NP: from the Quartetto Italiano Box Set, Boccherini Op.6, no.1, (CD18), then, Beethoven, Op.59, no.1 (CD22)
Of late, I've been doing a lot more organizing than listening, but within the last day or two I did play for the first time a recently-acquired Edison Blue Amberol (Concert Series) cylinder, no. 28168, the Hoffmann Quartet playing (according to the box lid) the Andante Cantabile from Tchakowsky's Quartet, op. 11 or (according to the lettering on the cylinder itself) "Andante--Quartette E Flat Major." Uncertain what to make of that, I put it on my Edison Standard phonograph to give it a first audition. Didn't sound like any Tchaikowsky *I* know! A bit of further digging revealed that it is neither by Tchaikowsky nor from a quartette in E-Flat Major. Rather, it's...drumroll, please...the second mvt., Andante, from Quartet no. 2 by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf! Somewhere, somebody in the Edison establishment seems to have gotten a bit confused...
Haha. That’s funny. A lot of weird stuff going on in the old days, when you would sometimes just get titles like “Adagio” They were still figuring stuff out.
I heard back. It reads ALL IS KNOWN STOP FLY AT ONCE STOP Which reminds me, something has been nagging at me for some time now. One of the big name Soviet composers wrote a vocal work commemorating the Russian Revolution in which the chorus, I think it is, sings of how "We must take the telephone exchanges." Anybody remember which work that is?
It's so nice to have my favorite set back on LP. I've enjoyed No.3 and 5 so far. It's hard to believe they were recorded back in the 1960s.
Thanks for posting, you've pushed me to get this. I do have Gallens discs on Naxos There's also a Leo Brouwer CD on Naxos performed by Ricardo Cobo that I still haven't heard (or even sampled). Have you heard it, any opinions?
You're welcome. Is that Brouwer Vol.1? if so, then no, I haven't. I'm not a fan of his Etudes. Cobo is a fantastic player, though, so he should play everything well.
Taking some time out tonight to stop organizing and start listening, at least for an hour, I treated myself to an all off-the-beaten-path-Rimsky-Korsakoff concert: Quintet for Piano and Winds (Capricorn; Hyperion A66163) Concerto for Trombone and Military Band (arr. Shuman) (Davis Shuman with Tibor Serly and NBCSO Members; Classic Editions CE 1041) Dubinushka (second version) (Evgeni Svetlanov and USSR SO; Moscow Studio Archives MOS 20022) Hearing these works back to back was a good reminder of what an expert colorist R.-K. was and of his knack for a good Russian tune. Note to French Horn mavens: the second mvt. of the quintet offers some lovely passages for the instrument in its lyrical guise. I've been in love with the lively first mvt. ever since I first heard it as a teenager sometime in the 1970s (in those pre-Internet days, when getting obscure repertory on records was not just a mouse click away, I assembled a cassette tape of the piece by calling the all-request program of our local radio station, which limited each request to a fairly short time, for four weeks running, asking for each mvt. in succession; not knowing how many it had, in week 4 I committed the gaffe of requesting "the fourth movement of Rimsky-Korsakoff's quintet" when it has only 3 ). In those days, the sole recording in print on a readily available label, as far as I know, was an affair with players from Vienna on London STS, the flip side of a recording of the Mendelssohn Octet. Capricorn takes the R.-K. work at a much brisker clip and plays with more precision. Anyhow, the last mvt. is a skittish delight, lots of fun. The piece should be played more often. The trombone concerto is also rollicking good fun, ending with a Russian sailors' dance sort of a thing. In this recording the soloist plays a modified trombone of his own devising; I gather it was intended to address some issues in playing certain notes, but it didn't catch on. Our local NPR affiliate plays "Dubinushka" occasionally, but not this arrangement. Interesting to hear the contrast. Returning to the quintet for a moment, I believe it did get one recording on 78s, but if memory serves the sole copy I've seen (on eBay) was priced into the stratosphere. There was a mono recording by Jesus Maria Sanroma and others that I have, of all things, on an LP put out by a drug company as a "premium" for doctors, and I have a Melodiya LP of the work by a group of Soviet-era artists whose names are unfamiliar to me. Not a large discography, I fear.
