You're right, extremely well paced on the Intermezzi. On his early recordings of Beethoven or Mozart it's like he wants to finish them ASAP. Also ordered the Angelich after reading some more reviews. There is a UK seller that has one more copy on Ebay for $19 shipped. I have numerous Brahms Piano Concertos so it will be nice to hear a new recording of those!
Isn't there a thread birthday soon? Or did I miss it? Tried to find the original CMC thread, and it seems to have disappeared. I bought several CD sets on Testament when they passed through Berkshire recently, and yesterday I sampled the one devoted to Ernst von Dohnanyi. Disc 1 contains a recital he gave at Florida State University in 1959, one of his last. Disc 2 has a short recital of his own music from the Edinburgh Festival a few years earlier plus some odds and ends broadcast in 1936. The FSU recital includes two big sonatas, Beethoven's op. 31 no. 1 and Schubert's D. 894, together with three short pieces by the pianist. I've heard better sound--there's some distortion at the outset of the Beethoven--but on the whole it's certainly serviceable. The Beethoven was attractive enough, but the real winner here, in my opinion, was the Schubert; I really, really liked Dohnanyi's rather old-fashioned way with the piece. I was listening at the office through headphones; must schedule a date with that one through my main rig soon.
The original thread is still here - Classical Corner - Classical Music Corner (thread #1) And yes, as of October 26th, it is our 9th anniversary!
What an awesome cake. Here's to many more years to come ! BTW George, I am trying to figure out the difference between this thread and the "Conversation" thread. I get confused due to my old age but they seem the same to me.
Just finished playing a couple of Edison long-playing diamond discs that I bought a while back. Briefly, these were the first long-playing records, in the 10" size running 12 minutes per side at 80 RPM (the 12" ones played 20 minutes or so, again at 80 RPM); as you might guess from those numbers, the groove size is only a bit more than half the width of a modern LP microgroove. Anyhow, on the whole I find Edison's bad reputation for dubious programming is undeserved, but that doesn't mean something doesn't crop up once in a while that would play into it, and so it is with one of tonght's discs: a band transcription of Beethoven's Egmont overture coupled on the same side with a salon ditty called "Cupid's Pranks," which sounds about like what you'd expect with that title. Bizarre coupling!
Now enjoying the above CD from the above box set. Once again, as with the solo CDs, this is absolutely lovely playing and sound.
Just received my package this morning, I'll try to comment later after I spend some time listening, but definitely it's a good price for a 3CD boxset.
I just received the Von Karajan Vienna Philharmonic recording of Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra from 1959. I also own the Reiner Chicago Symphony recording from 1954. Have listened to the Karajan recording twice so far and think I prefer it to the Reiner. Does anyone else have a preference between these two classic early stereo recordings?