My Blogroll of lossless classical music blogs is still most comprehensive

Recently, my dear colleague Otto started his Opera House. Like his two others blogs, the purpose „is two-fold… to give back to the community who has helped me so much over the years and provide info to my radio listeners. Thank you both and thank you 1.FM for your continued support. All of the cd's you find here are the latest additions to the web radio and are broadcast or will be in the near future.“

Random Clasics started as mp3 blog, but switched to FLAC sometime in the past. Fred says: „I love old recordings. Turn me loose in a used record store and I'll spend hours there. Everything I upload here is from my collection and is vinyl. Working with vinyl is not a perfect science and often the results are far from pristine. Let me know if you have a request - I might have it! PLEASE let me know if there are any download issues. Thank you much for visiting my blog!“

Also musica del siglo xx occasionally turned to lossless. I mentioned the Colectivo Ruben Vizcaino Valencia already before.

Avant que j’oublie is the sequel of The High Pony Tail. Maready decided to change his blog name and address, without stating a reason.

Problembär's Pantheon is a new lossless blog with up to now only one post. Problembär promises to post more: „I'll be updating this site about once a week. I may upload some of my old stuff in lossless in the future. But the next few things I have ready will be new. Hope you all enjoy this new blog.“

5 against 4 („It’s the most beautiful ugly sound in the world“) features this year's London Proms , the „World’s Greatest Classical Music Festival“, with recordings, program notes and thoughtful reviews of all the premieres.

Guanacanto („Por la música, vale la pena vivir … en Guanajuato“) contains postings on Mexican Barocco music by composers I never heard before.

Expanding the list of lossless classical music blogs never ends…

The Music Parlour ~ Historical is a spin off (or a subset?) from Tin Ear’s Music Parlour. The latest posts were Sir Thomas Beecham’s Zauberflöte from 1937, Mengelberg’s Beethoven Symphonies from 1940 and Beethoven’s 5th piano concert performed in 1922. (picture aside). Stuff for the connoisseur, you see. 

www.jolyon.com is „a site on the history of sound recording. […] I will endeavor to put the recordings into some context, that is, why such and such a piece was recorded by such and such musicians on such and such a date, otherwise it all looks a bit arbitrary. In fact there were often very good commercial reasons for issuing particular discs and it is worth while pondering how these were received by the public.“ (jolyon50@googlemail.com)

Jolyon has an excellent „My Links“ Page, with references to discographies & catalogues, free downloadable recordings, journals, and more.

Alucard from Italy runs the 18CenturyMusic Blog, „because classical music is not only Haydn and Mozart“. He posted Zelenka, Abbé Vogler, Sammartini, Myslivecek, Stamitz, etc., but nevertheless Haydn frequently occurs. I know Alucard from avaxhome under the nickname Kushami, but were not aware of his personal blog. You may also visit his YouTube channel.

Yao (Avax: qzlanyao) started his Classic Collection at August 1st, mainly Bach and the RCA Living Stereo 60 CDs Collection. I like the bright and well-arranged blog design.

Neal’s Historical Recordings moved from Google Blogger to Wordpress („for a variety of reasons“). Update your bookmarks, guys!

Supplements to my list of lossless blogs

When writing the last notification, I forget to mention Le moment musical - Classical music collection. Amedal has offered since November 2009 more than 160 posts which range from baroque to 19th century music, running some of my personnel favorites (f.e. Spohr, Ries, Raff).

El baúl del coleccionista is an „Espacio dedicado a la coleccion de grabaciones historicas“, i.e. a place for historical recordings, owned by Dumbarton Oaks. Two weeks ago the blog converted to FLAC; the older posts are still in mp3.

Also Ipromesisposi is an older blog I managed to ignore, alas!

en folía - "Un lugar para la música", active since November 2008, discovered by me as recently as two weeks ago, is a discreet blog on black background (such backgrounds are unusual at the moment). The music selection is excellent.

I put geometria innamorata to the lossless list because of some posts of Wagner, Pasquini, Bernard Parmegiani. Maybe the blog is too weird and does not fit in my list. What do you think?

Last, but not least: A blog, which is no blog, because of missing RSS feeds (yes!) : Rare Classical Vinyl is a repository of the Mercury Living Presence recordings:

"Mercury built a devoted following among classical music listeners in the 1950's and 60's. In 1951, when the company was a Chicago-based independent, it launched its ''Olympian Series'' with the now classic monophonic LP of the Mussorgsky-Ravel ''Pictures at an Exhibition'' played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Rafael Kubelik. In reviewing that disk in The New York Times, Howard Taubman wrote that the effect was ''like being in the living presence of the orchestra''; Mercury took his phrase ''Living Presence'' as the rubric for its subsequent releases, and carried it well into the stereophonic era."

