Good to know. So far, I find the sound very agreeable to listen to. There is a typo in my longer post above. It should say the quartets were recorded between 1931 and 1938.
All extremely interesting stuff--thanks for taking the time and trouble to post it! And in mine. The albums had three or four quartets, not four and sometimes five. Chalk it up to bleary-eyed "need to get to bed" posting. One more fun fact: Robert Maas had a brother, Marcel Maas, who was a well respected pianist and also made records. I have a few, all Bach (one of the solo keyboard toccatas, several sonatas for violin and keyboard). Where Robert and his Pro Arte friends recorded for HMV, Marcel was a Columbia artist.
Seconded! Let's keep these fun facts about classical music coming! Sharing them is one reason I started this thread 9 years ago! Now listening to the Beethoven Cello Sonatas, as performed by Casals and Serkin from the big Serkin box:
And now, for the Beethoven symphonies, from the aforementioned online friend: A Survey of Beethoven Symphony Cycles: Alphabetical Index
Speaking of Beethoven, now enjoying this 1954 performance of Beethoven's first piano concerto, in mono sound, from The Complete Columbia Album Collection.
I gather descriptive text is to follow eventually. Will be interested to see what he says about the Georgescu cycle. [Edit] I note he is defining "cycle" broadly, as a number of entries were never conceived as a unified entity. Weingartner, for instance, in that light recorded the first "complete cycle," but his recordings were made with different orchestras over a period of maybe a couple of decades, and in a number of cases he made more than one recording of the same work. He recorded no. 9 twice, for example, one in 1926 in London with soloists and chorus singing in English (which has the distinction of being the first complete electrical recording of the work, beating out Albert Coates's HMV recording by a few months), the other the celebrated one from the '30s sung in German.
Lots of great releases on the L'Oiseau-Lyre label. This is the one I'm enjoying tonight - Telemann played by The Academy of Ancient Music, Hogwood, dir.
I have been listening to Mahler symphonies lately. The version of No. 5 I own is by James Levine and the Philadelphia Orchestra on RCA. The last couple times I listened to it I wasn't pleased with the sound quality, so I just ordered the live recording by Solti and the Chicago Symphony from 1991 on Decca. Is anyone familiar with this Solti recording of Mahler Symphony No. 5 and can give me your opinion on the sound and performance?
Mikhail Pletnev Philharmonia Orchestra Libor Pesek Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 1; Rhapsody... Virgin Classics, 1988
Yes, that is what I think. Yeah, he is defining cycle broadly. He mentioned something about that on the other forum where I got the above links.
Has anyone had a chance to check out the Quatuor Mosaiques Late Beethoven yet? I am listening on Spotify and I love it. Some of their interpretations are quite different from what I'm used to hearing. Their Grosse Fuge is awesome -- every line is clear and balanced.
Overall, I was impressed with the 1930's recordings of Haydn Quartets by the Pro Arte Quartet. They join some of the more modern recordings of Haydn Quartets that I have enjoyed.
Now listening to "Beethoven Piano Sonatas - Vol I" performed by John O'Conor on Telarc. Nos. 8, 14 & 23 I hardly ever see these recordings mentioned anywhere. They seem alright to me.
Although my favourite light opera is being staged in our city tomorrow evening in a new production by Kirill Serebrennikov, the circumstances surrounding the lead up to the premiere of 'Hänsel und Gretel' have been anything but light. I think it's going to be one of the most notable opera premieres this season anywhere in Europe. Freedom of artistic expression has become paramount since Kirill Serebrennikov was placed under house arrest in Russia, with the work only half completed on the opera. His ideas were fully-formed but he couldn't attend any rehearsals. I'm very excited about the political event character of the evening as much as the music. Here's a link to the webpage (in German) of the opera house in question, you can switch to the English version very easily: Oper Stuttgart - Kirill Serebrennikov Here the English link: Oper Stuttgart - opera and classical concert in Stuttgart And here's his brilliant production two years ago:
Finally! S. Richter with Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra Quartet [ Zhuk, Veltman, Gurvich, Buravski ] (Moscow, 1956)
That's fascinating, thanks for sharing. I'm sure it will be an interesting performance. I enjoyed the clips from Salome a lot! What a powerful voice. I'm inspired to check my local library to see if they have any Salomes on DVD.
Never heard of John O'Conor, I'll have to keep an eye out. I first got interested in the Beethoven piano sonatas (besides moonlight etc) after I listened to Andras Schiff's lectures on the sonatas on YouTube, picked up his set on ECM, and have not looked back
Stuttgart Opera's usual DVD releases are on 'EuroArts' usually indirectly via the local public broadcaster Südwestrundfunk (SWR). There are three complete modern Salomes (at least easily viewable on YouTube) but the 2015 Stuttgart production may now be Kirill's first and last premiered opera. I should think he made sure that one of the performances was captured by his film crew colleagues, it would be a very important DVD release if so.