Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #54)

Now listening to Disc 6 from "Mitsuko Uchida plays Schubert" - Sonatas D958 and D959.

 

It has gotten too pricey for my taste ...

 

I have a few recordings by David Munrow, who was a buddy of Christopher Hogwood ...

 

I used to shop at that Tower store ...

 

I agree--but in Beethoven, on the other hand, I've liked what I've heard of Pollini (most or all on the radio). Beethoven's music seems better able to withstand Pollini's kind of "hard" approach.

 

Oh, how soon we forget! He figured in my Scriabin "blind listening test" lallapalooza (OK, quite) a while back. As a reminder, here's what I wrote about him:

1) Alexander Brailowsky (1896-1976) counted among his teachers both Leschetitzky and Busoni. He was recognized first and foremost as a Chopin specialist, having given the first complete cycle of the composer's works in recital, partly on the composer's own piano, in 1924. This performance comes from one of his Polydor 78 RPM records of around 1930, issued in the United States as Brunswick 90050; conventional wisdom has it that they are preferable to his later ones for HMV/Victor and then Columbia, although I nurture a fondness for his account of the Saint-Saens 4th Concerto with Charles Munch and his complete traversal of the Chopin etudes for Victor, on LP and 78s respectively.

 

The only version I own is disc 1 of the Brilliant Classics box of his solo piano music played by Jeroen van Veen. The entire box is great. I liked it so much I bought van Veen's other two 10 disc boxes of minimalist piano music.

 

Now listening to "Beethoven - Complete Works For Violin And Orchestra" performed by Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Orchestre Des Champs-Elyseees led by Philippe Herreweghe on Naïve.

 

By the search machine I found out very recently you was the only one at SHTV who wrote once some (very positive) words about that beautiful Canto Ostinato. So I'm very pleased you found my question in this thread.

Do you remember why you chose to purchase this version? (and if I may ask, how did you know this composition? It seems to be a very unknown composition outside my country)

 

Prestoclassical had a sale on Brilliant Classics. Browsing though the sets on sale I saw that one. I was intrigued and listening to a couple of tracks on Spotify sold me on it. I see the is a four piano version of a Canto Ostinato on two discs and a 12 disc box with 9 different arrangements.

 

I still have not been sold on Beethoven works performed on period instruments ...

 

Last spin for the night. "Beethoven String Quartet Op. 18 No. 6" performed by the Amadeus Quartet on DG vinyl.

 

Have you been able to hear anything by Patricia? She rocks!

 

Does anyone have any opinion on this set? Is it worth having?

 

I am not sure it was mentioned before but a new 4-cd set celebrating the 100th birthday of Sviatoslav Richter will be issued by Melodyia, all Schubert:



Richter Plays Schubert

CD 1
Sonata No. 6 in E minor, D. 566
1 I. Moderato – 7.19
2 II. Allegretto – 6.55
3 III. Scherzo. Allegro vivace – 5.45
4 IV. Rondo, D. 506 – 5.27
Sonata No. 11 in F minor, D. 625
5 I. Allegro – 6.46
6 II. Scherzo. Allegretto – 4.32
7 III. Adagio, D. 505 – 4.03
8 IV. Allegro – 6.03
Sonata No. 13 in A major, D. 664
9 I. Allegro moderato – 11.42
10 II. Andante – 5.48
11 III. Allegro – 6.39

Recorded at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on October 18, 1978

CD 2
Sonata No. 18 in G major, D. 894
1 I. Molto moderato e cantabile – 25.27
2 II. Andante – 7.24
3 III. Menuetto. Allegro moderato – 4.06
4 IV. Allegretto – 13.20
Sonata No. 6 in E minor, D. 566
5 I. Moderato – 7.03
6 II. Scherzo. Allegro vivace – 5.38
7 III. Allegretto – 7.27

Recorded at the Grand Hall
of the Moscow Conservatory on May 2, 1978

CD 3
Sonata No. 9 in B major, D. 575
1 I. Allegro ma non troppo – 8.26
2 II. Andante – 5.28
3 III. Scherzo. Allegretto – 6.03
4 IV. Allegro giusto – 4.43
Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D. 958
5 I. Allegro – 11.32
6 II. Adagio – 8.22
7 III. Menuetto. Allegro – 3.37
8 IV. Allegro – 8.48

Recorded at the Grand Hall of the Moscow
Conservatory on June 8, 1979 (1–4), October 6, 1971 (5–8)
CD 4
1 Scherzo No. 2 in D flat major, D. 593 – 6.05
2 Andante in A major, D. 604 – 4.46
3 4 Landlers from D. 366 in the order: D. 366/1 A major – D. 366/3 A minor – D. 366/5 A minor – D. 366/4 A minor – D. 366/5 – D. 366/4 – D. 366/1 – 5.36
4 Allegretto in C minor, D. 915 – 7.16
Moments musicaux, D. 780
5 No. 1 Moderato, C major – 5.38
6 No. 3 Allegro moderato, F minor – 2.04
7 No. 6 Allegretto, A flat major – 12.00
8 2 Ecossaises from D. 734 and 4 Ecossaises from
D. 421 in the order: D. 734/1 A minor – D. 734/2
A major – D. 734/1 – D. 734/2 – D. 421/1 A flat major –
D. 421/3 E flat major – D. 421/1 – D. 421/2 А flat major – D. 421/1 – D. 421/6 A flat major – 2.54
9 2 German Dances from D. 790 in the order: D. 790/8
A flat minor – D. 790/11 А flat major – D. 790/8 – 2.58
10 Impromptu in G flat major, D. 899/3 – 7.02
11 March in E major, D. 606 – 4.47
12 Impromptu in E flat major, D. 899/2 – 4.39
13 Impromptu in A flat major, D. 899/4 – 7.43

