Last week I experienced a sort of “Stendhal syndrome” while browsing Spotify. “This is online! This is online!”, the notion actually overpowered me a little… :-) And although I know that Spotify may be a curse for small independent labels; it’s also the aural equivalent of the ancient library of Alexandria.
One of the discoveries were the recordings once distributed by Magnatune. Magnatune, with the fascinating slogan “we are not evil” was in fact the first digital distributor for classical music online. You could download their music, made in collaboration with other labels, and you yourself could determine what you would like to pay for it. Having cold feet, I never tried it, although some issues received very favorable press, and I regretted never to try out any of the records in this Gramophone review http://magnatune.com/info/press/coverage/gramophone_hc
The cheers @ my home were when I discovered that the Avie label, partner of Magnatune back in 2006 has put some of the recordings mentioned in that article on Spotify. First a really fine and fiery recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s violin concerto, played by French violinist Philippe Graffin and the mentioned Schumann recordings by Leon McCawley.
I hope you will be as thrilled as I was having the possibility to hear these performances en you will enjoy them too!
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)
-Violin concerto in g minor op 80 (1912)
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
-Violin concerto in a minor op 53 (1879)
Philippe Graffin, violin
Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Hankinson, conductor
Recorded 2004
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
-Papillons op, 2 (1829–1831)
-Davidsbündlertänze op. 6 (1837)
-Waldszenen op 82 (1848–1849)
-Widmung (arr Franz Liszt 1848)
-Frühlingsnacht (arr Franz Liszt 1872)
-Fantasiestücke op 12 (1837)
-Arabeske op. 18 (1839)
-Kreisleriana op 16 (1838)
Leon McCawley, piano
Recorded at St. George’s Bristol, England, September 2003
(HTTP link)
Magnatune, seemingly giving the...
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