Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #54)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by George P, Mar 8, 2014.

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  1. John A

    John A New Member

    Location:
    Lancaster, UK
    Just heard about Decca's 'Most Wanted Recitals' series via Presto Classical's newsletter. They seem to be available only through them at the moment: http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/s/Most+Wanted+Recitals

    On their recommendation, I went for the Inge Borkh and Jose Carreras discs, but also bought the Ghiaurov disc (primarily for the Pearl fishers duet with Pavarotti) and Hilde Gueden (for the Ivor Novello songs having just watched him in a couple of silent Alfred Hitchcock films). Seems that the series originated in Mexico and are 24/96 kHz remasters. The sound quality is good - detailed with plenty of air and space.
     
  2. 5-String

    5-String μηδὲν ἄγαν

    Location:
    Sunshine State
    Agreed, I am listening now to the slow movement of Mozart's 23 with the Bamberger Symphoniker and Leinter at the podium and I feel that it doesn't get better than this.
     
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  3. drh

    drh Talking Machine

    Ivor Novello's adoptive sister, Marie Novello, was among the last students of Theodor Leschetizky. As you'd guess with such a credential, she was a talented and popular pianist, but unfortunately she died of cancer in her early thirties, having just made her first electric recordings for HMV following on a moderate series of acoustics for Edison Bell. In the event, only two of her electric sides were issued. I'm extremely fond of her playing; admittedly it must have sounded very old fashioned even in its day, but it has character and commitment. She is said to have made the first recording of Bach's celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (in the Tausig arrangement for piano), issued by Edison Bell on its Velvet Face label, I suppose an appropriate point to raise on this, the great master's b'day.

    So: history lesson done, and best Bachian birthday bonhomie to one and all! :cheers:
     
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  4. Idler

    Idler Active Member

    Location:
    Sydney Australia
    I would just like to take this opportunity to add to the praise already heaped on the Japanese TCHAIKOVSKY: SYMPHONY NO.6 [Platinum SHM-CD] conducted by Mravinsky. This disc sounds so superb it is almost unbelievable that the recording is over 60 years old. The speakers truly disappear with this recoding and the dynamics are astounding - whilst the sound retains a lovely analogue quality.

    Anyone tried any of the 1960s Karajan Beethoven in Platinum SHM CD yet?
     
  5. Mogens

    Mogens Forum Resident

    Location:
    Green Bay, Wis.
    Can someone give us a rundown on why some classical lps sell for such obscene amounts of money? I can't really comprehend why, for example, the Oistrakh Trio recording of Beethoven's Archduke trio opus 130 that was released on Columbia is worth $500 and the seemingly identical release on Angel was available to me for $1 (sounds great). And what is up with Johanna Martzy and why is she only a big deal to record collectors? What are the main vectors that drive the vintage market? Is it just rarity?
     
  6. vanhooserd

    vanhooserd Senior Member

    Location:
    Nashville,TN
    Do you ever go back to Knoxville? If so, have you ever checked out McKay's? I've had some luck there as well as at the McKay's in Chattanooga and now the one in Nashville.
     
  7. vanhooserd

    vanhooserd Senior Member

    Location:
    Nashville,TN
  8. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    You have answered your own question. Rarity and demand. Rarity by itself does not equal high prices. US pressings of classical music are inferior to the UK and German original pressings, sometimes very inferior. However US original RCA shaded dogs go for higher prices than UK or German pressings. It's like book collectors. Record collectors want the original edition; if the original is also the best sonically then prices really escalate.

    Martzy was a second tier solo violinist but who made some very good recordings that sold in small numbers. She did not have a long recording career but she was a great favorite of Bachians because her playing was somewhat cool and unshowy. (There was no period performance at that time.) She is sort of a cult favorite, not that she wasn't a fine violinist. She died of cancer in middle age without much notice at the time.

    For whatever reason, classical violin recordings have consistently gotten higher prices on the used LP market than most other kinds of classical recordings. Without the Asian interest prices for desirable classical records would be much lower than they are also.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2014
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  9. Collector Man

