Various Artists – Legends: Crank It Up (2014) [Audio Fidelity]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 70:56 minutes | Scans included | 2,88 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Full Scans included | 1,32 GB
Mastered by Steve Hoffman | Audio Fidelity # AFZ-178
Time Life is proud to introduce something new in the realm of compilation albums – for the first time ever in conjunction with Audio Fidelity we have assembled the original masters of some of rock’s biggest stars and greatest hits and remastered these classics for Hybrid SACD.
The collection is based on the original TimeLife LEGENDS product. With CRANK IT UP! Audio Fidelity has taken these hit tracks to another sonic level. You have never heard a hits collection of such consistently high standards. It’s like hearing these classic hits for the first time.
Read more
Various Artists – Kinda Jazzy Kinda Funky, Volume 2 (2005)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 57:40 minutes | Scans included | 2,33 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,11 GB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6014
Kinda Jazzy Kinda Funky is a fine sampling of jazz artists and vocalists on the 2004 High Note roster. These previously released nine tracks consist of compositions from Melvin Sparks, Rodney Jones, Randy Johnston, Bill Heid, and David “Fathead” Newman along with Lalo Schifrin’s “The Cat,” performed by Joey DeFrancesco, and Houston Person’s take on Johnny Griffin’s “Sweet Sucker.” This is a great way to get familiar with the High Note sound and audiophiles will be interested in knowing that this title.
Read more
Various Artists – Kinda Jazzy Kinda Funky (2004)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 65:09 minutes | Scans included | 2,63 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,19 GB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6011
Kinda Jazzy Kinda Funky is a fine sampling of jazz artists and vocalists on the 2004 High Note roster. These previously released nine tracks consist of compositions from Melvin Sparks, Rodney Jones, Randy Johnston, Bill Heid, and David “Fathead” Newman along with Lalo Schifrin’s “The Cat,” performed by Joey DeFrancesco, and Houston Person’s take on Johnny Griffin’s “Sweet Sucker.” This is a great way to get familiar with the High Note sound and audiophiles will be interested in knowing that this title.
Read more
Various Artists – Jazz That’s Soulfully Blue (2005)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 58:19 minutes | Scans included | 2,35 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1.03 GB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6013
It’s soulful and a little blue. It is tinged with the longing of lost love, found love. It gives you a feeling. That’s what music is supposed to do and this set does it! Give a listen!
Read more
Various Artists – Jazz in an R&B Groove, Volume 2 (2006)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 61:22 minutes | Scans included | 2,47 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,14 GB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6015
Jazz in an R&B Groove is a fine sampling of the jazz artists and vocalists on the 2004 High Note roster. All 11 tracks are cover versions of soul, R&B, and standards including “Let’s Stay Together” (Houston Person), “The Closer I Get to You” (Charles Earland Tribute Band), “What a Difference a Day Makes” (Irene Reid), “Night Life” (Dakota Staton) and “Watermelon Man” (Red Holloway). All of these tracks have been previously released but it’s still a great way to get familiar with the High Note label and audiophiles will be interested in knowing that this title.
Read more
Various Artists – Jazz in an R&B Groove (2004)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 64:44 minutes | Scans included | 2,62 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,16 GB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6012
Jazz in an R&B Groove is a fine sampling of the jazz artists and vocalists on the 2004 High Note roster. All 11 tracks are cover versions of soul, R&B, and standards including “Let’s Stay Together” (Houston Person), “The Closer I Get to You” (Charles Earland Tribute Band), “What a Difference a Day Makes” (Irene Reid), “Night Life” (Dakota Staton) and “Watermelon Man” (Red Holloway). All of these tracks have been previously released but it’s still a great way to get familiar with the High Note label and audiophiles will be interested in knowing that this title.
Read more
Various Artists – Jazz Goes Pop: Hits Of The 60’s, Vol. 1 (2008)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 56:52 minutes | Scans included | 2,28 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1.03 GB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6019
Remember hearing these songs on that AM radio you used to have? Of course you do, but you probably don’t remember them sounding so good. Here’s a collection of the songs you liked, done a way you’ll love.
Read more
Various Artists – Jazz For The Wee Small Hours (2006)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 52:03 minutes | Scans included | 2,1 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 934 MB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6016
The quiet hours, love lost, love found again. The feelings, the familiar melodies recalled. The songs, each with their own story, could all be yours, each interpreted by different dream weavers. It is the time of day that leaves you alone with memories.
Read more
Various Artists – Jazz After Midnight (2007)
PS3 Rip | ISO | SACD DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 61:46 minutes | Scans included | 2,49 GB
or FLAC(converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/88,2 kHz | Scans included | 1,07 GB
HighNote Records SACD # HCD 6018
Jazz After Midnight contains ten romantic standards performed by artists on the Highnote label. While short on improvising or energetic interludes, this is a decent budget-line set that features Frank Morgan, David “Fathead” Newman, and Larry Coryell with less than obvious inclusions by Mike LeDonne, Don Sickler and Louis Hayes & the Cannonball Legacy Band. Recommended for those who appreciate jazz as romantic background music.
