Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #60)

For me these are definitive.

 

I've heard them for the first time and I'm not quite sure what to think of these interpretations; on first hearing they sound a bit mannered to me. I'll try them again soon.

 

Always loved the Abbey Simon/Leonard Slatkin/St. Louis Symphony Orchestra recordings of the Rachmaninov PC's, got a copy of the Vox Box CDs for the paltry sum of $1.95 today. Sound is [predictably] better than the Turnabout LPs of the seventies. I sense that these recordings are more of a collaboration than most, treating the works as Symphonies with a lot of piano. The fine engineering by Aubort and Nickrenz seals the deal for me:

 

Now playing the following LP from my Mozart collection for the first listen of the day on a beautiful fall-like Sunday evening ...

 

Exciting Sibelius from Barbirolli & the RPO. Recorded 10/1 & 9/62, Walthamstow Town Hall. Producer: Charles Gerhardt. Engineer: K.E. Wilkinson. Originally issued by Reader's Digest, 1963. Quintessence reissue 5/77. I also have this on a Chesky CD. These budget-priced Quintessence reissues sound better than you might expect.

 

Another 95¢ CD, Muti, Philadelphia Orchestra, Beethoven's "Ninth" on a Seraphim polycarbonate reissue from 1999. Sound is fat and creamy, playing is similar to what Ormandy conjured a generation previously. The playing in the scherzo is extraordinarily refined.

 

Pickwick had R. Peter Munves running this label, and he chose some great stuff. Munves has earned his share of brickbats (remember "Making Out to Mozart" and the like?) but he knows classical music and recordings very well indeed.

 

That was my first 9th, I should revisit it. At the time I got that CD, I didn't know this work and was overwhelmed by it.

 

Wow, it's hard remembering not knowing Beethoven's 9th. I do remember the first CD of it I bought, Maazel and NY in RCA. I don't remember the first LP, but it would have been in HS in the 70s.

 

Bruno Walter, NYPO, recorded in the fifties, heard it in 1970. A library record. Haven't heard a better version of the Adagio.

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On LP mine was Cluytens - one LP with the adagio broken in the middle.

 

Yup--as one of my old collecting friends, gone for years now, used to put it, "The world's best noise filters are built in on either side of our heads."

As I've noted earlier on, I've been transferring the World's Greatest Music series of 78 RPM classical releases; just tonight I finished the last of them (Nutcracker Suite, probably conducted by Alexander Smallens). The Beethoven 5th sym. set from that series was my first recording of the piece; it came to me with a bunch of sets that I promoted from the basement of our church, where they had languished for ages. It was recorded in 1938. When I got it, in the early '70s, it was not as old as I now am older than I was then.

 

Now playing that very Adagio. It's heavenly.

 

I just discovered this composer today and downloaded this music (couldn't find a CD in the US). It's not for the faint of heart: if you don't enjoy Elliott Carter or Pierre Boulez, then Guinjoan won't be your cup of blood. Superb sound--his piano is practically in one's living room.

 

My first Beethoven Ninth was the 1962 v. Karajan. Here is a Beethoven 7 by a very young Colin Davis that he never surpassed IMO.

Beethoven: Sym 7. Davis, Royal Philharmonic. UK HMV Concert Classics

 

Back to CD: Now playing CD4 from the following box for a first listen ...

 

Now available on this 2CD-set, which also includes Rossini Overtures by the same combination and Schubert's 9th by George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra:

 

Post of the day!

 

Recorded in Severance Hall, 3/1-2/57. My copy is mono; it was also released in stereo. The mono is reasonably full sounding & mine is in good shape. I thought I had this on CD, but it turns out that is a remake from 1967.

 

According to my George Szell Edition booklet the remake was done on October 7, 1966. Was the earlier recording ever released on CD?

 

I'm listening to Rachmaninov Symphony no3 this evening performed by the Concertgebouw conducted by Ashkenazy, also recorded by Kenneth Wilkinson. What a performance and recording!

 

I've saved it in Spotify to listen later. I've been exposed to a lot if new to me composers with the daily deal on eclassical.

 

I have this CD as well. I have some nice Seraphim CD's, including some by Walter Gieseking IIRC ...

 

Just saw this interesting interview with Shura Cherkassky

 

Yes, I saw the 1966 date, but went with the one in the booklet of my Essential Classics CD. The 1957 is on a United Archives CD.