Music and Recording Reviews

I downloaded the 2496 version from the site and there is no mistaking that she has a wonderful operatic voice. I'm sure to see her in person would be a real treat.

My issue is that there needs to be changes in style of vocal expression going from opera to more standards fare. I am thinking of Diana Krall trying to sing in an operatic style as opposed to her wonderful CDs of Great American Songbook material.

Here is seems Ms. Devos stayed in her opera style to sing these songs and it may take me a while to get use to her interpretation of them. It is probably me that is the one that needs to adjust. She has a wonderful voice.

The recordings in 2496 are excellent off of the Presto Music website with a catalog number of Alpha668.

It just had a more Broadway Show Tune affect on me, and it is probably just me as I mentioned. I considered it a bargain at $16.50 as a 2496 download.

I thought the recording had a slight "distant" microphone quality as many classical recordings do, and as the vocalists who sing this music have very powerful voices. I can understand that part of it. I consider this performance and download a bargain, and I am sure it will grow on me over this next week as I play it often. I hope many others give it a try as well. It is a well engineered recording.

The "bargain" recording part is not lost on me as I had a friend recommend a jazz pianist to me I did not know and so I watched some YouTube performances and went to buy his latest work, but at $30 for a CD I decided against it. I have no problem with $30 SACDs, but not redbook CDs.

Your recommendations have always been excellent and I am glad I bought and downloaded this performance. It was just my take as a less traveled music lover. It will open some horizons for me I'm sure.

Ever since I started doing some amateur recording over 20 years ago I have been most interested in the "recording perspective" and how and why engineers set up their mics for recording ensembles and soloists. By all of the music we all own know that those "perspectives" are all over the place. Where mics are placed does matter as we all know.

My personal favorite recordings are solo instruments with the piano in first place. I was listening to two classical discs of performances my Alice Sara Ott, one had the piano close mic'd and the other more distant. I liked them both, but preferred the presentation that would be more like what the performer might hear sitting at the piano bench. This may be as I play the piano (badly), but I am more familiar with that position presentation rather than as an listener in the audience might hear it. It is just a preference.

I also don't have a $100K system, finely tuned, but now at nearly 74 I find myself listening on headphones more and more. I also have 3 pair of speakers in my room, a floor standing pair and two pair of bookshelf speakers. Everyone of them is a different presentation due to size, performance, and manufacturer. I do this for my own recording work as my efforts must sound good on all the speaker systems. This comes from a comment in a magazine article I read years ago with the great Al Schmitt, whose wife is an audiophile. She asked him why he listened to music on the Yamaha NS-10M speakers, (I owned them over a decade ago and now I have a pair of P305 powered JBLs in another computer system)? He said if he could get his recordings to sound good on the 10M's they would sound good on anything. lol.

I am always interested when Mr. Fremer reviews a bookshelf speaker after living with his Wilson's and his superb system. The Marten's Oscar Duo review I found very informative.

As I write this I am listening to "You Take My Breath Away", which is beautiful. When I compare this to the any of the Pete Malinverni 8 discs I now own, thanks to Thomas Conrad, in which HIS piano is more close mic'd, the differences from these two recording perspective for the piano is apparent to me, whether on headphones or speakers through my Project S2 DAC from my computer. I now own 2 of the Project DACs, one driven by a disc spinner for redook and high rez PCM. Sadly, a DCS stack or even a Weiss is beyond my means. Each presentation is valid and an engineering choice. I can hear more of the room in the "And Love Said" download at 2496, it is most clear to me. The playing and singing is powerful to say the least. The natural reverb tails are seconds long. I think that my rather pedestrian systems are resolving of this 2496 performance. I almost made the mistake of downloading the redbook version from another site. I'm glad I Google searched until I found Presto. It is a bargain at $16.50, as I mentioned.

I am also very glad that I have watched, numerous times, the "Now Hear This" series presented by PBS and the great Scott Yoo. I have enjoyed the Shubert program greatly and have learned a great deal about his choral music from this program and his piano creations. The performances are superb and teach and illustrate the musical transition Shubert was apart of. The vocal and piano performances on this DVD are very educational and most enjoyable. I own both years and recommend them highly. I have found the operatic performances very moving once one knows the story behind them.

To close, I now own 2 of the DSD/SACD recordings from Octave Records (PS Audio), the 3rd is on the way. The Don Grusin, solo piano disc, Out Of Thin Air is wonderful. It was recorded on a Yamaha C7 grand Piano, a fav of many jazz pianists and can sound somewhat bright depending upon the piano technician's work and the player's preference. This piano was superbly prepared and sounds excellent. The pure DSD presentation through my Project S2 DAC is what music listening SHOULD BE. The SACD disc is also superb through my 13 year old SACD player by its own chip. I doubt you can stream this quality. When I listen to this disc it is hard to listen to lesser material.

It does amaze me what Jim Anderson captures on the Pete Malinverni discs in redbook. THAT is amazing work. Many of these discs were recorded at Avatar Studios, so that is part of it.

I found the disc used and will give it a try, as well.

I also don't consider a slightly distance sounding piano recording a "bug", just a choice of mic placement. The fact that I can hear that difference leads me to believe my proletariat system can be somewhat resolving.

Went to Amazon, and the cost of the CD, new or used, is outrageous. Got the 16/44.1 FLAC files (the only option) from Hyperion instead. This recording is from 1995 - the early digital era. Should be interesting. More to come.

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/marc-andré-hamelin-live-at-the-wigmore-hall