Having launched its first direct-drive deck over a half century ago, and its last over a decade ago to celebrate 100 years, Denon is back with another, sleeker turntable
If I was to give a vinyl enthusiast a choice of high-quality turntables made by Technics, Yamaha, Denon or the team behind Micro Seiki, and then stated that two of the options were direct-drive, I'll wager they would think I was about to take them on a vintage shopping spree. However, it's 2024 and, remarkably, the above selection comprises a range of models that can be bought new today.
It's both impossible and essential to put the composer's life-story to one side when listening to this music of love and loss, and life and death, says Peter Quantrill
Denis Stevens was a British musicologist who, in the early 1960s, began persuading people to listen to Gesualdo's music rather than marvel at the composer with horrified fascination. One night, after rehearsing the Sixth Book of Madrigals, he was so stunned that on his way home he caught the right train going in the wrong direction.
Quad's first new speakers in some seven years feature an evolved version of the ribbon tweeter seen in its 'Corner Horn' of 70 years ago. Now, of course, they come in pairs!
For nearly nine years, I have been listening to Quad's ribbon-hybrid S-1 speaker – the brand's smallest two-way box-type system – as part of my day-to-day desktop set-up. When they were launched, I revelled in the realisation that they were a throwback to Quad's first ever loudspeaker, the Corner Ribbon of 1949, and the all-new Revela 1 tells you that the company's boffins, based in the UK and China, haven't been sitting idle since 2015.
This month we review: Bergen PO, ET AL/Sir Mark Elder, Bavarian RSO/Bernard Haitink, Bertrand Chamayou and Borys Fedorov, Anna Fedorova, Mikhail & Dana Zemtsov.
The jazzical nature of this ostensibly religious piano cycle invites an array of approaches that range from reverential grandeur to gaudy showmanship, finds Peter Quantrill
In the summer of 1944, the head of music at French radio asked the 35-year-old Olivier Messiaen, and the Catholic writer Maurice Toesca, for a reflection on the Nativity in words and music, to be broadcast over the Christmas season. Beyond its title, there is nothing very Christmassy about the piano cycle that became Vingt Regards, which may be why Messiaen's contribution was eventually shelved.
Having launched its first direct-drive deck over a half century ago, and its last over a decade ago to celebrate 100 years, Denon is back with another, sleeker turntable
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