Spinning Today (Classical version)

[MartinT]

Ok, I'm sold. I'm going to have to find a copy of this and check it out.

You won't regret it, Biff. Her performance is simply outstanding.

[jandl100]

Yup, I like Perahia's Goldbergs, but I generally find his playing fluent rather than deep. I accept I may be in the minority here, though! I found his Mozart piano conerto series prissy and superficial, although he has of course come on a long way since then.

[MartinT]

He's no Radu Lupu but then again, who is?

[synsei]

Now this does it for me. A wonderful recording and performance

[Reid Malenfant]

Been a good few years since i have heard that Dave, same record to i believe

Night On Bald Mountain is pretty spectacular

Enjoy...

E2A:- love the new Rama avatar

[synsei]

Hi Mark,

Mines a FLAC download and Night On Bald Mountain does shake the room

The new avatar is actually an original piece of e-art I found searching for a new background. It is inspired mainly by Greg Bears Eon but the artist also credits Rama and and some NASA space station concepts as influences

[Reid Malenfant]

Well stuff me for not recognising Axis City & The Way Love the book & the sequel Eternity... Wasn't too keen on #3 though - Legacy

[MartinT]

I thought it represented Rama too, the moment I saw it Dave.

[synsei]

Both Eon and Rendezvous With Rama contain cylindrical insideout worlds Martin, the difference being that Rama is a metallic, cylindrical spacecraft manufactured by an alien civilization. Rama's interior is devoid of vegetation and is more or less sterile except for a cylindrical sea containing nutrients out of which it's psuedo-lifeforms are grown. The Stone, featured in Eon (or The Potato if you are a Russian in the Eon universe), is a hollowed out asteroid that is also a multiverse traversing craft. It was built by Humans from an alternative universe and contains chambers teeming with terrestrial life as well as others containing the machinery which powers its systems. In actual fact The Stone has it's own weird, cylindrical universe trailing out of its backside, so to speak...

[jandl100]

Yesterday' listening ....

Shostakovich 7th symphony. Jarvi/Chandos CD. I was recommended this by a Wammer who reckoned it to be the best 7th ever. Hmm ... not bad, if you haven't heard better. Kind of clean and unemotional. It'll be on eBay shortly.

Shostakovich 7th symphony. Anton Nanut / Ljubljana SO. Stradivari CD. Aha, now we're cookin' with charcoal!! Superbly involving, the infamous 40 page 1st movement crescendo builds to a truly terrifying climax here, not just a build up to a loud noise that Jarvi plays. Fook me, the Nazi's really are battering at the city gates! Good recording, too, really fruity and dynamic. This remains my fave 7th.
(Try Nanut's Bruckner 8th, Mahler's 6th and Beethoven's 7th as well, once again my faves of many versions - a great conductor, sadly overlooked).

Brahms Piano Concerto #2. Pollini / Abbado / Vienna Phil. DG LP. Another Minty from my recent charity shop haul. Nice performance, Pollini is energetic and forceful - not the last word in the lyrical sections, but good nonetheless.

Liszt - late piano works, Brendel. Philips 9500 775 LP. My, the terrors of old age are cruelly revealed here. Not the flamboyance and bravura of the younger Liszt, but deep melancholy and sadness. Heavy stuff.

Gloria Coates String quartet #9, 12 solo violin pieces, piano trio. Naxos CD. I just love this lady's soundworld. Very very strange, but compelling. Demonstration class recording too.