I've recently come to really appreciate Tusk, the 1979 album following Rumours. I picked up the relatively recent remaster (remaster date not shown on cover or liner notes) of the double vinyl album onto a single CD, possibly at a "Super Saver Price" at a now defunct Tower Records retail store. The big hits Sara, Tusk with the USC Marching Band, etc., have all of their bold and brassy glory. But the smaller, quieter, spacey numbers by Buckingham and Christine McVie are charming, emotional and beautiful. Save Me A Place is a, structurally-simple, languid, heartfelt blues number with stunningly-pretty, four-part vocal harmonies. The funny, funky, quirky Buckingham tunes like I Know I'm Wrong also charm.

Some say that Fleetwood Mac is a better live than studio band. That may be true in terms of audience experience, but Fleetwood Mac is also one of the top studio bands of all time, and this comes across superbly in hit studio albums like Tusk. The very nice remastering here really helps. The original recording quality of Tusk is outstanding, as it should be for a band of this caliber. I assume it's an extremely high quality analog multitrack recording with very careful miking and very clean analog processing. The original recording is credited to Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut at The Village Recorder, with "some tracks recorded by Lindsey Buckingham at home." Caillat is also credited with the remastering, with Sounstream equipment used for digital mixdown. (Soundstream was used for many good-sounding Telarc classical digital recordings.) Sound is decidedly better than earlier albums Rumors and Fleetwood Mac. String, drum, brush and voice sounds are excellent, far, far above typical commercial pop. These albums were huge business, but they were also huge art and huge heart. The deserve their place in the pantheon of popular music.

Schumann: Bunte Blätter pretty

Dvorak Cello Concerto too

Rosand's Sibelius paired with the Khachaturian (VXP 7904) is a bit less enthralling, perhaps in small part due to the partnership with the Malaysian Philharmonic under Kees Bakels, but it's thoughtful and interesting. A Vox disk (VXP 7906) with the Bruch concerto, A Minor Romance and Scottish Fantasy with the Hannover NDR Radio-Philharmonie has definite charms.

Rosand's tone is charming, his playing fresh and emotionally charged. His Romances for Violin and Piano with Hugh Sung (VOX 7505) are wonderful peformances of standards by Bruch, Kreisler, Sibelius, Dvorak, Vieuwxtemps, Wieniawski, Clara Schumann, Nielsen, and others. As of that 1995 recording date, Rosand was a Professor at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, which is presumably where he met Sung, who graduated in 1990 after studying with Jorge Bolet and Seymour Lipkin. Sound quality is excellent and the performances could be models for how these pieces should be played. Sung's performances are excellent, though the violin is given a bit more prominence over his piano in the recordings. These were recorded at the Curtis Institute in 1993.

Pete clearly influenced rock guitarists like Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen, and others, and if you like their work, you'll very likely enjoy Pete's as well. Haycock is at least as much of a percursor for them as Al Dimeola, Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton.

But it's the writing that especially impresses me. The best of the tunes are instant classics with catchy hooks, touching lyrics, great instrumental sound, and soaring harmonies. They're brilliant pop pieces that are also very pretty. If writers Peterik and Sullivan don't have some formal compositional training, they clearly have an appreciation for classical music. A couple of the earlier tunes "Rebel Girl" and "Rockin Into The Night" are straight ahead yet distinctive enough to have opened doors to the record companies. 38 Special got to debut record "Rockin," and it became one of their staples. The Survivor version is expectedly a bit flashier, but is related in spirit to 38 Special's cover version. Harmonies on later tunes remind somewhat of Journey, but Jamison's voice seems stronger and more pure than Steve Perry's. Survivor's sensibilites lean more towards pop, yet retain a tougher edge than Journey's polish.

Her singing and the great writing and playing of Neil Giraldo and many others of New York's finest session musicians really created a phenomenon. Some of the writing is a bit over the top, but rock is not about being shy and for the most part it works really well. Pat had the skills, talent, writing and playing from herself and those around her to succeed, and succeed she did. Compliations are retrospective in nature, but I'm grateful for the chronicles and preservation of some great music.

