s “Songs We Love”, called a “Rootsy Wake-up Call” by Folk Alley, and described by Vice’s “Noisey” as “flipping off authority one song at a time.”
Read moreRachael & Vilray – Rachael & Vilray (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 35:58 minutes | 670 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch
It’s a sublime journey back to the pop gems of the 30s and 40s and inspired originals as Lake Street Dive vocalist Rachael Price joins guitarist and singer Vilray for this intimate performance. First meeting in the early 2000s at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music and bonding over a shared love of Tin Pan Alley classics, the duo revel in the era’s songs that pair sweetly melodic approaches with lingering traces of melancholy, focused on tightly meshed vocal harmonies and lyrics of love and loss.
Read moreRabbitoo – National Anthem Of Unknown Country (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 58:22 minutes | 2,38 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © naïve
A five-piece band led by guitarist and composer Motohiko Ichino that brings together musical talents from varied jazz careers, Rabbitoo are fast becoming one of the freshest and coolest bands on the Japanese scene. While all the musicians have solid jazz credentials (three have graduated from Berklee College of Music, and different members have played with the likes of Terumasa Hino, Michiyo Yagi, Peter Brotzmann and Ryosuke Hashizume), it’s also clear that this group of musicians have musical interests that go beyond jazz, with the album also embracing elements of post-rock and electronica. National Anthem Of Unknown Country is a truly impressive debut and should become one of the year’s essential releases.
Read moreRandi Tytingvåg – Three (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:35 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ACT Music
The Norwegian singer-songwriter Randi Tytingvåg has the power to light up audiences with her music. It is feel-good music in the best sense of the term, with oodles of charm. Tytingvåg’s ingredients for her music are many and varied. On her latest album she highlights in particular her singer-songwriter qualities and draws from the roots of American folk and country music.
Released on the ACT Music sub label Emotion, Three sees Tytingvåg in an acoustic string trio on a new selection of original compositions and covers (including Gillian Welch’s Hard Times and the Sera). Although rooted in jazz, Randi Tytingvåg on this album comes across with a folky, singer-songwriter vibe, her lucid vocals (mostly singing in English) perfectly suited to the slow pace of the material.
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