Tunesday Confessions

[Pat D]

Dire Straits: On Every Street. Vertigo 510 160-2.

Trumpet Music from the Italian Baroque (Fantini, Vivaldi, Alberti, Scarlatti, Caldara, Torelli, Stradella, Albinoni, Corelli, and Bendinelli). John Wallace, trumpet; Simon Wright, The Philharmonia Orchestra. Nimbus NI 5079.

Mozart: symphonies Nos. 34, 41, and Idomeneo Overture. Georg Tintner, Symphony Nova Scotia. Naxos 8.557239. Tintner Memorial Edition, Vol. 7.

Rachmaninoff: Symphonies Nos. 1, 3 and 3, Vocalise. Ormandy, Philadelphia Orchestra. 2 CDs. Sony SB2K 63257. This is a sonically refurbished reissue of recordings made in 1959, 1960, and 1967, very well done. The classic set.

The Best of Baroque: Handel, Pachelbel, Vivaldi, Bach. Pinnock, The English Concert. Archiv 419 410-2. This has a great recording of Handel's Water Music, Bach's Orchestral Suite no. 3, Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 and other good stuff.

Debussy and Ravel: String Quartets. Quartetto Italiano. Philips 420 894-2. This is surely one of the best recordings of these two works.

Colonial Diversions: Orchestral Miniatures by Grainger, Lilburn, Benjamin, and Coulthard. Georg Tintner, Symphony Nova Scotia. Naxos 8.557244. Tintner Memorial Edition, Vol. 12.

Parkening Plays Bach. Christopher Parkening, guitar. EMI Angel CDC-7 47191 2.

[Mr MidFi]

As some of you know, I'm an REM fanboy from way, way, way back...so I was all too happy to make a store trek for "new releases Tuesday" today and pick up the new one. It'll take at least 10 listens before I have a real opinion, so I'll let you know. But so far, so good.

Also picked up a disc for 2 cents (2 cents!) called "Borders Rock Essentials" with songs from The Clash, The Byrds, Dylan, Jeff Buckley, Uncle Tupelo, Cheap Trick and more. Hey, the price was right.

Played the new one from Los Lobos a few times. It's a 7-song all-covers EP...with pretty good songs originally by Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, The Blasters and more. The highlight for me was a right-between-the-eyes rendition of Richard Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights." Overall...about what you'd expect.

I also came across a used copy of the Best of Sessions from West 54th . Decent songs, but somewhat disappointing performances in some cases. Worth it for the Ani DeFranco, David Byrne and Lou Reed cuts.

I was going to buy the Franz Ferdinand disc, but they wanted 18.99 for it. And that's just freakin' insane.