Friday 5 December 2014

My Most Memorable Top Three of 2014


It is coming to the end of 2014 and everyone and his dog is making lists of the “best 10” or the “favourite 20”, or whatever. Since I listen to a lot of music, and buy far too many new CDs each month, I'd better get my list in, as well. I'll avoid the overkill of “best historical” (though Pristine Audio, in particular, has made a great improvement to many of my classic recordings). Or “best violin”, since it is difficult sorting through the many superb violinists who have come along, including Tianwa Yang, Kristof Barati and Josef Spacek. Or “best vocal CD” since there are hordes of them from the likes of Joyce DiDonato, Sandrine Piau, Diana Damrau, and many others. Let me just therefore pinpoint my Most Memorable Three CD sets of 2014. In order of composition of the music, they are:
  • Bach: Six keyboard partitas (Igor Levit)
  • Beethoven: Late piano sonatas (Igor Levit)
  • Schubert: Die Winterreise (Jonas Kaufman and Helmut Deutsch)
I have written about all these elsewhere in this blog. Remarkably, all three come from Sony Classical and were recorded in Germany. All three will stay near at hand and not be filed away with the hordes of others. I find all three truly superb and was particularly amazed at Die Winterreise, a work I have known intimately for over 60 years but have now been weaned well and truly from the classic older recordings by Hans Hotter or Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. And it is truly extraordinary that Igor Levit has only issued two CD albums so far, and that both end up in my top three. It goes without saying that "top three" takes into account the music, as well as the performances.

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