Author: Bill Dodd

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) was an incredibly prolific composer who was known throughout Europe during his lifetime.  He was an ordained as a priest and was known as “The Red Priest” because he had flaming red hair.  He stopped saying Mass within two years of his ordination.  Vivaldi taught for many years at orphanages in his […]

It suddenly dawned on me a few days ago that Native DSD’s available albums have increased dramatically in number well over 1800 now.  If you’re like me, you might forget to check earlier releases for hidden treasure.  Or, you might have developed a different opinion about a given work or performance.  So I decided to spend […]

What does “Modern” mean?  What does “Contemporary” mean?  In the world of Classical Music, composers and their works generally have to wait 50 years or more before acceptance occurs.  All of the great masters “shocked” listeners with their works initially.  Many of the works whose first recordings I bought as a young person are now […]

This month, NativeDSD’s Label of the Month is Cobra Records. Cobra Records is an independent “fair trade” label with acoustic recordings in the highest possible quality. Label manager, producer and recording engineer is Tom Peeters. With over 20 years experience for different label companies and international artists he is a well known, involved and much […]

Is it a crime to listen to ALL of the Fifth Symphonies by the various composers that are available at the NativeDSD Music Store today? Well even if it is, Senior NativeDSD Reviewer Bill Dodd decided not to plead the fifth! He walks you through his favorite interpretations of Fifth Symphonies by Beethoven, Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, […]

You might recall, in my blog post from this past October I wondered: “Is it Rachmaninoff or Rachmaninov?” About 75 percent of the listings at the NativeDSD Store use -ov, and the rest use -off. I tended toward the -ov, but good old Microsoft Spellcheck prefers -off. Searching can be an issue, so I suggest […]

Is it Rachmaninoff or Rachmaninov? When I was a kid, people weren’t too sure about how to spell Tchaikovsky. In those days you could find it spelled Chaikovsky and Tchaikowsky along with Tchaikovsky which seems to have won the battle most places. But… Is it Rachmaninoff or Rachmaninov? Of all the albums on Native DSD, […]

I’ve certainly covered a lot of wonderful recordings in doing 28 of these blogs, but occasionally there are some that get left behind. So I’ve spent the last few days looking. And I found some great ones! … Caution! Extreme beauty ahead… Arabella Steinbacher, backed by Lawrence Foster and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, […]

I don’t often listen to suites from Tchaikovsky’s beloved ballets. Over the many years I was a mainstream commercial broadcaster I overdosed on those parts of The Nutcracker that are ubiquitous at Christmas time. But I recently decided to put on the complete ballet and it turned out to be a wonderful discovery. Discovery #1 […]

In my last DSD Discoveries entry I compared the three recordings of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem available at NativeDSD. This time I thought I might dig around for Requiem settings from other composers. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” is the Latin from the ancient Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. In English: “Grant them eternal […]

It was a dark, drippy morning. Cable news was telling me that things were massively embarrassing, nonsensical, and other-worldly. Let’s face it. It was not the best of mornings. But on that morning, I decided to give a complete listen to a recent DSD discovery: Ludwig August LeBrun (1752-1790) was something of a musical superstar […]

Whether you call it a bull fiddle, a bass fiddle, a contrabass, a bass viol, a string bass, a double bass, or just a bass; that giant-sized stringed instrument has been providing the bottom end of music for centuries. But (picking one of the above) the double bass has rarely been thought of as a […]