Those who have travelled with me through my notes on recent finds know that I have eclectic taste in music. I enjoy almost anything acoustic that is well performed and well recorded. Unfortunately, this also means that you have to scan through the album covers to see if there may be anything that aligns with your interests. In this issue, I'm particularly eclectic—bouncing from improvisational jazz with the new recording label ADS, to classical orchestral and choral from Pentatone, to classical solo piano and then Latin popular songs from Hunnia Records, to Baroque violin, theorbo, bass viol and harpsichord from Ricercar, to Italian pop from Fonè. Be careful, you might slip into something totally unknown that you find you really like.
Invisible Cities: Part One, André Mehmari and Sergio Reze, ADS 2025 (176.4k) (stereo, 5.1, 9.1 discrete, 7.1 Dolby Atmos) HERE
I received an email a week or so ago from Gustavo Cândido who very graciously introduces himself: "I'm a recording producer, balance engineer and founder of a label dedicated to producing independent music in immersive high-definition formats."
Intrigued, I read on.
Turns out, his record label is the new label I'd noted on the NativeDSD website named ADS. I have intended to explore their one offering by pianist André Mehmari, but had not yet done so. Gustavo was writing to tell me of their second release, so now I have two albums from ADS and pianist André Mehmari to which I've been listening this past week. I'll tell you about the first one, Short Stories Without Words, in a review following this.
Gustavo's passion as a recording engineer is supreme high fidelity, using the best equipment, cables, microphones and recording technique he can assemble and apply to the project.* He applies minimal processing, and as short a recording chain from microphones to recording appliance as possible. He explains, "I keep the signal path as short and clean as possible, preserving the purity of the sound from recording to mastering... I avoid any processing that could alter the sound or compromise the qualities captured during the recording. Therefore, there is no energy summing, channel doubling, dynamic processing, or equalization." In the case of this album, he acknowledges adding a bit of reverb "to extend the natural reverberation tail that the recording room already possessed." (Ah well, this is his sonic creation, after all.)
The other important factor for Gustavo is the recording venue. For this album, he says "The recording room is a spacious area with a lively and natural acoustic (as seen in the attached photos), featuring excellent sonic characteristics. The musicians were positioned around the main microphone array (see photo), aiming to create a three-dimensional image of the musical performance, giving the listener the sensation of being inside the scene or the recording room.
Recording session photo with André Mehmari (piano) and Sergio Reze (percussion).
The dizzying array of microphones is to capture the full immersive listening experience that Gustavo wants to deliver to listeners: immersive discrete 5.0.4 format, Dolby Atmos 5.0.4 format, Auro-3D 5.0.4 format, Surround 5.0 format (all formats with empty LFE channels). All of which are available at NativeDSD via the link above.
Now, I cannot speak to anything related to multi-channel, surround, or immersive listening. I listen only to 2-channel. So that is the format to which I listened. But Gustavo may be a recording engineer after your heart if you are into surround sound.
And, listening to the stereo release of this album, I am quite impressed with the quality of the recording. Well done!
But more importantly, I am impressed with the musicianship here. This is improvisational jazz by two artists who have performed together on stage for over 30 years. Their knowledge of each other is immediately apparent in the interchange of ideas. Yet significantly, it does not sound stale, it does not sound simply a warm re-tread. Instead, the music sound refreshingly immediate, of the moment.
Andre writes, "Sergio Reze is my oldest and most constant musical partner. Our numerous collaborations over thirty years, both on albums and on stage, are a testament to this... In Invisible Cities, we explore our affinities through spontaneous creations that emerge from the meeting of our conceptions and sounds. In each of these 'Cities,' we imagined and created a musical microcosm without rehearsals...Throughout the album, recorded in a single day and without edits, a varied range of musical emotions is revealed to the listener through a fluent and relaxed dialogue."
It is this "fluent and relaxed dialogue" that I find so compelling about this album. When combined with the exceptionally clean and transparent recorded sound, the music simply flows and envelops me as a listener.
I look forward to the coming release of Part Two from this recording collaboration.
Short Stories Without Words, Vol. 1, André Mehmari. ADS 2024 (176.4k) HERE (or as a bundle with both Vol. 1 & 2 HERE)
This album was released by ADS in 2024 and is available only in the more traditional stereo and 5 channel surround iterations. If you are a fan of immersive surround, see the review above about ADS's second release with André Mehmari, Invisible Cities: Part One. For some background about ADS' founder and recording engineer, Gustavo Cândido, you can read the review above. I very much like the recording philosophy he espouses and will be watching for his next projects.
