Hi-Res Highlights,
Hi-Res Highlights - July 2016
It's been nearly two years since we launched our Hi-Res download offering - and our catalogue now includes over six thousand albums, both old and new. You can browse through our full Hi-Res selection here.
However, six thousand is quite a lot - so we thought we'd put together a monthly roundup offering some of our thoughts on the best of the best!
Here's our first selection…
Hi-Res New Releases
The pick of this month's newly-released Hi-Res recordings.
Richard Egarr continues his survey of the great Baroque repertoire for solo harpsichord - his recent English Suites and Handel Great Suites have been critically acclaimed, just as his Well-Tempered Clavier was a few years ago. Now he turns to the French Suites, managing as ever to draw a huge variety of sonorities from his instrument.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Berlioz's huge oratorio (or ''symphonie dramatique'') on the subject of Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers gives vent, like his Symphonie fantastique, to his obsession with the actress Harriet Smithson. In the hands of Valery Gergiev and the LSO the drama and the orchestral colours are as vivid as one could wish for.
Available Formats: 2 SACDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A live recording from the Concertgebouw in 2010 - Mariss Jansons and the Concertgebouw Orchestra give a passionate and stirring performance of Rachmaninov's most popular symphony.
Available Formats: SACD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
The late Nikolaus Harnoncourt's last recording - a magisterial account of Beethoven's complex and challenging Mass, and a fitting final statement from a conductor known for his deep and scholarly responses to the repertoire.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recent Hi-Res Re-issues
The greatest performances of yesteryear, newly remastered and re-released in Hi-Res.
Rafael Kubelik and his Bavarian musicians bring as much rustic vim and vigour to Dvořák's two sets of Slavonic Dances as one could ask for - but always striking the balance, with the yearning gestures of Op. 72 No. 2 and other less boisterous numbers just as expressive.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade is surely one of the most exotically pictorial works in the repertoire - and who better than the Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert von Karajan to paint its vivid pictures? And as if that weren't enough, the mighty 1812 Overture is here in all its bombastic glory (complete with choir, bells and cannons).
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A benchmark early recording of Britten's brooding opera, with the inimitable Peter Pears in the title role - originally made in 1958, and now benefitting from nearly sixty years of improvements in sound engineering. This is Grimes as you've never heard it before.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
There are violinists, and then there is Yehudi Menuhin - his very name became a byword for virtuosity for an entire generation. Now RCA have released all his recordings for the American Victor label in Hi-Res, some dating right back to the 1920s. The improvement in sound quality has to be heard to be believed!
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Hi-Res Library Essentials
The best performances of the core repertoire you simply can't do without - now in higher quality than ever before.
After that notorious Proms appearance in 1968, Rostropovich's name was forever linked with Dvořák's passionate Concerto. Here he is joined by the Berlin Philharmonic and Karajan in a musical partnership made in cello heaven.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Glenn Gould, the Canadian wild child of the piano, made two recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations, nearly thirty years apart. This, the later of the pair (from 1981), shows his unique genius at its most unorthodox.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
David Smith - Head of Digital
