A few months ago, I pondered why there are so few albums with digital booklets on the iTunes Store. I had discovered at the time that Apple imposes their own page format, which is not that of CD booklets, adding an extra step in the production process for record labels.
Well I found out something else recently: why record labels don’t add digital booklets to older releases. The answer is interesting; it’s because they can’t. Apple won’t let them. If a label has uploaded an album to the iTunes Store and wants to add a digital booklet later, the only way they can do this is to delete the original, and create a new album listing with a new SKU. And if they do this, then purchasers will no longer be able to re-download music listed under the old SKU.
It’s kind of foolish; it should be drop-dead simple to add something to an album on the iTunes Store, but Apple’s system is so rigid that it’s impossible. So if you wonder why your favorite label hasn’t added digital booklets to older releases, you now know why.
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I wasn’t very familiar with Yo-Yo Ma’s work before getting this set, other than having heard his recording of Bach’s cello suites. But I took advantage of a “lightning sale” at Amazon FR to grab this set a few weeks ago at the very low price of €140 (about $190), or less than half the current price on Amazon US (I not that some third-party sellers have it for around $300, but the Amazon US price at the time of this writing is $472). To be honest, the list price for this box is well above what one expects to pay for that many CDs in the big classical box sets we’ve been seeing recently, and this is probably why Amazon FR got a bunch of the sets to put them on sale. It’s worth noting that this is a limited edition, and even though it was released in October, 2009, it has not sold 7,500 copies. (A certificate in the box tells me I have # 6464/7500.)
Like Sony’s other recent big box sets – such as the Murray Periah set and the Glenn Gould Complete Bach Edition, the set contains CDs in wallets with original artwork and the backs of original LPs in tiny fonts. There is a hardcover book, very attractive, on glossy paper, over 300 pages, with essays, photos and album notes. Sony has this down pat; while the three sets I mention are all different, with different numbers of discs, and different sized books (to fit in the appropriate boxes), the presentation of all these sets is excellent.
As for the music, Ma covers a wide range of the classical and non-classical repertoire. From chamber music to orchestral music, he gives an overview of the entire range of cello music, but also veers off in other directions, with a disc of Japanese Melodies, a Claude Bolling disc, and his “crossover” recordings, such as Appalachia Waltz, his Silk Road recordings, and some movie soundtracks, such as for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Seven Years in Tibet.
Ma is an excellent cellist, and he is never boring, though many of these works can be found in versions that are better. For example, his Schubert String Quintet lacks the pathos of better versions, and his first Bach cello suite recording is somewhat bland. (His second recording is much better.) Nevertheless, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by so much of this music as I have been listening to the set, and have discovered many works I’m not familiar with.
I wouldn’t recommend paying the full price, unless you’re an unconditional fan of Yo-Yo Ma (in which case you probably already have the set), but if you can get it at a price similar to what I paid, I’d say it’s well worth the investment.
Here’s a list of the albums in the set:
01 Robert White Sings Beethoven
02 Saint Saens Carnival of the Animals Variations on a Theme of Beethoven, Op. 35 Polonaise, Op. 77
03 Saint Saens and Lalo Cello Concertos
04 Haydn Cello Concertos
05 Beethoven Complete Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Vol. 1
06 Kreisler, Paganini
07 Bach Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord
08 Bach The Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites
09 Bach The Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites
10 Shostakovich and Kabalevsky Cello Concertos
11 Bolling Suite for Cello and Jazz Piano Trio
12 Beethoven Complete Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Vol. 2
13 Schubert String Quintet
14 Japanese Melodies
15 Elgar and Walton Cello Concertos
16 Mozart Divertimento, K. 563
17 Brahms Sonatas for Cello and Piano
18 Strauss Don Quixote Schoenberg Concerto
19 Beethoven Complete Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Vol. 3
20 Dvorak Cello Concerto
21 Boccherini Concerto J. C. Bach Sinfonia Concertante and Grand Overture
22 Mozart Adagio and Fugue in C Minor Schubert String Quartet No. 15
23 Schumann Cello Concerto Fantasiestucke
24 Dvorak Piano Trios
25 Brahms Double Concerto, Piano Quartet
26 Shostakovich Piano Trio, Cello Sonata
27 Barber and Britten Cello Concertos
28 Strauss and Britten Cello Sonatas
29 Shostakovich Quartet No. 15Gubaidulina Rejoice!
30 Anything Goes Stephane Grappelli and Yo Yo Ma Play (Mostly) Cole Porter
31 Mozart Serenade No. 10, Gran Partita
32 Brahms The Piano Quartets
33 Brahms The Piano Quartets
34 Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff Cello Sonatas
35 Tchaikovsky Gala in Leningrad
36 Hush
37 Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante, Tchaikovsky Variations
38 Brahms String Sextets
39 Brahms String Sextets
40 Brahms Sonatas for Cello and Piano
41 Schoenberg Verklarte Nacht, String Trio
42 Faure Piano Quartets
43 Made in America
44 Dvorak in Prague
45 Beethoven and Schumann Piano Quartets
46 Chopin Piano Trio, Polonaise brillante, Cello Sonata
47 The New York Album
48 Immortal Beloved
49 Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart Clarinet Trios
50 Dvorak and Herbert Concertos from the New World
51 Schubert Trout Quintet, Arpeggione Sonata
52 Goldenthal Fire Water Paper A Vietnam Oratorio
53 Appalachia Waltz
54 Lieberson King Gesar
55 Schubert and Boccherini String Quintets
56 Yo Yo Ma Premieres
57 Mozart The Piano Quartets
58 From Ordinary Things
59 Tan Dun Symphony 1997
60 Seven Years in Tibet Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
61 Mark OConnor Liberty
62 Soul of the Tango The Music of Astor Piazzolla
63 The Cello Suites Inspired by Bach
64 The Cello Suites Inspired by Bach
65 Korngold and Schmidt Music for Strings and Piano Left Hand
66 Tavener The Protecting Veil
67 Simply Baroque
68 Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Sonata
69 Yo Yo Ma Solo
70 Appalachian Journey
71 Dvorak Piano Quartet, Romantic Pieces, Sonatina
72 Simply Baroque II
73 John Corigliano’s Phantasmagoria
74 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
75 Yo Yo Ma Plays the Music of John Williams
76 Silk Road Journeys When Strangers Meet
77 Meyer and Bottesini Concertos
78 Naqoyatsi Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
79 Paris La Belle Epoque
80 Obrigado Brazil
81 Obrigado Brazil Live
82 Vivaldi Cello
83 Isaac Stern Schubert, Brahms, Bach, Mozart
84 Yo Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone
85 Silk Road Journeys Beyond the Horizon
86 Memoirs of a Geisha Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
87 New Impossibilities
88 Yo Yo Ma and Friends Songs of Joy and Peace
89 The Bonus Disc 1
90 The Bonus Disc 2
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It’s been a good year for big classical box sets. Whether you’re a fan of Arthur Rubenstein or Glenn Gould, whether you’re interested in old Mercury Living Presence recordings or Karajan’s recordings from the 1960s, on Toscanini’s complete RCA recordings, you’ll find something to fill your shelves and your ears.
I’ve gotten three such sets recently: the 90-CD Yo-Yo Ma: 30 years Outside the Box set; the 42-disc Glenn Gould Complete Bach Collection, and, now, the Murray Perahia, The First 40 Years set. Interestingly, all three of these are from Sony, who is making a big effort lately to re-release back catalog in big boxes at bargain prices. (The Yo-Yo Ma was released in 2009, but the Gould and Perahia are new; in fact, they’re out in Europe at the time of this writing, but not yet in the US.)
All of these boxes are produced in a similar manner. The CDs are in slim wallet sleeves, with original artwork on them, and either the original backs from LPs in miniature or the flip side, or, for those discs originally released on CD, a track list that you can actually read. (The miniature LP notes require a microscope to read.) They’re snuggly fit inside the box, and each of these sets has a hardcover book. The Murray Perahia book is the largest of all, in part because the 5 DVDs in the set are in an actual DVD-sized digipack; in the Glenn Gould set, the 6 DVDs are in the same kind of sleeves as the CDs.