We all have listening biases. Mine lead me to prefer the solo piano improvisational jazz performances. And this solo recital by André Mehmari, Short Stories Without Words, is just phenomenal. The musical ideas are consistently creative, evocative, and engaging. And Mehmari's playing technique is equally superb: flowing, precise, expressive. I am listening for the third time as I write this, and yet I keep finding my thoughts pulled away to just luxuriate in the music he is creating. His creativity is staggering.
Gustavo tells us that Mehmari recorded this entirely in a single session, practically without breaks between takes, without edits or cuts. And out of that single session comes two complete volumes of music. Of the session, Mehmari writes, "The flow of musical consciousness generates a narrative of sounds, textures, and ideas. Here, I present these little stories in solo piano, wordless tales that unfold through sounds. The improvisations are presented in this album in alphabetical order, without editing or cutting. The names given to each one were thought up by me and defined a posteriori, without having any influence on the act of spontaneous creation."
It is creation at the highest level. And completely delightful. Most highly recommended.
Smetana, Má Vlast (My Homeland), Semyon Bychkov, Czech Philharmonic. Pentatone 2024 (96k) HERE Edit Master Sourced*
We so frequently hear The Moldau played that many listeners may not realize that this famous work is actually just the second movement of Smetana's masterwork, Má Vlast (My Homeland). There are many good performances of Má Vlast, so I am not offering this as the best. But it is good. And it has that special flavor that only a Czech orchestra will bring to the music.
I've recently become quite fond of performances by Semyon Bychkov and his Czech compatriots. Of the recordings by Bychkov to which I've now listened, I've yet to be disappointed by the musicianship. And quite a few, like this one, rise to quite a high level of excellence. I have absolutely no quibbles about the choices he's made in presenting this music. And the playing of the Czech Philharmonic is exceptionally enjoyable, with great ensemble, supple timing, a piquant flavoring, and nice brass (always important to this music).
Truly, my only quibble with this album is that the sound quality could have been even better if they'd just move beyond the recording engineers being stuck at 96kHz recording resolution. NativeDSD's "Higher Rates Program," working from the edit master file, does a nice job of giving us a bit more resolution. But it still can't overcome the subtle lack of transparency and slight congestion in the original file. I kept thinking throughout my listening to this: "wouldn't this have been nice if..." Ah, well. Come on, Pentatone!
Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov
Bartók Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Karina Canellakis. Pentatone 2025 (192k, DSD64) HERE
I have been seeking out recordings by conductor Karina Canellakis ever since I heard her Bartók Concerto for Orchestra a couple years ago (you can read my review HERE). Her performances bring a new, fresh, and thoughtful perspective to each work I've heard her conduct. Now in her fifth year as the chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Canellakis brings us a dazzling new performance of Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle.
Mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham as Judith and bass-baritone Gabor Bretz as Duke Bluebeard fully inhabit their roles, bringing exceptional degrees of emotional drama and character. They create the suspense and intense emotion needed to pull off this work. After performing Bluebeard's Castle many times with various orchestras over the past several years, they clearly have these roles fully under their mastery. Sung in the original Hungarian, with excellent translation in the digital booklet, the overall impact is quite transfixing. Not speaking Hungarian, I easily followed the English text, but then found myself totally pulled in by the sounds of the singing and the orchestra, completely loosing myself in enjoyment of the music.
Karina Canellakis and her orchestra are full partners with their vocalists. And it clearly is her orchestra at this stage, fully and flexibly responding to each supple twist and turn Canellakis asks of them. The entire performance is filled with energy, power, and tension. Yet in the quieter segments, Canellakis dials back the tension to create a contrast of ease and beauty that makes the darker segments all the more terrifyingly powerful. And the final conclusion all the more filled with pathos.
The recording is brilliantly engineered—with Bretz and Shaham given exceptional clarity, while balanced nicely in the same acoustic space as the orchestra. Pentatone's recording and balance engineer, Everett Porter, nicely avoids the plague of disembodied voices disconnected from the orchestra in a misguided effort to gain definition. Instead, we have an excellent and natural sound stage evoking the sense of the live performance.
