Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #50)

You read them?

 

They can remaster old recordings all they like, it never improves the performance.

 

Can't improve it but can better reveal it.

 

My latest 2 arrivals...

This one is pretty good...albeit a tad "annoying harpshicordish"....


This one is awesome...full of dynamic range and warmth...

 

Yes, and based on the descriptions in those reviews I gave a link to, there is no possible way that the series from the Sixties could be good enough to cajole me into thinking that HvK produced the best set of stereo Beethoven symphonies ever; 1 thru 9 might have a top shelf series produced by several conductors, but for me, Herbie's wouldn't win, place or show in any of them. The best reviews give ratings for both sound and performance. My own assessment of this set would be, Performance: ***; Sound *. I doubt that I would rate the earlier series any higher — seeing as I donated my LPs to the George Mason Univ Library about 1972.

 

Does Amazon Prime apply to MarketPlace sellers? I generally do not buy my CD's from Amazon.

 

No.

 

George, You and I already have the '77 set' in that Karajan Symphony Edition box we bought from Amazon UK. I also have the '77 set' in a deluxe LP set ...

 

So that does not help me. I am already at a point when I have most of the recordings I need. BRO will be the way going forward to fill in the gaps in my collection and the shipping (still no tax) is pretty nominal ...

 

I have a box set and this recording should be in it ...

 

But depending on when your set was published, you may not have the 2007 remaster — for what little that's worth.

So, if I don't buy another HvK recording for the next 43 years, it doesn't appear as if I would be missing much.

 

No doubt sonically the 77 version should be better than the 63 version. But better sound does not necessarily mean better performance. For this reason, I am particularly choosy when it comes to SACD's - I only addded the highly rated ones to my collection. That is why I only have about 400 SACD titles out of close to 6000 CD's in my music library.

 

How about the 1984 version? I have that version as well ...

 

I hope to start listening to this set soon - still have a few hundred CD's to listen to . I much prefer Gwyneth Jones as the soprano in the 9th over Jesse Norman (a single or twofer by Bohm I also have) ...

 

I bought that box on 3/8/2009 from Amazon UK. It probably is the same remaster.

 

I am happy with the '63 version. I have read that the things I don't like about the 77 set only become more pronounced in the 80s. Besides, plenty of other conductors did well with this music, Barenboim, Szell, Wand, Furtwangler, Toscanini...

 

Well, as you can see by my library here http://www.sa-cd.net/library/37/1 you have more than twice as many SACDs, and I would venture you have more than twice as many CDs, too. I usually donate recordings I find disappointing to the city library. Of the 190 some SACDs you'll see in my library, far less than half of them are what I would consider natural sounding; a few are downright terrible.

IMO SQ is integral to a complete enjoyment of a musical experience — whether it be live in a concert hall, or in a listening room. There's nothing worse than hearing the Beethoven 9th live in a concert hall with too much echo, tending to drown out the intricacies of the vocalist. Likewise, violin and piano concerti can suffer from poor acoustics that leave a bewildered listener wondering what could be done to improve things. Many a time I've left concert halls listening to the grumblings of the patrons about the mediocre sound. Borrowing from a 1970s TV ad, "Is it live or is it Memorex?" this seems to be the compulsion for many of us to treat our listening rooms so extensively that they can produce a breathtakingly live sounding reproduction.

Why would anyone want to frequent an audiophile forum without embracing this tenet is beyond me — whether you think you can get by with a 1 watt SET or a 225 watt c-j.

And here's another example:

And don't forget Bernstein, Solti, Reiner, Ormandy, Stokowski, Bohm, Klemperer etc.

That doesn't even begin to list all of those HIP conductors who want you out of the concert hall in record time. IMO Vanska's Beethoven was the pits.

Harry Pearson wrote 40 years ago with the launch of his magazine that his frame of reference for home audio was the concert hall. Perhaps that is what has been driving me for these past four decades.

 

Indeed, the Furtwangler lego block is still in the shrinkwrap. I am done with collecting Beethoven Symphonies. I will not bother with Barenboim as he has does not done anything for me.

 

Occasionally, I have found certain sellers that participate in the Amazon Prime, but not too often.

 

It doesn't make sense to me that they would, but some do. The end result is smaller profits for them.

Back to Beethoven for just a minute: who among the cognoscenti have this set by Mackerras? One reviewer is characterizing this as a HIP collection of performances, but I wasn't aware that the Brits liked their Beethoven sped up beyond recognition.

 

My impression is Amazon Prime does not apply to MarketPlace sellers. Amazon just uses the free shipping to occasionally keep itself price competitive with the MarketPlace sellers after the free shipping has been factored in. In general, Amazon prices its CD's a bit more than the MarketPlace sellers. I just ordered closed to 40 CD's from BRO, total shipping cost was about $10. As I am now into more obscure early music and BRO appears to carry tons of them, why buy from Amazon and pay $3.99 for shipping per CD?

 

This may be the next and last Beethoven Symphonies cycle for me. I have always been fond of Mackerras conducting.

 

It's the first time that I see this collection, but I noticed that on Amazon it has received uniformly great reviews. I searched in google and it seems that British critics (Gramophone and Guardian) like it, especially the 8th. Do you have it? You don't like it?

 

World center for the hyper-kenetic circa 1990's, There's Roy Goodman, Roger Norrington, John Eliot Gardnier, Christopher Hogwood . . .

Seems the Brits just discovered coffee.

Note Bene, Beethoven was an intense coffee-holic. And just because it's traditional doesn't necessarily make it right. I will continue to listen to Furtwängler in Beethoven for decades to come [hopefully, knock wood]. But he plays Beethoven at wrong tempos. It's still interesting, there's still new light shining on the music if the the players pay attention to the metronome markings in Beethoven. This rubs some people the wrong way. Beethoven rubbed his contemporaries the wrong way. It follows that this must be authentic.

 

No I don't have it, but I am looking for an antidote to the HvK box I just bought. It's a bit pricey by my usually cheapskate standards, but I asked one of the reviewers to comment on whether he had similar opinions on Mackerras' sublime Mozart symphonies on Linn Records. May go for one from overseas to save a little money.