Classical Court

Posted by Chris from Lafayette (A) on October 27, 2024 at 16:40:48

Something happened on Apple Music a couple of weeks ago when I was listening to the new release PREVIEWS on a Thursday night. The preview releases are albums where Apple dribbles out a few tracks before the general availability date of a new release. I often listen to these preview tracks, and, in this case, I was, rather surprisingly, listening to the new recording of Handel's "Jeptha" on Reference's "Fresh" series (i.e., recorded by Sound Mirror). Somehow, I paused the recording and then quit the program in the middle of one of these tracks, and then didn't open Apple Music back up until the next day, which was the new release date and all the tracks of the album became available. I'm now thinking that something must have happened in that process if you had selected the wrong track and the wrong time - because there was the track just as I left it (as expected), but I now wanted to play another album, so I navigated to another album and clicked on it. Instead of going in to the album's contents, I was presented with the spinning beach ball (or clock) of death, which would just sit there on the screen, not opening the album. I then tried searching for standard names like "Karajan". As soon as I hit enter, there was that same spinning beach ball/clock. I could NOT play any other album on Apple Music - the darn thing seemed to be stuck on "Jeptha", not that I minded that much, because the performance, although HIP influenced in its strangulated string vibrato, was played on modern instruments (by Chicago's "Music of the Baroque" orchestra and chorus), and the missing vibrato was mostly noticeable in the Overture - the faster moving arias and choruses were pretty OK and, of course, the singers sang with vibrato. And, contrary to my deceptive click bait subject line, this recording was available in Dolby Atmos.

The Apple TV 4K device just seemed to be stuck on this album, and I just couldn't figure out a way to get it unstuck! I wasn't doing that much listening anyway, because I just accompanied the recital(s) yesterday of a local violin teacher (about whom I've posted before) who has 70 (yes, count 'em, 70!) students, of whom I accompanied over 50 yesterday for the series of three recitals, more or less non-stop from 2:00 to 10:00. By the end of that time, I practically have to be helped off the piano bench to get back into my car! But in the weeks before the recital, the students were all descending on my house to have rehearsals for the recital. It was a nice little addition to my income, but I was really wiped out, and, as I mentioned, the upshot was that I haven't had too much time for listening in the last couple of weeks. Still, I would check in with Apple Music over that time, just to see if I could get to any other recordings - no luck!

But then it dawned on me that, instead of turning Apple Music off each time with the remote, I should make the device do a real reboot and unplug it while it was off. And just as in the days of old computers, I took the saying "When in doubt, pull the plug out!" to heart this morning - and, sure enough, it worked, and operations have returned to normal!

I've only listened to a couple of new releases so far: Khatia's new Dolby Atmos Mozart album where she plays and conducts the ASMF in the Piano Concertos nos. 20 and 23 (actually, I just listened to a part of the first movement of 23). The performance so far has me nodding and saying to myself, "Yup! That's Khatia!", as she takes some rubato on the second subject as if it were part of a romantic concerto - LOL! At the same time, it's rather subtle and tastefully done IMHO, so I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the album.

In addition, I listened to the new James Ehnes / Edward Gardner / Bergen PO Dolby Atmos recording of the Sibelius violin and orchestra works. I heard everything except for the Concerto (i.e., the "minor" shorter works), and the performances seemed wonderful, although I admit I haven't heard too many alternate performances of these works, and there were even a few which I hadn't heard before. It's always nice to discover something new by Sibelius, even if it may not be from this top drawer! ;-)

One last thing, I've become a bit more annoyed at Apple, because they've announced that the program booklets for the albums on Apple Music are now available - but ONLY though the Apple Classical app on your iPhone, an app which is STILL not available on their laptop and desktop platforms. Grr!

Edits: 10/27/24