The Classical Music Guide Forums

barney

I have heard many say that Nilsson did not come up so well in recordings as live (though she was pretty damn marvellous in many or most recordings, which is testimony to how much presence she must have had on stage). Of the sopranos of the last century I regret most never having heard her or Schwarz...

barney

Thanks John
This is probably the best piece I've read so far on Bernstein's centenary.
Fair-minded and informative.

barney

I have checked with my friend about the streaming service he mentioned, which had been highly recommended. It is called Tidal. He says it has an emphasis on classical and huge repertoire. And the premium service offers streaming at full CD quality. So I hope someone tries it out. Streaming is not fo...

barney

Someone mentioned another streaming service with vastly better sound quality, and recordings much less compressed. I will try to find out what it is, and post it here. Spotify does compress files quite a lot, I believe. I too am in the CD camp, and not interested in streaming, though I do love histo...

barney

jbuck919 wrote: ↑
Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:46 am
I choose to resign from this thread, for it is clear that it is turning into a pissing contest, and on CMG I will avoid that at all costs.

Fair enough, of course, but I wasn't seeing it as that. I was enjoying some intelligent debate and interesting examples.

barney

lennygoran wrote: ↑
Sat Sep 08, 2018 6:50 pm

barney wrote: ↑
Sat Sep 08, 2018 5:55 pm
but so far work intervenes too much.
Barney work-what's work? Regards, Len [retired for 18 years!]

Work is the curse of the drinking classes, Len (as Wilde, I think, put it).

barney

That is obviously his program for late 2018. He is giving recitals in Melbourne and Sydney in October, and this is the Melbourne program: MENDELSSOHN Fantasy in F-sharp minor, op 28 BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata no 24 in F-sharp major, op 78 BRAHMS Eight Piano Pieces, op 76 BRAHMS Seven Fantasias, op 116 J...

barney

Yes, thanks Donald - what a really interesting interview, combining good research and good questions.

barney

It is entirely possible for Jbuck and Belle both to be right: he may be a great theorist and a dense, complicated writer. Academia simply abounds with examples, particularly in the areas I studied of philosophy and theology. Hegel, anyone? Rosen has been on my shelf for decades, but I haven't gone ...

barney

For me, other perhaps under-appreciated Britten works would be his Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Cello Symphony, although I prefer the first two. Just finished my hearing of the " War Requiem ". As I noted, I am not much of choral fan, but there certainly were nice moments , and I agree was ...

barney

from Peter Grimes (which I saw in Paris in 1981 with Jon Vickers) to the Serenade for Tenor and Horn Barney some nice guy in this forum gave me a laser disk of Vickers doing Grimes-superb--Vickers was just mesmerizing even if Britten didn't care for it! Then the Met did it in a pretty lousy product...

barney

It is entirely possible for Jbuck and Belle both to be right: he may be a great theorist and a dense, complicated writer. Academia simply abounds with examples, particularly in the areas I studied of philosophy and theology. Hegel, anyone? Rosen has been on my shelf for decades, but I haven't gone b...

barney

Always ready to thrust my oar in where it is neither needed nor wanted, I add my voice to the majority. I think Britten is a genius, from Peter Grimes (which I saw in Paris in 1981 with Jon Vickers) to the Serenade for Tenor and Horn or the Donne sonnets. I'm happy to accept that he hasn't "clicked"...

barney

Does "after Beethoven" include Schubert (born later, died a year later)?
That's a possibly contentious claim, John. Verdi, Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Shostakovich would all have their advocates, don't you think. Or others perhaps.

barney

It is justly famous. It is one of the finest responses to criticism I have encountered. One might even say it is a fine (if emotional) piece of criticism itself.

barney

You are quite right, John, but - as a professional sub-editor for decades - I'd have been pleased to find that level of literacy among many native speakers. Some time I may post some of my favourite howlers, but most of them are not musical.

barney

Thanks for posting this, John, it makes me feel better. As I wrote above, I investigated it and was keen to buy but not to spend $A100. You've made that decision seem very wise.

barney

I get the same thing, and I'm in Australia. I wonder if their domain name lapsed and they failed to renew, and the Canadian firm bought it? Pure speculation. Or they may indeed have gone under.

barney

I just ordered it now from the Book Depository, $16.60 incl. postage. Wow! A bargain for sure! I just finished listening to the Brilliant set this past Spring, and, as Lance says, the Schubert is sublime, and the other solo works are just OK for a young artist, but the works with orchestra suffer f...

barney

I just ordered it now from the Book Depository, $16.60 incl. postage.

barney

What a wonderful story. Did she sing the part?
I imagine they had to play something else.

barney

From Australia, he seems a real loss - a man of integrity, who never lost his sense of perspective. I'm sure his years in captivity had much to do with that. One of my heroes growing up was Keith Miller, an Australian cricketer who had been a WWII fighter pilot. Someone once asked him about the pres...

barney

According to Swafford's biography of Brahms - and this is a distant memory now - Brahms played a new sonata by another composer at a recital, which received scant applause. The rest of the recital being rapturously received, as an encore Brahms played the whole sonata again.

barney

And I'd love to get O Paradiso too, but Amazon's cheapest is $57. Too much.

barney

I find myself strangely interested too. But I cannot find how much it costs to ship to Australia without first paying for the book. I've contacted the listed shop to ask.

