Walter Klien Plays Brahms

Or, How Piss-Poor Engineering Can Nearly Kill A Recording.

Whilst browsing the new releases section of Gramophone a few months back, I spied a new reissue from Vox: a five-pack of Brahms' piano music played by Walter Klien. Hallelujah! I am a big fan of Mr Klien. His Mozart sonata cycle is my favorite, his Mozart concerto recordings are superb (if in rather poor sound), and his Schubert sonata cycle is glorious. So I determined that I should get his Brahms. When I found it at Arkiv for $16, the deal was sealed.

Carnaval

After some of the posts considering why recordings are even made, and some older posts considering comparative listening, I figured it might be time to select a work I have a good number of recordings of and listen to them all in a relatively brief span of time. So, over the last week, I have listened to all eleven versions of Robert Schumann

I had a great day

Within the framework of assisting the choosing a new sound system for our church's 1300 seat sanctuary, I stuck by my guns for the playback system for the new main choir room. I chose a Unison Unico Integrated amp ($1700), an Audio Analogue Paganini CD player ($1K), and a pair of Triangle Cometes ($995). That system has very good resolving power and allows our 50+ member choir to help discern their individual singing parts when learning a new piece.

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