While her intonation of the 3/4 size violin may leave some room for improvement, her artistry is astonishing. (Part of the tonality may also be due to some closed-in sonics of the hall or microphone technique. The sound is good, but a bit opaque. Overall the sound has a slight, honking, nasal resonance.) Chang was playing a 3/4 size because she was 11 years old when the recording was made in 1992! I can't recall many adult violinists with this kind of mastery of instrument or conceptual capacity for integrating entire works.

Regarding the accompanyment, Davis seems to push the LSO at a fairly traditional pace, which at times seems to outstrip Chang's somewhat non-traditional and more leisurely interpretation. If she had a view of the work with a rhythmic basis, Davis did not seem to fully buy into it, or arguably he was providing contrast via a more conventional reading for the orchestra. Another way to view this might be to say that the orchestra indulged her experimentation while it drew her performance into the overall dynamic.

Chang also does a more than credible job on four companion tracks of Brahms' Hungarian Dances. Nothing about her fully-realized playing says "child prodigy" other than perhaps a little less than adult power, where the same could be said of the concerto. Pianist Jonathan Feldman is sympathetic and polished, everything a young virtuoso could ask for in an accompanyist.

Perhaps I should not have been too surprised to find that this is outstanding musicianship by Chang. She manages to be lively and fresh while playing with perfect expressiveness as if she were speaking, singing her own music. Each phrase and the indeed entire works are well-conceived and beautifully realized. The artist knows the story the music is telling and shares it with us lovingly. At the same time she is able to concertize with Old-World dignity and charm, with a sensitivity to the history of the pieces that puts her in a continuum of the greats. The paradox of her acknowledgment of the past together with a distinct freshness and vitality to her playing is intriguing and delightful. Chang brings the knowing heart of the music alive in a way very few violinists can. Through great talent, artistry and intelligence, she is able to express the soul and energy of the music, as if she has magically become, for the duration of its performance, part of its universal essence.

For me part of her art and charm are musically sensible tempi which are not relaxed or slow, but simply in tune with and appropriate to the music. That the tempi may be slower in places than the seemingly frenzied pace of other recordings in the past century is probably just another sign of her musical mastery.

Accompaniment by Jansons and the Berlin is nearly uniformly harmoniously excellent. Chang seems to have gotten far more respect from this orchestra than most young soloists, though at the 1996 point of this recording she was a seasoned veteran at 15 years old, having concertized since the age of 8 with the likes of Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, and Ricardo Muti and the Philadelphia. The Sibelius is a live recording, but the Berlin audience is respectfully silent as is customary in Europe.

These outstanding modern recordings by a very exceptional young artist get my highest recommendation. I hope to have the opportunity to hear Chang in concert some day!

Update: going back and re-listening to Josefowicz' Tchaikovsky leaves me wondering what I didn't like about it before. The recording is fairly close multi-miked, meaning every detail of her intonation can be heard, including perhaps a couple glitches, but she really plays this piece, and plays it very well. Perhaps it was the close-miked sound of this recording that bothered me the most. Its sound is close, but livable. But more importantly the performances of the soloist and orchestra are wonderful!

Another factor is that Salerno-Sonnenberg learned the Sibelius late in life at 28 or 29, whereas many other players learn it when young. It's a difficult piece, and the technical challenges may perhaps have made Salerno-Sonnenberg overly cautious, then lavish in her treatment. She alludes to this in her liner note interview, saying:

"It would have been a lot easier if I had learned it when I was 17 and then brought it back. Because by the time I did start to work on it I was already who I am, so I drove myself crazy with pressure. When it didn't sound good in one day, I became scared and frightened. Not to mention frustrated."

Where Josefowicz' and Marriner's performances of the Sibelius slow movement frequently leave me on the edge of tears, Salerno-Sonnenberg and Tilson Thomas leave me intellectually curious but largely unmoved. Puzzlement is not the feeling I look for in pieces from Romanic era. It's also the opposite of what I usually expect from Salerno-Sonnenberg, who so often lets her emotions radiate from the bowstrings like a 100 kilowatt ratio transmitter. One minor example is the stark barrenness depicted in the first movement by Salerno-Sonnenberg, where the composer notes espressivo. NSS takes this to mean expressing a nordic stoicism against desolation and sadness with a thin tone, whereas most other performers, Josefowicz included, use a fuller intonation to express, well, expressiveness.

