Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #43)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by George P, Nov 28, 2012.

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  1. coopmv

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

    Location:
    CT, USA

    No, I was referring to the pianist, a guy that is an unknown to me ... :D
     
  2. Rose River Bear

    Rose River Bear Senior Member

    Dopes....they spelled Khachaturian wrong. :D
     
  3. Tangledupinblue

    Tangledupinblue Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Interesting, because IIRC you enjoy the Bach solo cello works quite a lot - for me it's the exact opposite (although I'm not a great fan of solo string pieces in general - I think my favourite piece altogether for this medium is either Bach's Chaconne or Bartok's unaccompanied violin sonata). I find the cello a bit too austere as the instrument lacks the violin's capacity for virtuosity and multiple-stopping (which is pretty crucial, as Bach was such a master harmonist).
     
  4. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    Ah, now I get it. :laugh:
     
  5. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    I agree that the cello is more limited than the violin, but I just prefer the sound of it. In general I agree with you on solo string pieces. I too prefer strings in ensembles.
     
  6. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Everything on this turntable comes out mono, but the disc is also pre-stereo.
     
  7. testikoff

    testikoff Seasoned n00b

    This CD BTW features one of the very first classical digital PCM recordings from 1978.
     
  8. coopmv

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

    Location:
    CT, USA
    Bad disconnect, I am not familiar with this violinist ... :D
     
  9. coopmv

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

    Location:
    CT, USA
    But you should be able to play this mono LP using the regular 33 RPM stereo cartridge. My understanding is, you do need special cartridge to play the 78 RPM record ...
     
  10. Janine Jansen - Janine Jansen
    DECCA - Universal Germany - 2004

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Found this and a number of other classical CDs at one of the local Goodwill stores a while back for $2. each.
     
  11. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    In any case, the turntable is now wired for mono. I can use the 97xe body with the N78S stylus for 78 playback. And this rig does sound really fine with old, mono, piano records.
     
  12. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    Now Playing, the Budapest Quartet in their Library of Congress recordings of Beethoven's early quartets. I have their stereo remakes as well. I suppose it's mostly a question of technical address, but these performances are better than the remakes and the sound isn't bad at all. Recommended, in fact. I haven't enjoyed hearing these works this much in ages.

    [​IMG]
     
  13. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Phenomenal music. The violinists' equivalent of the WTC and the cellos suites. I have Milstein (DG), Kremer, Grumiaux and Fischer, but my fondest memory is hearing Christian Tetzlaff perform them all one Sunday afternoon. I have avoided purchasing either of his recordings, because there is no way it could match the experience of the live performance.

    A number of music critics claim that the Chaconne from the Second Partita may be Bach's greatest achievement. This from Brahms:

    "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind"
     
  14. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    Cool. The mono is a bit better performance-wise, but the stereo has WAY better sound, one of thest sounding piano recordins I own.
     
  15. Leopold Stokowski / Houston Symphony Orchestra - Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No. 11 "In The Year 1905"
    Angel/EMI Classics - Capitol U.S. - 1958 / 1994
    FDS - Full Dimensional Sound

    [​IMG]

    Remastered from the original 3 track tapes by Doug Sax @ The Mastering Lab.
     
  16. Did EMI ever release this or any others from that series in hi-rez such as SACD or DVD-A, being that they had access to the original 3-track tapes? I've seen on-line a couple of newer recordings of Symphony No.11 that were issued in hybrid CD/SACD. Not sure what version of the many recordings is considered the best.

    http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/...mphony-No-11-in-G-minor-Op-103-'The-year-1905'
     
  17. wolfram

    wolfram Slave to the rhythm

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    I'm listening to Grumiaux's performance right now. Quite different from Khachatryan's.

    Your post made me cue up the WTC next (Gulda's '73 performance, which I find a bit dry and technical altogether, but I felt like giving it another try) after tangledupinblue made me listen to the Cello Suites again earlier this day (Pandolfo's viola da gamba version this time). So far I have listened almost exclusively to solo Bach (and some Orchestral Suites by Pinnock/English Concert) this year. Not a bad way to start 2013, especially since I'm still recovering from a wild party night greeting the new year.
     
