First listen to CD 27 from "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" Cristobal Galan - Fire & Ice performed by Accentus Austria
It blows my mind to think that the first quarter century of recording was possible to realise without the involvement of any electricity at all.
You know, some extremely environmentally conscious designer/engineer can come up with a 21 st century record player that does not require electrical power, putting in a headphone jack, powered by a cranked up spring that provides an hour of listening time ... BTW, that cranked up spring could probably play 10 - 15 min worth of music on a 78RPM shellac.
Lenny's "heart on his sleeve" interpretation really works here. Mahler is an emotional composer, and Bernstein's New York cycle resonates with me.
I like Kubelik as well. I have to listen to LB and the RCO though. It has been a while although from what I can remember, it is pretty close to his NPO recording as far as tempi, phrasing and the other important stuff.
Not sure. I think the problem is in the cartridge. It definitely needs electrical amplification, as the output signal is extremely low. But then again, turntables are very low-power devices anyway.
Yeah, Kubelik is good. I'm currently enjoying Gielen's cycle for a different approach-he's more restrained, almost the anti-Bernstein, but there is a lot to like.
Hmm, everything is new to me except the Isle of the Dead, which I have via the following 3-CD box ...
The Mirror of Narcissus: Songs of Guillaume de Machaut. Gothic Voices, Page, Kirkby. Oiseau Lyre DMM LP.
Listening to "Le Jeu des pelerins d'Emmaus" performed by Ensemble Organum led by Marcel Peres on Harmonia Mundi.
Listening to "Hilary Hahn plays Bach" on Sony. Debut album recorded 22 years ago Partitas Nos. 2 & 3/Sonata No. 3
Don't know if THIS would be of interest to anyone. It is a recent thread from the reddit r/classicalmusic site. It has lots of upvotes and commenters. Starts out this way: DISCUSSION: Which composer was the saddest bastard? As someone who has lived with depression most of my life, I've found that I'm often attracted to the Sad Bastard composers. These are not composers who have occasional spells of musical melancholy -- these guys lived and breathed misery. Here are my four nominees for the title of the Saddest Bastard Composer:...
First listen to CD 8 from "Debussy - The Complete Works" on Warner. Piano Works (4 Hands) - Michel Beroff, Jean-Philippe Collard, Olivier Chauzu, Jean-Pierre Armengaud, Genevieve Joy, Jacqueline Robin-Bonneau, Jean-Francois Heisser, Georges Pludermacher Petite suite, L. 71a Marche écossaise sur un thème populaire, L. 83a La Mer, L. 111b 6 Épigraphes antiques, L. 139a Swan Lake, Op. 20: No. 20c Russian dance (Transc. Debussy)
Most definitely! I'll confess to feeling a bit of guilt at the price when I saw how nice the set was. Been enjoying the music though, so it soothes the pain. I'm still getting my head around Stravinsky, so I'm not sure how intelligently I can speak to any interpretation of the piece. I knew it via Fantasia, so there's always a sense of nostalgia hearing the opening, which I adore. Unfortunately, even on that front, it's been so long since I've seen the movie that I can't even clock the edits to the piece made for the movie. It's a strange combination of the experience you'd have listening to a totally new piece and the warmth of encountering something familiar. Likely, what it'll take is doing comparative listens to the different versions I have courtesy of my rapid collection of mega boxes. I know I have at least one Bernstein version and it sounds like I've got two by Karajan if he revisited the piece in the '70s. Not sure about others, but I'll check around. In isolation, the '60s Karajan interpretation was certainly competent and pleasing to the ear, but I'll only be able to comment on how it stacks up against other interpretations as I listen to them and really take them on board. [Removed response to deleted post - Mods] I'd be interested in the discussion, but I don't really have enough deep background on enough composers to contribute meaningfully. I'm open to learning about how depressing legacy composers' lives were.