barney

It looks like you are using Photobucket, Len - not a program I know. In the stickies at the top of CMG, there's one saying don't use attachments, they take up far too much space, giving alternative instructions. But my own pictures are not at Amazon or online where I can click on properties, etc , a...

barney

It looks lovely, Len, and the house looks light-filled. And your grass is in beautiful shape. Hope the cherry picker didn't affect that. I live just below Ferntree Gully National Park in what was once an outer suburb of Melbourne (30km from the central city). The city now extends another 20km in tha...

barney

I understand Len. I've had to spend thousands of dollars on having trees pruned or even taken down, plus we have to get council approval every time. Once they said no, the big branch was fine, only for it to fall within two days!
But you wouldn't swap for a gardenless apartment.

barney

Congratulations.

barney

What a treasure the Met is, Len. Opera Australia is a really fine company, and rarely fails to satisfy, but it does just a fraction of the operas in Melbourne the Met does so superlatively (on average) in New York. If I lived there, I'd be so greedy...

barney

Well, as an American lady once said, if English was good enough for St Paul (in the King James Bible), it's good enough for everyone!

barney

I gather Bohm may have had more Nazi inclinations than Furtwangler, but I have only read loosely around the topic, and don't really want to blacken his name. I treasure many of his recordings. Sue, what is the story with your children today, now that things have settled slightly? I hope they are rel...

barney

It beggars belief, really. I heard him at the Met as Simone Boccanegra. Flawed, and a little weak, but still amazing, and I can proudly say I heard Domingo live.

barney

Bernstein the outrageous remarks? (a 198,547 CD set)

barney

Belle wrote: ↑
Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:42 pm

barney wrote: ↑
Tue Aug 21, 2018 5:33 pm
Although I bow to John B, who rightly says it should be shtyne. Which I don't say.
As in schtick? Schticks and stynes.... sorry!!

Ooooooh! And you say words can never hurt me? Ouch!

barney

Yes stunning. Are those doors at the bottom left garage doors? Unusually nice, if so.

What does Brian know that we don't when he says it's well-deserved? Not arguing, just wondering... Because in my experience we don't usually get what we deserve, and I'm very lucky that this is the case!

barney

Although I bow to John B, who rightly says it should be shtyne. Which I don't say.

barney

In my neck of the woods "barney" is fisticuffs, a right old punch-up!! And I pronounce Leonard Bernstein as "STYNE" because of Gertrude Stein. So there. Yes, in my neck of the woods too. I pronounce Bernstein as styne because I did German at school. But I more often pronounce it Lennie, as in my bo...

barney

So, Len, are you the nuisance that ruins concerts by lighting up your smart machines and distracting me? I'm glad to have identified you, and a couple of heavies are on their way to your house as we speak... Barney not me-I'm completely innocent-so is Sue! Regards, Len :lol: I don't doubt it, Len. ...

barney

I entirely agree about pronouncing names as their owners wish. Some of you may not realise that B-a-r-n-e-y is actually pronounced Y-o-u-r-(pause)-L-o-r-d-s-h-i-p. So I am glad to take this opportunity of correcting you. I thought you were going to say Bernie, just as Derby is pronounced Darby and ...

barney

So, Len, are you the nuisance that ruins concerts by lighting up your smart machines and distracting me? I'm glad to have identified you, and a couple of heavies are on their way to your house as we speak...

barney

I entirely agree about pronouncing names as their owners wish.
Some of you may not realise that B-a-r-n-e-y is actually pronounced Y-o-u-r-(pause)-L-o-r-d-s-h-i-p. So I am glad to take this opportunity of correcting you.

barney

Well, Len, the solution is in your own CD player. If only all problems were so easily resolved. Can you fit Donald Trump in your CD player, if you slice him very thinly?

barney

Unfortunately, what William Congreve actually suggested was that music hath charms to soothe the savage bReast, not beast. Quite different, though a raccoon of course does possess a breast.

barney

My month in New York is among the most memorable of my life. I went to a concert or the opera every night but one, when I was visiting a friend at Yale. I came with a friend, and we stayed at an AirBnB in New Jersey, actually on the boulevard overlooking the Hudson with the New York skyline. I found...

barney

I saw this a few years ago, with an ambitious small Melbourne company that did a pretty good job - but not as good a job as Opera North. Many thanks for posting this.

barney

Professor Jordan Peterson has studied totalitarianism for some years and he has commented about this, saying (I'm paraphrasing) we all think we would have been one of the good guys if we'd lived in those times but the chance of that being so are slim to none!!! I entirely agree. On a slightly relat...

barney

I have posted several times regarding this. Furtwängler was not in fact a Nazi, but definitely did have some anti-Semitic and völkisch views. It needs to be remembered that, prior to 1933, there were several strands of anti-Semitism other than that of the Nazis, and many people sometimes labeled...

barney

Sue, I am not sure at whom your "bravo" was directed, but I would be interested. My own feeling, which I offer as having no importance whatsoever, is that the #metoo movement has achieved an important breakthrough, but at the cost of innocent casualties. Von Otter's husband may be one; in any event,...

barney

I remember reading of a torturer for a South American dictator being asked how he could do such appalling things. His reply was to the effect that the first small cruelty was the key one; gradually his conscience was seared. I think JohnF is right about people who stayed in Germany - one would need ...

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