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  18. SBurke

    SBurke Nostalgia Junkie

    Location:
    Philadelphia, PA
    Hi Robin, do you know the performance dates for these? I have a couple sets of Library of Congress recordings by this quartet, though not the op. 18.
     
  19. scompton

    scompton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arlington, VA
    Listening to Winterreise from the Yo-Yo Ma box set. The piano sounds fine, but Fischer-Dieskau sounds like he was recorded in a tunnel.
     
  20. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    '51, mono on Odyssey.
     
  21. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    How does the cello figure into this?
     
  22. George P

    George P Notable Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    NYC
    They also recorded 3 from Op. 18 in '40, '41 and '45. Issued on Sony Masterworks.
     
  23. John S

    John S Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    I have, I think, the 2 disc CD release. Recording date listed as '51/'52. Personnel is Roisman, Gorodetzki, Kroyt, and Schneider.

    [​IMG]
     
  24. John S

    John S Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    20th Century Masterpieces

    [​IMG]

    CD14
    1976
    Henryk Górecki
    Symphony No.3 Op.36 "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"
    (Live, Cathedral of Mary Magdalene, Wroclaw, 1993)
    Zofia Kilanowicz, soprano
    Kraków Symphony Orchestra
    Jacek Kaspszyk

    1979
    Hans Werner Henze
    Barcarola
    (Live, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 1992)
    City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
    Sir Simon Rattle

    This Górecki is the second version on my shelf. The other is the Naxos with Wit. These were recorded within weeks of each other with the same soprano. I have not heard the reportedly best selling classical album of all time, Zinman/Upshaw on Nonesuch with this work. I confess to have never been completely sold on this piece. Yes, the music serves the religious context well enough, but the "New Consonance" of the last half of the 20th century seems a copout to commercial considerations. Consonance outsells dissonance every time. Was atonal (and sometimes dissonant) dodecaphony really an artistic dead end, or did it just not sell on recordings or in the concert hall?

    Hans Werner Henze is a composer I should have known plenty about, if only because of his prodigious output of music. It would be interesting to know how and why Rattle and company picked this particular piece to accompany their recording of Henze’s Seventh Symphony. I am also not sure how effective an introduction this Barcarola is to Henze’s music, given his output spans all the traditional musical genres, thus making it impossible to categorize his music, or for that matter, the man himself.

    Barcarola is a 20+ minute piece bursting with loud atonal dissonant sections followed by quiet, almost eerie passages. This is difficult music, but I think repeated exposure to it would be rewarding.
     
  25. Tangledupinblue

    Tangledupinblue Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    Interesting points touching on the fundamental problems facing classical music in recent decades, which I posted about back in October - it seems to be one extreme or the other, with this underlying uncertainty over whether to please the critics or the conservatively-minded classical music laymen. As I said back in CMC #41: "Composers can't repeat the ideas of the distant past, no matter how much beloved music that has generated as it will sound watered-down and out-of-touch, but they are finding increasingly hard to say anything that hasn't been done before even in the last century, and their choice is either to write something super-accessible that risks critical ridicule or something ultra-modern that will alienate most of their potential audience, and rarely an ideal median."

    My favourite composers during the latter half of the century are those who like to mix it up, writing music that is neither really tonal nor atonal, or a combination of the two, like Ligeti, Schnittke, indeed Henze, James McMillan and Thomas Adès (who IIRC has some of his works on your 20th Century Masterpieces). Any form of serialism, even that of the 2nd Viennese School (with the exception of Berg), let alone total, has always and likely will continue to leave me cold (I'm not a fan of free jazz either, with the exception of Ornette Coleman, but that's really for another thread). And frankly I can't stand most forms of minimalism, whether the fast motoric kind (with very few exceptions, like the odd work by John Adams, and even his appeal wears thin very quickly), like Reich, Glass or Nyman, or the super-consonant oh-so-boring "holy" stuff, like Part, Tavener, Gorecki, virtually anything that Jan Garbarek performs on etc. I can't help thinking that to such listeners who like the latter kind of music, that relaxing, spiritually uplifting and boring are totally mutually inclusive qualities (in the most dubious sense).
     
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