    Collector Man Well-Known Member

    It is much 'fashion' like prices asked for some nominated first edition 'unread/or unopened' novels . Having a collection of 8000 (at least!) vinyl and CD discs, at times I am amused t0 see the prices demanded for mint copies of things that I have on my shelves equally mint or even still unplayed.. Thet are just 'plate biscuits' in cardboard or plastic boxes carrying some form of information, anyway. For a while Chausson's opera Le Roi Arthus (Erato) was trying to fetch $300 a set /or Wagner's FlyingDuchman with Dietrich FischerDieskau was going for $175. (which I both have on my shelves. I had no desire to 'trade'. Now I see the same said Flying Dutchman is available for somewhere aound $12 to 15 on a Brilliant Classics-issue .The Chausson King Arthur is also back being re-pressed / reissused /and sold for regular normal sale prices.
    I chuckle at some of the 'raves' for some 'rare' material, now given cult status. Havng an exceptional retentive memory for reviews and release dates of a lot of that material,,,,, often I remember how on first relelase,: then...a good deal of music critics completely turned their noses up at the said performances.:D:D
     
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  10. Collector Man

    Collector Man Well-Known Member

    I like the quote once, of someone in a magazine - about Japanese collectors, those especially with their perchant for hideously expensive esoteric TT , valve amps , tone arms and cartridges .Where western classical music was concerned...........record company mail order 'clubs were not popular. There was a suspicion that unless one paid full retail price money for some disc, the disc was poorly pressed or a shoddy copy in some way.
     
  11. drh

    drh Talking Machine

    From Dad's passing until earlier this year, when I finally completed the probate process, I was making fairly frequent trips back down to K Town, and, yes, on one of them I paid a visit to McKay's--in part to find out if it would have any interest in Mom and Dad's extensive library. (Short answer: not much.) Spent an hour or so browsing through the CDs and came up completely dry. Which doesn't mean anything in a used outlet like that, since one is entirely at the mercy of what the locals happen to be dumping that week. Had I been there a month earlier or a month later, the results might well have been better. I'll likely be heading down again next month so my daughter can participate in a figure skating competition. If time permits, maybe I'll give the place another try.
     
  12. 5-String

    5-String μηδὲν ἄγαν

    Location:
    Sunshine State
    Generally it is what Mr. Bass and Collector Man said.
    Violin recordings are very popular among classical vinyl collectors. In addition to Martzy and Oistrakh, also Ida Haendel, Michael Rabin, and Peter Rybar are quite popular.
     
  13. jukes

    jukes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Finland
    Sure, that's certainly true. Not to mention an over 10-CD box of piano - well, actually, an over 10-CD box of nearly anything... except for Mahler's symphonies and Wagner's Ring.
    Actually, I do have a DHM box of barock music recordings, 25 ceedees. Never heard it through, i.e. all of the stuff in it. Fortunately, not only harpsichord music. ;) Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: La Discothéque Idéale/25 herausragenden Aufnahmen des berühmten Alte Musik Labels... There's of course Johann Sebastian Telemann Vivaldi, but also music by a bunch of French and Italian composers. Some more Bach family works, Telemann's Tafelmusik and of course Vivaldi's intrumental music (the Vivaldi Box), and my personal Old Music Library is complete.
     
  14. jukes

    jukes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Southern Finland
    Yeah, it's the same with book collectors, and therefore, with used book shops and antiquarian book stores: no book club editions thank you very much; no library removals thank you very much.

    [Actually there can be one problem with book club editions: finer printing than in standard edition (in order to get smaller book sizes and therefore lower shipping charges). However, I'm interested in only of what's written, what's inside the book, whether philosophy or poetry, so I eagerly buy library deletions when available ($1 for a book, $20 for shipping!). And yes, we also have a bunch of "biobliophile" first editions from nineteenth and twentieth centuries, oldest books coming from eighteenth century. Thanks to previous generations of my family/-ies.]
     
  15. Mogens

    Mogens Forum Resident

    Location:
    Green Bay, Wis.
    In my limited experience so far, used lp store owners are uninterested in going through the classical lps that have washed up on their shore. I've been to quite a few that are selling their stock for a dollar apiece regardless of what they're worth. It's an oddly bifurcated market.
     
  16. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it!

  17. coopmv

    coopmv Newton 1/30/2001 - 8/31/2011

    Location:
    CT, USA
    I do have a rare Chopin recording by Kempff on the Italian label "Isitituto Discografico Italiano". This is also my only Chopin recording by Kempff.
     
  18. coopmv

    coopmv Newton 1/30/2001 - 8/31/2011

    Location:
    CT, USA
    I share your view completely. This is like treating a guy who only eats at Mickey D all his life to the best French restaurant in town. These bozos at Warner are totally unqualified IMO ...
     
