Hi-Res Downloads

44. 1kHz-192kHz/24-bit FLAC/ALAC, CKD471 (supplied by www. linnrecords. com) A fellow-pupil with Beethoven in Bonn, Antoine Reicha (from Prague) wrote no fewer than 24 wind quintets, represented here by an Adagio for cor anglais and wind quartet and Quintets in G and B-flat.

Despite the name, Carrie Newcomer is far from, well, a newcomer. With more than 15 albums behind her, and a career stretching back 25 years, she’s both a performer and writer – of both songs and books – and even a US cultural ambassador, and has toured with the likes of Alison Krauss and Mary Chapin Carpenter. So as you might expect, this set (her debut for Germany’s Stockfisch label) is a mature, soulful album, beautifully recorded along with a large supporting group of musicians that cleverly showcase Newcomer’s rich, warm voice amidst what the label calls ‘a warm, autumnal glow’. It’s just the sort of ‘audiophile’ singer-songwriter album you might imagine, and I can see it cropping up in more than a few demonstrations.

This young Italian pianist was silver prizewinner at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition and makes her Warner concerto debut with Pappano. They had not worked together before but in May are touring with the Tchaikovsky – which Rana had been playing for almost ten years. And 3-4m in she certainly hits her stride: arguably her first-movement cadenza is over-complicated but mostly this is as good as its gets – robust technique, a wide dynamic range and real bravura at the ends of (ii) and (iii). Pappano provides a big, even brash, accompaniment and the piano is well balanced in the big hall acoustic.

With a Bartók cycle to come, the Lyon-based string quartet has already recorded all of Shostakovich’s string quartets for Arion. The music here – the ‘Élégie’ Adagio a transcription from Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk – is their programme ‘Opus’ (ordered as listed above) an ‘acrobatic waltz’ [sic] which they have been giving with Australian performance group C!RCA; the Internet has video clips. They play with compelling concentration, certainly bringing out all of the rawness of the epic No 8, with its ‘DSCH’ quotations. And you might need to turn the level down, as they are recorded rather as the Juilliards were by CBS, each player seemingly with his own mic.

Part of the third and final tranche of Led Zep remasters, along with In Through The Out Door and the somewhat ragbag Coda, 1976’s Presence arrives in the second decade of the 21st century complete with a second ‘disc’ containing ‘reference mixes’ of four of its tracks plus a previously unreleased instrumental entitled ‘10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod (Pod)’. That ‘new’ track really stands out against what is perhaps the band’s roughest album: it’s gentle and reflective, driven by delicate piano, but I’m not too sure that one novelty is sufficient to justify a purchase of this set, even if it is in spiffed-up 96/24. For all the remastering work, overseen by Jimmy Page and thus given the stamp of approval, this version doesn’t really bring too much to the party in terms of new insights or revelations. I guess if you’re a Led Zep completist, this is a must-have, however… AE Sound Quality: 75% Hi-Fi News Lab Report These are genuine 96kHz renderings from what are clearly analogue masters – hence the noise is some 30dB higher than a modern all-digital recording [see Graph, above].

The shadow of Diana Krall looms large over the school of female singer-pianists, but Sarah McKenzie, though still in her early 20s, brings a freshness and exuberance of voice, allied to delicious phrasing and some demon work on the keyboard, to make even familiar material shine anew. On this album, originally released by ABC Classics Australia and now picked up by associated label Impulse! for wider distribution, she also displays quite a way with a tune on the self-penned tracks. (Sarah McKenzie has a degree in jazz composition, after all. ) Together with compatriots Hugh Stuckey on guitar and Alex Boneham on bass, plus an international supporting cast, she makes a great job of the standards here, beside which her own songs stack up very well.

Kopatchinskaja is a ‘Marmite’ violinist, as anyone who has loved/suffered her Bartók and Prokofiev recordings will attest. And when you read the booklet at HRA and see its (in part informative) notes are couched in the form of artful love letters between soloist and conductor you might fear the worst from this 2014/13 Moscow/Madrid theatres coupling. All the singers in Les Noces are native and MusicAeterna uses period instruments. The authenticity tells in their marvellously sung, energetic Les Noces, and unusual timbres add to the concerto performance.