In all of these cases, the books are attractive and informative. They contain essays, photos and information about the discs. The Perahia book, being the largest, has the most notes about the discs, reproducing the original liner notes from each release.
Murray Perahia’s répertoire is fairly standard: There’s a lot of Mozart (all the piano concertos), Chopin, Schumann, Schubert, Beethoven and Bach. There’s a bit of Bartok, Brahms and Mendolssohn,, a disc of Handel and Scarlatti, but that’s about it. Perahia was never an adventurous musician in his recordings, he didn’t stray from well-worn paths. I’m mostly familiar with his work in the Mozart piano concertos, which are wonderful, but when I actually discovered his pianism was when he released a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 2000. This followed a period when he had a serious problem with one of his hands, which caused him to stop playing for several years. During this time, he studied Bach closely, and even played the harpsichord (which requires a bit less hand strength), and his Goldberg Variations, played on piano, have a unique sound, no doubt influenced by that period of harpsichord playing. Following this period, he recorded a number of works by Bach – notably the English Suites and Partitas – for the first time.
There’s a lot of music in this set, all of it familiar, but I’m looking forward to discovering this pianist whose approach is never dull and often interesting. One nice bonus is the 5 DVDs included, one of which features Perahia accompanying Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Winterreise, from 1990.
It’s true that this big box sets can be overwhelming, and they take a long time to listen to. But at about $2-3 per disc, they are rich with discoveries, and when the performer is of this quality, there is rarely a dull disc. I’ve been delighted with the Yo-Yo Ma box set. While many of his recordings are far from being the best versions of their works, his repertoire is broad, and his playing is always skilled and interesting. As for Glenn Gould, I have known all of his Bach recordings for a long time, and this new set offers a number of un-released recordings, along with several DVDs. I’m looking forward to box sets of two of my favorite performers: pianist Alfred Brendel, who retired from the stage in 2008, and the late Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who died earlier this year. While I have many recordings by each of them, these comprehensive box sets allow one to fill in the gaps and discover the less well-known recordings that one may have missed.
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1973 was a pivotal year for Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Pigpen died in March, and Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders had settled into a regular routine of playing at the Keystone Korner in San Francisco. While they had been playing together since December, 1970, after Jerry stopped playing with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, he and Saunders became frequent companions, meeting up to play totally different types of music from what Jerry played with the Dead, or with the New Riders. In 1973 Garcia was also playing in the short-lived Old and In the Way, a bluegrass band, but he and Saunders still managed to play a few dozen concerts together, and would eventually play 266 gigs.
But in 1973, Jerry and Merl were hot. While the Dead were performing some of their best concerts, Jerry’s side projects showed him in a different light, playing blues, standards, Bob Dylan songs and much more, in a jazzier, more R&B tone. Together with other band members John Kahn and Bill Vitt, this recording features two complete shows, July 10 and 11, 1973, and shows the range of Jerry’s non-Grateful Dead material.
With the exception of a couple of Dylan songs that the Dead would cover twenty years later, not one song in these two shows was in the Dead’s repertoire. They range from standards like My Funny Valentine to R&B songs such as I Second that Emotion and How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You), by way of a cover of Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come. (The film of the same name, which broke reggae out of its island, was released in 1972.)
Listening to Jerry Garcia play guitar and sing these songs shows how versatile he was. Remember, he had just come off a period playing country with the New Riders of the Purple Sage; he was in a bluegrass band, Old and In the Way; and the Grateful Dead was exploring traditionally influenced songs and psychedelic jams. Yet Jerry’s other side was this: playing standards and R&B, in his own band.
The music in this set is fairly well known. About 3/4 of it was previously released on three different albums, dating back to 1988. But now, all the music recorded on these two nights is available in this 4-disc set, in the order in which the songs were played. The band was hot, the sound is great, and there’s nearly four hours of wonderful music here, at a very nice price.
If you’re a Deadhead, you already know how great these shows were, and you probably have some of the earlier releases. You should still get this, for the extra hour of unreleased material and the better sound. If you’re not a Deadhead, listen to some of the samples on Amazon; this music is very different from that of the Grateful Dead. If you don’t like the Dead, you may find Jerry’s solo work to be wonderful. This is a testament of a great guitarist playing the music he liked when he wanted to relax, at his peak, with a fine backing band.