Hidden Voices (Mozart works for solo piano) Volumes IV, V & VI, Gil Sullivan. Hunnia Records 2024 (Pure DSD256) HERE and HERE or as a bundle HERE Edit Master Sourced*
I very much enjoy Australian pianist Gil Sullivan's approach to Mozart's piano works. And I'm delighted to see that he has continued his cycle with Volumes IV, V, and VI, all in Pure DSD256.
As I said in my earlier review of Volumes I and III (HERE and HERE), Sullivan is not into delicate, tinkly, prancing, tunes. He has something to say and he thinks Mozart does, too—he plays accordingly. Playing on a Model D Steinway grand piano, he fully utilizes the dynamic capabilities of the modern instrument. His performances are colorful and dynamic. Not everyone may like this style of playing, and that's okay. We're entitled to our preferences in choosing what to listen to. But I, for one, most decidedly do like the the very direct and powerful style in which Sullivan plays these works.
Says Sullivan in one of the booklets accompanying this series, "The way we hear Mozart nowadays has become such a cliché...The sweet, pretty, right-handed (where everything in the left hand is nothing more than a mere accompaniment) playing, with all those competition fingers smoothly & effortlessly ironing out all Mozart's eccentricities, has become the norm, where repeated phrases and whole sections are always played exactly the same way! ...In this cycle of the complete Mozart Piano Sonatas, I have—in some small way—tried to strip back all the Botox, the lip gloss, the false eyelashes, the mascara and makeup, and—though admittedly on a modern Steinway—get back to Mozart in the raw!"
And I love this series for that bold reassertion of Mozart the mold breaker, the iconoclast.
Sullivan calls this series "Hidden Voices" because he finds in Mozart's compositions a subterranean level of chromatic voices and harmonies that are elided by most performers who, instead, skate along the surface of Mozart's melodies. Mozart was ever challenging his audiences, to the point that even his father is said to have complained of "excessive demands made on his listeners." And this is what Sullivan sets out to do this this series. Bring forth the performer that was Mozart—the creative genius who challenged his audiences.
As in prior releases of this series, these performances were recorded and released in Pure DSD256, without any PCM processing.
Gil Sullivan, portrait
Retro Latin Songs, Patricio Baeza. Hunnia Records 2025 (Pure DSD256) HERE Edit Master Sourced*
One thing I enjoy about exploring the Hunnia Records catalog is the diversity of musical genres and artists. Unlike other labels, with Hunnia you never know what you might find, and the exploration is always worthwhile because the sound quality of their releases is consistently superb. If you are a sound junkie, like me, you can truly indulge your auditory senses. Robert Zoltán Hunka, the label's founder, says "The most important thing to me is the feeling of joy that is brought about by the quality of recorded sound. Sometimes, the music that is being played becomes secondary." But, when the excellence of the music and the excellence of the sound quality coincide, magic happens.
This album is a case in point. I doubt I would have ever sought out this album. But I am so glad I happened upon it and pulled it down for audition. It's great! Simply voice and guitar, but very well performed and in superb sound quality. I enjoyed every moment of it, and in my first listen I played it all the way through—no stops.
Patricio Baeza Barrera was born in Chile. He came to Hungary with his family in 1975, when he was twelve years old, and has lived in Hungary ever since. Yet a formative trip back to Chile in 1988 into contact with with the local music culture. He was most influenced by the Chilean folk musician Osvaldo Alvear, and it was from him that he learned most about Chilean and Latin American folk music. This is the music that has been one of the main inspirations for his compositions ever since.
The songs on this album are a mix of popular music classics. Patricio sings and accompanies himself on guitar and, occasionally, harmonica. The songs have the flavor of folk music, but are of Latin popular music origin, such as the 1961 Cuando calienta el Sol originally written by Rafael Gastón Pérez but credited here to a cover by Antonio Prieto.
Recorded very simply with two Neumann M-149 Tube microphones, Patricio's solo performance (vocals, guitar, and harmonica) is a lively, heartfelt, and totally engaging 23:27 minutes of great entertainment. Yes, the album is short in duration, but it is long on great performance and outstandingly realistic sound quality. I was left wishing for more. Get Patricio back in the studio!