  19. Collector Man

    Collector Man Well-Known Member

    This comment : jogs my memory of a cache of Italian label CDs I brought , being sold for $2 each featuring the likes of Michelangeli the pianist as well as a reissue of the famous Toscanini complete set of Verdi's Otello with Ramon Vinay. What was so striking amongst the the availability of this CD cache was in many case examples (cleanly recorded) of the same repertiore being played by Michelangeli , recorded on different dates but so close - together - going by the recording dates issued with the recordings.. Such as, for Vatican Radio and /or then seperate Italian studios . From this information, it was not hard to deduce that Michelangeli was some sort of musical Obsessive Compulsive. I was not surprised to later learn - that in life - if someone else should so much as just touch the cabinet of his beloved private Grand Piano , Michelangeli went 'ballistic'.
     
  20. Collector Man

    Collector Man Well-Known Member

    I can appreciate fully what you are saying and your asssociated sentiments that are conjured up, as well. I beleive we are seeking the same 'nivana thrill' that we perhaps can remember from the first release of either some original vinyl or some stunningly recorded CD edition.But now reissued - anf to our personal present day perception - now sounds flat and disappointing.
    SACD though fine as a technology -even from its inception - was waiting 'to hit the brickwall -as far as satisfactory reissuse of what we would call the entire past catalogue'. So many of the original tapes were converted to digital by the studios to further preserve them- and so to speak, 'are now locked in sonic stone' to the 16 bit /44 Kz rate. as their actate based tapes 'crumbled in storage over the decades' .If we are aware of the deterioration that over the same time periods, that has taken place with the storage and archiving of old Hollywood films, we -in so may cases are in a similar boat with Classical original Master tapes . The clot custodians of this precious music material often have not shown the same care -judging by many of the now produced 'rejuventated' results -as we would -had we beiung charge of the material.

    Here's a interesting example dealing with released version of identical material. Having collected so many Decca complete operas with all their 'Sonicstage sound perspective type' information - intact on vinyl, it was curious to see what has transpired, since. There was a release some years ago of opera highlights from various EMI and Decca complete sets called "Opera Series". Checkong the Web , there is no company history available - for that said label . These CDs originated from somewhere inside the ECU where someone undoubtably got hold of " true source material"
    What was interesting :taking the famous 1958 recorded "Puccini Girl of the Golden West" and using as a demo example: - the highly dramatic card game scene , set during a wild snow storm in an isolated mountain cabin.... Then comparing even just the "pirated " Opera Series version done in AAD as against Decca's ADD offical version. The pirate AAD version sonically blows the Decca ADD into the wind and it is a fitting parallel compliment to the original vinyl edition just as sheer warm but highly detailed analogue sound .!

    This all begs the question "What do collectors actually WANT from such archive material ?"
    I throw in the proposal .....that if they want a new pristine carbon analogue sound copy of what was originally released on vinyl........... the only possible way to achieve it.... is ...................
    "For record companies to hunt out musical eccentrics that have stored in their libraries, new perfect unplayed copies of the orignal released vinyl; anf then reproduce it for CD manufacture with laser reading pick ups".
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2014
  21. 5-String

    5-String μηδὲν ἄγαν

    Location:
    Sunshine State
    George, or anyone else,
    what do you think of Samson Francois? Any recommendations? I am thinking of getting the 3 cd live box set by Erato.
     
  22. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    I am not as pessimistic about the actual condition of the master tapes from the major labels at least (EMI, Decca, RCA, Mercury, CBS, DG). There have been occasional audiophile digital remasterings with the RCA and Mercury recordings as described in the old TAS. Speakers Corner and Alto have done nice occasional reissues of the EMI and Decca catalogue on vinyl in the past 20 years. Speakers Corner continues a few at a time to this day I believe. Some have complained the remasters are a bit dark but that may well be the slight loss of high frequencies from 50 year old tapes. Otherwise they sound quite good IMO. The sad part is that there seems to be little or no effort by the labels to conscientiously remaster these tapes other than the slapdash CD remasters you noted.


    As I noted in my post, these labels have been taken over by conglomerates whose music executives listen to pop music and apply pop mastering techniques to classical music recordings. Don't see any prospect of change there. We will be dependent on specialty labels for the occasional conscientious remaster.
     
  23. John S

    John S Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    This morning:
    This

    [​IMG]

    and this:

    [​IMG]

    My first Moravec. A revelation.
     
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  24. Scott Wheeler

    Scott Wheeler Forum Resident

    Location:
    ---------------
    Moravec's Beethoven sonatas are my absolute favorite versions
     
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  25. sgb

    sgb Senior Member

    Location:
    Baton Rouge
    Sadly, I'll have to agree with this assessment. I would, furthermore, aver that most of the licensed-then-reissued music in nearly all cases—classical or otherwise—rarely competes with a well-kept original.
     
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