Perhaps the biggest lesson to be drawn from this recording is that the conductor matters a lot. I suppose I should hurry up and move to Seattle so I can hear Gerard Schwarz more and MTT less. It's also a bit surprising that Salerno-Sonnenberg chose an intellectual approach to this piece where emotion is her great and clear advantage. Perhaps this comes from learning the Sibelius much later in life, unlike the Brahms, Tchaikovsky and others which she learned in her youth.

Update: Hearing Salerno-Sonnenberg's Sibelius a few more times leads to a new appreciation of it as more mature and introspective, but wonderful in its own regard. As opposed to being restrained or cautious, one can say that it takes a more subtle approach still infused with emotion, yet emerging from a subtext drawn more deeply from within the work itself. Salerno-Sonnenberg once again manages amazing contradictions in a performance thoughtful and intelligent yet pointedly and at all times deliciously emotional. Even with some more familiarity, a few of the decisions seem minorly quirky, but they are no longer distracting. Instead they are small differences of opinion that make an outstanding performance distinctive.

The orchestra and soloist seem to take somewhat of a "European" perspective, with a sophisticated near-reverence for the work apparent. I still feel MTT's reading is a little timid, but it could also be said that he defers the orchestra to the soloist more often, as a good accompanyist arguably should. The orchestra shares a slightly spare and lean view of this work with the soloist. Pacing is generous, and that too is somewhat European in perspective, but mainly it's probably being more faithful to composer's original tempi.

In contrast Josefowicz' performance is more extroverted and perhaps a bit more straightforward, but still sweet and appealing. Both performances of this extraordinary work find their own ways to please and delight.

Accompaniment by Gerard Schwarz and the New York Chamber Symphony circa 1988 is excellent as is so often the case whenever he picks up the baton and dedicates himself to whatever work he chooses to lead. Schwarz is becoming one of my favorite conductors. I'm not even sure I can describe his musical sensibilities or why I like them so much, but like Salerno-Sonnenberg's, Schwarz's reading and performance of many pieces simply seem right to my ear. Surely part of the attraction is deep thought and consideration both artists apparently put into their conceptualizations. So often do their performances plumb questions of what the music should say, and so seldom do they simply seem to be running through the notes as too many others perhaps may be said to do in comparison. That this collaboration would be a tremendous musical success should therefore perhaps not be too great a surprise. Highly recommended, and by the way where can I find more recordings by these two? If this is any indication, they should be wonderful. Sound is very good, if multi-miked and slightly close, as unfortunately is the commercial norm.

Lang Lang is technically adept, but like so many current musicians his pianissimi are consciously quiet, where the quiet in these passages should come from the spiritual calm of the player more than the overt physical modulation of the instrument. Similarly I find Lang Lang's emotional contrasts expressed through the music to be more affected and less heartfelt, corporeal and visceral than Nojima's. Telarc's sound on the Lang Lang recording is excellent, if somewhat characteristically mechanical and contrived in nature, which perhaps fits the performances, just as Keith Johnson's more organic and natural sound fits Nojima's.

So here we have two pianists, one striving for excellence and the other obviously being it. The contrast could not be more clear.

The Beaux Arts plays wonderfully; not much more could be asked from these performances, other perhaps for a slightly more distant microphone perspective. It's amazing that F.J. Haydn had been considered largely irrelevant by his succeeding romantic generations. His compositions are, for lack of a better description, classically classical and far less "cute" than the precocious and better-known works of upstart Mozart. The Beaux Arts is able to infuse the joyful compositional beauty of Papa Haydn's trios with skillful elegance and charm.