In sum, Hunnia Records has given us a delightful treat in this release. Highly recommended
Marin Marais, Sonnerie de Sainte-Geneviève du Mont, The Scale Knitters. Ricercar 2025 (192k) HERE Edit Master Sourced*
The 18th Century composer Marin Marais is most frequently associated with his massive opus of works for solo viol. These are not that. Refreshingly, the works on this album are from a later publication by Marais of works that use both the violin and the viol. Ah, such a relief, I hear some of you sigh. Well, me too. I was delighted to find that The Scale Knitters have given us variety very different from the collections for viols. Included here are different styles of music (imagine!). We even have a sonata a sonata inspired by Italian models, a piece on a three note basso ostinato that evokes the peals of bells in a Parisian church, and an astonishing piece that Marais described as an example of a small opera for instruments.
And the instruments played by The Scale Kittens offer a nice variety of textures as well. In addition to a bass viols, we have a violin, a theorbo, and a harpsichord!
As the enclosed booklet says of Maris, "What on earth could have gotten into him? Although he was the undisputed master of the viol, and, in a way, the standard-bearer of the Pièces de viole—the most characteristically French form of chamber music—how was it that Marin Marais could then devote an entire volume to the violin, that quintessentially Italian instrument?" And quite an unusual collection this is, indeed. For here, the violin is given primacy over all other. Marais treats it as a true virtuoso instrument, given music that can only be performed by a very proficient musician with both in technical mastery and the emotion to make the violin not only sing but also converse with the viol. Truly, this is quite a change from the Pièces de viole.
But, all kidding aside, this is a delightful recital and a delightful recording. Just listen to the playful interaction of instruments in the fourth movement of La Gamme en forme de petit Opéra, track 4. The sound quality is very good, perhaps a bit close for my tastes and a bit lacking in hall ambience, but overall very enjoyable. The growl of the two bass viols is simply delicious with their resonant gut strings.
Leggera, Musica Nuda. Fonè 2017 2024 (DSD64) HERE
The duo Musica Nuda is made up of Petra Magoni (vocals) and Ferruccio Spinetti (double bass). Their music is consistently varied but largely centered on popular song of the romantic persuasion. As you might guess, the songs are sung in Italian. I don't attempt to follow a translation. I just enjoy the music, the sound of Petra Magoni's voice, and Ferruccio Spinetti's excellent double bass. Its a trip. I suspect knowing the words might destroy my fascination with their albums.
As many listeners, I suppose, I find Petra Magoni's voice magnificent. Not in a grand operatic way, but in a pert, precise, highly articulate, and punctuated way. Hers is a pure and clear voice that just makes you happy to hear it. And Ferruccio Spinetti's double bass playing complements her so well as the two seamlessly collaborate.
Recorded originally to analog tape by various recording and mixing engineers, the mastering for this release in DSD was done by Fonè founder Giulio Cesare Ricci using his analog and tubes system. This release was created by transferring the analog tape from an Ampex ATR 102 (2 tracks, 1/2 inch, 30ips) into a dCS A/D Converter to DSD. As with most Fonè recordings, the sound quality Sr. Ricci achieves in mastering the album is transparent, gloriously analog, and sumptuously detailed. Might I wish he transferred the analog tapes to DSD256 instead of DSD64? Sure. I've wished for this for years. Maybe someday we will be so fortunate. In the meantime, don't pass on this album. It is delightful. And if you would like to explore further, consider any of Musica Nuda's other albums also available at NativeDSD:
Other Musica Nuda albums from Fonè: Little Wonder; Musica Nuda self-titled; Verso Sud.
Dvorák Stabat Mater, Marek Janowski conducting Dresdner Philharmonie, with Hanna-Elisabeth Muller, Roxana Constantinescu, Christian Elsner, Tareq Nazmi, and MDR Leipzig Radio Choir. Pentatone 2025 (DXD, DSD256) HERE Edit Master Sourced*
This powerful, emotionally draining, superbly delivered performance of Dvorák's Stabat Mater was recorded live on February 13, 2024 at Kulturpalast Dresden, Germany, on the commemoration day of the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. What a fitting remembrance day concert this was. If you will have just one performance of the Dvorák Stabat Mater, this is the one.
Composers over the centuries have created various iterations of Stabat Mater, 13th-century Christian hymn to the Virgin Mary that portrays her suffering as a mother during the crucifixion of her son. Very fittingly, the cover of this album shows a picture of the Pietà statue by Emanuel Max located on the Charles Bridge in Prague, the city where Dvorák's Stabat Mater was premiered on 23 December 1880 and where the composer lived for many years until his death in 1904.
