Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #16)

After that it was time to move back to more orchestral beauty (one of the nicest albums in my collection) again Daniel Barenboim but with the help of The Orchestra de Paris with Debussy & Ravel and my favorite here Pjotre Iljevich Tchaikovsky and the lovely Shakespearian story of Romeo & Juliette he conducted The Chicago Symphonic Orchestra !

How can you get more romantic than that ?

 

Maybe with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ? Daniel Barenboim does not reach the level of Vlado Perlemuter ( I bet nobody does ), but the piano sound is very nice and his playing ain't bad either, in parts it is excellent, but still once you heard Mozart from someone who sticks to the notes so faithfully as Vlado Perlemuter you can't really feel the same excitement and emotional uproar inside.
These sonates are beasts and it takes a perfectly tuned and recorded piano and an expert player with 100% concentration and inspiration to get these exactly right the way a one of a kind musician and piano player like WA composed them. Everyone goes on about Chopin's etudes or List's Mephisto Waltz; sure those are hard to play even for the best technical piano cracks, but Mozart is fast like lightning and his ideas are so out of the ordinary on each Sonate he comes with 3, 4 or 5 highlights often directly in succession while keeping the music harmonically perfectly fine and in a steady tempo.

Barenboim sounds more confident with the Beethoven sonates.
Your pov's ?
Who rules with Mozarts complete sonates ?

BTW this is a wrong picture Concezro, but I am in fact talking The Sonates set - playing CD 5 from that 5 CD set atm. same artwork just another color purple-ish

 

Haven't heard his Mozart, but I have heard good things about it.

 

Was this remastered/reconstructed by MOT?

 

No, Marston did this one.

 

Has Ward Marston pretty much stopped doing remaster/reconstruction projects for Naxos Historical?

 

Not to my knowledge.

 

Just placed an order on the following CD's this evening ...

 

So he started his own label while he continues to work on projects for other record companies. I guess when he is that good, it really does not matter.

 

Good choice - esp. Koroliev's BACH ..next time you should try
Auryn Quartet's HAYDN.
and
Markus Schirmer's Beethoven and/or Ravel/Mussorgsky.

 

Mitsuko Uchida gets my vote if you are looking for a cycle.

 

Now listening to this excellent complete recording of R. Strauss Salome, which arrived earlier this week.

 

Well, as usual, you're not going to find any one artist who is "best" in all of them. Lili Kraus recorded the cycle at least twice, once in mono and once in stereo, and I'd say both of these are excellent all-round accounts. A lesser-known artist from your own neck of the woods who will repay your attention is Gitti Pirner; her performances find a very satisfying middle ground between "too dry echt-classical" on the one hand and "gooey romantic" on the other. The Pirner set is quite expensive here in the States, but perhaps it is available more reasonably in your neighborhood. Incidentally, Mme. Pirner recorded a beautiful disc of the Mendelssohn preludes and fugues for the apparently, and sadly, defunct Calig label. I gather from what's available on Amazon that she is also a devoted exponent of Richard Strauss, although I have not heard any of her recordings from that repertoire.

If you like period instruments, Anthony Newman did a good set for Newport Classics; I think it's probably out of print by this point.

 

Regarding our beloved vinyl transfer magicians, has anybody listened to this version of Rachmaninov Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 issued earlier this year by Dutton? If so, how does it compare to the Naxos transfer many of us own? I doubt I really need it, but Dutton definitely has some magic powder in his pockets, so who knows?..

 

Definitely you can! Just place on the cover a photo of Barenboim in the vein of Karajan's Adagio series.

 

Marston's original transfers for RCA (with the photo of the composer on the cover, not the awful NR-d remaster in the white box) are better than the Naxos by MOT, IMO. They sound more pure.

 

Strongly seconded. I have heard Klein, Uchida, Horowitz, Pogorelich, Moravec, Richter, Eschenbach and Kraus beats them all. Her more masculine, Schnabelian readings may not satisfy everyone, but for me, they are a treasure.

 

So I was right when avoided that white box, despite its completeness? Well, it seems this new Dutton version may be worth it, I'll try to check samples...

 

The original mastering is just as complete.

http://www.amazon.com/Sergei-Rachma...3FB7/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1286461033&sr=8-2

 

Thanks, didn't even know this older version exists...

 

It's a minor miracle that it's still available, let alone for that price. I wouldn't wait to buy a copy if I were you.

 

+1. I really like her Mozart sonatas. I've only heard Brendel and Gieseking otherwise. I like Gieseking's, but I only had really old, crackly LPs (the music shone through, though). Uchida gets my vote in currently available CDs.

 

It seems that his label is more about getting out great transfers of stuff he wants to put out (while having control over the finished product) than it is about making money. It's more a labor of love.

 

Poor me, in all possible senses...

 

I know that all too well.

Perhaps when you are able to buy it, it will still be around. Given that they have that remastered set out already, I doubt it will come back once it's gone.