Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #23)

Heads up

Got this yesterday and gave it a listen......yet another spectacular recording from The King's Noyse.

If you guys are interested grab this OOP while it's cheap at Amazon!
(As of this post there were 3 Used Like New $7-$10 shipped)
Once these King's Noyse CD's go OOP and get scarce the price goes NuTz!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...ils?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1299926981&sr=1-1&seller=

Stuart you got me on a Early Music binge now!!

 

Wow, so no booklet at all in that new Sony budget series?

 

Currently enjoying my latest classical arrival:

Schubert
Piano Sonatas D850 & D784
Alfred Brendel
"Piano Works 1822-1828" set, CD 1 of 7
Decca 2010 (orig. rec. 1987-88)



Special thanks and thumbs up to Jay!

 

Now playing...

Alan Hovhaness
Mysterious Mountain (Symphony No. 2)
Prayer of St. Gregory
Prelude and Quadruple Fugue
And God Created Great Whales
Alleluia and Fugue
Celestial Fantasy
Seattle Symphony
Gerard Schwartz

Some of Mysterious Mountain sounds like when-Moses-sees-God music from Elmer Bernstein's score for "The Ten Commandments". That movie was released one year after Stokowski conducted the premiere of this symphony in Houston in 1955.

The standout for me is And God Created Whales. The "divas" of this beautiful and haunting work are the whales themselves, recorded off the north shore of Kauai.

 

I've never heard Mengelberg's Beethoven 6th, but I am quite certain I like Bohm's better than Walter's. I've probably bought every version of Walter's that's ever been made, to see if this time, maybe, finally, I'll love it, but the one I always play is Bohm's. And as the cherry-on-top, Bohm has that very nice B9 attached on the original CD release. I pretty much like every version of the 9th I've ever heard, but Bohm's is one I reach for most often--well, except for Bernstein in Berlin from 1989.

 

And you are very welcome, Andrei.

 

Sounds like a good addition to my Mozart collection. Thanks for the link, Jay.

 

Jim, If you enjoy choral works, early music is the place to be. But many baroque choral works are absolutely beautiful as well ...

Thanks for the link, I will check out this CD.

 

Relentless costs cutting have gone too far and are too pervasive in life ...

 

I am still waiting to see that Beethoven Symphonies box set by Karl Bohm ...

 

I'm sure I've heard Mengelberg's Pastorale, the fact that I can't remember a thing about it ought to be indicative—in general I found his distortions disagreeable. Bruno Walter's Columbia Symphony Orchestra recording has its beauties and I'm one of its advocates, but it's hard to argue concerning Karl Bohm's supremacy in this music. Others I like nearly as much include both of Bernstein's commercial recordings, about three of Toscanini's, Monteux's, Furtwängler's and Harnoncourt's versions, among others.

 

These are incredible deals! Nine discs of Complete Bruckner Symphonies for $26! Relentless costs cutting is making for deals like no one has ever seen before. Super budget price should be the first tip-of that documentation will be slim or none. I wouldn't pay a buck more, myself, for a tell-me-nothing super budget price four pps. booklet w/ track times, technical credits, and maybe a blurb that I might or might not read once. Would you rather be paying $9.98 for an LP like you did in the early 80's? I think your comment is short-sighted, especially considering the size of your collection and the fact that you can easily look up in another release, or on the WWW, the background of a particular Mozart sonata or whatever. After a while -- I'm thinking especially of major labels here -- liner notes become the same-old same-old. Hyperion, for instance, is another story -- always edifying booklet writers. But they are not offering complete Bruckner for $26. Just my $0.02, didn't mean to single you out...

 

I suspect that you're thinking of Schnabel, who once famously remarked that Mozart's music is too easy for children and too difficult for adults.

 

A conductor who doesn't get much mention around here but whose Beethoven deserves to be better remembered is Felix Weingartner, the first conductor to commit all 9 syms. to record (but over the course of decades, and with different orchestras, not as a concerted attempt at a "complete set"). Several he recorded more than once; alas, the sixth was not one of them. I say "alas" because it is a perfectly beautiful account, but it has a technical problem: the recording lathe's motor evidently was too weak, and as a result each side (this is a "78 RPM"--very broadly described, as we shall see--set, natch) steadily increases in speed, meaning each side join features a sickening pitch lurch unless you somehow compensate as the record plays. I once painstakingly transferred my copy of the set, as luck would have it on excellent so-called royal blue Columbia pressings, to open reel tape, milking every ounce of variable speed capacity available from my then turntable and OR deck--and then accidentally overwrote my work with some trivia from the radio. Thankfully, I had at least cut a cassette dub before that mishap. Be that as it may, the performance is a thing of loveliness, possibly my favorite account of the work.

 

Now playing CD1 - Nocturnes from this set, which arrived a few days ago for a first listen ...

 

Well, no one but you.

 

Just sleeves and discs in the box. I really don't mind that much. The sleeves have recording dates, etc. on the back of each one.

 

That's good that you got some info, then. Enjoy the music!

 

Been pretty oblivious for the past couple of days taking care of my sick child (icky virus, now seemingly on the mend), and only just saw the news of the earthquake and its aftermath in Japan. I know I speak for all of us outside Japan in expressing hopes our Japanese friends escaped unharmed!

 

I might get the André Cluytens set on EMI having heard the 6th on cd and really liked it. I did have many of the budget lps at one time from that cycle.

 

Now playing CD6 from this set for a first listen ...

 

I bought that cycle last year. It has surprisingly good sound given its age - recorded in the late 1950's.

 

Double-seconded. IMO, Kleiber is pretty good on the Fifth (although too straightforward compared to Furtwangler or Haitink). But his 7th is mediocre at best. The second movement doesn't catch neither the magnificent ambient beauty of Blomstedt/Dresdeners nor the sheer forward momentum of Haitink/LSO. Those are my go-to versions, as well as the lovely vintage dance-fest of Hanovers.

 

This arrived today! (Marston subscribers (like myself) get new releases before they are available for sale. You can subscribe for only all piano or all vocal releases or both.) I plan to listen to listen to this and post impressions soon.

Liszt Illuminated
Claudio Arrau, Jorge Bolet, and Gunnar Johansen
American Liszt Society Laureates
52065-2 (2 CDs)

 

Another CD set from Ward Marston. George, you are the real diehard for these historical recordings ...