WQXR's "best" new cd's for July

[Rach3]

I have heard none of these. Includes excerpts from Randall Goosby's debut violin cd and Schiff's new HIP Brahms concertos. Fww:

https://www.wqxr.org/story/latest-greatest-july-2021/

[barney]

There's a couple I'd be really interested in - the Blue Hour Mendelssohn, Davidsen singing Finnish music.
I did buy the Schiff Brahms after warm recommendations on this site. Generally it is very fine and thoughtful, with a much more intimate balance between forces. I have to admit that in the first movement of the second concerto I found them a bit under-powered for my 21st century ears.

[maestrob]

Yes, most of these look interesting to me too.

I haven't had a new album of Porgy & Bess excerpts since Leontyne Price & William Warfield collaborated for RCA, so I may get that one with Angel Blue. I've heard Randall Goolsby on Spotify & he's very fine. Must hear the Blue Hour Mendelssohn, and I'm a great admirer of the inventiveness in Haydn's early symphonies. Much here to like.

Lise Davidsen made her first appearance on CD with Edward Gardner back in 2018 with Solvege's Song on Chandos, and here she is again with him in Sibelius, but again in mostly orchestral music. That's fine: I like Gardner's conducting: in fact, this Friday on PBS he'll be leading a telecast from Vienna in an outdoor concert. He's definitely making a serious career for himself.

As for Davidsen, I've heard her immensely more confident 2020 album, and she has quickly matured into a major voice since her not quite right debut with Strauss's Four Last Songs etc. I do hope I'll have a chance to hear her live. She's MUCH better suited vocally to Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, as was Flagstadt, who also sang both cycles.

[maestrob]

There's a couple I'd be really interested in - the Blue Hour Mendelssohn, Davidsen singing Finnish music.
I did buy the Schiff Brahms after warm recommendations on this site. Generally it is very fine and thoughtful, with a much more intimate balance between forces. I have to admit that in the first movement of the second concerto I found them a bit under-powered for my 21st century ears.

Yes, I finally decided not to get the Schiff/Brahms after hearing it several times on Spotify, for two reasons. One is the one you mentioned about the Second Concerto: after living with Richter/Leinsdorf, I felt that Brahms would have been happier with the fuller, rounder sound of the modern instrument. As well, though, I found Schiff's rather awkward feel for the flow of the music more than a bit off-putting. I've heard this in his Brahms before and in some of his Schubert as well (Uchida has the same problem in Schubert, btw, he said sadly). This is not the fault of the instrument though, as a couple of recordings I have by Sofronitsky's daughter Viviana on her husband's magnificently restored instruments attest.