Hi, and welcome! I wish I could offer some authoritative answer, but the best I can do is that if both were pressed in the Netherlands, I'd expect them to be equivalent. Perhaps our member @J.A.W. , who lives there, could shed a bit more light.
from the Chandos Box Haydn: Creation Mass; Missa 'rorate coeli desuper' Collegium Musicum 90 Richard Hickox, conductor
I have found that when it comes to Philips there is no value in sticking to original pressings when it comes to sound quality. In that regard they are similar to Deutsche Grammophon. Reissues can sound better, and oftentimes they do, as well as sounding almost similar, or worse. It's a case by case basis. I wouldn't worry too much about it and get the issue that most appeals to you.
Just finished listening to Beethoven's 4th and 7th symphonies from Karajan's last cycle with the BPO. I now have the 60s, 70s and 80s Karajan recordings of the 7th, not to mention Rattle's with the VPO and Carlos Kleiber's with the VPO. What I like about Karajan's last recording of it is how there's a figure played by the brass in the 4th movement with the strings playing a staccato accompaniment. Then in the next bars it's the strings playing the same melody with the horns providing the backing. I find this very playful and I really like how the two sets of instruments sound distinctly in this recording with Karajan letting the horns blast joyfully away. From about 0:31 to 0:40:
The oboe concertos and the two symphonies are well done. In the oboe concerto Wq.165,H.468 there is a hint of a sour violin or violinist, but it is not fatal. Xenia Loffler, oboe, is wonderful. CPE Bach Oboe Concertos Symphonies Wq. 180 & 181 Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin Harmonia Mundi, 2019
Last night, starting around 11:30 or so, to mark the crossing of boundaries from 2020 ( ) to 2021 ( ), I turned to my 78s and enjoyed Bach's English Suite no. 2 performed by Harold Samuel (1926, abridged, shorn of its bourees to fit four record sides) and Schumann's Kinderscenen by Benno Moiseiwitsch (1930). Samuel didn't make a lot of records and isn't much remembered outside historical recording buff circles--indeed, not necessarily all that well even there--but in his day he occupied a position analogous to that of Andras Schiff today, the leading Bach specialist among pianists. He gives us the English Suite in a somewhat old-fashioned-Bach sort of way, certainly not for today's purist-minded but not extremely romanticized, either, lovely if taken on its own terms. Bach played as piano music, not as harpsichord music on a suppressed piano. Give me that over the desiccated Angela Hewitt approach any day! Too bad about the excision of the bourees. As to the Schumann, well, it just brought home to me again why I love Moiseiwitsch performances. What a magician the man was! To my ear, this is the way Schumann should sound, a perfect antidote to the hard-faced Ashkenazy recordings our local NPR affiliate trots out more often than not when offering Schumann solo piano fare, and very bad cess to Jed Distler for dumping on the recording in his online review of a Naxos reissue. I copied my records as I played them and will add my transfers to my computer server after editing out side breaks in due course. As an aside, I have a Testiment issue of Moiseiwitsch material that includes some interviews with the artist, and he repeatedly averred that Schumann was his favorite composer. From this recording, it shows. Even the grossly overplayed "Traumerei" comes off as fresh and beautiful. In short, good stuff. With all that said, all the best wishes for 2021 to my fellow denizens of the CMC!
For the entry of 2021, I was listening to Bizet's Carmen Suite. Invigorating Bizet Carmen Suite Detroit Symphony Paul Paray, conductor In this shot, Paul Paray has the correct attitude for last year.
After several years, listened to this again. Didn't care for it this time. Schubert: String Quartets Belcea Quartet Emi, 2002
If you like Bohm's way with the Beethoven 9th, you might find this issue on Melo Classics to be of interest: It can be had direct from the issuer, which has an excellent and growing catalogue of historical recordings, here: Karl Böhm - Meloclassic CD
This is one of my favorite new discs. Andrey Gugnin Homage to Godowsky Hyperion, 2020 Josef Hofmann: Charakterskizzen, Op. 40 Felix Blumenfeld: Étude Pour la Main Gauche Seule, Op. 36 Emil von Sauer: Études de Concert - No. 19 in B minor "Vision" Euginio Pirani: Scherzo-Étude, Op. 67 Abram Chasins: Prelude No. 13 in G flat major, Op. 12 No. 1 Ignacy Friedman: Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 33 Ossip Gabrilowitsch: Étude for the Left Hand, Op. 12 No. 2 Joseph Holbrooke: Rhapsodie-Études, Op. 42 Constantin von Sternberg: Étude de Concert No. 5 in F Major, Op. 115 Theodor Leschetizky: Trois Morceaux, Op. 48 Theodor Szanto: Troisième Étude Orientale (En Quartes) Moritz Moszkowski: Melodia Appassionata, Op. 81 No. 6 Liszt/Busoni: Grande Étude de Paganini in G sharp minor "La campanella", S141 The notes writer, Jeremy Nicholas, who conceived this Godowsky project, says it is a collection of some of the works dedicated to Godowsky, "the majority of them have never been recorded before, and the remaining titles only rarely." I am impressed with Andrey Gugnin's performances. The piano, a C. Bechstein D 282, seems ideal to me for these pieces. The notes were so interesting that I have tracked down Jeremy Nicholas' biography of Godowsky. Recorded in St. Silas the Martyr, Kentish Town, London Recording Engineer: Arne Akselberg Producer: Rachel Smith Piano: C. BECHSTEIN D282 Piano Technician: Finlay Fraser [anyone who can make a piano sound this good should have a superlative after their name such as virtuoso]
A very fine performance. Excellent sound from a Graz festival. Precision playing and singing. Nikolaus Harnoncourt Arnold Schoenberg Chor Concentus Musicus Wien Laura Aikin Bernarda Fink Johannes Chum Ruben Drole Beethoven Missa Solemnis Sony, 2016
It was one of my earliest classical CD purchases, so I guess that is part of it. I'm so used to how it sounds that I have used it as one of my test discs for my two most recent listening system updates.
