The Classical Music Guide Forums

mikealdren

Don't know about shoulder rests, but this passage caught my attention: His first recital came at age 9 and his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was a year later, according to a Curtis biography. His New York Philharmonic debut in 1960 with Leonard Bernstein was as soloist in that orchestra...

mikealdren

I have a DVD of Heifetz performing Bruch's Scottish Fantasy (IIRC) without a conductor, and it almost works, but not perfectly. There are times when Heifetz is playing and the tempo shifts when the orchestra sounds a bit tentative: not bad, but it would have been better with a baton-wielder at the ...

mikealdren

maestrob wrote: ↑
Sun May 19, 2019 11:51 am
any relation to the composer?

Given that Mikko is Finnish, I suspect that it is unlikely.

mikealdren

With so many fine alternatives, it's hard to imagine how ASM's version of the violin concerto was chosen.

mikealdren

For me, his two outstanding recordings are Rachmaninov Symphony No.2 (twice, the earlier one with cuts) and Walton Symphony No.1. Both are still arguably the best available. Looking at the other recordings I have of his conducting, it's interesting how many have him as accompanist with singers and i...

mikealdren

Yes, Yuja Wang's Mendelssohn is great but get the DVD and watch it as well! Just a shame the Orchestra isn't a bit better.

mikealdren

I heard Menuhin 3 times in the 60s and 70s as well as seeing him on television fairly often. He was a major presence in the UK in those days. Sadly he was no longer the great player he had been but he was still capable of very moving performances. He stood in when Oistrakh died for a memorable perfo...

mikealdren

I heard them last Monday in the Wigmore Hall, the Janacek quartets (how often do we hear both together in concert?) and the 2nd Smetana. It was fabulous, the best concert I have heard in ages.

mikealdren

Hi Lance, I think Amazon must be wrong, the RCA Tchaikovsky (Boston/Munch) and Devil's Trill aren't there either. I have quite a lot of duplicates but I am tempted nonetheless. I do like his Mozart sonatas and concerti, the latter got a rough ride in the UK when they were issued as part of the Phill...

mikealdren

Yes Szeryng's Mozart sonatas with Ingrid Haebler are very good too. I feel he has been badly underestimated since Perlman's quip about not recognising his playing. Mind I sometimes find the same with Gil Shaham, another superb player. I'm not familiar with this quotation. Can you provide it more fu...

mikealdren

Yes Szeryng's Mozart sonatas with Ingrid Haebler are very good too. I feel he has been badly underestimated since Perlman's quip about not recognising his playing. Mind I sometimes find the same with Gil Shaham, another superb player.

mikealdren

I plan on getting that Szeryng box when it comes out in December. BBC Magazine just named his Mozart Concerti as the best ever, and I have to hear them. The Szeryng set was unfashionable for a long while and IIRC many complained that it was included in the Philips Mozart edition rather than the Gru...

mikealdren

Very strange collection of conductors.....

mikealdren

Looks a very exciting box, lots of things I only have on LP.
many thanks
Mike

mikealdren

John, I think that his playing days were over before ASM appeared in about 1975, alcohol had really got him, his records with Karajan were in the 1960s. I never liked his playing much either (I never heard him live) and I particularly disliked an encore disk which I used to joke about in my student ...

mikealdren

"You'd be hard-pressed to find high-caliber professional violinists who would tell you they started out with the Suzuki method. You'd be hard-pressed to find high-caliber professional violinists who would tell you they started out with the Suzuki method." Rachel Barton Hilary Hahn Leila Josefewicz J...

mikealdren

One other issue is that for a few recordings in the LSR set you couldn't tell if it was Igor or David Ositrakh. Only David is represented in the Brilliant box set. Judging by the dates and the reference Oistrach and his son, they are all David except some of that one disk of duets. The dates sugges...

mikealdren

No sure how you clip and include an image but could this be the same as the 100CD Brilliant Russian Legends box?

mikealdren

Having commented about the importance of listening, there are some remarkable technical solutions in use for remastering nowadays. One is a system that completely removes pitch variations from piano recordings, this really should be mandatory for any old recordings. Not sure how well it works for ot...

mikealdren

I think the problem is often that engineers transfer using their meters rather than their ears. That's why some of the specialists do so much better, even when transferring from 78s/LPs rather than original source material (allowing for John's comments on that having degraded). The oriental market i...

mikealdren

Very sad, she was a superb violinist and her Szymanowski No.1 recording is the best by far despite the dated sound quality. I heard her play the concerto in the early 70s and it was a very memorable concert, not least because Szymanowski was rarely played in those days.

mikealdren

I bought 2 of her Saga Debussy CDs recently after reading excellent reviews. How had I missed these marvellous performances for so many years?

mikealdren

and Tennstedt conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra not the LSO, not the same and until he came along, not really as good.

mikealdren

Hi is Cheniston Roland and he lives in Liverpool. I suspect he's quite elderly now and I know he has had health issues.

