Classical Corner Classical Music Corner

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by George P, May 29, 2015.

  1. coopmv

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

    Location:
    CT, USA
    Wasn't Philly also your old stomping ground?
     
  2. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Downloaded this yesterday. Listening to Op. 9 right now.

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  3. coopmv

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

    Location:
    CT, USA
    This box is OOP ...
     
  4. dale 88

    dale 88 Errand Boy for Rhythm

    Location:
    west of sun valley
    Martino Tirimo
    Beethoven: Complete Piano Works
    Hanssler, 2019
    16 CDs
    This includes all of the solo piano works, in chronological order for the most part.
    The piano is recorded very well, unlike the piano in Tirimo's Schubert box. Some excellent performances.
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  5. Rose River Bear

    Rose River Bear Senior Member

    Yes it was. I saw Ormandy thru Eschenbach conduct in Philadelphia. I moved from there about 10 years ago. Saw some fine concerts in Philly.
     
  6. Rose River Bear

    Rose River Bear Senior Member

    Spinning motivated by @coopmv post.
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  7. Wes H

    Wes H Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    I have Ormandy's 1957 recording of the Sibelius 2nd and really like it.

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    If I'm not mistaken, I believe the one you posted is a 1973 recording...? If so, I've not heard it and don't know how they compare. Have you heard both?
     
  8. dale 88

    dale 88 Errand Boy for Rhythm

    Location:
    west of sun valley
    This is a marvelous disc. Xiayin Wang's playing is superlative. The Concerto in F is one of the best versions that I have heard. The conductor Peter Oundjian has obviously re-thought the Gershwin orchestral music for this concerto. I have the CD version from the Chandos anniversary box, but I am so tempted to get the SACD version too.
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    Xiayin Wang, piano
    Royal Scottish National Orchestra
    Peter Oundjian, conductor
    Gershwin: Concerto in F (1925)
    Copland: Piano Concerto (1926)
    Barber: Piano Concerto (1962)

    Chandos, 2013
     
  9. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
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    Now playing this SACD. Enjoying it more than the first time. I still would prefer closer miking and broader tempos in places, like the Barcarolle, for instance.
     
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  10. drh

    drh Talking Machine

    Call this the "Sins of Omission" post for the day. I've been working my way through that Murray Hill Grieg set I mentioned a page back, the one mostly played by Isabel Mourao, and having now copied most of 7 record sides, I'm beginning to find it (OK, well into finding it) a trifle irritating. Not the playing, which is fine, and not the surface quality, which although not fine is about what I expected, but the programming. Go back and have a look at the box cover photo, and note that it claims to be "Piano Music of Edvard Grieg." There's an omission right there: the natural tendency is mentally to supply a "The" up front and assume the box offers Grieg's complete piano music, but no, the word "complete," when you look at it, is nowhere to be seen. Turns out, at least as often as not, the set gives us not quite, or even not close to, all of a set of pieces, and the album notes and labels are not entirely forthcoming about the shortfalls. Take, for example, the set called in the notes "Norwegian Farmer's Dances," op. 72. Other sources call them "Slatter." Either way, it's a set of 17 short pieces derived from a collection of folk tunes somebody or other had assembled a few years earlier, and the hyperbolic notes tell us only that Grieg's putting them on paper did the music world a massively important service by preserving these bits of Norwegian folk music and making them readily available to everyone, everywhere. Well, that may be true, but comparison to a complete performance on YouTube reveals the records do rather less, omitting, without notice, nos. 1, 5, 7, 9, 12, 13, and 16--nearly half the set. Similar, if less drastic, story for the "19 Norwegian Folk Melodies," op. 66; nos. 4, 12, 17, and 18 are missing in action. More than one set of "Lyric Pieces" also turn out to be shorn of a piece or two.

    Why belabor this issue for an obscure-ish set of old, indifferently pressed cheapo LPs, long out of circulation and from a source most denizens of the Hoffman forums wouldn't consider for a moment? Well, because these recordings were licensed from Vox, on which label they were almost certainly issued as LPs in "VoxBoxes," and they are still available in Vox-branded CD sets. The Murray Hill edition gives every sign of just rebadging the Vox issues and program notes with no further intervention. If you see one of the Vox issues and are tempted, just be aware of what you are--and are not--getting!

    Speaking of rebadging, last month I bought an inexpensive edition purporting to contain Max Reger's complete piano music performed by Markus Becker. Its odd label name (New Classical Adventure) notwithstanding, the box turns out to be by Membran. I knew going in that it was reissuing Thorofon originals, as I already had one or two of those--enough to know that Becker is OK in this literature. Well, today I copied Book 4 of Aus meinem Tagebuch, op. 82, a collection of 7 pieces, to my server drive. Much to my surprise, although the sleeve's track listing shows the set as taking up tracks 13 to 19, the disc has only 17 tracks total! Back to YouTube for some detective work, and come to find out nos. 1 and 2, a prelude and a fugue, are nowhere to be seen/heard on the CDs, although the original Thorofon issues are right there in YouTube releases.

