Latest Free Download

Another free download from BigEarsRecords. A 1961 Decca recording for Reader's Digest of Haydn's Symphony 100 in G major 'Military' with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Charles Gerhardt.

Chuck Gerhardt was a prolific recording artist from the 1960's to the   1990's, as both producer and conductor - sometimes both simultaneously. Numerous orchestral recordings, many with the specially created National Philharmonic were made with great panache and élan.

Despite the commercial success of his recordings, his popularity among musicians,  and numerous invitations to conduct in concert Gerhardt consistently demurred. 

Listen, download and read more on the Free Download page

George Korngold, Bernard Hermann & Charles Gerhardt
                                                                  

More Free Downloads

BigEarsRecords adds a new free download to the site; Øivin Fjeldstad conducting the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Schubert's Symphony No. 8 'Unfinished'. 
Recorded in 1959 for Reader's Digest record label, the recording first appeared in a box set available to subscribers to the monthly magazine. But like so many of the label's fine recordings, it has never been re-released on CD. More details can be found on the Free Download page where the recording is available for streaming and downloading.

BigEarsRecords will shortly add Fjeldstad's Oslo Philharmonic recording of Brahms Symphony No 3 to the free download page.

Free Downloads

BigEarsRecords launches the first in a series of free downloads; a new transfer, produced from an original mono LP, of the Juilliard String Quartet's 1949 recording of Bartok's String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

           

The ensemble was just three years old when it made this recording. But when the more mature quartet visited the UK some 5 years later the recording had yet to be made available to the British public. Its eventual release came in 1955 and was declared by Gramophone magazine to be "authentic in style, extremely fluent technically without ever descending into mere slickness, and beautifully polished."

These recordings came at an interesting juncture in recording history. For one thing, they were simultaneously available on both 78rpm shellac and vinyl LP. More significantly, these Juilliard sessions were among the earliest Columbia sessions to exploit the new medium of tape recording. Where musicians in the past had been obliged to record music in four minute chunks so as to fill a side of a 78rpm disc, they now discovered the many freedoms of tape; it became possible to record much longer sections of music without stopping, and it was also possible to edit - a practice which, hitherto, had been technically impossible. 

                                                                                    
The recording sessions took place at 30^th Street Studio C, a former Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York City, which Columbia Records had taken over that same year. It was, by all accounts, a magnificent studio that was to be the birthplace of many famous recordings before its eventual closure in 1981. Glen Gould's Goldberg variations were recorded there and a number of Rudolf Serkin's Beethoven piano concertos, not to mention Miles Davis' Kind of Blue and a host of other jazz and popular music albums.

The audio can be streamed as mp3 files or downloaded as 24bit 96Khz mono flac files Bartok's String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

Forthcoming release 

The next recording project due for imminent release on BigEarsRecords is Colin Stone's recording of Prokofiev's War Sonatas. The three Sonatas 6, 7 & 8 written during the 2nd World War are fierce and demanding works for listener and pianist alike.

In the meantime, click the links below to stream 17-year-old Freidrick Gulda's 1947 recording of Prokofiev's 7th Sonata.
         

1. Allegro inquieto pt 1   
   
2. Allegro inquieto pt 2
   
3. Andante caloroso pt 1
4. Andante caloroso pt 2
   
5. Precipitato

FLAC files provided courtesy of  CHARM (Centre for History and Analysis of Recorded Music)

ContraClassics

BigEarsRecords is pleased to announce the release of BE007 - Czech Piano Trios - on ContraClassics.com a new dedicated classical music streaming service. More BigEarsRecords will be added shortly.
The web service is a Norwegian start-up founded and directed by cellist Øystein Birkeland. It operates a subscription model and plans to make available high-resolution downloads in the near future.
BigEarsRecords is pleased to enter this collaboration with ContraClassics and welcomes the opportunity to support a dedicated classical music service; created by musicians for musicians.

Berlin International Music Festival

The London Mozart Trio is to appear at this years' Berlin International Music Festival. The Concert, on 27th June will feature the Martinu Piano Trio in D-minor, Brahms Piano Trio in C-major Op. 101 and Rachmaninov Trio élégiaque in D-minor Op. 9 which is available on BE006. Further information available on the Konzerthaus website.

Immanent Release - Czech Piano Trios

Big Ears next release is currently in post-production and is expected to be released this autumn. Not before time, some might say given that much of the repertoire to be included was recorded 12 years ago.

So why has it taken so long? Well, all the works on the forthcoming disc with the exception of the D minor Martinu Trio were recorded in 2000; the same time as the Shostakovich Piano Quintet and Trios previously released on BE002. Recording sessions were scheduled at Potton Hall in Suffolk after the LMT was invited to record the Shostakovich works for release on another record label which unfortunately became insolvent while our sessions were still under way. As a result, the Trio – now in a similarly penurious predicament, having picked up all the recording costs – was left with a number of recordings with no apparent prospect of release.

Some years later, the launch of Big Ears Records ensured the release of the Shostakovich works mentioned above, but the Smetana, Martinu and Suk Trios have been languishing in the can ever since together with a recording of the Arensky Piano Quintet which to this day remains unedited.

BE007 disc will present a fascinating opportunity to compare the recordings featuring Leonid Gorokhov on cello with the Martinu D minor trio which introduces Sagi Hartov who joined the Trio last year. 

                             
Speech Room Harrow School                                                                           Potton Hall Suffolk

Moreover, as this last work was recorded in The Speech Room at Harrow School it offers the audiophile an opportunity to evaluate the recorded representation of this acoustic with that of the earlier recordings made at Potton Hall in Suffolk. Far from trying to disguise the fact that these recordings were made in different acoustics, Big Ears Records consider the acoustic a feature of particular interest; not something to shroud beneath a veneer of artificial reverberation. Indeed, all of Big Ears Records are guaranteed free from artificial reverberation.