If you have a contact, it would be great to see how he's doing, he used to do a weekly podcast but that seems to have stopped some years ago.

mikealdren

I've seen CDs of the MCA Glory of Cremona recording on sale in the Decca label too but I must have missed them when new and they're far too expensive now. Unless they are re-released, I'll have to make do with my Lp.

mikealdren

Not sure how I missed this! I have long loved the original LP of the Sarasate, in fact it's probably the best Sarasate disk I have (and I have a lot) and it was on my (now) very short list of great recordings that have not made it to CD. The Persinger recordings are nowhere near as good. I bought th...

mikealdren

Not really my area of expertise but there are some really fantastic younger pianists around. There are a quite few other established (older?) artists who I rate very highly e.g. Uchida, Kovacevitch, Perahia, Pollini, Pires. It's always interesting when you start with those who start as exceptional t...

mikealdren

Interesting view John and I agree to a certain extent. Nowadays for instance, there are so many fantastic violinists it's hard to justify yet another recording of the Beethoven/Brahms/Sibelius/Tchaikovsky etc..... Campoli however did have a distinctive voice that made his best recordings special. Fo...

mikealdren

Hi Lance, Most of the concertante works have been available on CD for a while but some have probably been pirated from LPs and, in all cases where I have compared, the new CDs sound as good or better. More than that, the Bruch/Saint Saens was the first LP I ever bought and it has not been available ...

mikealdren

Having gone through a couple of dozen, it is a little annoying that they only nametwo people when there are three in the photo, eg Bakala and Chalabala and anonymous, and I have no idea who is who. When one is Bernstein or Barenboim or Stravinsky, different matter of course. But I second Lance's gr...

mikealdren

Yes it was, amazing how we accepted that odd solution to keep the costs down. I thought costs would come down but I certainly never expected CDs to become so cheap. Probably because I was brought up with LPs which cost so much in the 1960s. Even more astonishing is how cheap CD players are, being ab...

mikealdren

I have an early CD of Feuermann from the days when CDs were expensive to produce. To optimise the use of the plastic, the left channel contains one set of mono recordings, the right channel, another set.

I've since transferred the contents onto two CDs!

mikealdren

You cn see the score here:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Études_d%27exécut ... zt,_Franz)

mikealdren

Hi Lance,
try Martin Fröst, not sure of he's really made it across the Atlantic but he's a simply sensational performer and his CDs are marvellous too.

Mike

mikealdren

If one of the poodles plays the kazoo, does that make it a trio?

mikealdren

Lovely tuneful undemanding works, like Wieniawski they're among the best of their type. Do people still pay them? Well I'm sure students still learn them and since Heifetz concertos have been recorded by (among others): Sarah Chang Zino Francescatti Arthur Grumiaux Hilary Hahn Misha Keylin Leonid Ko...

mikealdren

Come on now. Naming a few celebrities among the hundred whose opinions BBC Music sought, cuts no ice. Who says they are experts on the history of violin playing? Anyway, the value of any poll depends on the validity of its results, and you don't dispute that the results of this poll are clearly not...

mikealdren

and it was set in Japan to reflect, and poke fun at, the prevailing Victorian obsession with all things Japanese.

mikealdren

The Alan Green list is indeed a bit of a joke but most lists are. The problem is that he seems to feel that he has to include a flute concerto and a horn concerto and a violin concerto. You could easily argue that 9 of Mozart's top 10 are all piano concertos plus the clarinet concerto. After all the...

mikealdren

Not only was he the preeminent horn player but Boyd Neel is often quoted as saying that Brain was the finest Mozartian on any instrument and listening to his recordings, you can see why he thought so.

mikealdren

I suspect there's a degree of Scottish nationalism at play here. He's a fine pianist but, from the few sections I have heard on the radio including the Appassionata, Paul Lewis's is a safer bet.

Mike

mikealdren

Kogan and Szeryng are top rank players but there's not enough of them to justify the rest of the box. Sadly, as with previous boxes, these are not available separately.

Mike

mikealdren

Although Weilerstein has stated that her idol was Jacqueline du Pre, she is a far more intense and emotional performer than du Pre (du Pre never recorded either of the Shostakovich cello concertos, or, for that matter, the Prokofiev "Symphonie Concertante") I'm surprised at this comment, JdP was no...

mikealdren

My point is that I don't believe that the current situation is sustainable and sooner or later the bubble will burst, there isn't enough money in the system to pay these exorbitant fees, publicists and managers have managed to maintain the levels for far to long, it can't last. It would be interesti...

mikealdren

Are conductors really worth $500k+? If the orchestras are dying who will pay them that in the future, especially if they don't attract the audiences. The highest paid stars that attract the big fees do so by filling halls (Lang Lang, YoYo Ma, Fleming, Netrebko, DiDonato, Kaufmann, Bartoli etc). As f...

mikealdren

VERY eccentric. Great character and a top player in the right repertoire, a bit like Kremer, great technique and uncompromising view of the music. Not the most polished player or the most beautiful sound but always an interesting and challenging artist. Also an interesting commentator on the violin,...

mikealdren

Thanks, Lance - a very thoughtful response. I didn't know he was the most recorded violinisit - is that in the notes in the box? Like you and Holden Fourth, I esteem Grumiaux very, very highly - perhaps at the top, closely followed by Oistrakh, Heifetz, Perlman and a couple of others. Grumiaux is s...

mikealdren

Prompted by this tread, I've just looked up BnF, it's the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and they have a very large collection of recordings so I suspect they are taken from LP. As a result they will probable be lower quality than the DG box and no better than my LPs but I'll try the Lalo as an ex...

mikealdren

Hi Lance, I've never seen it, sad really because it's much better than his earlier Sarasate with Persinger. Other CDs I await eagerly include: Kremer's Ysaye solo sonatas (although listening to the CD recently made me realise how good some recent versions are!) Campoli's Bruch no.1 with Kisch and Sa...

mikealdren

Lance,
I now have the Wieniawski on CD, send me a PM and I'll see if I can get a copy to you.

Mike

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