I share your excitement for the first two works (the third I'm not familiar with), and there are alternative, if not better recordings, if the ones you have are hard to come by: For the wind quintet, the classic recording by the Wiener Oktett: https://amazon.co.uk/Mendelssohn-Kreutzer-Berwald-Borodin-Rimsky-Korsakov/dp/B0045DO8S8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GDYSS9QM2YAA&keywords=vienna+octet&qid=1566545418&s=music&sprefix=The+Vienna+Octet%2Cpopular%2C190&sr=1-1. For the concerto, Christian Lindberg's recording for BIS: https://amazon.co.uk/Lonely-People-Nikolay-Andreyevich-Rimsky-Korsakov/dp/B000027E4W/ref=sr_1_1?crid=24LMRBYMWBTBA&keywords=all+the+lonely+people&qid=1566545726&s=music&sprefix=all+the+lonely%2Cpopular%2C175&sr=1-1.
I have struggled to find a recording of Verdi's Otello (including the 70s Karajan) that really opens it up for me. I have never seen it staged (which might be part of the problem) but I actually prefer the Rossini version, especially the Von Stade / Carreras recording which I have owned since not long after it first came out. Don Carlo is probably my favourite opera (along with Pelleas and Parsifal) so it is not that I have an aversion to late Verdi but I need some help with a recording that is light on orchestral bombast. Thanks in advance for any guidance offered. I have no aversion to historical recordings if that helps point the way.
I have found Ralph Moore's opera surveys at MusicWeb very helpful, and you will find his take on Othello in the following list: Ralph Moore Recorded Opera Surveys .
Have you tried Toscanini's recording? Toscanini was cellist in the orchestra at the premiere. Alternatively, if not having seen it is a problem, perhaps a performance on video?
This is great! The balance between voices & orchestra and the mono really help solve a lot of the problems for me. I find the more bombastic moments far more listenable without modern recording techniques. Feels far more like something happening in a theatre a couple of hundred feet away than the other recordings I have tried (even though this is live in the studio rather than a live recording per se). Toscanini is a bit of blind spot for me so this is encouraging me to look more closely at the 40s. Recordings made after 55ish has tended to be my cut off.
Glad it worked out! There actually exist a few recordings of Toscanini in early, experimental stereo--his last two concert broadcasts. If you're looking to explore his recordings but prefer "modern" sound quality, they might be a place to start. Here are the ones you want (not necessarily these specific issues, which were the first I could find in a quick perusal of Amazon): https://smile.amazon.com/Arturo-Tos...canini+stereo&qid=1566770929&s=gateway&sr=8-4 https://smile.amazon.com/Tchaikovsk...nini+rossini&qid=1566772503&s=gateway&sr=8-12 Note that a four-minute, +/-, segment of the Pathetique Sym. is in mono; some dimwit clipped that segment of the stereo tape out for a demonstration reel to play for RCA brass and then lost it. You may also see a Verdi Requiem claiming to be in stereo. That's a bit misleading; it's not true stereo but was painstakingly manufactured from a pair of mono feeds that were taken at a concert performance, now put together and synchronized.
So basically the best part is missing. Way to go, fool. That’s like when they cut out frames out of film prints. Of course frames went missing in key moments.
Of course--and, understand, I'm merely offering a reason, not a justification--at the time nobody knew whether stereo would come to anything; it hadn't even reached the level of "might be a passing fad" at that point. Even well after that, engineers tended to think of the stereo feed as distant second in importance to the mono. What's a calamity from our perspective, then, at the time probably didn't seem to matter very much. But still: On a somewhat different note, finding myself with some down time today, I did a bit of comparative listening to the last mvt. of Beethoven's op. 31 no. 1. Pianists involved were Willems (ABC--"A" being "Australian"), A. Fischer (Hungaroton), Goodyear (Marquis), and Erno (aka Ernst von) Dohnanyi (Testament). The last was from a public recital and by far the least well recorded, but it was my favorite account by a goodly margin. As I've noted in a review on TNT-Audio and in these pages as well, I very much like Goodyear's complete traversal of the sonatas, but he and Fischer more or less tied for second at some distance; in my review, I noted that bringing out Beethoven's humorous side is not always Goodyear's long suit, and so it proved here. Willems was very slow and sounded rather tired; definitely my last choice notwithstanding his interesting presentation of an Australian Stuart & Sons piano. I was at the office, else I'd have added Schnabel, at least, into the mix, but I didn't have his recording at hand there.
As you know, I always enjoy comparing different interpretations of Beethoven's sonatas. My current favorites, in order, are Op 31/1 – Fischer – Gulda, Kempff(m), Gilels. I think Schnabel does well in Op. 31/2, but not in 31/1.
I'm not a fan of how those final Toscanini Stereo broadcasts were engineered. Nothing like the early Reiner/CSO stuff. However, I have listened to the "accidental" stereo Verdi Requiem, and though I'm not sure of the original mic placement, the sense of space is there and it's probably the closest we are going to get to know what Toscanini sounded like live and in person. It's pretty great, for what it is.