The Classical Music Guide Forums

Ken

Picked this up at a book market for €2. I'm sure I'd heard a digital re-release of the recording at some point, but I'm actually surprised at how well the performance stands up on 40+ year-old vinyl. I think I'm beginning to re-evaluate my perception of Karajan's Brahms... Time to dig into the old v...

Ken

It's great to see Yannick's reputation grow worldwide. I was hoping that he'd take over in Berlin a year back, but you can't have everything.

Ken

I'm quite prepared to chip in, Ken, for some of the usual sanitary products for you should Christian Thielemann get the gig. For you he might be expressing "radical nationalistic views" but for others like myself it's called "expressing an opinion" and, last time I looked, that was still legal. I t...

Ken

Pardon my French, but I'm going to lose my excrement if Thielemann gets the Berlin gig. Not only is he (as has already been mentioned) somewhat reviled for his borderline radical nationalistic views, he's the most smug and unspectacular conductor of all those who have been mentioned as potential can...

Ken

So, I know I'm a bit late on this one, but I thought it would be worth mentioning that that picture of Stockhausen and Cage in a plane made my day. Cracks me up!

Ken

Schumann's a horse, of course, of course!

Ken

These kinds of lists are, of course, invariably subjective and always a bit sketchy in terms of "methodology" (think about the countless "top ten cities to live in" lists), but I admit that I find this one better thought-out and more interesting than most of the "best albums" lists I've seen. Some o...

Ken

Such a shame about Maestro Abbado. He was surely one of the supreme musical minds of the last half-century and stands alone in my opinion in his reading of Mahler. Interesting that there is no definitive biography of the man; I recall a story from a few years back of a biographer who had painted a l...

Ken

...And I thought my neighbours were loud! In all seriousness, interesting case; I'm glad that the young pianist was acquitted. I can understand on the one hand how this type of "acoustic contamination" (wonderful legal term, eh?) could drive someone bonkers and I assume that the neighbours had tried...

Ken

I agree that Elgar's orchestral works are somewhat morose and even elegaic at times. I personally attribute this to Elgar being a dramatist, whose styles spanned a great spectrum of emotions -- if not only for reasons of artistic expression, then at least owing to his great talent and creativity. Th...

Ken

Nothing in the Google News feed, Lance. I searched for websites that mentioned his name in the last week, and based on this it doesn't appear as though his concert schedule for the winter has been affected. We'll have to wait and see!

Ken

I'm hoping to reap Chailly's and the Gewandhausorchester's recording of the Brahms Symphonies this Christmas. I gave my wife a really, really obvious hint when we were in Leipzig a couple of weeks ago. Anyone already have a listen to this set? Oh, and that's my 2500th post. Crazy. Probably about my ...

Ken

An absolute favourite of mine, I hope all is better now. I really cherish his Schumann recordings from the '70s/80s, which are a real difficult find these days.

Ken

Saw Eötvös's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in concert here in Düsseldorf on Sunday. There doesn't appear to be an extant recording of the work, but one can assume that it'll only be a matter of time. Incredible piece, lots of tantalizing parallels to Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, but very...

Ken

From an urbanist's perspective also a great read! Thanks for posting!

Ken

I saw him in Essen in 2011, he seems to have earned quite a following here in Germany since the days of his Rotterdam gig. I believe he also performed with the Berliner Philharmoniker last year; not too shabby for a Canadian boy!

Ken

Although I had already had a good 50 percent of these recordings in my collection prior to acquiring the box set upon its release, this box is (predictably, I know) a mainstay in my collection. I'm frequently pulling it down from my CD shelf. It's great to on the one hand have easy access to such a...

Ken

Although I had already had a good 50 percent of these recordings in my collection prior to acquiring the box set upon its release, this box is (predictably, I know) a mainstay in my collection. I'm frequently pulling it down from my CD shelf. It's great to on the one hand have easy access to such a ...

Ken

Kovacevich for the ever popular Grieg/Schumann Concerto coupling? Gould's '81 recording of the Goldbergs? Absolutely no William Walton on the list of "20th Century English" records? The author has... Interesting taste. At least the inclusion of Wilhelm Kempf's Brahms and Kocsis's Bartok recordings r...

Ken

Finally acquired Alexandre Tharaud et al.'s compilation of Erik Satie's solo and chamber works, Avant-dernières pensées. Just as wonderful as I'd read.

Ken

It's a bit surprising considering where I live, but I totally missed Hans Werner Henze's death. A real shame; he was composing wonderful music until the last couple of years. There was a large retrospective of his work in the framework of the Ruhrgebiet's yearlong celebration as European Cultural Ca...

Ken

2018 still seems like an eternity away.

Ken

Not too many. About five to six, at the most. I've been on a pretty tight budget for the last couple of years but must admit to having delved more and more into "other" genres of music that interest me over the last year or so. Which really isn't a bad thing, since I've noticed being able to "redisc...

Ken

Mos Def is a fantastic, very talented musician and lyricist. I'm not tremendously fond of crossovers, but, having also grown up with hip-hop, am not one to immediately shun these types of efforts. Sometimes the results of such experimentation are musically quite interesting. Although these efforts s...

Ken

Really great recordings of the Symphonies; among the best that I've heard of the 1st and 5th. This was Mendelssohn's orchestra and Masur seems to have a great ear for the composer's idiosyncrasies.