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While Glenn Gould was a pianist who performed the works of many composers, his name is inextricably linked to that of Johann Sebastian Bach. More than any other composer, Bach was Gould’s speciality. From his first recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 1955 to his final recording, again of the Goldberg Variations in 1981, Gould recorded nearly all of Bach’s keyboard music.
This set groups all of Gould’s Bach recordings for around $115; not only those released on LP and CD, but also a number of previously unreleased recordings: outtakes from the 1955 Goldbergs recording session; a stereo mix of the 1955 Goldbergs; some preludes and fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, from 1952 and 1954; and two live recordings, from 1957 and 1959, of the Goldbergs (Salzburg Festival, August, 1959) and the Sinfonias (Moscow, May, 1957). There are two discs of interviews with Gould – one with Tim Page, and another with John McClure – and a disc of Gould speaking about Bach in German. There are a total of 38 CDs.
This set also includes DVDs; 6 of them. Three of these are directed by Bruno Monsaigneon, featuring the Goldbergs on one, and two others with a variety of works. And three others are from the CBC, from 1957 to 1970, featuring Gould (and others) playing a variety of Bach’s works. Many Gould fans are familiar with the Monsaigneon films, as they have been widely circulated – especially the Goldberg Variations video, which was my first introduction to seeing Glenn Gould perform. The CBC videos are less common, though they have been released in a 10-DVD set Glenn Gould on Television. What we have in the Bach set is, naturally, the Bach performances taken from that set. If you’re a die-hard Gould fan, you’ll want to get the full DVD set as well.
Together with all these discs is a 192-page hardcover book, with some introductory essays, and with notes for each disc. Unfortunately, the notes are very succinct, and while the disc covers reproduce original LPs, the notes on them are too small to read without a microscope. (Is it that hard to include a CD or DVD with PDFs of these things?)
If you’re a fan of Glenn Gould, you may already have the Complete Original Jacket Collection, on 80 CDs, which contains most of what’s in this set, but you won’t have the outtakes, live recordings and DVDs. This set, at a not-quite-bargain price, is worth getting for these extras alone, if you appreciate Gould. Especially since Bach is what Gould did best.
Nice packaging, a fair price, and a bunch of previously unreleased material makes this a good purchase for any fan of Glenn Gould. If you’re not familiar with his admittedly idiosyncratic recordings of Bach’s keyboard works, this would be a good chance to discover one of the most original of performers. You may love Gould or hate him, but you can’t deny that, when he played Bach, he was channelling something transcendent.
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There are two recordings of Henry Brant’s orchestration of Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata, taking this essential 20th-century piano work and expanding it for full orchestra.
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Ives’ Concord Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 2, Concord, Mass., 1840-60) is the composer’s best-known work, and contains a concentrated version of many of Ives’ musical ideas. It is the work he poured much of his thought into, even going as far as writing a long essay, “Essay Before a Sonata” to amplify the work. Composer Henry Brant, who discovered Ives’ work at age 15, set out late in life to create an orchestral transcription of the sonata, turning this craggy piano work into an orchestral exploration containing its own share of asperities.
One cannot hope to compare the actual piano work to this transcription; the difference between the solo piano (even in Ives’ masterful use of the broad palette of colors available on the keyboard) and a full orchestra is vast. What Brant does is translate this work into another form. Eschewing much of the rhythmic material inherent in the piano, Brant opts for a transcription that brings in all the colors of the orchestra to interpret the sonata. For example, in the Emerson movement, the first part of the work and the most tempestuous, strong brass instruments are used in place of the harsh, fortissimo chords. Yet, later, woodwinds are at the heart of the more ethereal ending of the work, where subtle touches at the keyboard give melodic fragments.
