Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #64)

In mono?

 

No, all stereo. Recordings are from 1975 -78.

 

Nice to know. I was under the impression that Chopin CD on DG I recently bought was the only stereo recording he ever made ...

 

No, there are many. Just at some point, the quality drops off. The 70s were still a great time for him, though.

 

Now playing SACD2 from the following box for a first listen. Amazon US is slow, it is only taking pre-order now. I bought this box from Presto Classical a few weeks ago ...

 

A number of them, in fact, and he "borrowed" from others as well (I've mentioned before my fondness for Antonio Janigro's recording of a cello adaptation of a Bach organ adaptation of a violin concerto by Ernst that was attributed to Vivaldi). Also from himself; I think most or all the hpd. cti. are thought to have started off life as violin or wind cti. Handel did much the same, if not moreso. In those days before recordings, decent transportation, and meaningful copyright protection, composers borrowed from each other all the time, and nobody thought anything of it. For that matter, as late as in the 19th c., Rossini had already used his "Barber of Seville" overture for three other operas before attaching it to the one for which it is famous.

 

Excellent points! Few composers borrowed more liberally from their earlier works than Handel himself. Movements from his Concertos Grossi ended up as overtures in a few of his oratorios and operas. Movements of JS Bach's Schubler Chorales also found their ways into some of his cantatas. Yet all the pieces seem to fit together so well ...

 

I have bought many cds from the Australian Eloquence series and they all sound nice. The performances also are topnotch.
Highly recommended, get them while you can, since a lot of them are already out of print.

 

John Eliot Gardiner touches on the borrowing (by Bach and Handel) in his book.

 

Starting the morning by sampling the HvK 1960's box via Spotify. Listening right now to the music from the ballet, Les Sylphides, which consists of orchestrated versions of Chopin piano music.

 

I just checked Spotify and cannot find the 1960s box. What title did they use for it?

 

Now playing.....



I listened yesterday to Concerto No 2 by the same artists. Anyone knows if Badura-Skoda and Scherchen recorded all five concertos?

 

No picture.

 

Try an album search for Karajan 60s.

Now some Debussy from the set.

 

On Spotify the Karajan box is labelled:

Karajan 60s/1
Karajan 60s/2
Karajan 60s/3

 

Oddly enough, I can no longer find it when I search. I can find the 1980s box and part of the 1970s box. And 1960s/1, which I had saved as a playlist is still available to me.

 

Now: Elgar: Symphony 1, Op.55 - Vernon Handley/London Philharmonic Orchestra - EMI Classics for Pleasure

 

Thank you, gentlemen, for answering the query concerning Brahms' Third! Unfortunately, the results aren't statistically representative (some half-dozen answers). Mr. Klemperer (with Philharmonia Orch.) "won" by a hair, or, in this case, by one eighth note. Not terribly suprising (I would have guessed at least Karajan & Klemperer to be mentioned).

 

Now: Chopin: Nocturnes Op.48/2; Op.55/1-2; Op.62/1-2; Op.72/1; Nocturne in C sharp minor, Op.posth.; Nocturne in C minor, Op.posth.; Impromptus Op.29; Op.36; Op.51; Op.66 - Claudio Arrau - 2 CDs, Philips; disc 2

 

Among the favorites here.

 

Debussy was followed by Brahms 1st in the box. Not what I was looking for in particular, but I took the opportunity to compare it with the HvK 1970's and the Abbado recording. I listened to the opening of each through headphones. The 60's recording was somewhat faster and seemed more intense, in part because it sounded more closely miked. Both the 1970's HvK and Abbado were more distant.

The other thing that was evident in the 60's version was the fluttering in the strings that Fafner had noted in other HvK recordings from that period. As an experiment, I found the Abbado recording on Spotify and compared that to my lossless rip. The Spotify version may have had a bit of flutter (when adjusted for volume the two sounded very close), but it was much less than the HvK.

 

I've removed 320 CD jewel cases from the CD towers recently - given away, thrown away -, the last ones during the weekend. Replaced them with Knosti's thinner than thin CD "pockets" or "wallets" (booklets, ceedees & back covers saved into transparent "wallets"). There's in the CD towers again some empty space for newcomers - even after I've emptied into them one cardboard box that kept the ceedees that didn't fit anywhere. I can live with digipaks, but jewel cases are more like waste of oil. Hopefully more and more record companies will use at least digipaks. With more and more download services available even here in Finland, I'm more & more inclined to rely on them. Even HDtracks does provide a part of their selection now.

Now playing the latest "acquisition" from eClassical. Quite acceptable. Sorry for the huge pic - eClassical is able to squeeze that into a smaller space, I'm not.

 

Is that caused by some technical fault, or does Spotify deteriorate on purpose their streams?

 

It's the audio watermarks applied by Universal. See for example

http://mattmontag.com/audio-listening-test/

 

I am less willing to attribute a specific cause. On the whole, Spotify's version of the HvK 60's box has not been sonically impressive.