NEW YORK, Feb 15, (Agencies): Jonas Kaufmann, “Wagner” (Decca) Just about anything the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann does these days is special, and he sounds in particularly fresh voice as he ventures into some new and some familiar territory on this album of excerpts from Richard Wagner’s operas.
He brings youthful exuberance to the “Forest Murmurs” scene from “Siegfried,” then switches seamlessly to the mature bitterness of Tannhaeuser’s “Rome Narrative,” an opera he has yet to add to his repertoire. His rendition of the prayer from the last act of Wagner’s early opera “Rienzi” is especially lovely. One track offer a welcome surprise: His “Grail Narrative” from “Lohengrin” includes the second verse, which Wagner himself cut before the premiere and which has rarely been recorded. This extra four minutes of music helps fill out the opera’s final scene and allows the hero a better explanation of his past. Also included are the five Wesendonck songs in the Felix Mottl orchestration. Though these were written for a female voice, Kaufmann makes them his own with unflagging lyricism. The melodies and harmonies in these songs prefigure “Tristan und Isolde,” an opera that Kaufmann will surely tackle in a few years. The singer gets strong support by the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin conducted by Donald Runnicles.

The Wayne Shorter Quartet, “Without a Net” (Blue Note) Saxophonist Wayne Shorter ranks among jazz’s greatest composers, but when his quartet performs live — as on this album — his compositions are mere frameworks for daring improvisations that take off in unexpected directions without a safety net. His acoustic quartet includes three leaders in their own right — pianist Danilo Perez, bassist John Patitucci and drummer Brian Blade — who’ve developed an almost telepathic interplay after 12 years together. On “Without a Net,” his first Blue Note recording in 43 years, the 79-year-old Shorter remakes two earlier compositions, “Orbits,” written for the Miles Davis Quintet, and “Plaza Real,” created for his jazz-fusion band Weather Report. “Flying Down to Rio,” from the 1933 film that first paired Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, is transformed into a harmonically complex, other worldly exploration. There are six new Shorter compositions, ranging from the hypnotically melodic “Starry Night” to the 23-minute chamber jazz, tone poem, “Pegasus,” performed with The Imani Winds quintet that walks a tightrope between written and improvised music.
 

Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters played house band for Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty and Rick Springfield at a sold-out concert in New York City. Nicks, Fogerty and Springfield performed at the Sound City Studios in California in the late 1960s through the early 1990s. They are the subjects of Grohl’s just-released directorial debut, the documentary “Sound City.” Grohl kicked things off Wednesday night with Alain Johannes. The crowd at the Hammerstein Ballroom then roared as Lee Ving of Fear, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick and Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine took the stage. Grohl played guitar and drums, and he sang background during the 25-minute sets.

Foals, “Holy Fire” (Warner Bros. Records)
One thing you can say about the Foals is that they always mix it up. Their first album, “Antidotes,” was loaded with heavy drumbeats, while “Total Life Forever” was more melancholic with beautiful lyrical prowess.
The British band sticks to their wild formula on the new album, “Holy Fire.” It opens with “Prelude,” a 4-minute long instrumental that blasts into “Inhaler,” showcasing a rockier side to the band. There are howling guitars and shouting vocals, courtesy of Yannis Philippakis. “My Number” is addictive and could have jumped straight from a Talking Heads record. It is funky, uplifting and playful, and the lyrics illustrate optimism: “I feel the love, feel the love.” Melancholia isn’t far away though, as the record swings back down with “Bad Habit,” which is a soulful lament. “I’m a bad habit, one you cannot shake,” sings Philippakis.

Various Artists, “Wagner: Die Walkuere” (Mariinsky)
There’s no shortage of classic recordings of the second and most popular opera in Wagner’s four-part “Ring” cycle. This new version — first installment of a projected complete “Ring” cycle from the historic Mariinsky Theatre in Russia — is a worthy addition, thanks to the rapturous sweep that conductor Valery Gergiev achieves with the orchestra and to the deluxe cast, headed by today’s reigning Bruennhilde, Swedish soprano Nina Stemme. She has the warmth as well as the steely strength to embody the warrior goddess who learns compassion at the cost of her immortality. Bass Rene Pape brings his trademark silken smoothness to the role of Wotan, and if one or two high notes sound effortful, he more than compensates with his deeply felt interpretation as an unusually brooding and introspective god. Tenor Jonas Kaufmann and soprano Anja Kampe are just about ideal as the twins Siegmund and Sieglinde, while mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Guba-nova is a plush-voiced Fricka who sounds at times uncannily like the great Christa Ludwig. The only slight drawback is bass Mikhail Petrenko as Sieglinde’s thuggish husband, Hunding. He sings beautifully but doesn’t sound quite menacing enough.
“Wagner: Die Walkuere” is a four-CD box set.
 

Veronica Falls, “Waiting for Something to Happen” (Slum-berland) The second full-length album from indie pop’s Veronica Falls is a tasteful guitar pop set, brighter in tone than their first. The London foursome takes a communal approach to singing their lovely melodies and there is nothing remotely discordant about the affair. The lyrics glorify the moments in between and aligned with the music play like anthems for the indecisive on “Waiting for Something to Happen.” These are songs about tiring of the people you hang out with, last conversations, the shortcomings of connectivity and the intersection of early adulthood. It’s not that Veronica Falls shun responsibility (“They say act your age”) or compromise (“Driving late at night/I let you listen to the music you like”), they just don’t want to settle down (“Bury me alive”). A few tracks take subtly winsome turns: the drizzle of classic British folk in the opener, the elliptical harmony on “Shooting Star” and the chorus on “Falling Out” blossoming into their catchiest moment to date.
 

Also:
NEW YORK: The US Library of Congress on Wednesday unveiled a plan to preserve historically significant and imperiled sound recordings and make important ones more accessible to the public. The plan calls for the on-demand streaming of out-of-print recordings, the construction of a secure long-term storage facility and a directory of recorded-sound collections. Recordings with high historical value, including music, speeches and interviews, have gone missing, been destroyed or decayed over time, the Library of Congress said. “Our collective energy in creating and consuming sound recordings has not been matched by an equal level of interest in preserving them for posterity,” Librarian of Congress James Billington said in a statement.
The statement did not say how much the plan would cost. Congress appropriates between $1 million and $1.5 million annually for the library’s film and sound recording preservation projects.

The Library of Congress cited several historically important recordings that have gone missing or were destroyed because it lacked a preservation plan. A World War Two wire recording of the Enola Gay crew members as the plane dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, is missing, as are key recordings by American composer George Gershwin. Recordings by singers and silver screen actors Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra are also lost, while some personal collections by recording artists were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Superstorm Sandy last year.

It is estimated that more than half of cylinder records, the most-used format in the first two decades of the US recording industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, no longer survive, the library said. A lack of storage capacity, disparate copyright laws pertaining to historical recordings and other problems have stood in the way of preserving important sound recordings, according to the library. Part of the plan would to be to apply US copyright law to recordings created before 1972, which would let the library legally stream recordings online for educational purposes.