The sound differs noticeably between these two CDs. The earlier set with Concerti 1, 2, and 4 (BWV 1052, 1053 and 1055 respectively on Sony Classical SK 89245) is a bit harder, harsher and more "digital," particularly during louder passages. Given that type of coloration, I propose that it may be attributable to differing digital recorders, since that is the kind of effect I believe I hear from inferior digital conversion, but the hardness could also be due to microphone choice or placement, mixers or other technical issues. No information about this recording is included other than an Air Studios, London location and engineering by Markus Heiland. The later recording of Concerti 3, 5, 6, 7 (BWV 1054, 1056, 1057, 1058 on Sony Classical SK 89690) was at the same studio by the same crew, but aside from BWV 1056, they were recorded a year later and probably on newer equipment. BWV 1056 on the second disc appears to have been recorded in the same session as the first disc and is noticeably more forward, disintegrated spatially and generally harder. It sounds like the later recordings also used fewer microphones since the result is more like a real, whole space and less like spotlighted instruments or groups of instruments each in an unrelated reverberation space.

The newer tracks are recoded using "24-bit technology" but the note somewhat in contradiction also says Direct Stream Digital (DSD) and SBM Direct were utilized. (In principle DSD and PCM are very different processes, but many of Sony's so-called DSD recordings are from PCM masters, and some of the DSD recorders start with highly oversampled low-bit PCM converters.) Perhaps the later recording was 24-bit PCM then converted to DSD for further conversion into 16-bit, 44.1 kHz using Super Bit Mapping. Or perhaps it was a DSD recording converted to 24-bit before being Super Bit Mapped into CD format. Whatever the method, the sound of the later recording is much smoother and more natural. Instrument sounds, particularly in the low registers, is notably more realistic. Fortissimi are cleaner. Whatever technology was used, the sound of the later recordings is quite a bit better than the earlier ones.

My main general critique of the sound, other than some hardness on the earlier recordings, is that the miking is unnaturally close, and as is unfortunately typical for commercial recordings there seem to be many spot mikes, particularly during the earlier recording session. The resulting sound is definitely more immediate than one would hear from the seats in a concert hall. Spot miking distorts the spatial relationships of the instruments to the hall and other instruments, which is why I and most audiophiles since the early days of high fidelity prefer minimalist miking with a few mikes close to each other but relatively far from the performers and further into the hall. However these are very good commercial recordings of great music. I do find myself better enjoying the music of the later recordings due to their superior sound.

Brahms' beautiful writing is so emotionally evocative that I find myself drawn immediately into the spirit of the music. The Eroica's fresh yet informed readings and outstanding musicianship serve the music wonderfully. Their playing is occasionally more edgy than ballsy, but there is plenty of muscle, fire and love of the music and performing arts here. Oh, and by the way, the Eroica Trio is three beautiful young ladies. Congratulations to them for bringing us this great music! This trio is as heroic as their name boasts.

Liner notes say this was "Recorded on SADiE Workstation 20-Bit using Schoeps 221B Omnidirectional microphones", so we can assume it was relatively direct to hard disk. Engineer was Marc Aubort and the venue was Alexander Hall at Princeton University. The mikes are clearly excellent, though the SADiE recorder is very likely no longer state-of-the art. The resulting sound is very good, but like most commercial recordings the perspective is a bit close. It makes for good delineation of instrument sound, but the sonic perspective is closer than one would normally hear, unless one normally stands on a ladder a few feet from the performers during a concert!

Bruch composed his Violin Concerto a few short years before Brahms, and both are dedicated to Hannover concertmaster Joseph Joachim. Where Brahms deliberately pares down his composition and dramatically omits in places, Bruch is fuller textured and more complete-sounding. Perhaps it's the case that Brahms takes somewhat larger and bolder artistic leaps while Bruch more often seeks beauty in classical proportion and balance. Bruch's orchestrations and tonal progressions sound fully modern. Perhaps this shows how thoroughly the late romantic has actually influenced the contemporary musical ear through movie compositions and so forth. Bruch's joyous, rollicking final movement benefits from completeness and proportion, being pleasingly thorough and fulfilled and a little more grounded and earthly and less flighty than Brahms'. Especially in the final movement, it's clear Brahms was influenced by the spirit of Bruch's earlier concerto. I'm a huge fan of Brahms so that's a big credit. While Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Minnesota give a solid, enjoyable performance of the Bruch, I could have perhaps hoped for a little more verve and a little less classical restraint. I guess I'm being a little inconsistent wishing for more modern performances at times and more restraint at others. Their particular readings may be very appropriate to each work after all. Clean sound on both pieces is a bit distant except for the close miked soloist. Perhaps a compromise microphone placement could have given a more holistic, consistent sound. All in all a very good recording and performance, if perhaps not the ultimate.

