Bach

Bach is a composer I'm slowly making my way through in building up a sizable selection  of his compositions and recently I bought this 96/24bit transfer of the 1980 recording of the Goldberg Variations and the 1976 Italian Concerto for Harpsichord performed by Trevor Pinnock who normally conducts.

I love this account of Bach's Cello Sonatas that originally came out in 1985

This account of the Brandenburg Concertos originally came out to great acclaim in 1992 on EMI Eminence but four years ago was reissued by Classics For Pleasure in a slim double cd form.

 This is the later 1991 re-issue of the recording by violinists Anne-Sophie Mutter and Salvatore Accardo with the English Chamber Orchestra made in 1983 I bought on phase on of replacing my records and tapes with cds.

Bach wrote rather a lot for the organ and so at some point you are wanting a recording of his Organ works such as the Toccata and Fugue and this a re-release of a two cd set originally issued in 1992/3 by Peter Hurford a distinguished organist fits the bill.

Ludwig's re-masters

Robert Ludwig was one of finest mastering engineers of the vinyl era but without wishing to appear as if if I'm personally attacking him, I have to say I find his more recent CD work in the re-mastering field less than impressive.
One can't fault him for finding good clean sounding tapes but there appears to be something almost automated about what happens next.
His processing of the recordings seem to leave them with a harsh frozen edginess.
This is very evident in his current Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry re-mastering for Virgin Records.
He also seems to favour limiting the dynamics to make these re-masters sound louder compared to what is actually on the masters.
I personally find it hard to listen to Sister Morphine by the Rolling Stones where the track just fails to expand as Charlie's drums kick in. It is a very strange state of affairs when even my ancient pre-recorded 8 track has a bigger difference between the quiet and loud portions of this track.
Another is the introduction to the first track on Roxy Music's Manifesto which starts at too high a level.
He compounds this by adding extra low and high frequencies to this track resulting in earache as you trying listening to this at a loudish level. Many of us have been replacing these titles on cd lately. For the Rolling Stones generally the 1987 CBS issues made in the States and Europe sound much more like the lp's. With Roxy Music you can get either the 1984 EG/Polydor issues or the otherwise perfectly fine 1988/1991 EG/Virgins issued in the UK that sound more natural (the catalogue numbers have EGCD** on the spines).
For Avalon, you can't beat the Polydor/EG issue catalogue number 800 032-2.

See the next entry for my collection.

Outside-in

Although I sometimes talk about technical things, I am not about technical things at all so much as they are things I use on a regular basis in my life as ways of dealing with things such as my anxiety and confidence issues because it helps and so maintaining them myself matters.

In a lot of ways I'm a stereotypical girl or perhaps legally adult-child in that I love arts and crafts even if my co-ordination is kinda rubbish because I love taking art in making things probably because stimulating activity really helps even if I need help doing them.
I'm also a very much a dressy kind of girl, not liking really ornate fussy dresses and separates but easy put on dresses with simple print motifs or patterned fabrics and I love cute things round me.