What do you think about Ponti here? I have a (cheap Murray Hill) LP set of Tchakowsky's complete piano music, all done by Ponti, and I wasn't terribly taken with the first three records. The performances seemed kinda "undigested" to me, the impression being "notes and not much more." But I may not have been fair. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Hi David, I got the set only for the third PC and the CF. I recently upgraded my system, adding a power regenerator, which lowers the noise floor, increases dynamics and clarity. Listening to Ponti's CF tonight I was struck by by unexciting his performance was. And the sound was particularly dull, too. So, not a winner, by any means, and yes, I agree, notes and not much more.
Thanks, George--without by any means being glad to view the recordings as duds, I'm glad to have another reliable opinion corroborating my own. Misery loves company, I guess! Despite nagging technical issues, I've been wrestling with transferring Fritz Kreisler's first (1926) recorded traversal of the Beethoven vln. cto., 11 record sides of which I take eight to be at 75.8 RPM and the rest at 77. Definitely a lot more than "the notes, ma'am, just the notes" here. Leo Blech, the conductor, has come in for a fair amount of criticism. How much of that is just the usual kind of "home cause" boosterism from certain circles I can't say--the remake from about 10 years later, in which Kreisler is said to be a little past his peak, was recorded in London and conducted by Barbirolli--but I'm inclined to think that's unfair. No, the Blech approach is not dynamic a la Toscanini, but then Kreisler isn't an aggressive player a la Heifetz; his is an essentially lyrical approach, plenty strong when it needs to be but always singing, and I think Blech does a good job of matching it in the orchestral setting. I finished editing yesterday, but I'll be revisiting the records upon submitting this post, as I copied them with a Pickering cartridge that has a little higher output than my customary Shures, and I think it may have been a bit too "hot"; at least, upon playing my supposedly finished product I hear some distorted peaks that I don't recall hearing direct from the records, and I suspect they may have resulted from overdriving the digital audio interface. If so, I guess I'll be doing the whole thing over again. Never a dull moment in 78 Land....
Now playing... BACH: Orchestral Suites - Boston Baroque conducted by Martin Pearlman (Telarc CD) Yeah, I may have been gifted this for Christmas because I have their version of the Brandenburg Concertos.
I'm starting to weed through a big stack of 78s I inherited from a friend who passed away last year, and I came to a couple of 19-teens-vintage Columbia records played by "Manolito Funes, boy pianist, aged 14 years." I guess they were that company's answer to Victor's having issued a few sides by "Master Shura Cherkassky, age 11." One of the sides is of a Staccato Caprice by one Max Vogrich. Unfamiliar though his name may be, young Funes plays with just the right kind of lighthearted touch and flair to make this sort of thing come to life. So, drawing more or less a blank from a Google search, I turn to the experts on CMC: anybody here know anything about this kid and what became of him? I know child prodigies have a high professional casualty rate, but he really does sound good enough that I'd think he might have gone somewhere. Incidentally, the same piece shows up as one side of the sole issued record of the Hungarian-American pianist Yolanda Mero. (She cut a bunch of piano rolls, but that's a different story.) I looked her up, too, just now, and courtesy of Wikipedia read the following amusing excerpts from a concert review by James Huneker, then one of the leading American critics, who wrote for The New York Times: "... she transformed Chopin preludes into veritable typhoons", and "... in the Barcarolle, instead of gondolas and the vows of lovers, moonlight and soft Adriatic zephyrs, we were shown a huge warship that steamed through the Grand Canal, sirens screaming, cannons booming, and a band playing Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt." Critics, like musicians, just don't have the flair they once did! Oh, yes, and in the What's in a Name? Dept., another of the records was cut by a violinist named Sadah Shuchari, again unknown to me. Obviously, though, someone of a mysterious, exotic extraction rooted in some faraway land. Obviously, that is, until I looked her up (turns out the performer was a she) and learned that she was born in the United States and, before her professional career, was...Sadie Schwartz. Somehow, all the exotic mystery collapses like a deflating balloon when the name is Sadie Schwartz.
