This blog is rapidly becoming a fan club for Pristine Audio, Andrew Rose, and Wilhelm Furtwängler. So here we go again. I downloaded the new transfer of Furtwängler and the Vienna Philharmonic playing Bruckner's 4th Symphony (broadcast tapes, October 1951, Stuttgart). The sound is little short of incredible, with most of the coughs and splutterings cleared up, into the bargain. Now, for probably the first time, one can just sit back and enjoy the music and the performance without having to make many allowances. Good times are here. I now sit and wait for comparable transfers of Furtwängler in Bruckner's 7th and 8th Symphonies. And then, quite frankly, one can throw away all other versions.

The three violin concertos of Camille Saint-Saëns make an attractive CD (72 minutes) and I enjoyed the new Naxos on which Fanny Clamagirand plays the three works. Here, she is a gentle violinist, a little hesitant in places, and does not have the sheer charisma of Tedi Papavrami on his recent disc of Saint-Saëns, Chausson and Ysaÿe where so much of the playing was quite magical. And Papavrami's 2005 Christian Bayon violin does sound so much sweeter and more powerful than Clamagirand's 1700 Matteo Goffriller (as recorded here). Good to hear 72 minutes of old Camille again, and a pleasant change from yet more Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn or Sibelius. The second Saint-Saëns concerto is rarely heard, but I have always liked it ever since an old Ivry Gitlis recording (with some very weird vibrato in the second movement; weird even for Gitlis).

The Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler must surely have been the greatest orchestra/conductor combination of all time. I have just been listening to Pristine Audio's miraculous reconstructions of Schubert's 8th Symphony (Titania Palast, Berlin, 15 September 1953) and 9th Symphony (Alte Philharmonie, Berlin, 8 December 1942). The playing is simply stupendous, and the conducting miraculous. Add to that Pristine Audio's €9 price for the FLAC download, and it is clear we live in a golden age for those who enjoy great performances of great music. It is tempting to acquire the Pristine transfer of the 1942 Beethoven 9th with Furtwängler, but I really cannot take the finale of that work; a great pity Beethoven didn't have second thoughts and write an alternative.

No listening to music for me. I spent the week in Vienna. The city is wall-to-wall Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. You would never think that composers such as Schubert, Beethoven, Mahler, Strauss and Korngold also lived there for long periods. Alles ist Mozart. I like Mozart, but regret the obsession that the Vienna Tourist Board appears to have with the only Viennese composer. There is even a chain of Mozart shops (managed by Constance?) including a branch at the airport. Gurr!

I have been a bit negative recently. Here are two positive entries:

1. My oxtail stew was world-class. Tail of an ox; good red wine; onions; beef consommé; parsnips; carrots; herbes de Provence; bouquet garni (thyme, bay leaves); salt; pepper. Cook for two hours. Leave for 48 hours. Re-cook for one hour and eat some; leave for a further 48 hours; eat some more; leave for ... etc. By the end, the whole thing when cold is just solid jelly.

2. Saint-Saëns' third violin concerto, and Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso; plus Chausson's Poème -- have not wanted for superb recordings over the past 80 years. But these three works, plus Eugène Ysaÿe's Poème Elégiaque, are truly superb on a 2009 CD from Tedi Papavrami (Aeon). The Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège is conducted by François-Xavier Roth. I have enthused over this disc before, and I enthuse again. Because:

* Of the four works on the CD, it is difficult to think off-hand of better versions.
* The playing is idiomatic, accurate and excellent.
* The recording is first class.
* Papavrami's bow (2008) and violin (2006) illustrate that the claim only "old" instruments are really good is simply not true.

Throughout the 57 minutes of this CD I found myself (unusually) admiring the sheer sound of Papavrami's instrument. A CD I keep by my player, since I love the music, the playing and the sound.

The performance of Bruckner's 9th symphony conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler in Berlin on 7th October 1944 has always been very special. With the Red Army and Götterdämmerung only six months away from Berlin, there is an air of intense focus in both the conducting and the playing. And, it must be said, the broadcast tapes of that era are of exceptional quality.

I have collected this performance in its various incarnations (the last being on DG). But Andrew Rose's new effort for Pristine Audio in "ambient stereo" is truly excellent. I downloaded the FLAC files today and wrote them to a CD. One of recording history's great masterpieces lives again in truly exceptional sound (for its age). I am only sad to think I won't be around in 30 years time to hear the ultimate in sound restoration of performances such as this.

After vowing "no more CDs of the Brahms violin & piano sonatas" (since I have so many) I bought another one, urged on by my enjoyment of Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien in the first sonata. The new candidate is Jack Liebeck, whose début CD I much admired some years ago. Liebeck plays attractively and sensitively on the new disc, but his pianist, Katya Apekisheva, is a bit of a Russian tank ... and balanced forward, in addition. I'll wait for more Ibragimova.

