I needed some room in my LP rack, so decided to ween out some of my mono RCA Shaded Dogs... Pulled out a few with "1S" stampers... for a final listen before the Salvation Army became their home... I just finished Ravel - Bolero. Now enjoying Chopin Scherzos by Rubinstein.... Needless to say, these are keepers.
While listening to The Great Symphony by Schubert, I checked out this thread and voila, the last posts are about Schubert
Thanks. Recently I grabbed a collection of classical records and it kind of forced me to listen to classical pieces I would normally not seek out. For example this collection includes two requiems: the one by Fauré, and another by Brahms. I had never heard them before and wow! How wonderful, both of them.
More Brahms! Now playing CD20 - Brahms Piano Sonata Nos 1 & 2 from the following box for a second listen ...
I made it through listening to all of Cortot's recordings of the Chopin Nocturnes. This was my first time hearing them, I didn't really think these would be Cortot pieces so I never listened to them before. Besides the mild annoyance of being scattered across multiple CDs in the EMI box I have to say these are beautiful performances.
With some exceptions for my favorite musicians I pretty much listen to the box sets by composer/composition I want to hear.
Cortot is one of those pianists from the pre-war era whose anachronistic style doesn't really do it for me.
Now playing CD7 - Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 with BSO/Munch from the following box for a second listen ...
When I go through the box on a first pass, I always make that orderly sweep, i.e. CD1 to CD-last. Only on my second listen do I go for specific composer/composition ...
I explained what I meant by "anachronistic" earlier somewhere (can't find it now): desynchronized hands, arpeggiated chords, a cavalier approach of the score, things like that. It was the playing style of some pianists of what I would call the pre-war era (Cortot, Backhaus are examples).
Edwin Fischer (1886-1960) belonged to that generation in my view, but I'm not familiar enough with his playing style, so I can't say anything about it.