Post by Peter February 28, 2006 (1 of 14)
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Yesterday, I received the two BeArTon SACDs direct from Poland, very well packed.
Witold Lutoslawski: Concerto for orchestra, Chantefleurs et Chantefables, Songs written to the lyrics of Robert Desnos, Paganini Variations Olga Pasiecznik (soprano) Janusz Olejniczak (piano) Orchestra Sinfonia Varsov Jerzy Maksymiuk (conductor) CDB029
Szymanowski: Concert Overture Op. 12, Violin Concerto No. 1 Op. 35, Symphony No. 4 "Symphonie Concertante" Op. 60 Jakub Jakowicz (violin) Piotr Paleczny (piano) Sinfonia Varsovia Jerzy Maksymiuk (conductor) CDB 031
I have listened to both discs and they are extremely good indeed. Maksymiuk makes the most of tight ensemble and rhythm in the Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra. The Paganini Variations are a delight (composed during the war and played in the two piano version in basements). I'd never heard Chantefleurs et Chantefables and was pleasantly surprised; the texts by Robert Desnos ("talkative, disorganized, disobedient, scatter-brained, negligent, inattentive, deceitful, and lazy" according to a school report) are surreal poems for children, the music containing delightful microtones. In some ways this cycle reminded me of Poulenc's Les Animaux Modeles. A biography of Desnos will be found here: http://www.kalin.lm.com/bio.html where you will find sadly he was a victim of the last world war.
The Concert Overture by Szymanowski is an early work, much in the style of Strauss and Reger. The violin concerto is lush, full of plangent melodies high up in the stratosphere. This is the concerto Benedetti played in the final of the last BBC Young Musician's competition.
The playing by the Sinfonia Varsovia is excellent, as are the soloists on both discs.
The recordings are high definition PCM mastered to DSD by Polyhymnia and sound terrific with plenty of air round the sound; however, I have only listened in stereo. Most importantly, the soloists are expertly balanced. There is no 30 foot wide piano here, the violinist weaves in and out of the orchestra as he would sound in the concert hall, and Olga Pasiecznik, the soprano in Chantefleurs et Chantefables, is also balanced realistically.
The booklets are very high quality (in Polish and English) both in content and presentation. However, there are no texts for Chantefleurs et Chantefables.
Ordering direct was easy and delivery very quick. All in all, two excellent additions to the SACD library.
PS I've just found a review here: http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=9079 and am relieved to read David Hurwitz also rates the Lutoslawski disc highly.
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Post by Claude February 28, 2006 (2 of 14)
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Thanks for the info. Great to have some major works by Lutoslawski and Szymanowski on SACD.
/alltitles/314
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Post by Castor February 28, 2006 (3 of 14)
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Peter said:
Yesterday, I received the two BeArTon SACDs direct from Poland, very well packed.
Peter,
Thanks for this wonderful information
Please could you tell me the cost of these discs sent to the UK.
Did you order them direct from BeArTon and how did you pay?
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Post by Claude February 28, 2006 (4 of 14)
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Post by Claude February 28, 2006 (5 of 14)
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(deleted)
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Post by Peter February 28, 2006 (6 of 14)
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Castor said:
Peter,
Thanks for this wonderful information
Please could you tell me the cost of these discs sent to the UK.
Did you order them direct from BeArTon and how did you pay?
Yes, direct. The 2 SACDs came to 118.37 PLN Poland Zlotych = 21.2782 GBP including postage of about £3.00. (I had to use xe.com to work it out!)
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Post by Arthur April 9, 2007 (7 of 14)
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I finally got around to getting these. I haven't listened to the Lutoslaswki yet, because the Szymanowski won't come out of my player. Well, actually I suppose it will, but I just can't bring myself to eject it. The Violin Concerto is good, but the Sinfonia Concertante is incredible!
I've tried to get into Szymanowski many times before, but never really could. There was something over-ripe, almost Straussian about his sound that just turned me off. While that's still the case in the opening Overture, the rest of the disc shows the debt to the Impressionists much more clearly. The balance of piano and orchestra (and violin and orchestra in the Concerto, for that matter) is just how I like it (i.e., not spotlit). (I am however only listening in stereo as my multi-channel amp is on the fritz.)
If you've been on the fence, don't hesitate!
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Arthur said:
If you've been on the fence, don't hesitate!
For what its worth - here is my two cents - Arthur is right! If you have a good player and audio system, you should find great satisfaction in these two discs!
Let me qualify that:
If you hear the difference between DSD and PCM recordings you might be a little put-off by the pcm sound. If you are tolerant of it or don't hear the difference, don't hesitate. The sound on these is not unlike the Danacord Nielson recording....which is to say very very good.
It still doesn't have that last bit of realism of the best DSD recordings which do not superimpose a layer of fine grain on the sound that causes one initially to believe the recording is super detailed. No, it does have that super detail which I have been told by a recording engineer who does both PCM and DSD, is an artifact of PCM. In other words you know something is fishy when the recorded sound is more "detailed" than the feed from the microphones!
However if you accept that - these, and the Danacord Nielsen are wonderful recordings!
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Post by Sigfred April 9, 2007 (9 of 14)
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Claude said:
BeArTon has an online store. The shipping cost is indicated on the "Terms of Service" page (link on the bottom):
http://www.bearton.pl/sklep/index.php?lang=en&value=USD
Currently there is a bug in their web store that makes ordering impossible. I mailed them a couple of days ago about this.
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Post by Arthur April 9, 2007 (10 of 14)
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Sigfred said:
Currently there is a bug in their web store that makes ordering impossible. I mailed them a couple of days ago about this.
That's part of why it took me over a year to get this! (But it was working a few weeks ago, so maybe you should just check every once in a while.)
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