In the Hawthorne movement, Brant chooses an almost Mahlerian selection of light instruments then heavy brasses to translate the rapid arpeggios and near tone clusters of the opening, before bringing in the string section. The Thoreau movement opens with a flute (which is appropriate, because of the use of the flute in some versions of the actual sonata, representing Thoreau’s playing a flute by Walden Pond), then using colorful oboe runs to lay out the melodies. Mellow strings stand behind as structural elements, and this, the most transcendent of the four movements of the sonata, starts with a smaller, less raucous treatment from the orchestra, before using a crescendo of brass and timpani. The main melodic phrase of this movement arises in many forms, though mainly played by the string section, and the orchestration of this part of the work may be the most delicately subtle sections of the symphony.
All in all, the contrasts between the different choices of instrumentation and the piano are similar to the difference between black-and-white and color; or, more correctly, black-and-white and grayscale. Not to suggest that the sonata played on the piano is in black and white; far from it. It is one of modern music’s most varied and colorful works for piano. But listening to one then the other shows that these are more two completely different works rather than simply a transcription. The highlights are different on the piano than where, in the orchestration, a choice of instruments makes certain phrases stand out.
For all that one may wonder at the choices of orchestration, this Concord Symphony simply works. It translates Ives’ vision into a different form, and does so extremely effectively. It gives the listener a new perspective on the brilliant work that is the Concord Sonata. This recording is certainly an essential addition to any Ives collection.
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I have a particular affinity for this work – the piano sonata version – being especially interested in the writers that Ives puts into music, and having some 15 recordings of the work. Performers of the sonata can approach it in many ways, choosing to highlight the tempestuousness of certain parts of the work (notably in the Emerson movement), focusing on the rhythmical aspects of the composition, or choosing tempi that are either very fast or much slower. (The recordings I have range from a speedy 38 minutes to a leisurely 62 minutes, with an average in the 45-50 minute range, or about the same tempo as this current recording.)
When unleashed for orchestra, the Concord Sonata (or Symphony) takes on a new life. As I said in my above review of the Dennis Russell Davies recording, “these are more accurately two completely different works rather one being simply a transcription of the other.” Michael Tilson Thomas has developed a “sound” with his San Francisco Symphony orchestra, a group of musicians he has been working with regularly for more than 15 years, and with whom he has performed many 20th century works. There is a certain naturalness in this recording, as though the orchestra is in its milieu, and a balance among the instruments that sounds nearly ideal. When the orchestra lets loose in the middle of the Hawthorne section – with blaring horns, punctuated by soft strings, then back to a cacophony of horns, then a marching band imploding – I just want to turn the volume up and be overwhelmed by the waves of sound.
The sound quality of this disc is excellent. The orchestra is spacious, and the full palette of instruments can be heard well no matter what the volume; as this work has a very wide range of volume, this is essential. The full, lush strings in the Alcotts section fill the soundscape, and the definition of the winds and strings in the beginning of the Thoreau section is clean and precise. There is one tiny problem, though, at the end of the work; applause. There is really no need to have applause at the end of a live recording of any classical work, if that applause can be edited out (which it can here). It stands merely as a reminder that the recording is live – one which, by the way, is unnecessary – and it is almost insulting to reach the end of a work, feel the enjoyment of completion, and then be interrupted by such noise. If I’m in a concert hall, I expect it; on my stereo, I resent it. Why any sound engineer, or anyone else involved in a recording like this, would want to have 5 seconds of applause, is beyond me.
While the headliner on this disc is the Concord Symphony, this current recording does include another work, and no mean one at that: Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony. An early work, premiered in 1925 when Copland was merely 23 years old, this was Copland’s first major composition. (Copland later rescored this as his Symphony No. 1.) The three movements are all very different. In the first, light strings play a subtle melody, as the organ plays almost a continuo, but so quietly you can almost miss it. The second movement has a snappy tempo, and is almost dance-like at first, with the orchestra taking center stage, swelling to monumental scale. The organ is, for the most part, in the background, being just another instrument in the orchestra, and not a solo instrument until the very end of this movement where it has a bit of presence. The final movement, Lento, begins with dense strings, and the organ finally becomes prominent, in full expression. Slow, loud chords are enough to shake the room you’re in, and I can imagine that, in the Davies Hall, where this was performed, the effect must have been impressive. As the movement goes on, the orchestra becomes imposing and powerful, ending with a powerful punch. While melodically this is a simplistic work, the sound quality, as for the Ives, is excellent.
