Your records of the year 2019

[kea]

Riot Ensemble - works by Lim, Saunders, Czernowin, Ivičević (HCR)
Elision Ensemble - works by Barrett, McCormack and Lim (HCR)
Enno Poppe - Rundfunk (Wergo)
Eliane Radigue - Occam Ocean 2 (Shiiin)
Masaaki Suzuki - Bach: English Suites (BIS)
Marie Ross, Petra Somlai & Claire-Lise Démettre - Brahms: Clarinet Sonatas & Trio (Centaur)
Frank Denyer - The Fish that became the Sun (Another Timbre)

I don't usually keep up with new releases but there's been a greater than average amount of exceptional music this year.

[mikealdren]

RECORDS OF THE YEAR 2019 (Top Choices Starred).

____20thC....

MAHLER Symphony No.10 (arr. Castelletti) Lapland CO/Storgards/BIS SACD/CD. Stunning new take on the great and tragically incomplete…. very intense, heartbreakingly beautiful account. Works very well on the Chamber Orchestra.

SIBELIUS SYMPHONY NO.1. Gothenburg SO/Rouvali/Alpha CD. Absolute knockyouforsix stunna. Impatient for more.

Sorry to be a pedant at Christams (or any other time) but surely Sibelius 1 is 19thC
Mike

[Bryn]

Sorry to be a pedant at Christams (or any other time) but surely Sibelius 1 is 19thC
Mike

Is not the recording referred to of the revised version of the work? That was completed in 1900, a year which some consider the fall within the 20th century.

[Barbirollians]

I did not buy many new records in 2019 but am mightily impressed by the Helmchen/Manze Beethoven 2.

[BBMmk2]

I’ve had quite a few this year. Lucky me!

[Zucchini]

I did not buy many new records in 2019 but am mightily impressed by the Helmchen/Manze Beethoven 2.

Just two: Mirga G-T CBSO Weinberg & Anna Vinnitskaya, her teacher, his wife. Bach concertos.

[makropulos]

[QUOTE=jayne lee wilson;769376]
MONTEVERDI [/B]VESPRO La Tempête/Simon-Pierre Bestion. Qobuz Studio/Alpha CDs.
Utterly unique, Free and sometimes wild, yet devoted to its Earthy Mediterranean Village Church milieu, this sui generis take on the usually austere compendium gave me more sheer musical joy than any other recording this year…. and continues to…. the beauty never stops, and some of the solos have an ethereal, almost Imam-style hover & stillness about them…. Bestion finds the beating heart amid the old stones…
[FONT=Helvetica]

Your enthusiasm for this certainly made me listen to it again, but I'm afraid the village-tavern style of the singing at the opening sets the tone for the whole thing, and I can't love it however hard I try. Not sure why you thing of the Vespers as a 'usually austere compendium' either. A 'Mediterranean village church' approach says it quite well –but I'm afraid that doesn't help.

[Master Jacques]

After much thought, and a nod to the Hebridean Ensemble's delicious compilation of chamber and vocal works by Judith Weir on Delphian, it has to be Janacek. And by a neck over Nicky Spence's powerful new recording of The Diary of One Who Disappeared (with Julius Drake et al.) on Hyperion, my choice is:

Janacek: Jenufa and The Diary of One Who Disappeared
Jenufa: Libuse Domaninska, Marie Steinerova, Sona Cervena, Antonin Jurecka, Jaroslav Ulrych, Rudolf Asmus etc.
Brno State Theatre opera ensemble and Radio Symphony Orchestra, c. Bretislav Bakala
Diary: Josef Valka, Sona Cervena, Bretislav Bakala (piano)
(Brno Radio recordings, 1953) (RadioServis CR1037-2, 2-CD set)

Bakala's Janacek has authenticity - as Janacek's pupil, he worked closely with the composer on several late scores and played the demanding piano part in the first public performance of The Diary... - but more to the point, his conducting of the opera here is a matchless mix of passion and musical precision. Domaninska's Jenufa is simply the best on disc, naturally fresher here than in her famous 1969 recording for EMI. Steinerova and Cervena are in the same class, and this is the most powerful Jenufa on disc, for me; while The Diary... benefits not only from Bakala's focused, living-and-breathing pianism (the composer was his mentor here, after all) but also from Cervena's noble Gypsy girl and Josef Valka's gifts as a detailed Lieder tenor, all combining to produce deep woodland magic.

RadioServis's transfers are very good indeed and the documentation is excellent: although if you don't fancy ordering the set online from Prague, there's a tempting alternative way to acquire both these performances, alongside the remainder of Bakala's Brno Radio Janacek opera recordings and much else, from CRQ Editions, which for £15 offers a generous DVD compendium on MP3 files, plus an authoritative 40-page introduction and guide to all the recordings from the leading Janacek scholar, Nigel Simeone:

https://crqeditions.co.uk/

What better way to start the New Year?

[Barbirollians]

I had forgotten MGT’s Weinberg which I agree is an outstanding record. Reissues included getting hold of the dazzling Decca and Sony Stokowski boxes.

Disappointment was FXR’s Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique . I loved the sounds of the instruments but to my ears the interpretation was pretty ordinary with Le Bal rather charmless in particular. Norrington’s magical LCP version remains top of the HIPP pile for me. The 1969 Stokowski recording on the other hand is extraordinarily gripping with a performance of the third movement in particular to take your breath away.