I've been listening to some of my recordings of the 9th and tonight I an enjoying this one. The 1963 recording by the same conductor is a bit more fiery, but this 1977 one has the sublime performance of the slow movement.
I have more performances of this work than I care to admit....crazy. Anyway, this one is in my top three and could be my first choice. The three channel SACD sounds great.
Sorry, I just saw your question. To me, the repertoire on that SACD is mostly a whole lot of bombast and fireworks. For this purpose, I think it is done quite well. And it is in good sound, for sure. But again, I find these are more showpieces than "deep performances of deep music." I got the SACD new last week from amazon for $9.99.
I finally got up the courage (and got sufficiently free of acoustic dupes) to play the Rheinberger/Handel set tonight. The news is good but not great; the records do in fact look like wrecks, and once on the turntable they proved not only to be seriously worn but also to have difficult-to-track warps. They play with a *lot* of noise. In short, they do not play like dreams by any stretch of the imagination. BUT...here's the good news: they do play, and despite the noise the music underneath is clean. Even that brutally scratched up side played through without skipping or even audible evidence of the damage, perhaps because the general ambient noise masked it. The little I'd read about these records had me expecting the performances to be on the drab side, but not at all--they were nicely balanced at reasonable tempos, the organ sounding more like a chamber type than a big, booming Romantic instrument and the unnamed orchestra being decently nimble, with good ensemble. Recording quality was not at all bad, although whatever system Polydor had adopted--light ray, maybe? I don't think it was the Western Electric system--tended to clip off hall echo. Again, some of that may be attributable to masking by the heavy surfaces. Nonetheless, all in all I'm happy with the purchase, although I do wish it were a bit less beaten up!
Janine Reiss, a French singing teacher known for working with opera singers such as Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti, and Placido Domingo, has passed away. Janine Reiss, grande figure du monde de la musique, est morte
Listening to an old 1990 Sony CD Beethoven Violin Sonatas No. 5,9,10 Zino Francescatti Robert Casadesus Sony, 1990
Has anyone purchased the new box set (available May 8, 2020) of the complete Beethoven Sonatas by Zino Francescatti and Robert Casadesus? This includes the earlier mono recordings too.
A very nice LP set. My single CD had no information about the recording at all. The blurb about the new set says the stereo cycle was recorded in Paris in 1959 and 1961.
Giving this another listen. VARÈSE: The Complete Works - Royal Concertgebow Orchestra and ASKO Ensemble conducted by Riccardo Chailly
Marriner was listed as music conductor for the film, Amadeus. I suppose it's possible this recording was used in the film... and I recall being impressed by that performance.
Haven't heard this one in a very long time. I may have only heard it once. Going to give it a spin later this afternoon.
Looks like an interesting disc. On CD I have only the op. 135 set (for left hand alone) in a recording by Leon Fleisher and op. 52/6 from that big Aldo Ciccolini box set. I have another traversal of op. 135 on LP by somebody named Ringeissen on the Ades label and a complete op. 52 by Marylene Dosse in a VoxBox, and I have a few copies of "Etude en forme de valse" on LP and 78. To be honest, I can't claim to have played any of them more than a time or two, and I don't remember much about them. [Edit] Inspired by the foregoing, I just played the Fleisher set, and there's some enchanting music in there. Writing good left hand music, making it sound like something more, is an art, and Saint-Saens clearly had a good grasp of it. Once again, no. 3 is the cursed number; I found it relatively uninspired; no. 5 was a bit of a mixed bag, but the other four were all charming and lovely.
I'm way behind on these, as I only have the Op. 52/6 that David mentions from the Aldo Ciccolini box. So I checked into the Hyperion disc and found a surprising 22 tracks. Never realized Saint-Saën wrote so many. This is definitely music to acquire soon.
The music has a lot of different flavors. I hear Bach, Chopin, Liszt and Rachmaninoff in there. And the sound is lovely.
If you like the Saint-Saens left hand etudes, you might also enjoy Max Reger's four special studies for piano, left hand alone. They comprise a scherzo, vivace, romanza, and--a quite serious, richly textured prelude and fugue. For left hand. Only Reger.... Anyhow, I have two recordings of the set on CD, one by Frederick Moyer on GM and one by Markus Becker on Thorofon. I just made reacquaintance with the latter, and I was reminded just how enjoyable these pieces are and how skillfully they are contrived to give the illusion of two hands playing. Good stuff.
Do you want to have some musical fun? I wouldn't want to be without this version of the Saint-Saens. Beautiful sound. Saint-Saens: The Carnival of the Animals original small group version Erato, 2004 It is also included in the box set of Michel Dalberto's Complete Erato Recordings, 17CDs.
Now listening to the 1966 recording by Telefunken/Das Alte Werk (Black label original Stereo) of Bach's Overtures 1-4. Concentus Musicus Wien/Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Superb performance, and splendid recording. Scored today in nice condition for $3. Near mint records, VG linen box.