Read more
Various Artists – Highlights From Cats (1989) [Reissue 2016]
PS3 Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 57:41 minutes | Scans NOT included | 2,31 GB
or FLAC (converted with foobar2000 to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Front, Scans NOT included | 678 MB
Highlights from the U.K. cast. This famous original recording features a stirring performance by musical theater legend Elaine Paige as Grizzabella and the hilarious character actor Brian Blessed. A must-have recording for collectors and musical theater aficionados.
Read more
Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque – Vivaldi: L’Estro Armonico (2015)
DSF 5.0 Surround DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:36:58 minutes | 9,89 GB
or DSF Stereo DSD64, 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 01:36:58 minutes | 3,95GB
or FLAC 2.0 Stereo 24bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:36:58 minutes | 4,13 GB
Genre: Classical | Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | © Channel Classics Records B.V.
Vivaldi has, above all, always struck me as wonderfully entertaining. His musical shapes and figurations seem to exist in order to please and surprise. Always supremely idiomatic (although sometimes idiosyncratically specific), there’s also that sense of directing a sensation with a particular person in mind. In the 12 Concertos which comprise ‘L’Estro Armonico’, these qualities abound, not least because Vivaldi appears to have taken extraordinary trouble to exhibit his craft to the world, almost as a way of ‘setting out a stall’ for how a new 18thcentury concerto could now be written in the right hands. Underpinning Vivaldi’s flair, originality and meticulous attention to detail is an engine room of momentum: raw energy is regularly the order of the day with muscular layers of semiquavers and rapid acrobatics passed between the various configurations of soloists. These pieces are truly exhilarating to play and perform and their fresh impact never fails to hit some target or other, judging by the reaction of a live audience. Not often do you witness four violins trying to outdo each other! During Brecon Baroque’s concerts preceding the recording, the rapierlike turns in musical conversations between the four parts always seemed to lead to added expectation and excitement – all the more effective because of the contrasted moments of deep melancholy which Vivaldi some how manages to express irrespective of mode; like Schubert, a major key can be just as poignant and affecting as a minor in a conceit of sadness or loss. For example, in the slow movements of Concertos nos. 9 and 12 in D and E major respectively, there is an exquisite tenderness in his writing, something fragile, innocent and temporary; I catch myself wondering for whom these moments were created… I would like to thank all my wonderful colleagues for these many intense moments of energy, tenderness and joy while performing and recording these fantastic concertos – works which intrigued Bach and from which he mined so many of the very finest Vivaldian attributes. –Rachel Podger
Read more
Johannette Zomer, Tulipa Consort – Vivaldi: Laudate! (2016)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,82 MHz | Time – 01:11:40 minutes | 2,83 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 01:11:40 minutes | 1,88 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Artwork: Digital Booklet, Front Cover
Genre: Classical | © Channel Classics Records B.V.
Several years ago I founded my own ensemble, the Tulipa Consort. As a singer I have the privilege of performing with countless conductors, orchestras and choirs at the most beautiful and unique venues in the world. It gives me great delight to sing, but so often in the run-up to the concerts compromises have to be made between the performers (especially between conductor and singer) so that they can agree on the approach, and this is often no easy task. Working with my own ensemble has given me artistic freedom from the very beginning, for by selecting my own repertoire and musicians I feel entirely at home in the music, which greatly benefits the performance. For the first CD by the Tulipa Consort I have chosen sacred music by Antonio Vivaldi. The idea occured to me several years ago when I sang his Laudate Pueri in Montreal with the cellist Jaap ter Linden. I was moved and impressed by the diversity of this work. Vivaldi is too often associated only with the Four Seasons and the Gloria, while there is so much more. This soon became apparent when I began to compile a programme around Laudate pueri: the somewhat slower pieces in particular, such as the second movement of Laudate pueri, ‘Sit nomen Domine’ and the second aria from RV 631 ‘Rosa quae moritur’, proved to possess great depth and beauty. And we simply had to include the lively ‘Ascende Laeta’, which bubbles and foams with joy. I hope you will enjoy listening to this repertoire just as much as we, the Tulipa Consort, have enjoyed performing it. –Johannette Zomer
Read more
Rachel Podger, Arte Dei Suonatori – Vivaldi: La Stravaganza, Op. 4 (2003)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:43:58 minutes | 4,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Channel Classics Records B.V. | Front Cover, Booklet
Immersing myself in the 12 Concertos of ‘La Stravaganza’ was an intense and exhilarating experience, and one which has left me full of wonder at Vivaldi’s seemingly endless capacity for invention. Having had many opportunities to get to know his music ever since I started playing the violin (the well-loved A minor Concerto from L’estro Armonico is one of the set pieces in Suzuki’s violin method and played by most 6-10 year olds!), the Seasons and L’estro featuring strongly in baroque concert programmes, it was with interest but also a number of pre-conceptions that I approached these relatively obscure concertos. I rather arrogantly assumed I’d have to put my mind to making them sound as different from each other as possible, as they probably wouldn’t assert their own character within the set by themselves. I’m ashamed of that thought now, since I quickly realised that I wasn’t dealing with ‘samey’ music at all, but with extreme inventiveness within a definite framework. Vivaldi uses melodic figurations in so many remarkable ways. It’s as though he likes to experiment with every possible variant and push the players beyond expectation of what might be coming next.