Notification about new lossless blogs

Well, I made my last notification about new lossless blogs on February 6th, a rather long time ago. Let me report now, what I found in Blogosphere during the last 5 months (without special order):

Maready stated in his blog High Pony Tail: „Most selections are taken from vinyl recordings. Sometimes I use the available technology to 'remove' pops and clicks. Often, particularly in cases where the recording has been made available on CD at some point, I simply record the record to my beloved Sony CD-R recorder and post the results without further intervention.“

The Vinyl Fatigue „gives digital new life to forgotten LPs“, as Lawrence Austin, the owner, declares: „I grew up listening to records -- shellac and vinyl -- and the sound of a needle tracking the grooves of an old LP is still deeply comforting to me -- a sound from childhood, like the fan of the hot air furnace coming on. However turntables are now relatively scare, and we are becoming less tolerant of noise from the medium the music is stored on, so putting up renovated files of what I consider choice, but neglected performances, seemed a good way to spend some time. There are several thousand LPs in the house, a lot of them not re-issued on CD, some of them performances of real importance. If you like something, post a comment. I'd love to hear from you.“

Squirrel is a musician/teacher/writer in New York City: „These LP transfers generally represent noteworthy or neglected recordings from the Great Century which have fallen out of print, out of favor, or out of reach. The focus is primarily on chamber music, violinists, violists, and cellists of distinction, and orchestral music. I strive to balance standard repertoire by interesting and lesser known artists with unusual and lesser-heard works. These are made available here not to circumvent the marketplace, but to fill in the cultural/historical gaps in our collective understanding of recorded posterity for those who wish to listen. They are to be enjoyed, shared, and learned from.“

運銘 (Yun-ming) has contributed to the collaborative blog Meeting in Music in the past, and last May she started her own „Ah Meng’s Blog“, which gained up to now more than 30 followers.

„A 20th Century Opera Collection“ started in April, run by RVV („Un grupo para difundir los libros de la ciencia politica“).

3 days ago, André Rendeiro stated: „I'm starting this blog with the intent to share some of the music I own as a retribution to some of you who have given so much to me by doing the same. Although I don't possess a lot of music on original CD's (and those are the ones I intend to share), the music I have is of extreme rarity in the blogosphere, mostly premiere recordings of music by portuguese composers. I might acquire some more, and I'll certainly share it with you. The name of the blog "Feldeinsamkeit" isn't properly the better name for a blog which offers portuguese classical music, but my musical roots are deeply in the heart of German music, specially in Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler and R. Strauss, so I chose the name of a lied by Brahms on Allmers' poem, which I love.“

Last but not least there are two relaunches/resumes to report: Hot Skin is the former „La Peau Douce“; and http://uncle-osvalds-music.blogspot.com/ is moving to http://domibus-eternis.blogspot.com/.

The first 100 posts of the Kammermusikkammer

Yes, I am celebrating the 100th post of the Kammermusikkammer, with 100 years old recordings of Josef Hofmann on the piano. (And with some childish reminiscences of grotesque drawings by W.B.)





And here, of course, follow the usual statistics:

A roller coaster animation of Ferdinand Ries' 2nd Symphony

An animation of the First Violin of the Second Symphony of Ferdinand Ries, driving on a roller coaster, won the red dot award for communication design 2009. The music is performed by the Zürcher Kammerorchester, which had commissioned the Virtual Republic (Düsseldorf) to visualize the orchester's claim "GROSSE GEFÜHLE" (great feelings).

View the animation here.

Read my post about Ferdinand Ries in the Kammermusikkammer.

Reducing my backlog of notifications about new lossless blogs

I really have an enormous backlog of notifications about new lossless blogs, and I want to make things a little better with these short resumes:

"Links. Musik Kino Philosophie" is the name of an extraordinary discovery. The owner, Schahed, posted 129 articles since December, with tags like Alexander Kluge, Bruno Maderna, Edgar Reitz, Karl Marx, Modern Music, Opera, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Richard Wagner, Slavoj Zizek, and more. Maybe you can get an idea what all he is interesting in. He offers audios, videos and audiobooks.

"John Bull's 'Circle of Sound'" started on January 23th and contains LP transfers, "many long out of print." The blog's subtitle is "classics for the connoisseur - curious from the world of recorded sound", which makes me curious about his (I imagine him to be a british) future steps.



"Grumpy's Classics Cave" are "ramplings and rumblings from a collector of recorded classical music". The rumbler, his name is CharmNick, is owner of a photocard of London Transport, and also interested in old LPs. I could not resist to republish his portrait here.

Another collector of LPs, much longer active in blogosphere, is Benoit from the "Quartier des Archives". He posts in flac and mp3, tracklists and comments are in French. Most of the posts are pictured with the scanned LP, not the cover. Maybe he lost the covers over the years; the LPs look really old. The blog is a quarry for the audiophile.