Recorded at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on May 2, 1978 (1–7), October 18, 1978 (8–10), May 3, 1978 (11–13)

Richter Plays Schubert
“The first time I heard him play was at the Moscow Conservatory in May 1957, and he opened his programme with the last of Schubert’s sonatas. It’s a very long sonata, one of the longest ever written, in fact, and Richter played it at the slowest tempo I’ve ever heard. I think at this point it’s appropriate to confess … I’m not really addicted to most of Schubert’s music. I find myself unable to come to terms with the repetitive structure, and I get very restless and squirm when I have to sit through oneof the longer Schubert essays. What happened was that, for the next hour,I was in a state that I can only compare to a hypnotic trance. All my prejudices about Schubert’s repetitive structures were forgotten. Musical details which I’d previously considered ornamental were giventhe appearance of organic elements. In fact, I can remember manyof those details to this day. It seemed to me that I was witnessing a union of two supposedly irreconcilable qualities. Intense analytical calculation revealed through a spontaneity akin to improvisation. And I realizedat that moment, as I have on many subsequent occasions while listening to Richter’s recordings, I was in the presence of one of the most powerful communicators the world of music has produced in our time” (Glenn Gould).

Firma Melodiya has compiled its first album for the 100th anniversaryof Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter from works by Franz Schubert, a composer whose music accompanied Sviatoslav Richter throughout his artistic career (he learnt the Wanderer Fantasie before he entered the conservatory, and the Sonata in five parts, D. 459, was the last piece that Richter workedon in his country house at the end of July 1997 and hoped to play duringthe forthcoming concert season). The set includes complete phonograms of the concertos of 02.05.1978 (for the 90th anniversary of Heinrich Neuhaus) and 18.10.1978 (for the 150th anniversary of Franz Schubert’s death), encores from the concert of 03.05.1978 (the basic programme was similar to that of 02.05.1978), and also the H-Dur sonata (from the concert of 08.06.1979, its second part was dedicated to Sergei Prokofiev’s music (pleased refer to MelCD1001677) and the c-moll sonata from the concert of 06.10.1971.

Ever meticulous about the issues of form of a piece (in particular, he would rigorously perform all the repetitions indicated by the author), Sviatoslav Richter not only performed Schubert’s short pieces (landlers, écossaises) in succession, in the order specified by the composer, but after choosing the most congenial of them compiled peculiar miniature suites, sometimes making any other piece adjacent to them. The examples are the suitesfrom the A-Dur piece and four landlers of 02.05.1978, and the suites played as an encore at the concert of 18.10.1978. A listener may also pay attentionto the evolution of the form of the E minor sonata, D. 566. The sonata was not finished by Schubert as a whole multi-movement work and is actually a set of individual pieces connected with tonal correlations, a figurative structure and the time when they were composed. In 1953, Richter performed a single-movement version of the sonata. However, lateron in the 1950’s, he performed a two-movement version (a comparisonwith Beethoven’s sonata, Op. 90, inevitably comes to mind). Afterwards,the form grew larger when Richter added the third movement (Scherzo. Allegro vivace), and the fourth one by the 1970’s (Rondo. Allegro molto.D. 506) thus performing the version of Paul Badura-Skoda. The sonatais featured in this set twice, as a three- and four-movement version.

Melodiya MELCD1002231

http://www.mdt.co.uk/schubert-richter-plays-schubert-live-melodiya-4cds.html

 

You are correct, sir! I had completely forgotten. I had Brailowsky ranked in the middle of the pack -- interesting how different pianists handle the last two chords. I spent a lot of time listening to your 11 (!) pianists in the test and picked Merzhanov as the best, but only by a hair or two. I also liked Inna Heifetz a lot. I found this little sampler:



Scriabin piano roll begins, then
Brailowsky @ 1:50
Barere @ 3:58
Sofronitsky @ 6:12
Horowitz @ 8:55
Merzhanov @ 11:02

Lots of comments on this video, with many picking Merzhanov as their favorite of these six versions.
Of course, Horowitz owned this piece. I had him ranked #3 in your test.

 

Enjoyed Berg's "Lyric Suite" on my commute this morning. LaSalle Quartet.

 

(Still prefer Miles . . .)
But I do have several recordings including Angel Romero on a Mercury SACD.

 

I have never seen "Courtly Love" on CD, but I do have a slightly edited two disc version of "Netherlands."

 

The Miles Davis / Gil Evans "Sketches of Spain" disc was my first exposure to Rodrigo's Concert.

 

Nice!

Queyras et al. just recorded the first complete version for Ensemble:

 

Not to mention modern music!

 

Thanks. Much (all?) of this has been issued already on other labels.

 

Nice photos. Much better. I like seeing the labels and all the variations that exist. I never run out of something to listen to after reading comments here about specific releases. Will I ever have time to hear all I want to absorb?