Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #61)

Haven't heard it in awhile, but I recall loving it. Moravec doesn't have a ton of recordings, but they are all wonderful.

 

I enjoyed the LP, which has surprisingly clean sound with excellent piano tone for an American pressed LP ...

 

Still listening my way through this box. Now playing "Violin Concerto/Double Concerto/Cello Concerto" from the "Delius - 150th Anniversary Edition" box set on EMI.

(from an Amazon reviewer)......
Violin Concerto:
Yehudi Menuhin, violin
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Meredith Davies
Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra:
Yehudi Menuhin, violin/Paul Tortelier, cello
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Meredith Davies
Cello Concerto:
Jacqueline du Pré, cello
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Sir Malcolm Sargent

 

Just back from hearing the Jerusalem Quartet play Brahms. A very rich warm sound, perfect for Brahms. Sharon Kam joined them for the clarinet quintet. She sounded quite nice as well, although I could have used a bit less physicalization.

 

Hey, some of us enjoy a steaming pile of noisy chromatic nonsense now & then.

 

That great cover still haunts in my head... There's something in that Jugend style - ornaments and all (is it called Art Nouveaux in Anglophone word?). And of course I know nothing about visual arts, so I can't even guess who's work that is [sigh].

The later releases have that boring white background... so I'm not going to order it. After all I have both Barbirolli doing Pelleas & Melisande and Boulez doing Verklärte Nacht, and von Karajan doing the both. And there are some minor efforts on some compilations, too. I'm not a big fan of Schönberg but I do think his Violin Concerto in a classic. Just like the one by Alban Berg.

 

What a great disc. Along with a good Rite, there's Night on Bald Mountain (original version), and the concert version of The Miraculous Mandarin.
Hybrid SACD to boot.

 

It must be Munch (the guy who painted "the scream", not the conductor ).

 

Me too, but just not that guy.

 

This must be the most boring Rite on disc, which is not helped by the extremely dry and flat recording. The same goes for the Bartok and Mussorgsky.

 

Yes, the cover pic could originally be a Munch painting. There are some similarities, I think.

Neither the most boring, nor he greatest "Rite". My first encounter was the early seventies LP by Abbado & LSO and that sure was a kick into you-know-what. No, sorry, it was Tilson Thomas with the Boston SO, that did it once and for all. Abbado's wasn't that temperamented, if I remember correctly. Nor that exploding. But what there are, Monteux & Boston SO, Svetlanov & USSR State SO, Boulez & New Philharmonia, Rahbari & BRT Philharmonic - none of those really kicks in to me, I think. And Solti & Chicago SO? I dimly remember that there was some life left... For me Salonen is in the biggish class of well-made recordings but haven't heard it for few years - it's now in a pile for weekend listenings, mainly due to the "Mountain".

 

Well, the Rite's discography is really vast and there are surely enough stinkers out there. You mentioned Solti, I remember now that I heard his other version with the Concertgebouw and it was pretty underwhelmingp. But I remember that Salonen was the one who impressed me the least, though it was also quite while ago. And the recoding itself is really annoying, especially the overpowering bass drum in comparison to the rest of the ensemble which sounds muffled and distant, very weird balance (I'm talking only about the stereo layer, I have no idea about the surround mix). Just to take the recent recordings, Dudamel and Rattle are way superior both in artistic and technical terms IMO.

And you should get Abbado's recording of the original Mussorgsky version of the night on the bald mountain (if you don't have it already), this recording persuaded me that the original is superior to Rimsky's version, whereas on the Salonen disc it just sounds meh.

 

The Solti is in the Decca Analogue box, so I will listen to it for the first time since I had it on LP in the 70's. Another closeout find at HMV London was a pair of 4 disc sets from the early days DG Archiv. These are mostly mono performances. I do not believe they were included in the Archiv mega-box, but they are packaged in a similar manner. The original covers for 7 of the 8 discs are the un-illustrated tan covers that I recall seeing in my earliest days of LP hunting. The middle one is music for lute performed by Walter Gerwig. HMV did not have the viola da gamba, but I picked up the other two for 4 pounds each.

 

Favorite "Rites", so far:

Stravinsky, the craggy, nasty sounding "Columbia Symphony Orchestra" stereo version, particularly when I had the single layer SACD of it. It is so in your face.



And Antal Dorati's Digital recording leading the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, very on-point and balletic with some of the best early digital sound I've heard. It's my understanding that Decca designed their own 18-bit a/d converters, used on this recording:



Honorable mention, Leornard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic:



Interesting article on various recordings of Le Sacre du Printemps:

http://classicalvoiceamerica.org/2013/05/24/all_the_rites_of_spring_you_can_hear/

 

eClassical had some nice files and this new Tetzlaff Quartett recording really made me interested (playing right now - had to edit the 5 megs pic slightly):



Preparing for Xmas



Arte dei suonatori boogie band guarantees the beat! -- Have a nice weekend!

 

My other favorites for the Rite, beside the versions mentioned by Robin, are Gergiev, the early Rattle and Chailly (now that's a real sonic spectacular).

 

Yes, I've stumbled on similar issues, i.e. a multi-ch record can sound a bit weird on 2-ch., because the recording is made as a "Multi-ch Feast". (I stick to 2-ch with my ears.)

 

I must confess that the Rite doesn't play a big role in my regular listening, but if forced to choose a "favorite" I'd probably go with Stravinsky's reduction for two pianos.

Here's a curious Stravinskian tidbit: in late 1923-early 1924, HMV recorded, on four 78s, a complete Petrouchka suite performed by the Royal Albert Hall orchestra under Eugene Goossens. Victor issued it in the states on the blue label. This at a time when classical scores were routinely cut to fit the playing time of records, with "complete" issues being an expensive, big deal, and when no recordings at all were available of most of the Beethoven syms., concerti, or sonatas; any of the Wagner operas beyond short excerpts; the Brahms syms.; the Mendelssohn syms. or chamber music; etc., etc., etc.

 

Are you familiar with the Dorati MLP recording? I've only listened to it once, but as I recall it had some punch.

 

Listening to the Tetzlaff SQ playing Sibelius and Schoenberg (via Spotify). I didn't see the album you mentioned.

 

Ivan Fischer's Rite on Channel Classics is interesting and benefits from the best sounding recording.

 

I had it briefly, thought it too swift to develop any sense of force or forward momentum, sounded a little out of control. If that's your idea of a good time I'd still recommend Bernstein's NYPO performance over Dorati's first stereo recording. But I might want to try it again if I run across it in the used bins.

 

Try https://play.spotify.com/album/3BOQYy6RD7X4rKBWZE3iwB

 

I bought it mainly for track 4. It's always interesting hearing for the first time the "classical" version of something I'd only previously heard by Jane Birkin as Jane B (flip of Je t'Aime Moi Non Plus) and a lovely Bossa Nova version by Gerry Mulligan.

It's OK. I don't know how Ingrid's playing compares with that of others. There are a couple of Nocturnes at the end that I think she plays a tad more slowly than Vladimir Ashkenazy and Maria João Pires.

Can't comment on sound. My sinuses are somewhat infected.