The Copland is a young composer’s work, and, compared to the refinement of Ives’ Concord Sonata (and the orchestration herein), is much less interesting. But the coupling of these two works presents two great American composers writing around the same time, and rather than just having the Concord Symphony on this disc, the addition is welcome. Compared to the Davies recording of the Concord Symphony, I’d give a few extra points to this current recording, if only for the sound quality which features better definition. But both are excellent. If you don’t know this work, and appreciate Ives, this current disc – with the addition of the Copland – is essential.
To sum up, if I had to choose between these two recordings, I’d lean toward the Tilson Thomas version. This isn’t so much because of the additional work by Copland, but the sound and recording are a bit better on that disc. The two performances are similar, but the San Francisco Symphony comes out ahead.
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It’s been years since I’ve used Apple’s earbuds with an iPod or iPhone. I’ve long been a fan of good, light headphones, and my go-to cans for when I’m moving around are Sennheiser’s PX 100-II i, a light, foldable headset with an inline mic and iOS device controller. But I got a set of Apple’s EarPods with my iPhone 5 last week, and thought I’d try them out.
First, the shape. It’s odd, but it makes sense. Not only the oblong shape in general, but the position of the sound point, pointing toward the ear canal, rather than just to the side of the ear. They fit fairly well, even if, in my left ear, it feels as though it’s not quite right. All in all, however, this is an earbud that won’t fall out easily, and that’s a good thing.
But then there’s the sound. These earbuds are totally devoid of bass, and even of low midrange sounds. At first, I tried them out when listening to some podcasts. The lack of bass actually makes spoken word a bit easier to understand. But when I put on some music – The Clash’s Train in Vain, from London Calling, for example, with a strong bass riff – the music was hollow and empty.
No, these don’t cut it for listening to music. They’re a bit better than the previous earbuds in terms of sound, and much better at staying in ears, but if you really want to listen to your music, try something else.
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I’ve been waiting for this record to be re-released for as long as I’ve owned a CD player. Originally released by Columbia Masterworks in 1980, on two LPs, this music is almost everything that Ruggles composed. (There is another disc, The Uncovered Ruggles, with some bits and pieces essentially for piano; the title of this new release is, therefore, not entirely exact.) With just over 86 minutes of music on this release, and another half hour on The Uncovered Ruggles, Carl Ruggles’ influence is much greater than the amount of music he composed.
I first came across his music accidentally, stumbling on a documentary about him around 1982, broadcast on PBS. Michael Tilson-Thomas, who conducted the Columbia recordings, was in the documentary, and while I don’t remember anything about it now, the opening chords of Sun-treader, Ruggles’ longest work, at around 16 minutes, had me heading for a record store the next day. Sun-treader is to orchestral music what Ives’ Concord Sonata is to piano music, but much shorter and more concentrated. Harsh and dissonant, it is a powerful work, full of the energy of the iconoclast. Men and Mountains, at around 12 minutes in 3 movements, has a similar tone, with pounding tympani and strident brass. Portals, a 6+ minute work for string orchestra, burns with incisive chords. And Evocations, a four-movement work for orchestra (along with an earlier piano version) follow in the same vein.
Ruggles’ orchestral work is powerful and uncompromising. His piano music has that Ivesian other-worldliness. He is dissonant, contrapuntal, yet the dissonance doesn’t shock; his music is aggressive; his voice is unique, and his sound world original. It’s a shame he didn’t compose more. He did, however, create hundreds of paintings, and was apparently a son of a bitch, with racist and anti-semitic tendencies.
The works are presented here in chronological order, and one can hear the evolution in Ruggles’ music as his technique got denser and more ecstatic. From the early songs to later orchestral works, by way of two versions of Evocations (the original for piano, and the later orchestral arrangement), Ruggles’ limited oeuvre is breathtaking and original. Almost entirely short works – Sun-treader is 16 minutes long, and there are three works in the 6-7 1/2 minute range – this music is concentrated and uncompromising. No other composer who wrote so little music is as important as Carl Ruggles.
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