Update: After a little more familiarity I must say I really like the more generous pacing of Salerno-Sonnenberg's concerti with De Waart. The modern tendency is to rush through pieces as if a faster pace makes them more exciting, with someone like Ozawa as an extreme example. A slower pace lets the music grow and develop, is better suited to most works, and is often closer to the composer's original intentions and historical performances. Kudos for letting the music thrive by not rushing it.

"He alone has the secret of making me smile and touching me to the bottom of my soul" -- W. A. Mozart

Update: I have become beguiled with these works of F. J. Haydn. Both the 22nd and 104th Symphonies seem musically very satisfying examples of beautifully drawn classicism. The gutsy yet subtle dynamics of Haydn's 104th "London" Symphony, and the intricate, clever and surprising contrapuntal textures, tonalities, phrasings and modalities are far better than a casual listen might suggest. Haydn's harmonies and orchestrations are likewise masterful. Comparing these with Mozart's oft times cherubic compositions, I place Haydn among the better late-Classical period composers.

The Haydn Piano Concerti here rival and perhaps surpass Mozart in their clean lines and pleasing, balanced forms. It definitely helps that Gerard Schwarz conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with great intelligence, vision and sympathy, which infuses the music with strong energy and due reserve where appropriate. Pianist Rosenberger plays delightfully well with the ensemble too. I wonder if my lack of earlier appreciation for Haydn stems from uninspired, underenthusiastic performances. Here these great works get the care and affection they deserve.

Additionally, Hyperion's recording of Paderewski's Concerto in a minor featuring Piers Lane playing with the BBC Scottish Symphony has mesmerizingly beautiful middle section.

By any measure these are outstanding and very enjoyable recordings, but I can think of a couple things I would do differently. First, use a Steinway, which is what Rach would have played. (Alternatively you could match the recording sessions through Ampico piano playback.) Second, don't model the mechanical player piano; model the performer's input and model out the modern electrical operating system. In other words, play the modern piano as if the performer sat down at it today, not a reconstructed old player piano. If this can be done, it might sound more like a live human performance and less like a player piano performance. Heck I would even place an appropriately tall dummy dressed in a full tuxedo on a piano bench in front of the piano for more realistic acoustic phasing, absorptions and reflections. Irrespective of recording technicalities, the music here is delightful and fantastically good. Highest recommendation.

Stop the presses! The sound on Symphonic Dances is surprisingly good; almost as good as the Vox recording from the 1960s. It has notably good hall and instrument sound if a sometimes noticeable noise floor and some distortion of dynamics. While the liner notes are blank, we can safely assume the recording is no more than 40 to 50 years old. The basic microphone placement and sound mix is excellent. If this were made with modern equipment it would be an outstanding recording. The piece is very sympathetically played by the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Eugene Goosens. The good performance and historical sound is another reason to recommend.

Relistening to this collection, Cramer's Fifth Concerto stands out as interesting. With Beethoven, Cramer was an admirer of Mozart, but Cramer's own work owes more to the Classical period and Haydn. The Larghetto middle movement is particularly pretty and shows some of the cleverness and balance of a Haydn, though Cramer decidedly has his own voice. He also draws comparisons with acquaintence Beethoven, and I find some similarities with contemporary Mendelssohn. His harmonies and orchestration differ significantly, and it would be interesting to discover where he studied composition. The thoughtful 1974 performance by Akiko Sagara with Pierre Cao conducting the Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg piques interest in his other compositions, including the 7 concerti. According to the liner notes, this may have been the first recording of Cramer's major works.