    [edit: OK, I just checked out book 2, and the missing tracks from book 4 turn out to be 11 and 12, not listed on the sleeve. So everything is there, but the labeling is thoroughly mixed up. Time wasted and annoyance experienced, but otherwise no harm done, I suppose. :rolleyes:]

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    Last edited: Apr 10, 2021
    Wes H likes this.
  11. dale 88

    dale 88 Errand Boy for Rhythm

    Location:
    west of sun valley
    Ivan Ilic, piano
    Reicha Rediscovered, vol. 1
    Chandos, 2017
    premiere recordings
    Well played and recorded very well.
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  12. drh

    drh Talking Machine

    On the off chance it will be useful to somebody else with these recordings, here's a Grieg update: from the 25 Norwegian Dances and Songs, op. 17, Mourao omits nos. 10, 11, 14, and 17. The album notes contain no hint that the set is other than complete. :sigh:
     
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  13. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    [​IMG]

    Now enjoying a great recital by my favorite pianist.
     
  14. Nipper

    Nipper His Master's Voice

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    I've been wanting to get into Bach, but I've barely dipped my toe in. I've skimmed a bit online about the best place to start - Brandenburg Concertos seems a popular choice - but I recently picked up this Richter WTC on a whim. Haven't had time to listen yet. I've also read that maybe it would be better to start with a non-piano version ... or just dive right in with this?

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  15. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    That's a great WTC set. I'd say dive in headfirst.
     
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  16. RiRiIII

    RiRiIII Forum Resident

    Location:
    Athens, Greece
    Live from 2 days ago from Hamburg:

    // ARTIST Piotr Anderszewski | piano // PROGRAMME Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, BWV 870 – BWV 893 (selections)

     
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  17. JuniorMaineGuide

    JuniorMaineGuide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, Colorado
    Listening to some thrift store pickups today. This is nice, might seek out some of his other Vienna Bruckner symphonies:

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    Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 in Eb "Romantic". Wiener Philharmoniker / Claudio Abbado. DG
     
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  18. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
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    Was watching David Hurwitz's Ideal Chopin survey and saw this recommended for the preludes. Last time I compared, I prefered the Supraphon recording, but today I am giving this a solo spin. Moravec is always well worth a listen. I wish he had recorded so much more.
     
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  19. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    [​IMG]

    Now enjoying another pick from Hurwitz's survey, this one on Chesky Records. Earl may lack the fireworks that many other pianists bring to this music, but his playing has grace and beauty. And of course, great sound.
     
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  20. JuniorMaineGuide

    JuniorMaineGuide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, Colorado
    Yes dive in! I think piano is the way to go unless you're already a harpsichord fan. The Brandenburgs are wonderful too, and different from the WTC.

    Edit: I should also say the complete WTC is very long. When I started listening to it I would just take the first 8 or 10 P&F from the first book and repeat that section until I was familiar with those, then moved on to more parts.
     
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2021
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  21. JuniorMaineGuide

    JuniorMaineGuide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boulder, Colorado
    Continuing with the thrift store backlog:

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    Schumann: Symphonies 3 & 4. Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Teldec

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    Bach: Goldberg Variations & other works for harpsichord. Igor Kipnis. EMI/Seraphim Classics.
     
  22. drh

    drh Talking Machine

    Another Grieg update, for those who may be interested. I expect this will the last such I post: I've now finished copying everything that I intend to from the Murray Hill set. Mourao continued her annoying habit of omitting a work or two from many of the sets of pieces (for example, she left out the last of the op. 12 Lyric Pieces), but some she did give us complete. As I had feared but expected, the included copy of the concerto, Guiomar Novaes with Hans Swarowsky conducting, is the same miserable fake stereo reissue that Vox put out in the '60s. For that, I'll go to my copy in the original mono.

    I should say a word or two about the Norwegian Dances, op. 35. I imagine most of us are familiar with them, to the extent we know them, in orchestral garb. Grieg actually wrote them, however, as pieces for piano four hands, then rearranged them, or some of them, for piano solo. The orchestral edition that seems to be universal nowadays was an arrangement by other hands. To its credit, the Murray Hill set presents them as written for piano duet in a nicely spirited performance by Walter and Beatrice (or, as given here, Beatriz) Klein, their sole contribution despite their prominent billing on the box cover. I think it's a true stereo recording--as best I can tell, it dates to 1966--but it's in peculiar stereo, with the primo more or less exclusively in the right channel and the secondo in the left, almost giving the effect of a piano duo instead of duet. The piano sound itself struck me as a bit brittle, at least at first, albeit serviceable enough; as has been true throughout this and the other Murray Hill sets, the pressing is, to be charitable, mediocre. Or, to put it another way, these were cheap records, and they sound like it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2021
    Wes H likes this.
  23. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Opus 17 today. Wonderful music making. Looking forward to comparing them with the Mosaiques.
     
    George P likes this.
  24. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    I listened to some of that box yesterday. I continue to enjoy the playing, but the sound seems a bit thin on top. Some days it bothers me, other days it doesn't.
     
  25. Paul Dray

    Paul Dray Forum Resident

    Location:
    England, UK
    Just received a brand new shrink wrapped DG ‘The Originals’ cd set from Amazon and I’m suspicious of it’s authenticity. Check out this photo of the disc label up close. I’ve got lots of these cd’s in this range and never seen this poor graphic job before. Look around the text on the yellow background. It’s like a bad photoshop job. What do you think should I return?:

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