Having said that, the most predictable comment about his music is that his music is predictable! But listen, for example, to the last movement of Concerto no.1, where we see him first setting up a simple phrase, experimenting with the opening figure (first 2 bars) in minimal ways, taking us unexpectedly (unpredictably!) into a new key just when we expect the solo part to take charge. For 111 bars he lets his imagination run riot with this very simple opening figure, transforming it and avoiding any obvious phrasing that the listener might assume. This way, he creates a wonderful spirit of exploration in the music. Fragments of figurations are often thrown from one part to the next in the orchestra, later making up a whole phrase. Vivaldi also uses very simple tools by, for instance, making the tune leap across the two violin parts: there is an ascending triadic figure which goes to-and-fro between the fiddles as a variation on a similar tune heard earlier in a single part within the orchestra (Concerto no.3, first movement). His citing of a tune, repeating it twice note-by-note and then changing it at the last minute is often both witty and clever (like in Concerto no.5, first movement, during the 4th tutti section).
Vivaldi conveys so much variety and character; it feels easy to perform as the language is so direct and the expression within looks candidly at you from the page. The sublime slow movements (such as in Concertos nos. 1 and 11) recall descriptions or paintings of paradise where you literally feel like you’re hovering on a cloud for the duration of the movement… and the demon-like moments in Concerto no.8 (first movement) make you believe you’re being devoured by hungry tigers. I want to thank all the members of Arte dei Suonatori for helping to make this recording such an exciting project and for being so good-natured in putting up with all my experiments in the sessions. And I’d like to thank Jared Sacks, Jonathan Freeman-Attwood, Cezary Zych and Tim Cronin without whom this recording would not have been possible.
Read more
Rachel Podger, Holland Baroque Society – Vivaldi: La Cetra, Op. 9 (2012)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:57:26 minutes | 4,64 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Channel Classics Records B.V. | Front Cover, Booklet
In September 1728, Vivaldi met the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI in or near Trieste, where the emperor was supervising the construction of a new harbour. Charles was a great admirer of Vivaldi, and he gave him the title of knight and a golden chain with a medallion, and invited him to visit Vienna. In turn, Vivaldi gave the emperor a manuscript with a collection of concertos entitled ‘La Cetra’ (the cittern or lyre). It was probably no coincidence that the composer had used the same title for the Twelve Violin Concertos Opus 9 ‘La Cetra’ featured on this CD, which he published a year earlier through Le Cène in Amsterdam, with a dedication to the Emperor. According to the Vivaldi scholar Michael Talbot, the lyre symbolised the great love of music of the Habsburgers. Earlier, in 1673, Giovanni Legrenzi had already dedicated an early anthology – likewise entitled La Cetra – to the-then Emperor Leopold I. Talbot also considers the use of scordatura (adjusted tuning of the strings) in the violin part of the 6th and 12th concertos of Opus 9 to be a homage to the Habsburg Emperor. The scordatura practice was indeed a popular tradition in Austria and Bohemia, as we know from the violin music of Biber and Schmelzer. Concerning the remarkable encounter between Emperor Charles and Vivaldi at Trieste in 1728, the Abbé Conti wrote: ‘The Emperor talked about music at length with Vivaldi. It is said that he told him more in two weeks than his ministers in two years.’
Read more
The English Concert, Andrew Manze – Vivaldi: Concertos for the Emperor (2004)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:18:44 minutes | 3,12 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: NativeDSDMusic | Booklet & Front cover | © Harmonia Mundi
In September 1728, the Habsburg ruler Charles VI, Archduke of Austria, King of Germany, Hungary, Bohemia and Spain, Holy Roman Emperor etc etc, travelled to the Duchy of Carniola in order to inspect the port of Trieste. Antonio Vivaldi made the eighty-mile journey northeast of Venice to attend on him. It is not known whether the two men had met before, although the previous year Vivaldi had dedicated his twelve concertos Op.9, entitled La cetra (The Lyre), to Charles, suggesting they probably had met or at least corresponded. This encounter seems to have been the highlight of an otherwise disappointing trip for the Emperor, judging by two letters which survive from a Venetian Abbe?, Antonio Conti, to a French lady, Mme de Caylus. On 23 September Conti wrote, ‘the Emperor is not too happy with his Trieste. . . . He has spent a lot of time discussing music with Vivaldi. It is said that he has spoken with him more in two weeks than he has with his own ministers in two years. . . . His appetite for music is very strong.’ And in another letter Conti wrote, ‘the Emperor has given Vivaldi a large amount of money together with a chain and gold medallion.’
Read more