موسيقى -كلاسيك
(http://yak-musice.blogspot.com/) was active only in November and December 2007, but the (mostly classical) music is well selected (from Ockeghem and Monteverdi to Saint-Saens and Friedrich Nietzsche), and the links are still active. I discovered the blog last month. The owner signed with Yakoff.

Right now, where I am writing these lines, I stumpled about "The Music Parlour", with music from LPs from the fifties (exactly: 1949 to 1964). As I am reading in some comments, is the owner's name Tin Ear, and he is a close friend of CharmNick (mentioned above)

one million giraffes - Will your giraffe be one in a million?

"My friend, Jørgen, doesn't believe I can collect one million giraffes by 2011. I'm gonna prove him wrong, but I need your help. You can create your giraffe(s) in any way you like, but not on a computer and no store bought objects. You must create your giraffe(s) yourself!

So far I've got 538 229 giraffes, so I need 461 771 more and I have 336 days left.
Let's show Jørgen how amazing the internet is. Please send in your own giraffe!"

Maybe some of my followers can help Ola Helland?

RBB Kulturradio: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy

1. Vorurteile: Warum Mendelssohn trotzdem ein guter Komponist ist
2. Auf preußische Art: Die Mendelssohns und die Berliner Singakademie
3. Eine Frage der Öffentlichkeit: Die Tradition der Sonntagsmusiken
4. "Göthe, sein Vorbild": Mendelssohn in Weimar
5. High Society: Kleine Revue der Mendelssohn-Zeitgenossen
6. Glaube und Gesellschaft: Abraham Mendelssohn und sein Judentum
7. Raphaelslocken: Felix, zweifellos ein Wunder(kind)
8. Vom Leben im Hinterhaus: Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Schwester und Frau
9. Vom Dasein als Weltbürger: Felix, Bruder und Künstler
10. Zwischen Geist und Geld: die Familie Mendelssohn
11. Enger als gedacht: Düsseldorf und die rheinischen Musikfeste
12. Ein Glücksfall: Leipzig und sein Gewandhaus
13. Lob des Taktstocks: Felix Mendelssohn als Kapellmeister
14. Von Schumann bis Mahler: Wenn Dirigenten komponieren
15. Der Schwierige: Mendelssohns Beethoven-Bild
16. "Dass ich ein Deutscher sei": Felix Mendelssohn auf Reisen
17. Bach und Händel: Mendelssohn als Bearbeiter
18. Bretter, die kein Glück bedeuten: Arbeiten fürs Theater
19. Der Mozart des 19. Jahrhunderts? Zur Mendelssohn-Rezeption I
20. "Rothe Korallen" und "grüne Seetiere": das Poetische bei Mendelssohn
21. Wagner und die Folgen: zur Mendelssohn-Rezeption II
22. "Die blauen Blümlein all’": Mendelssohn, ein Romantiker
23. Queen Victoria lässt bitten: zur Mendelssohn-Rezeption III
24. Magie des frühen Todes: das Jahr 1847
25. Konflikte: der deutsch-deutsche Mendelssohn
26. Feuerköpfe, Angsthasen, Museumswärter: Wie geht Mendelssohn?

200 Jahre Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Eine Sendereihe des RBB Kulturradio von Jänner bis Juni 2009. Von Christine Lemke-Matwey.
[Zum Originalpost]

What's a Lied? (from the FAQ of The Lied and Art Song Texts Page)

Q. What's a Lied?
A. The word Lied is German for song (pronounced /leet/). The plural is Lieder (pronounced /leeder/). Kunstlied is the proper term for "art song" in German, but music-lovers speaking English or French commonly refer to German art songs as just plain Lieder. Note that this site includes art songs in many languages (e.g., in French, the terms chanson and mélodie are used as well as lieder). There are also many madrigals, partsongs and choral works.

Q. OK, then what's an "art song"?
A. Like most categorizations in classical music (even the term "classical music" is problematic), this is a very difficult definition to make due not only to the blurring of lines that many contemporary compositions create, but also due to the overlap of popular music, pop classics, broadway musicals, and folk music. This definition is intended only as a rough guide to the genre.

An art song is a relatively short piece of music written by a person commonly referred to as a "composer", and set to a text intended to be poetic, for a classically-trained vocalist with some form of accompaniment (usually but not restricted to the pianoforte). During a performance, which is usually in a recital hall these days, even if the piece was originally intended for the salon, the audience sits quietly without smoking, eating or drinking (unless very stealthily). The singer is rarely also the composer of the song. The lighting rarely changes during a performance, and no special set, scenery, or costume (besides typical recitalwear) is required.

I could not say it better...

This is an excerpt from Emily Ezust's Lied and Art Song Texts Page. The Classical Iconoclast calls it "far and away the best source of Lieder and Song Texts", which I only can aggree.