The title comes from the hymn's first line, Stabat Mater dolorosa, translated as "the sorrowful mother was standing" or "stood the mournful mother." Whether one is a person of faith or not, this music has emotional impact at a very human level—the suffering of a mother on the death of her child. The text of the hymn reads in part:
At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother
weeping,
close to Jesus to the last:
Through her heart, his sorrow
sharing,
all his bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has
pass'd...
Is there one who would not
weep,
whelm'd in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?
Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?
Powerful is this—no matter what one's faith or cultural background. Yes, additional verses delve deeply into the Christian mysteries of faith, but there is such an utterly human element to the suffering described, and the longing expressed, that I think we can all feel this. And the music Dvorák crafts to carry this emotional content is as powerful and moving as any in our Western musical tradition.
Dvorák first began creating sketches based on the "Stabat Mater" in the spring of 1876. The death of his new-born daughter just the past September may have influenced his choice of subject, but there is no definitive evidence of this. What is known is that he finished his sketches in 1877 following the deaths of two additional children, one to food poisoning and the other to smallpox, within a month of each other. Certainly enough emotional trauma to lead to the completion of this work.
Cast in the form of an oratorio, much like Händel's Messiah, this is a large work for orchestra, chorus, and soloists. At nearly an hour and twenty minutes, the work is substantial—larger than most other treatments of the "Stabat Mater" that preceded his efforts.
Countless settings of the "Stabat Mater" exist, with notable works by Josquin Desprez (around 1480, the earliest known polyphonic composition), Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso in the 16th century. New treatments continued through works by Pergolesi, Haydn, Boccherini, Rossini, Schubert, Liszt, and Verdi. And there continued to be later works by Charles Villiers Stanford (1907), Karol Szymanowski (1925-26), Francis Poulenc (1950), Arvo Pärt (1985), James MacMillan (2015), just to mention a few out of over two dozen.
Some are shorter, some are longer, but few match the scale of Dvorák's conception of the work. Nor the subtle expression of tenderness as much as pain. Pergolesi's may be more beautiful, Haydn's perhaps more sublime scoring for the vocalists, Szymanowski's perhaps more rawly powerful, MacMillan's perhaps more intensely personal. But Dvorák's, in my opinion, stands at a very high point for all these characteristics combined in a single conception of the work. The author of the liner notes aptly comments about Dvorák's creation, "In ten movements, the work envelops a cathartic process from anguished lament to comfort and hope, culminating in a certainty of faith. The compelling musical images draw their contrasts primarily from the majestic, austere overall architecture. While the catharsis progresses systematically, the work as a whole rests in a symmetrical structure."
Whether one has faith, the culmination can be felt as a triumph of human spirit. It is dramatic, empowering, and liberating.
This performance by Marek Janowski and his excellent compatriots does full justice to the work. The chorus is full-throated and articulate, the soloists are strong, in good voice, with great emotional range, and the orchestra is fluid in meeting every demand Janowski places upon them. As a live performance, this recording has a certain "electricity of the moment" that is hard to duplicate without an audience present. There is a palpable frisson in the air.
And the Polyhymnia International recording team stands four-square on excellence in capturing this live performance. They have done an outstanding job managing to achieve orchestral inner detail, power of the chorus, and articulate singing of the soloists within a stereo presentation with excellent balance. For those with multichannel surround playback capabilities, I suspect you are in for a special delight with this recording. Even with simply the stereo version, I am over the top in my enjoyment of this recording.
Marek Janowski, Dresdner Philharmonie, Hanna-Elisabeth Muller, Roxana Constantinescu, Christian Elsner, Tareq Nazmi, and MDR Leipzig Radio Choir in performance recording live, February 13, 2024 at Kulturpalast Dresden, Germany.
All images courtesy of the respective labels.
A footnote to all of these recordings:
* Special credit is due to NativeDSD. They have recently been identifying when an album released on their site comes from the "edit master" as the source. The edit master is the first realization of the recording where all the components are mixed and processed together prior to delivery distribution reformatting. In other words, the sound quality is as good as pure as it can possibly be from this recording. Excellent! Watch for Edit Master Sourced in the album listings on the NativeDSD website.
