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Mahan Esfahani: Time Present and Time Past C.P.E. Bach: 12 Variations on "Les Folies d'Espagne." J.S. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in d, BWV 1052. Geminiani: Concerto Grosso in d (after Corelli). Górecki: Harpsichord Concerto. Reich: Piano Phase for Two Pianos (harpsichord version: Esfahani). A. Scarlatti: Variations on "La Folia."
Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord; Concerto Köln
Archiv Produktion 4794481 (CD). 2015. Christoph Classen, prod.; Michael Morawietz, eng. DDD. TT: 73:45
Performance ****½
Sonics *****

This razzle-dazzle release is remarkable on several levels, and I wouldn't be surprised if it converted harpsichord haters to harpsichord hipsters. Iranian-American harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, stealing a quote from T.S. Eliot about the relevance—or irrelevance—of time and (while he's at it) the harpsichord, here presents the instrument in works written for it in the 17th and 18th centuries, interspersed with pieces by two 20th-century composers. (The album's title references these lines from Eliot's Four Quartets: "Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past.") Esfahani's argument holds water: bringing an "olde" instrument into the present with unflinchingly contemporary music turns this debut solo-recital disc into a splendid event—and, yes, proves that baroque music, with its repeating patterns, can make a fine pairing with minimalism. It's all far less jarring than you might think, and does provoke thoughts about the slippage of time.

Saturday, September 26, 10am–5pm: Advance Electronics (1300 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Canada) will hold its 2nd Annual Record Sale, featuring hundreds of new and used records, a special turntable trade-in offer, and educational seminars.

One look at Gig Harbor Audio's events for September makes you stop and wonder. This month, the store, located near the water in the picturesque town of Gig Harbor, WA less than an hour from Seattle, began the month with a live concert by homegrown band, Rokkerbox, which benefitted for the local food bank. Next on the schedule are a three-hour "Social Media Basics" workshop with Tiffany Burke (September 20), a weekly hour-long "Disc After Dark" all-ages listening party (September 22), and a PTSD Healing Summit (September 25). With not a single presentation by an industry heavyweight, and lots of events aimed at the wider community, this is not your typical schedule for a high-end emporium.

It's hard to fully illustrate using just sound, the scene of a now 60-year-old man jumping, growling and working the stage like a mad man.

Components listed here have been formally reviewed in Stereophile and have been found to be among the best available in each of four or five quality classes. Whether a component is listed in Class A or Class E, we highly recommend its purchase.

Each listing-in alphabetical order within classes-is followed by a brief description of the product's sonic characteristics and a code indicating the Stereophile Volume and Issue in which that product's report appeared. Thus the May 2015 issue is indicated as "Vol.38 No.5."

There's virtue in being in the right place at the right time. The right place in this story was the headquarters of Acoustic Research in Boston, MA, and the right time was just a couple of weeks or so before the subject of this piece was to be shown (but not heard) at a press conference in New York. Even within that short two weeks, the rot started to set in. What I saw (and heard) in Boston on that occasion was a loudspeaker that stakes a reasonable claim on being revolutionary. A rare event that. The project name was The Magic Box and I was hoping that is what it might have been called when it went on sale. The Magic Box does, after all, conjure up an image of something a little special, and it's also easy to remember.

Imagine if you can a power amplifier with the bass richness, midrange liquidity, and high-end accuracy of the best tube amplifiers, and the inner detail, transient attack, and bass solidity and range of the best solid-state amplifiers. If you can imagine that, you can visualize what this amplifier sounds like.