I did not like Arabella Steinbacher's recent recording of the Beethoven violin concerto, finding it too slow and sentimentalised -- sort of Beethoven / Bruch. But I do like her performance of the second violin concerto of Shostakovich and here, with a better balance, the orchestra plays a much more important part than in the recent Czech performance with Bohumil Kotmel (which I may have over-praised at the time).

No danger of over-praising Elly Ney. Ronald kindly donated two CDs of her playing, and I am highly impressed. Has the adagio molto semplice of Beethoven's Op 111 ever been better played, with more understanding? I suspect not. The recordings (German, mainly from the mid-1930s) are quite extraordinarily good.

And while I am in a praising mood: Marks & Spencer's lamb Rogan Josh is far better than any Indian dish from any other British supermarket. Succulent, tasty, delicious.

I have 38 recordings of Shostakovich's first violin concerto, but only 8 of the second, which is some indication of their relative popularity. Listening to the second concerto today, I feel that the low esteem in which it is held is undeserved. Shostakovich's first violin concerto grips you with its raw emotions; the second exudes a kind of numb pessimism (above all in the first two movements) with sparse textures and little drama. It's an old person's music, and not the kind of thing with which you would inaugurate a new concert hall. But I enjoyed it today, on a very good Supraphon recording from a public concert in Prague on 15 and 16 February 1996. Excellent soloist is Bohumil Kotmel (who?) which just goes to show that because a soloist is unknown does not necessarily mean he or she is not top rank. Mr Kotmel empathises with Shostakovich's bleak music, and can also play the violin very well, which is all one should ask for. The Czech Philharmonic gives excellent backing (though the full orchestra plays little part in this music). I especially liked the ripe sound of the Czech horn section.

French evening. The French market is in town, with superb cheeses, the world-winning baguette and the miserable old sod with his charcuterie stall with whom I spend £58 without him even offering me a free saucisson.

But the cheeses this evening were really three star Michelin: Pont L'Evêque, Camembert, and Livarot. All non-pasteurised and in perfect condition. No one this evening eat better cheeses than I. Nowhere.

On to a new CD of Ravel played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard, with Pierre Boulez conducting the orchestra in the two piano concertos. I have long had a soft spot for the music of Maurice Ravel. Aimard and Boulez do the two concertos magnificently (with Aimard all alone in the Miroirs). Deutche Grammophon recording; that company is still streets ahead of anyone else when it comes to recording quality. Aimard is an exemplary pianist in Ravel. Boulez is a much better conductor than he ever was composer; let us hope he turns next to accompanying violinists in Vieuxtemps, Ysaye, Rhode, Joachim, Hubay, et alii.

Shows how old I am: yesterday I bought my very first music download (flac files, from Andrew Rose's Pristine Audio). After a bit of faffing around, I managed to find a program that would convert the flac files to wav files that I could write to a music CD. Et voilà! The works I wanted to investigate for their boasted transfer sound qualities were two old Casals recordings: the Brahms double concerto (1929) and the Dvorak cello concerto (1935).

The sound quality was quite astonishingly good (for the vintage of the originals). Three stars for Mr Rose. I have both recordings in other guises, but the Pristine Audio beats them all hands down. As for the works: I have never really taken to the Brahms double concerto, where Brahms' usual muddy, bass-heavy orchestration suits the cello but not really the violin which stands out like a girl in a men's rugby team. Violin and cello make unsatisfactory concerto partners (which is probably why there are not many concertos for violin and cello). Here, Casals sounds magnificent (with a full tone for his cello). Jacques Thibaud hovers in the background, and Alfred Cortot conducts the Catalan orchestra. A classic performance of a less-than satisfactory work.

In the Dvorak concerto, Pau Casals is again magnificent and George Szell and the Czech orchestra now come over in pretty good sound quality. But it's not a concerto I particularly warm to, and I do not think the cello is really cut out to be a bravura solo instrument. Such things are best left to violins or pianos.

Sarasate was a product of the Paris Conservatoire in the mid-19th century and his playing, from many descriptions and from the few recordings he made at the end of his life, is stamped with the Conservatoire's aims of brilliance, delicacy and good taste. Full-blooded bravura playing was not considered appropriate. Tianwa Yang, in her fourth Sarasate CD for Naxos, exemplifies what might be termed "the Sarasate sound" -- at least when she plays Sarasate's attractive and tuneful music. Hopefully these four CDs (of a projected seven) will popularise Sarasate and not just the few bits everyone plays. Three stars, again, for Ms Yang; listening to her rendition of the ever-popular Carmen Fantasy, you realise just how many virtuoso passages many other players smudge over. No smudging for Tianwa; she plays every note perfectly in tune -- and with the utmost delicacy. A real pleasure to listen to.

