Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #67)

Sadly, the name Avery Fisher Hall is no more ...

 

(CD Eterna Denon COCO-73160 BLU-SPEC)

 

This morning: started with CD 107 from the Rubenstein big box- Brahms -The Three Piano Quartets with Guarneri Quartet and Schumann Piano Quintet(discs 107-109). This box is a desert island box. Hopefully the desert island has electricity! I have been listening to discs in no particular order-just what strikes my fancy in the moment.

 

The big Rubinstein box is indeed a treasure.

 

With all due respect to Mr. Fisher and his family, if they can finally get the acoustics right, it's more than a fair trade.

 

I had those on LP, and several of them on CD prior to the box. It's great to have all of them again.

 

Johannes Brahms – Piano Concerto No.1 in D minor, Op.15
— Arthur Rubinstein — Chicago Symphony Orchestra — Fritz Reiner (RCA Victor Red Seal Records – Sony Music)

 

Now listening to the Haffner symphony from the following set:



Glorious stuff.

 

That's why, whenever discussion of "desert island disks" comes up, I always think what I'd want would be a group of Edison diamond discs and a good Edison player. No electricity needed and a permanent stylus--I'd be set for life!

Oh, and I am very sorry to report that my work closed today because of snow, leaving me stuck with an unplanned day off. I'm sure you can imagine how disappointed I am.

 

Now playing:
Edvard Grieg – Ballade on a Norwegian Folk Song Op.24, Album Leaf Op.28/4, March of the Dwarfs Op.54/3 & Lyric Pieces: Lullaby Op.68/5, Leaping Dance Op.47/6, Berceuse Op.38/1, Folk Song Op.38/2, Butterfly Op.43/1, Leaping Dance Op.38/5, Shepherd's Boy Op.54/1, Little Bird Op.43/4, Folk Song Op.12/5, Fairy Dance Op.12/4
— Arthur Rubinstein (RCA Victor Red Seal Records – Sony Music)

 

Here is one conductor I virtually know nothing about ...

 

I read some years ago, someone or some group offered Lincoln Center $300M to rename Avery Fisher Hall but the latter backed off when the Avery Fisher estate threatened to sue. The current deal is a bit worse than the last offer ...

 

But this time the family is getting $15,000,000. Not sure if that was the case the last time.

And I haven't seen a figure associated with the earlier offer.

 

Can't say that I know a lot about Sanderling either, but looking at my catalogue I see that I have him in a number of recordings on LP, always leading the orchestra backing a more famous Soviet Bloc artist in a concerto--pre-defection Rostropovich, Gilels, S. Richter. From that and the provenance of the above recording as a joint venture with Eterna, the East German state record label, I gather he must have been active primarily behind the Iron Curtain.

 

Kurt Sanderling was a German conductor who emigrated to the Soviet Union in the 1930s because the Nazis made it impossible for him as a Jew to work in Germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Sanderling
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/kurt-sanderling-mn0000576989

 

Thanks--should have looked him up instead of "shooting from the hip," so to speak. So Sanderling followed the same course as his older counterpart Oskar Fried, the only other conductor (Jewish or otherwise) of whom I'm aware to flee eastward when the Nazis came to power. I see Sanderling described as "easy going" or words to that effect in the Wikipedia article; I think nobody ever accused Oskar Fried of that quality. In fact, at one point he can be heard shouting at the orchestra in his '30s vintage recording of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantistique, still far and away my favorite account of that wacky work.

 

As Wikipedia notes, he was extraordinarily long-lived and did some great stuff. He's perhaps best-known for doing the Tchaikovsky 4th in the mono demi-cycle that has Mravinsky doing the 5th and 6th when they were co-directors of the Leningrad Philharmonic in the 50s. His Sibelius cycle is cheap on Brilliant Classics and worth checking out. Stereophile's obit was also pretty good: http://www.stereophile.com/content/remembering-kurt-sanderling

 

Yes, Kurt Sanderling was highly appreciated conductor. That cannot be said of his son, Thomas Sanderling, who was seriously ridiculed.

Triggered by the thread Why Classical Lovers Hate Vinyl, I'm listening the great Erich Kleiber conducting Wiener Philharmoniker in 1952: the piece is longish "Choral" symphony by some Beethoven. Glorious mono recording - but, unfortunately, sonically far from being perfect... at least this Decca Original Masters series 6-CD box version/mastering. But being the music of my childhood/youth, very very dear to me.

 

That Tchaikovsky 4 is one of two Sanderling recordings in my collection, the other one being Beethoven's Piano Concerto 3 with Sviatoslav Richter and the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra in the big Richter Complete Decca, Philips and DG Recordings box.

 

I have never heard a good sounding version of that Erich Kleiber recording. I love his Beethoven recordings with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, but those do not sound very good either.

 

His Brahms symphony set is wonderful.

 

I think I have some recordings by Sanderling in some big boxes, though I know for sure I do not own any single recording by him ...

 

Did Erich Kleiber ever record anything in stereo?

 

Do you still listen to vinyl? I started to get back to it a few months ago ...

 

Cesar Franck – Piano Quintet in F minor
Ernest Chausson – String Quartet Op.35 (completed by Vincent d'Indy)

Michael Levinas, piano — Quatuor Ludwig (Naxos)