Your Records of the Year 2014

[Bryn]

I don't know about that. If I don't look at a giant blow-up of Mitsuko Uchida's anguished face at least once day, I start to get withdrawal symptoms.

And the term is hand stopping, not dumbing down.

[Stunsworth]

I've no objection to thumbnail photos and links if that's possible but to fill 2 screen pages with the photos you've taken adds nothing to the fact that you like these 2 discs. It just breaks the thread up.

A fine example of overkill and dumbing down, I think.

I'm wondering why, if that's the case, you reposted both of them?

[pastoralguy]

I've no objection to thumbnail photos and links if that's possible but to fill 2 screen pages with the photos you've taken adds nothing to the fact that you like these 2 discs. It just breaks the thread up.

A fine example of overkill and dumbing down, I think.

I'm just full of admiration that he can achieve this since I've tried and failed miserably! (And that's before I express my amazement at his early acquisition of this disc...)

[HighlandDougie]

JLW RECORD OF THE YEAR 2014:
"Rameau: The Sound of Light"
Musicaeterna/Nadine Koutcher/Teodor Currentzis. Sony ALAC 24/88.2.

In an amazing year for new releases, this stood out in its startlingly radical, recreative, expressionist yet emotionally faithful realisation of some of Rameau's best music. Yes, the recording veers close to or into overload in one or two stormy passages (try tr.7), but has remarkably vivid presence, with an in-the-room realism in its 24/88.2 guise. Currentzis takes risks, e.g. the avant-garde noise-burst before "Essayons du brillant" from Platee (tr.10), the fade to silence on the "Contredanse pour les peuples boreades", but when you hear the heartbreaking tenderness of Nadine Koutcher's utterances in "Tristes Appret" (the devastatingly lovely end of the sequence), and the breathless hush of Currentzis' orchestra's accompaniment, you'll forgive him anything...

While Mark Minkowski's confection ("Une Symphonie Imaginaire") remains my touchstone of how to play Rameau (Currentzis's account of the deeply affecting Chaconne from Les Indes Galantes sounds just a touch prosaic by comparison with MM), this is, as Jayne and M'lud have said, a disc that grabs your ears and doesn't let go. The Ligeti-esque introduction to "Essayons du Brillant" is a risk, as Jayne says, but one I'm glad he took. If not my disc of the year (Benjamin Grosvenor's way with Granados's 8 Valses Poéticos is so perfect that he wins my vote), I'm very glad to have bought it. A joy from start to finish.

[Rosie55]

Thanks for the reminder Rosie - it will make a wonderful present

I love the cover too...

[vibratoforever]

Added to my list is the first release of the Barbirolli/Czech PO live Mahler 1 on the Barbirolli society label .

This is a tremendous performance, especially in the last 2 movements. My pick of the year though is the Rozhdestvensky set of VW symphonies, notably No. 9.

[Roehre]

In 2014
3 new releases and one slightly older one for me:

Dutilleux Edition (DG)
CPE Bach complete keyboard works (Hännsler)
Hartmann Syphonies (Channel Classics)

and

La Polyphonie flamande, an 8CD set with an excellent book released in 2012 on the Ricercar label
(Covering music between Ciconia and Dufay to Obrecht and Pipelare, IMVHO qualitatively on par with Huelgas/Van Nevel's A Secret Labyrynth on Sony from 2011)

[BBMmk2]

Black Dyke Band's serious music cd The Triumph of Time, is one of the best brass band cds and Eikhanger Bjorsvik Musiklagg's recording of John Pickard's Symphony No.4, "Gaia", is an astounding achievement of the first complete recording of this work, rather than coppled together like The Cory Band had done.

On the classical music front, I like others have chosen Abbado's Mozart PCs with Argerich, plus Bruckner 9 and Sir Andrew Davis's Dream of Gerontius, also Tasmin Little's recording of French Violin Sonatas.

[HighlandDougie]

Hartmann Symphonies (Channel Classics)

Heartily agree. As predicted by Roehre when I enthused about Markus Stenz's KAH 'Simplicius Simplicissimus on Channel Classics, I have completely fallen for the recordings (SACD 5.1 in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw) and performances - both are exemplary.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Channel Classics"?

Who is the conductor of the Hartmann symphonies, please - I can't find this set?

EDIT: A-Ha! This one, perhaps?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Karl-Amadeus-Hartmann-Symphonies-Nos/dp/B00H1EOR3Y/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1420401677&sr=1-3&keywords=hartmann%2C+symphonies%2C

[HighlandDougie]

Yup - that's the one. Recordings of a series of concerts in which KAH's symphonies featured so a variety of conductors. Deeply engrossing music - I keep finding more and more in it.

[DublinJimbo]

Yup - that's the one. Recordings of a series of concerts in which KAH's symphonies featured so a variety of conductors. Deeply engrossing music - I keep finding more and more in it.

Definitely one of the picks of 2014.