Listening to "A Wondrous Mystery - Renaissance Choral Music For Christmas" performed by Stile Antico on Harmonia Mundi.
I think I've said it here before, but my favorite line is very NYC-centric: Why Do they call it the Bruckner Expressway? Because it's long and boring and doesn't go anywhere. I think with Bruckner it's vital to hear a performance where the extremely long melodic lines are the focus - one reason Karajan was at his best with Bruckner.
1st listen: Initial thoughts: really nice recorded sound...light and breezy performances...the 1st Symphony delights but the 3rd Symphony lacks the emotional weight, the passion, drama and gravitas of my favorite recording:
This makes total sense, but the sense of immersion that surround offers can be wonderful. But too many SACDs are the Northern South German Chamber Radio Symphony in a live recording conducted by a maestro who at best beats time adequately. The goal is to get both the performance and the sound, but that's rare.
First listen to CDs 2 & 3 from "Bach - St. Matthew Passion" performed by Collegium Vocale Gent led by Philippe Herreweghe on Harmonia Mundi. Featuring Ian Bostridge, Franz-Josef Selig, Sibylla Rubens, Andreas Scholl, Werner Gura and Dietrich Henschel.
I kind of agree with your wife! I mean I don't know how vast your collection is, but once you have multiple copies and versions of anything - it's time to take a deep breath and sleep on it. I have a hard time with my husband sometimes about the same issue (he has probably anywhere from 15 K - 20 K LPs) and a few thousand CDs. My classical LP collection grew quickly because of the 2 summer dollar sale and I have around 800 LPs. I don't think I will be adding much more to it - but the very odd thing I was not able to find but want to own. I can always use Discogs for that to treat myself once in a while. I'd rather save our money to travel while we are young and mobile enough to do that....so yeah. I am also not overly happy when my husbands spends too much on more LPs.....
from the Charles Munch RCA Album Collection: I normally listen to mono strictly on speakers but it sounded very good on headphones, excellent remastering; I love Casadesus with Szell (which I listened to a couple of months ago in the Szell box) but this was pretty good too
Arguably even the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern plus Korngold, Zemlinsky, Schreker and others were attempting to carry on the Germano Austrian tradition. WW 2 finally killed it.
A Christmas gift for yourself? I bought mine a few years ago. My Christmas gifts for myself is a HP desktop running Windows 10 Pro and the following box, the last Complete Bach Cantatas box I am likely to buy
Wow.....20,000 LPs. That is amazing and must be filled with great recordings. I need to count but I think I have around 5,000 CDs. I sold all of my LPs around 5 years ago. I just moved a few months ago and the boxes of CDs and DVDs was an issue again....will we have space etc. Luckily, we have a spare room in the garage for my collection. I freeze when I look for something but what can I do. I have actually come to the conclusion that more performances of the works I like is something I can pass on. I wish I had not bought multiple versions of the same works over the years and instead bought CDs of works that I did not have. We are retired and I really should not spend like I did when we were working. I have spent enough on new equipment so it is time to cool the purchases.
I am just about done with collecting classical recordings. With 3 Complete Bach Cantatas box and over 7,600 CD's and a few thousand LP's, I do not need to add many more ...
I've not quite reached that point yet, I'm still interested in complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas sets and am currently listening to audio samples of Stewart Goodyear's complete set for the second time. It took me a while to get used to his tempo choices, but I liked most of what I heard. Maybe next year
Truth be told, many people feel that way. Of course, there are many others who feel that Strauss would be the last one because of the timeline, but for me - and I love Strauss - I tend to think of him as something of a Brahms, someone who saw the path laid out in front of him, but resisted taking that path.
I read Thomas Mann's novel 'Doctor Faustus' last year. The subtitle is 'The Life of the German Composer Adrian Leverkühn, Told by a Friend'. You might say that in large part it is about the "fate" of German Music.
I played this twice & still I'm not sure what I think. Maybe it's that Igor was considered such a genius that everything he wrote was a masterpiece, while a lot of his later music fails to really impress me. On side two he conducts The Columbia Symphony Orchestra in his arrangement of music from Tchaikovsky's 'Sleeping Beauty' (recorded 12/17/63, Manhattan Center) and The CBC Symphony Orchestra in 'Scenes de Ballet' (3/28/63, Massey Hall, Toronto). 'Jeu de Cartes' was recorded 3/13/64, Severance Hall). Issued 1964. Producer: John McClure.
1974 reissue of a 1965 release. I like the more radical 'Venetian Games' (1961) better than the earlier pieces (1954 & 1958). Sorry about the price sticker.
This is such good advice, I took it a couple years ago! I was lucky and found an outstanding deal on a slightly damaged copy; it includes most (iirc) of the recommendations of Yasujiro from ~p. 1502 of this thread. However, I must say I don't care much for the way the discs are housed in that Pavarotti FIRST DECADE set. Suspending the discs from little foam buttons---am I remembering this right?---again big cardstock pages...it seems like a terrible design decision. But you are right about everything else about that set. Lovely. I also ordered the TROVATORO/Bonynge recommended above. Thanks btw for that DVD advice. I went through that series this year and really liked it. More generally I have really enjoyed everything I've heard on that label, including discs of Fauré and late Beethoven sonatas. Idle curiosity, what CD player do you use? I moved so many times from ~2003-2008 (exactly as many as you, maybe even a couple times more!) that I should know better than to own anything ever again. But here I am, asking about audio gear. Some recent listening: Samuel Barber: VANESSA (Steber, Gedda, Elias, Tozzi, Resnick, cond. Mitropoulos - rec. 1958) Jean Francaix: [CHAMBER MUSIC] (The Gaudier Ensemble - Hyperion) Enjoyable light music. I think I am going to get into Francaix's sensibility, if these pieces are at all representative.
Well, if you have this set, you already have the finest of Pavarotti...so from now on, you could freely explore further Actually, even in some of his later and "controversial" recordings, Pavarotti is always performing up to very high standards, so you really can't go wrong with anything he ever recorded. As a side note, because I can see that you appreciate beautiful singing, let me give you one other recommendation about the "third" of the three tenors. Jose Carreras was in already a severe vocal decline when he hit the mainstream fame in 1990, but for a brief period during the 70's no one, even Pavarotti, could rival his outstandingly beautiful and captivating sound. So if you're curious, check this fantastic CD of his first recital (plus bonus tracks from his second):
“He who offers this record for sale infringes Copyright” Good, I guess if you’re a “she”, you’re off the hook.