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Lyn Stanley's The Moonlight Sessions, Vol. 2 (A.T. Music LLC 3106, 2-LP set $125, CD/SACD $29.98, http://www.lynstanley.com) "Other than that, I think her voice is incredibly sexy and inviting. It's much closer to London than too-cool-for-school Krall and for that reason I'll be more than happy to bring this to all future trade shows. Unless, of... Read More »

Goodly guide and hale-fellow-well-met! John Marks of The Tannhauser Gate once again leads us into fascinating lesser-known musical worlds in this latest essay. Music and painting meet here, to the blessing of all! This possibility is something that I know well; PF artist Dan Zimmerman used to have sessions of listening-cum-drawing at my place many years ago.... Read More »

Grandissimi Gravita. Violin Sonatas by Vivaldi, Tartini, Veracini, Pisendel. Rachel Podger, violin; Brecon Baroque. Channel Classics SACD. CCSSA 39217. Snow showers!  On November 13. In Western Massachusetts! And unexpectedly this album of baroque violin sonatas sounds warm and comforting that last week seemed a bit indifferent. I've learned not to underestimate the role meteorological (and... Read More »

Angela Gheorghiu, soprano; *Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi/Anton Coppola; +Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden/Antonio Pappano. EMI Classics 50999 9 65938 2 0. TT: 73.35 Madama Butterfly: Un bel dì vedremo; Tu, tu, piccolo Iddio (with Roberto Alagna, tenor). Edgar: Addio, mio dolce amor*; Nel... Read More »

Our fellow voyager and good audio friend, the esteemed John Marks, he of The Tannhauser Gate blog site, strikes out in a direction in this article that speaks to me. It's the moving and deeply inward world of Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel, a commissioned composition both celebrating and creating the spiritual framework for the edifice of that... Read More »

Marek Pospieszalski, gra piosenki, które śpiewał Frank Sinatra Marek Pospieszalski MP001, Medium: Compact Disc. Date of release: 15th March 2017 A parcel with Marek Pospieszalski's album was sent from my home city of Cracow. It is modest, released in a digipack without any booklet, with minimum lettering imprinted on the CD and is – let me tell... Read More »

Fyrlyd Records FYRLYDLP1602, available at http://fyrlyd.no/ for 389 NOK "I'm a huge fan of those guys." Music reviewers aren't supposed to admit to such things. We're supposed to be objective in our approach to something that's almost perfectly subjective. We're supposed to accurately describe the release, offer some sort of reference for the reader that... Read More »

Chopin's Last Waltz, Robert Silverman pianist, Kimber Kable ISOMIKE 5606, LP. Producer: Ellen Silverman Editing: Aaron Hubbard Mastering: Chad Kassem, Aaron Hubbard Recording Engineers: Aaron Hubbard, Ray Kimber Mastering Engineer: Kevin Gray, Cohearent Audio, LLC Recorded using the ISOMIKE RECORDING TECHNIQUE recorded at DSD256 and edited in that format without any compression or equalization other than... Read More »

John Marks of The Tannhauser Gate favors us with some reflections upon Bernadettes, Leonard Cohen of remarkable memory, the exceptional Jennifer Warnes, and a certain haunting song. This is a bracing little essay, taking across time and space to one of the great tandems of recent decades:  Cohen and Warnes. He's gone now, to my heart's... Read More »

Audio Note Music – ANM 1601 ­(UK) (2017, March) Format: Vinyl (2x180 gram LPs at 45 rpm) Named official 'musical ambassador' for Audio Note Music, Canadian cellist Vincent Bélanger is part of an all too rare breed: an authentic audiophile/musician. Dedicated to raising awareness around his beautiful bicentennial or so instrument, the busy 38-year-old is on... Read More »

Yuko Mabuchi Trio; Yuko Mabuchi piano, Bobby Breton drums, and Del Atkins bass; Yarlung Records 80161 CD, pressed in Germany on high definition special composite materials. Available in PCM and DSD on HDTracks, and NativeDSD.com up to DSD256 (Quad DSD). 2017. Recorded before a live audience at the Brain and Creativity Institute’s Cammilleri Hall.   Yuko Mabuchi plays a Steinway Piano. Recording... Read More »

Below you'll find part five of John Marks' six-part series describing one method for digitizing LPs. John, he of the blog site The Tannhauser Gate, gives our readers a cost-effective and reasonably simple method for transferring your albums to PCM files for archiving and playback functions. As he points out in his footnote, this method does... Read More »

Johann Sebastian Bach, Cantatas for Bass. Matthias Goerne, baritone. Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. Gottfried von de Goltz. Harmonia Mundi HMM 902323. If dark power is what you want in Bach's cantatas for bass—and you surely should—then Matthias Goerne is the answer to your prayers. Eloquent darkness is not always what we get from true basses, but... Read More »

No. 2, Op. 19; No. 3, Op. 27 ("Song of the Night"). Ewa Marczyk, violin; +Ryszard Minkiewicz, tenor; Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and +Choir/Antoni Wit. Naxos 8.570721. TT: 60.49 The symphonies of Polish composer Karol Szymanowski effectively arrived in the West with the start of the digital era; the musical press was effusive, but I didn't... Read More »

A gift, a sudden gift from audio compadre John Marks, proprietor of The Tannhauser Gate blog site. John is also the driving force behind John Marks Records, which was active in the 1990s but is now lamentably no longer producing recordings. His work moved me so much that he was featured on the cover of one of... Read More »

Anyone with any level of appreciation for great cello performance should check out Elinor Frey at once; an immensely talented and virtuosic player, she's also a seriously gifted researcher and scholar of all things cello, with a special appreciation for the Baroque period. Although she plays both modern and period instruments, it's pretty clear that... Read More »

Like my good friend John Marks, proprietor of The Tannhauser Gate, I am a profound lover of Bach. But I was unaware of Nicholas Bruhns, and the other choice tidbits of musical history that John so adroitly shares with us here. I envy him the ability to attend the Bard Festival, and take in such focused wonders of... Read More »

There's an old adage folks like to dust off whence we suffer some loss, as wrenching as it is inexplicable, not unlike a late April ice storm, midst that initial gush of springtime bloom, which heretofore has served to affirm the promise and wonder of life and renewal after such a long, harrowing winter: "They... Read More »

Shaded dogs that is! This isn't the first time these absolutely legendary RCA Living Stereo recordings have appeared on reel-to-reel tape (Scheherazade (FTC2017) was according to Discogs released in 1960 on four-track tape). This is, however, the very first time this pair of now close to 60 year old recordings are available on real time... Read More »