Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #13)

That's a nice disc--one of the first that I bought when working up to getting my first CD player way back when, and one to which I still return with pleasure from time to time--although it does have just a whiff of "Music Appreciation 121: A Yonge Personne's Guyde to Olde Instrumynts" about it. ("OK, class, that was the sackbut family; now, in this next number, we'll hear the viols. For class tomorrow, listen to the track with racketts and be prepared to discuss.")

 

It's been fairly cheap for a while, but the EMI 14CD Richter 'Icon' set is now down to £9.99 on Amazon.co.uk (free super saver delivery within the UK, direct from Amazon) :



http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sviatoslav-Richter-Icon/dp/B001B1R1HC/

 

What is that in USD?

 

Not sure, I use this:

http://www.xe.com/ucc/

That Richter box is the best one ever assembled using the pianist's work, IMO.

 

$15.67?

 

Buy. It. Now.

 

I actually attended the Broadway performance of Amadeus by F Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce back in the 80's ...

 

Now playing CD3 - Nocturnes from this set for a first listen ...

 

Just placed a small order on the following CD set with my favorite NE based Amazon MP vendor ...

 

Friday night concert of recorded music

Set myself up a little orchestral concert tonight after my daughter's bedtime--musical postcards of Spain by French and Russian composers.

Chabrier: Espana Rapsodie (Thomas Beecham and LPO, 1939)
Glinka: Spanish Overture no. 2--Summer Night in Madrid (Evgeny Svetlanov and USSR SO)
Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole (Ruggiero Ricci and nobody you ever heard of from a Pilz cheapie)
Glinka: Spanish Overture no. 1--Jota Aragonesa (Svetlanov and USSR SO)
Rimsky-Korsakoff: Capriccio Espagnol (Frederick Stock and Chicago SO, 1940)

All were taken from the server that I've been setting up for the past better than 2 years; it was very nice to have a "concert" without having to dig out a record from here, a CD from there, and a tape from elsewhere. It was also nice to take a break from ripping and labeling tracks actually to listen to some music for a while....

 

Protip:
http://www.google.com/search?q=15+usd+in+eur
http://www.google.com/search?q=1+ft+8+inch+in+millimeters
http://www.google.com/search?q=answer+to+life+the+unverse+and+everything+*+10

 

Sorry

 

+1

 

Here at SHTV we know that HvK was overrated and evil and probably smelled of cheese, but I'm listening to his 1960 recording of Tchaikovskji PC1 with Sviatoslav Richter and I'm loving it.
Although, admittedly, it's Richter that probaly does the magic for me, as well as decent engineering.
BTW, aren't the 60s full of great performances an great engineering?

 

I had that on vinyl.
I never was able to love it, but maybe it was because I was young and dumb.
Now that I'm young and dumber it may fare better with me.

 

All of a sudden, I've become much curious about this thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turangalîla-Symphonie

Kickass title, crazy composer, features an ondes martenot solo part.
Last but not least, it has inspired the name of Turanga Leela in Futurama, so I'm inferring it must be full of awesomeness.

Anyone has some intelligence to share?

 

Oh wow, there's a version on Naxos with Thomas Bloch on the Martenot.
http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.554478-79

Things are getting interesting

 

Yes, check this out:



It's Messiaen's last work, it's huge and weird and cosmic. I'm pointing to the Rattle performance without hearing it, but in all seriousness this is about the musical composition. In the case of Éclairs sur l'au-delà… if you ever have the chance to hear this music in concert, go for it. It's remarkable, visionary stuff and many of the the orchestra's colors will be washed out by the recording process, no matter how good that recording may be.

 

I can say that I love this work/performance of The Quartet for the End of Time. Great stuff:

 

Oh, yes, the 60s were a great time for classical. As were the 50s IMO.

Richter and HvK had very different ideas about that work, though when I listen I have trouble hearing the tension. Perhaps it added to the intensity? I also have Richter in this work with Mravinsky on a Melodiya CD. Great performance, but the sound is not as good as DGs.

 

I guess it's due to overexposure, though there is the distinct possibility that the composition is sup-par, but it's difficult for me to get excited over Tchaikovsy's first piano concerto. That said, the Byron Janis recording on Mercury is all that and well worth hunting down.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=12250

I'll bet that the Richter/Mravinsky collaboration would be explosive. I find that Karajan is not the ideal accompanist in concerti, where his tendency to smooth things out tends to overlap with the soloist's efforts, leaving little room for either of them to stretch out. I guess that the "Karajan Way" naturally leads to a certain anonymity of interpretation.

 

Yes, I have that one, but can't comment on it as I have only heard it once.

Yeah, I very much enjoy my Karajan recordings from the sixties, but I rarely like his later stuff. It has that homogenized sound that you describe.

 

So, Margaret Dumont walks into this bar . . .

It was my imprint version. I recall the theme of the Tchaikovsky PC used on the radio and parodied in Warner Brother's Loony Tunes. So the work came in with all the baggage that comes with such an overplayed warhorse. I recall hearing the Gilels/Reiner version many times from a plum-label Victrola reissue, but my first version of the Tchaikovsky PC was a $2 cut-out from a drugstore rack from back in 1971 of the Mercury Living Presence Byron Janis/Herbert Menges/London Symphony Orchestra version. It's got great SQ, the playing is fleet and un-mannered and most of the accumulated cobwebs get blown off the music.

 

Working in the classical music sections of record stores on and off from 1974 through 2007, I've had access to many issues and reissues of Karajan recordings. The only ones I really like now are the Sibelius recordings. The smoothing and cosmetic effects that become obvious and overdone in the later recordings are also present in the early recordings. I recently had a UK LP box of the Philharmonia Beethoven Symphony cycle and came to the same conclusion. I find HVK to be the conductorial equivalent of a vintage Pultec, smooth and a little fat. It's phonogenic, but it ain't Beethoven.