Live in Tokyo 1970 Sibelius Symphony No. 7 Weber Oberon Overture Berlioz RakoczkyMarch Mozart Symphony No. 40 Cleveland Orchestra George Szell Sony Japan, 2000 Recorded May 22, 1970 Mastering Engineer DSD: Koji Suzuki Tokyo Bunka Kaikan concert hall I had heard that this was a fine Sibelius 7. I agree. It was also interesting to hear Szell/Cleveland with different microphones, a different concert hall etc.
Nice find! I have that whole Naxos set. It was mastered by one of the very best in the (78 records transfer) business.
The Sibelius symphony cycle under the baton of Rozhdestvensky is wonderful, in my opinion. Yes-it is forceful and colorful( at times Russian in intensity). But also delicate, gentle and poignant where it should be so.
Now enjoying Fournier's first of three recordings of the complete Beethoven cello sonatas from the above set. The pianist is none other than Arthur Schnabel. Recording were made in 1947-1948.
I feel that the competition in this area is particularly fierce. Omitting the complete sets, names like Casadesus, Haskil, Moravec and Kempff would be on my short list. I just listenened to this 2CD set today and enjoyed it more than ever. He's well known for his Beethoven, but I think his style is even better suited to Mozart.
Now enjoying the great Annie Fischer playing some Mozart PC. Her performances are let down by the often dull EMI sound. Nonetheless, her light mostly shines through.
Anybody here ever do business with an outfit called ClassicSelect World? It appears to have some insanely low prices on CDs, particularly in sets. For example, the Warner issue of the Pro Arte Quartet's Haydn series, 7 CDs, is $16.99. If you don't have this set, I strongly recommend the performances, although I've not heard the transfers, having made my own from my own 78s. Note that, although planned as a complete cycle of the quartets--a remarkably ambitious undertaking even today, and unimaginably so in the days of 78s--it was never completed because World War II interrupted the project; notwithstanding the site's title for the box, then, it's an extensive group of selected quartets, with only one or two opus numbers complete. HAYDN: THE COMPLETE STRING QUARTETS - PRO ARTE QUARTET (7 CDS) Here's the site's general URL: ClassicSelect World - Great Music at Great Low Prices
Hi David, Not familiar with that seller, but: That set can be currently ordered from an amazon seller for a dollar cheaper: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D6G78H...0080&sprefix=haydn%20pro%20arte,aps,57&sr=8-1 I bought a copy of the set from amazon 3 years ago for a dollar cheaper than that! As for the transfers, they were expertly done by Art &Son Paris.
Wanted some more Wolfgang and Clara, so I put this on. She really has a special way with Mozart. I love this Great Pianist series. I have many of the various sets. So much great stuff, much of it hard to find elsewhere. The series was executive produced by the controversial, yet knowledgable Tom Deacon. I've been lucky to correspond with him over the years and he has been the source of a great many personal recommendations.
Now enjoying concertos 1-4 from the above set. I know, Mozart orchestrated sonatas by famous German virtuosi for these concertos. Still, they are fun, light works. Anda and Camerata play them well and are also recorded well.
I picked up a few( not enough) of the sets when issued. The full box was $$$$$ at the time and still is( if you can find it).
Seemingly universally praised, this CD did not connect with me previously, but I have held onto it, hoping one day it would click. Tonight I am enjoying it more than before, even if the 1956 sound has been cleaned up to the point where it is dull. Hate when they do that!
I was at a performance of Tchaikovsky 6 last night (Halle Orchestra) which was great, although like many of you I have heard the work 100 times. It struck me again how there is no "overlap" of themes between the four movements of this last Tchaikovsky symphony, at least in the most obvious sense. But this cross-referring of melodies was a particular characteristic of Tchaikovsky 4 and 5, where the thematic material from the opening is revisited directly in the finale (and in the case of the 5th, in all four movements). There are many other examples of this quoting melodies/themes/motifs across symphonic movements. Beethoven clearly did it in to an extent in symphony 5 and more overtly in no 9, and contemporaries of Tchaikovsky, and those who came after, did it - Bruckner, Mahler, Rachmaninov, Dvorak and countless others I expect. But when did this idea begin - was it Beethoven who did it first - did it then take a long time to be commonly used as a musical device? I tried doing some internet research but it is a hard question to put into a google search - and thus I didn't get very far. Any other information or examples would be welcome from the collective wisdom of the SHF
An obvious early example, almost contemporaneous with Beethoven's 9th Symphony, would be Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique from 1830 with its idée fixe. While not quite the same thing, earlier composers like Bach based whole works of up to an hour on a single theme or chord progression, for example A Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue, not to mention the countless Theme and Variations written from before Bach until today.
Thank you - yes indeed the Symphonie Fantastique is a perfect example. And Harold in Italy would be similar (the general outline of which was recycled by Tchaikovsky in Manfred, with some "encouragement" from others) but maybe that's too obvious given they are both intended to be "programmatic". As you say, other examples of melodic development and recapitulation are everywhere, and I was really focussed on symphonic movements rather than single works or sets of variations.