Ken

You'll have to excuse me, John, I've not been around here for a while and my fingers seem to have taken on a mind of their own, writing the false names and such.

Ken

Lance, sorry that I didn't jump into this thread yesterday! I belatedly wish you all the best from Düsseldorf and hope that you had a great, music-filled celebration yesterday.

Ken

Today's listening by the way started off with the three Violin Sonatas performed by Carolin Widmann/Denes Varjon on the ECM New Series label. Great performances the two A-minor Sonatas.

Ken

Chalk and Jack, good to see that things haven't changed much around here regarding Mr. Schumann.

Ken

Thanks Jack, it's good to be around here again! Things are pretty busy; I'm in the last year of my doctoral work and having to finance that with other odd jobs on the side. That doesn't leave much time left over for internet let alone for concentrated listening, but I see a light at the end of the t...

Ken

The Karajan Tod und Verklärung cover doesn't belong there, that was one of a series of classic Karajan/DGG covers from the 1970s.

Ken

What will you be listening to to celebrate the composer's 202nd anniversary? Today's selections include recordings of the Opus 92 Introduction and Allegro apassionato with Ashkenazy, Segal/LPO and the Frank Peter Zimmermann's monumental recording of the Violin Concerto with Vonk and the Kölner Radio...

Ken

I'm coming late to post this, but I was quite sad to have learned about this a couple of weeks ago. Fischer-Dieskau's baritone voice is, as I see it, unparalled in its expressiveness and he was along with Schreier one of the greatest interpreters of Schumann's Lieder and a very knowledgeable admirer...

Ken

The first movement of Schumann's Op. 26 "Faschingsschwank aus Wien" (Carnival Jest from Vienna) contains a nice little snippet of La Marseilleise as a kind of nose-thumb at the then very active anti-Napeolonic censors who had prevented him from accomplishing much of what he had tried to do as a publ...

Ken

I forgot to mention that one of the things that I will always like about Karajan is the epic coiffure. I strive to one day have a 'do the likes of his.

Ken

I'm chiming in a bit late on this discussion... To me, Karajan--at least the Karajan of the post-Philharmonia days--takes getting used to, and even after having accustomed oneself to the conductor's hypertrophied sound, it sometimes fails the listener to appreciate his mastery. I can fairly confiden...

Ken

Schumann's Neujahrslied, Op. 144 for orchestra, choir and vocal soloists, composed during his Düsseldorf years and using a text by Friedrich Rückert. A truly creative and enjoyable work (I had the pleasure of hearing it at the Tonhalle's Neujahrskonzert this year), but sadly, like most all of the co...

Ken

Liszt steals the show, but Schumannjahr 2010 feeds quite nicely into Ferdinand-Hillerjahr 2011.

Ken

Perhaps we should save speculations about his cause of death for the next significant anniversary of his death in say, perhaps, 2031 (225th anniversary)?

I think the discussions this year should centre instead upon his creations...

Ken

Should "greatest" mean "most influential", then Schoenberg and Bartok must be high on the list. Should it mean "most popular", however, perhaps Prokofiev.

Ken

This is a fantastic record; especially interesting for most music fans will be the piano version of In the Steppes of Central Asia, which as a four-hands piece evokes an exotic and solemn feeling.

Ken

Schumann was, without much doubt, manic-depressive and hypochondriac. He was (thankfully for music historians) obsessive about documenting his life and his many diaries and letters attest to his changing mental state throughout his life. Today almost conclusively assumed is that from about 1850 he e...

Ken

The reference set for Schumann's complete solo piano works must remain Jörg Demus's, which is still available on the Arte Nova label (I believe) at budget price. Demus's highly balanced interpretations offer the listener somewhat of an 'objective' lens on the composer's three-decade output.

Ken

Clips of this performance from the Alte Oper Frankfurt are floating around in the Deutsche Welle website: http://www.dw-world.de/

Last year I downloaded a short documentary about this concert, and it might well still be available online.

Ken

I believe it's time to renew this---and I'm wondering why we haven't heard from Ken recently. I hope he is doing well in Düsseldorf...... Thanks, Jack, for the notice---I've been very busy with my research lately and with several other administrative things (the paperwork in this country, as you kn...

Ken

Sorry, Johannes, but my personal leaning is towards Robert Alexander's four... In all honesty, too, Schumann's complete orchestral oeuvre is very impressive and his symphonies must also always be considered in conjunction with the Overture, Scherzo and Finale and the great orchestral dramatic works ...

Ken

My pick for the wonderful, chilling Op. 133 is the recording on period piano by Düsseldorf pianist Tobias Koch. He brings out the haunting contrasts and irony in the music without delving into oversentimentalization.

Ken

I would love to hear the Märchenbilder with Bashmet... Two legendary instrumental interpreters collaborating on one of my favourite works by my favourite composer...

Ken

^ the power of the Geistervariationen comes not from its somewhat uninsipred musical content but from its story: the communication of the main theme from the ghost of Schubert, the fact that this theme was one that Schumann used at least twice before, the suicide attempt most likely halfway through ...

Ken

Which Fischer-Dieskau recording, Chalkie? If you've not yet heard the live take from the Salzburg Festival in 1956... Don't hesitate much longer to rush to YouTube and have a (free) listen---fantastic! Actually, it was the live one from Nuremburg in 1992...I have the 1956 Salzburg concert as part o...

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