Hi-Res Downloads

Available in various formats, with sample tracks at www. 2l. no, this Mozart album has featured as a reference in more than one HFN hardware review, and was this year remastered in conjunction with Bob Stuart using MQA technology. It is certainly a fine production with stable balances, an intimate scale, realistic string timbres and just a hint of decay as movements end.

This is the big-label debut by the young Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo, some of whose work may be familiar from recordings on the enterprising 2L label – for example, the ‘Ubi Caritas’ opening this set is also available as on his Piano Improvisations album [2L-082]. A former Classic FM album of the week (but let’s not hold that against it), this set sees Gjeilo’s work performed by some top-notch singers in the form of Tenebrae and Voces 8, with the strings of the title provided by the London Chamber Orchestra and the piano by Gjeilo himself. It’s a programme of unmistakably Nordic music, ranging from the sacred to the secular, and is treated to a wonderfully detailed and ethereal sound well-suited to the content, especially in the tracks evoking the landscape so familiar to the composer. Yes, perhaps it’s somewhat ‘classical-fusion’, but it’s definitely hugely enjoyable.

The works in the Georgian pianist’s new programme – Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition, Ravel’s La Valse and the three scenes from Petrushka which Stravinsky transcribed for Rubinstein – make huge technical demands. But Buniatishvili says she chose them more for their artistic associations: painting, dance and puppetry. Using a huge range of keyboard colours every possible wisp of characterisation is seized upon and personalised: these are polar opposites to the ‘straight’ Paul Lewis Pictures or Pollini Petrushka, and I found them utterly seductive. Each ‘Promenade’ in the Mussorgsky is treated differently, while the brilliant ‘Limoges Market’ or the hatching chicks are fresh and vibrant.

This set by Shawn Colvin and Steve Earle started life as a series of gigs back in late 2014, and while it’s somewhat alarming to discover that the two performers are now heading for their bus-passes – both have hit the big six-oh – there’s an easygoing rapport between the two on this upbeat set of mainly jointly penned tracks. What’s even more remarkable is the way the two voices mesh together in flawless harmonies: they just fit like they’ve been doing this all of their professional lives. Even the cover versions here – among them Jagger and Richards’s ‘Ruby Tuesday’ – bring a fresh perspective to the songs, and while the recording isn’t by any means state-of-the-art or demo-quality, having a decidedly rough edge to it, it’s hard not to enjoy the ‘let’s just get together and share some songs’ freshness about it. It’s an album that’s difficult not to like.

Reviewed as an SACD in HFN Jul ’16, these are string orchestra transcriptions recorded at The Barbican (as DSD128 – might we hear this in the future?) on 26th April 2015. The Schubert Quartet was partly adapted by Mahler, and completed here by Donald Mitchell and David Matthews, while Shostakovich’s powerful Eighth was expanded, with the composer’s approval, by Rudol Barshai in 1974. It contains quotations from earlier works, from Tchaikovsky and the ‘DSCH’ motif. Such is the sensitivity of the 24 LSO string players that much of the intimacy of the Schubert prevails, and while I prefer the Shostakovich in its original form (we reviewed it herewith the Quatuor Debussy) the performance here has an admirably stark impact and presence in this dry acoustic setting.

Don’t panic: this may be Euro-jazz – how else do you explain a lineup of trumpet, piano and accordians? – but it’s both persuasive and highly approachable, at least when you acclimatise to the slightly unfamiliar tonalities here. Yes, there are times when a conventional rhythm section wouldn’t go amiss, for example in the take on Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No 1, but it’s clear how well the three musicians work together on this, their second Mare Nostrum outing, recorded some seven years after the original. It’s an interesting mix of Northern and Southern European styles – trumpeter Fresu is from Sardinia, Galliano is French and pianist Lundgren Swedish – but the light and shade work well together, whether in the original tunes or the trio’s take on a Monteverdi madrigal, and is well served by a fine recording. AE Sound Quality: 85% Hi-Fi News Lab Report All the tracks here have a spurious tone at ~19.