Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #39)

Re Murray Perahia

These are a couple of Perahia's best recordings, for sure.

 

I preordered from amazon.de which has the lowest price currently.

From rmcr: "The most recent Diapason has several pages devoted to the Cortot complete edition.

The duplicates will all be there, and the triplicates. They will use all available sources, including Japanese Toshiba transfers where available.

The set will come in November. It was produced by Bertrand Castellani, current head of exploitation at EMI France. Most of the originals are housed in Hayes and Saint-Ouen l'Aumône, but not all sources are exploitable, so all sources have been used."

 

I had no idea that this Biddulph CD includes the alternative takes of the Rachmaninoff PC 2 famous recording with the composer on the piano, restored by Thorn (the Naxos CD has the proper takes also by Thorn):



The RCA complete Rachmaninoff includes the proper sides, although it mentions it has the alternates.

http://inkpot.com/classical/rachpfc2r3.html

 

The better question may be, How many times can they release it and screw it up? The deluxe GROC reissue was, in comparison to the Naxos release, too slow. It wasn't obvious to me until I compared them, but once I did (at George P's suggestion), it was evident the EMI release was wrong.

You shouldn't; I suspect they'd be consistently interesting.

Netflix has a Beethoven documentary called "In Search of Beethoven," which I've been watching this week. IMDB info here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1308123/
Very much worthwihle IMO. What a cast! Interview excerpts with Roger Norrington, Gianandrea Noseda, Helene Grimaud love, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Ronald Brautigam, et al. I'd say about half of the comments are the usual sort of thing one expects from talking heads -- he was awesome, this was brilliant, etc. -- which are essentially vapid. But the other half are insightful, identifying some very interesting specifics about the music, his life, etc.

 

I 've been listening to these two LPs continuously since I first got them last week.





The performances are excellent, very nice playing by both the orchestras and the pianists, especially Ashkenazy, what an incredible touch the man has!
But I like the concerts that Previn has chosen more, let's say that they are more melodic, but that just my personal preference though.
The piano in both recordings is very well recorded and sounds very natural.
It's amazing that even with 30+ minutes per side, the engineers managed to convey a very lifelike sound reproduction bypassing the limitations of the medium. Bravo!

 

What piano concertos are on the second CD? My favourite Mozart PC is no. 25 (not sure I even know 26), followed closely by 24.

Mozart was really on a roll during the time he wrote those concertos, a series I consider to be analogous to the classic '50s, '60s and '70s albums of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Stevie Wonder in terms of sheer quality, consistency, influence and the extremely high standards they set for their followers.

 

Which ones are on the Previn? I have a set of the complete piano concertos by Ashkenazy/Philharmonia Orch. (10 discs), but I have listened to very little from it, since I don't know where to start. I'm not much of a Mozart fan anyway, but I would like to give these a try.

@ all: What are considered his "best" piano concertos? Which ones do you guys like?

Edit: Tangledupinblue already anwered my question before I asked.

 

We are out of space, guys!

Let's continue this here.

 

Sorry, I am posting via an ipad, I suspect that the pictures did come out small.
The Ashkenazy LP was recorded in Feb 1982/Oct 1983, and it has concertos No 25 and 26 'coronation'.
The Previn LP was recorded in April 1984 in Sofiensaal Wien, with the Wiener Philharmoniker. It contains concertos no17 and no 24.
Since these are digital recordings there is no doubt that they must be available on cd, maybe with different work configurations and/or covers.

 

We are out of space, guys!

Let's continue this here.

 

Something makes me think my dad had an album of him conducting one of the Tchaikovsky ballets.

 

We are out of space, guys!

Let's continue this here.