The Classical Music Guide Forums

mikealdren

Szeryng was a beautiful player who certainly deserved a higher reputation. But the congnoscenti knew. Yes he was good (I heard him several times) but I tend to agree with Perlman's oft quoted view that 'yes that was good, I wonder who it was - oh Szeryng'. Somhow it's all very well done but there's...

mikealdren

Try telling the Scots! Me, I suppose we should be claiming reparations from the Romans!

mikealdren

The passage of time makes things harder. This doesn't mean that we should forget the holocaust or slavery but equally, we can't reinvent the past and we need to move on. This was brought home to me recently when someone referred to continued reference by the Scottish and Welsh to England's early con...

mikealdren

As time passes, it's getting very difficult. If a violinist, say a professional player, had bought the violin, quite innocently and with no knowledge about its Nazi past, they would probably not be able to afford to pay back the price and would lose the 'tool of their trade'. They are surely chasing...

mikealdren

barney wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 25, 2021 5:17 pm
Completely agree, Lance. Normally that is indeed my practice. But this time I am committed.

Me too, I suspect I'll have to list the duplicates on Ebay.

mikealdren

and it was Henri's brother, Marius, who wrote the 'Mozart Adelaide' concerto that Menuhin premiered and recorded as Mozart.

mikealdren

Hi Barney and Rob,
apparently it contains ALL his Philips recordings including multiple recordings of, for example, the Bruch No.1, Lalo symphony espagnole, Beethoven concerto etc. It also contains the Mozart adagio and rondo with Colin Davis that have never made it to CD previously.

mikealdren

Gramophone say there will be a complete Grumiaux Philips box (on Decca!) to mark his centenary (Mar 21st).
One of my all time favourite players and I will be very tempted by this 74 CD set although I already have so many of the recordings.

mikealdren

In my demise, I have told the Mrs. to order some dumpsters and get rid of everything. What do you think of that??? I don't think this is the answer, here are a few reasons: 1. It's not a green solution, as a minimum the plastic should be re-cycled but really the LPs and CDs should go to a new home ...

mikealdren

Rach3 wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 11, 2021 5:47 pm
Yep, I'm getting the cd with all 3 of the concerti.

He wrote a Bassoon concerto too.

mikealdren

Lance wrote: ↑
Sat Jan 09, 2021 2:51 pm
A superb Russian pianist. His recordings are not coming fast enough for me.

I couldn't agree more, each and every one of his recordings seems quite exceptional.

mikealdren

I, too, am surprised and disappointed to see such a review. These attitudes are much less prevalent, hopefully, than they were, but they are still around. (I have commented on reviews of the Emerson Quartet in Gramophone that make sneering references to "New York" that barely avoid crossing the lin...

mikealdren

Interestingly the next pieces on my list would have been the Sextets and the Dutilleux/Maxwell Davies coupling. His Bartok and Prokofiev are good but there is so much competition nowadays and, even when they were new, I always preferred Oistrakh's Prokofiev. Indeed despite the awful sound, I can nev...

mikealdren

I'm not too keen on Stern, I heard him live a couple of times in the early 1970s and neither occasion was very memorable. It's never a good sign when I have more LPs of a performer than CDs and only the Barber violin concerto, Bloch Baal Shem and the Beethoven Archduke trio count as special to me. O...

mikealdren

Many thanks for this, I'm listening to the Op.1 trio and it's well worth it, an amazing work for a 13 year old.

mikealdren

I told my wife that the violin should have belonged to a professional musician who would have played it regularly, described Weinstein as "a parasite," and said that it was karma that it had been stolen. Perhaps that was a bit harsh, but those violins should be in the hands of musicians who know wh...

mikealdren

Agreed, a friend had a valuable cello stolen from his car. I have several reson for never leaving my (much less valuable) violin in the car: The car itself may be stolen The violin may be stolen by idiots not really knowing what it is (rectangular case) The violin isn't insured for theft from an una...

mikealdren

The violin concerto is a long term favourite of mine. There are two Heifetz versions and they are both excellent. For sheer virtuosity, Oistrakh is even better but the recording is sadly what you might expect from the USSR in 1947. None of the later recordings I have compares with the excitement of ...

mikealdren

Add a few more to Rach3's list ignoring violinists who wrote several (or many concerti)

Goldmark, Glazunov, Korngold, Moeran, Nielsen, Richard Strauss, Walton

Bruch, Haydn, Saint Saens, Lalo, Szymanowski, Wieniawski
My CD catalogue includes violin concerti by 187 composers.

mikealdren

I have a Philips 2 CD set of Grumiaux concertos, serial 442 287-2, that contains a Grumiaux/ Haitink/ Concertgebouw recording of the Beethoven VC, as well as Brahms' Romance No. 2, op.50. These were recorded in May of 1960. Try searching for "Favourite Violin Concertos", the title of the CD set. In...

mikealdren

Mike, I have the Janine Jansen, and shamefully I am not sure I have ever played it. I got it in a 50-CD set of Decca Sound. I don't have the Mullova, a soloist I respect. I've got the Pat Kop, but it's just a little idiosyncratic for me. I thought I had the Tetzlaff, but I was mixing him up with Th...

mikealdren

Ah yes, I see. Shame really, I'd love to hear Grumiaux with Haitink.

mikealdren

Then if you haven't heard Grumiaux you must do so. Aristocratically classical is precisely t he description. He was my father's favourite violinist, and in turn has become mine, though I can safely say I enjoy dozens of accounts of the Beethoven. I have 36 performances in my catalogue - Lance proba...

mikealdren

Yes Barney, the problems is the same in the UK but I'm not sure that the problems lies with orchestras, it starts much earlier than that. I suspect that there are not many black musicians coming for audition in the first place. We need to get more black kids learning instruments in schools and colle...

mikealdren

Coincidentally, listened it to the first time on Friday too. It's fun isn't it?

mikealdren

Interestingly he has already said that he would like to re-record the 4th concerto.

mikealdren

Yes it was a lot of work but I started quite a few years ago when I had fewer disks!

Another benefit is that I rediscovered many disks I had forgotten.

mikealdren

I've put all my CDs onto computer and it has some major advantages and one disadvantage. For the techies, I built a low noise computer feeding a high quality DAC and the sound is superb, better than my (fairly high quality) CD player. I use my TV screen as the computer display. The advantages are: I...

mikealdren

We have Mother's day (or mothering Sunday as it was traditionally called) and it's on the 4th Sunday in lent which was March 22nd this year.

mikealdren

Were they all in the USA, it's not mother's day in the UK?

mikealdren

I was that Rigoletto quartet that hooked me, Toscanini's amazing performance of the last act. Despite the recording quality it still hits the spot 50 years after I first heard it.

Mike

mikealdren

Our media in the UK cover Trump too but more under comedy than news.

mikealdren

Very sad indeed, I never met or even communicated directly with him but, through this site, I benefited enormously from his encyclopedic knowledge and wonderful use of language.

mikealdren

How does it strike you that I would call RITA STREICH one of the finest coloratura sopranos of her time (perhaps even the best). [And, perhaps Galli-Curci before her.] Some might select others. For me, Streich had the whole package: wonderful sense of pitch, wide range of dynamics, opera, lieder, o...

mikealdren

They have more than one login point! I a login one for the back numbers of the magazine (https://reader.exacteditions.com/magazines/365/issues/), one for the forums (on their main website) and one for the website to access reviews. You may well have lost your access now by cancelling your subscripti...

mikealdren

Fischer-Dieskau and his wife, Júlia Várady

mikealdren

Dmitri, Maxim and Dmitri Jr. Shostakovich

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.....

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