Adrian Quanjer is a site reviewer at HRAudio, with many years of experience in classical music. He writes from his country retreat at Blangy-le-Château, France. As a regular concertgoer, he prefers listening to music in the highest possible resolution to recreate similar involvement at home. He is eager to share his thoughts with like-minded melomaniacs at NativeDSD.
Balm for the soul in testing times. It would seem to me that in the good-(very)-old-days, many if not all composers did not compose to innovate at all costs, but to please. That was at least my conclusion listening to this latest 2L release. And all you need to pass it on to the listener […]
Adrian Quanjer on Jul 11, 2023
It’s simple: If you go for it, do it well Some time ago the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington DC, following the example of other top orchestras, decided to launch their own label. NSO Executive Director Gary Ginstling: “We believe the orchestra is at the top of its form and comparable to any great orchestra in […]
Adrian Quanjer on Jun 13, 2023
The many faces of Schubert Do we know exactly what kind of person Schubert was and why some of his compositional output is of varying consistency? I have several books in which writers and scholars do their best to shed light on him as a human being, with an at times difficult-to-understand character, and an […]
Adrian Quanjer on May 30, 2023
She steals your heart, your soul, and stays forever in your mind I wouldn’t be honest in saying that there are no other great recordings of Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto, but this is the only one that managed to steal my heart and my soul so profoundly that it will stay forever in my mind. […]
Adrian Quanjer on May 09, 2023
Instantly Serving the Discerning Music Lover At a time when ‘streaming’ has become the norm, some courageous labels continue to serving the small market of discerning music lovers with the best attainable quality in high resolution. Yarlung Records is such a label. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against streaming. The (internet) radio fills a large part of […]
Adrian Quanjer on Feb 24, 2023
Two of the same? Not quite We have here two versions of the same, offered separately or in a ‘bundle sale’. I don’t think that it has ever happened before. Jake Purches, the producer of these albums, says: “The program is the same … but the interpretation is quite different”. How right he is. At […]
Adrian Quanjer on Feb 17, 2023
JSB, the Almost Unbreakable Craftsman There is no limit, so it seems, to what can be done with the musical language of one of the most compelling composers of humanity, Johann Sebastian Bach. No matter which instruments are used. Not even an accordion playing selected preludes and fugues from Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, or the Goldberg Variations […]
Adrian Quanjer on Feb 03, 2023
It is like looking at a Rembrandt after the grime of the ages has been removed When I came more or less by chance across this 2L release, I didn’t know the performing violinist, Ragnhild Hemsing, nor her piano partner, Tor Espen Aspaas. I hesitated, believing that good readings of Beethoven’s Sonatas were the ‘chasse […]
Adrian Quanjer on Jan 27, 2023
With so many artists and recording companies gracing their audiences with new and often inventive musical projects, each vying for the attention of the educated listeners’ ears, it is once in a while a pleasure to go down memory lane and realize that some music doesn’t age. Haydn’s Musical Time Triptych is one of them. […]
Adrian Quanjer on Jan 02, 2023
The scene is set for something special Dutch violinist Niek Baar obtained his master’s degree at the famous Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin, Germany, and … he is an avid collector of international prizes. Is he special? Looks like it, and for more than one reason. After so many Dutch female violinists made […]
Adrian Quanjer on Sep 30, 2022
It’s All About Passion & Poetry In her first instalment of a projected survey of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos, Anna Federova hugely surprised me, and surely many others, with a reading of the first piano concerto that surpassed quite a few existing recordings by pianists of note. This follow-on release notably including the ever-so-popular Second Concerto […]
Adrian Quanjer on Sep 19, 2022
This new release, presented as a ‘concept-album’ around Maurice Ravel, is not just another Ravel Highlights. It is an emotionally led, deliberate choice. It has numerous points of interest not found elsewhere. Firstly, the use of gut strings and special bows, as was customary in Ravel’s time; Secondly, the chosen pianos, one of which ‘prepared’, […]
Adrian Quanjer on Aug 22, 2022