I've been having second thoughts about Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien in Brahms' G major sonata for violin and piano. Maybe it's not a little slow and sentimental; maybe that is just the way the two musicians think it should be played. On a second hearing, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it reminded me of something Julia Fischer said in a recent BBC radio interview, talking about playing pieces everyone knows all too well [in the case in point, the Franck sonata]. Julia Fischer said you need to forget about "making your own mark" and concentrate on playing the music as you think it is meant to be played. Sounds as if Alina and Cédric are following her advice, and I like the result.

The duo partnership of Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien is a very fine one and I greatly enjoyed a new off-air recording of them playing the first Brahms sonata, plus the Strauss sonata. It's also good to hear Ibragimova in full-blooded Romantic music, since she often seems to stick to the 18th and 20th centuries. The Brahms was a bit sentimental and slow for my taste, and there really should be a twenty year moratorium on anyone playing the Brahms sonatas, fine as they are. There are so many excellent violin and piano sonatas that rarely get an airing -- Saint-Saëns, Alkan, Shostakovich, et al -- that it's a great pity violinists are always forced to play Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart, Ravel and Prokofiev. At least Ibragimova and Tiberghien ventured into Strauss's fine sonata; a pity he did not write more of them.

I have (almost) four recordings of the third concerto (G Minor) by Jenö Hubay. I have not been an avid Hubay fan in the past, but I have quite taken to this third concerto. Earliest recording is from Efrem Zimbalist in 1930 who, for some strange reason, only seems to have recorded the second and third movements (and I find the first two movements easily the best). Next in 1975 comes Aaron Rosand, followed by Vilmos Szabadi in 2000 and Ragin Wenk-Wolff in 2005. All suffer the usual fate of being accompanied by small-town orchestras and unknown conductors so that it's a miracle the music still makes a good impression.
Ragin Wenk-Wolff, the latest acquisition, annoys by always playing fortissimo in her violin's lower registers (and making a rich, warm sound) while the upper registers of her violin sound a bit weedy (she would have been better making use of higher positions on the "A" string, as Heifetz would have done with such a fiddle). The final result, however, is not very satisfactory as an example of violin sound, which should favour a smooth transition over different strings and registers. The recording may also be against her; it's a bit bass-heavy and the orchestral violin strings lack bite and sheen.
Well, if we ever get Vadim Repin, Janine Jansen, Alina Ibragimova or Leila Josefowicz in Hubay's third concerto, I'll be first in line -- especially if the partners are the LSO under Claudio Abbado. Some hopes.

Every generation has its over-venerated composers. To my mind, the current generation has an entirely unrealistic view of Gustav Mahler, but no doubt time will correct all. Similarly, many composers are under-venerated (one thinks of Franz Schubert who, until half a century or so ago, was usually dismissed as just a very talented song writer).

To my mind, Henry Purcell has usually been under-rated. Not by Handel, at least, who, by all accounts (and to paraphrase his reported comment) said around 30 years after Purcell's untimely death that "if Purcell had lived, we'd all be out of a job". Thoughts on listening to yet another fine Purcell anthology entitled "Love Songs" (Dorothee Mields). Purcell was a genius at setting the English language, at modulating, at harmonising. His music is always clever, lovely and intriguing. Critics have riled at the backing by the Lautten Compangney Berlin. I am not worried; creative and unorthodox the group may be, but I am sure Purcell would have approved, just as I am sure that after listening to his violin music played by Jascha Heifetz and Rachel Podger, Johann Sebastian Bach would have been enchanted by Heifetz.

Long, long ago in central Italy (in the 1960s) I came across spaghetti alle vongole. I loved it. It re-appeared in my life (rarely so good) with Fishworks in Bath (a few years ago) and the Carluccio chain restaurants; This evening, armed with Mitchell Tonk's cook-book, and 300 grammes of clams from New Wave in Cirencester, I cooked my first, very own, spaghetti alle vongole.

In one word: superb. What a dish. A source of really fresh clams is a problem, But I will succeed. Thank you Cirencester fish shop. Thank you Mitchell Tonks. And thank you the many Italian simple restaurants that, back in the 1960s, introduced me to spaghetti alle vongole.Sea salt, Garlic. Parsley. Olive oil, chilli. Fresh, fresh, fresh clams, white wine. And that it it.

A very fine new CD from Tedi Papavrami on which he plays familiar French pieces, with orchestra (Liège Philharmonic). I first came across Papavrami in 1993 when I bought his excellent recording of Alkan's quite unjustly neglected sonata for violin and piano. Papavrami excels in the music on this new CD: Saint-Saëns' Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso and third violin concerto, Chausson's evergreen Poème, and Ysaÿe's Poème élégiaque (the piece that inspired Chausson to write his Poème). Papavrami plays very much like someone from the French school of violin playing, which suits this music. His sound is refined, delicate and far from the "power playing" favoured particularly on the other side of the Atlantic. And his violin (Christian Bayon, 2005) sounds just right for the part. I love this music, and the playing. I'll keep the CD close to hand.