The Classical Music Guide Forums

gfweis

I had read somewhere years ago, perhaps in Gramophone , that Asahina was a very respected conductor in Japan, one who was especially highly regarded for his Bruckner. But some checking at the time indicated that his cds were hard to buy without paying a big premium to get them from Japan or France o...

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For me, the quintessential poet-pianist is Edwin Fischer. Curzon could be quite poetic, as could Kempff. Throw in Gilels and Solomon for certain recordings I can think of. I recently heard an old Connoisseur lp with Moravec playing assorted pieces by Debussy, and this experience inclines me to agree...

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Yoel Levi did not convince me of the worth of adding this movement, nor did I like his 1st enough to keep it. So on this I'm with Chalkie. I'll just add that I find that I rarely agree with Christopher Abbott's Mahler reviews.

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Donaldopato: I too listened to this piece on the Danish Radio site (the first time for me for both), and also thought it was marvelous (as was the performance of the Nielsen wind quintet on that site). I plan to purchase the Weinberg. I should immediately have thanked Allen for posting the thread, a...

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If you are like me, you will know after two bars that the Richter/Wislocki PC #2 is something very, very special. Few Rach recordings, allowing for different tastes, can be said to be absolute musts. This is one of them. Another 5-star performance is Margrit Weber's Paganini Variations with Fricsay-...

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Ditto to what Ken said. Two very, very different styles of music making and violin playing. I myself would rather hear Faust in anything after Mozart. More blood & guts.

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It seems there is some confusion at times about the "Linz" version of Bruckner's 1st symphony. Sometimes what is called the "Linz" version is actually not the version performed at the premiere in Linz in 1868. Bruckner revised the work during the 1870's after he moved to Vienna (especially the fourt...

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Oh, I'm so happy someone asked! I've heard perhaps a dozen or so recordings, and there are two that have risen above the rest: the Perlman/Rozhdestvensky (EMI) and the Kyung Wha Chung/Previn (London). The latter, for its rapt, magical andante is my absolute favorite. But no one I've heard, including...

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Snippets available here:

http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue ... pid=727641

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A mixed review from musicweb:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/c ... ch3112.htm

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I haven't heard the Michelangeli, Hough, or the Roge, but would like to. The recording that has impressed me the most is the Gilels (like the Michelangeli, available on cd in the DG series "The Originals").

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Chalkie, I think that's the serenade twofer with the most beautiful K.361 ever, conducted by Fritz Lehmann, in addition to the ones conducted by Leitner.

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Leitner is justly praised for his collaboration with Kempff on the Beethoven concertos, but he would earn his ticket to Heaven alone for his accompaniment in Kempff's Mozart c minor concerto (K. 491). Years ago I also heard an excellent Handel Julius Caesar , with Popp, Ludwig, Wunderlich, and Berry...

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I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I haven't yet graduated to loving the Diabelli Variations (though I do stand in awe of it), even given the heaps of praise and analysis by learned friends of mine. Frankly, I prefer Beethoven's c minor variations, which I do love. I'd put the Goldberg's first, the Bra...

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I'm happy to find other fans of Foote, and to learn of both the new cd and the youtube link. I too have the three Naxos chamber music cds, and particularly like the string quartets. But Foote won my heart forever with the Suite in E that Mel praised. I have it on a Pearl cd in a 1940 recording by Ko...

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What a nice idea to invite people to say appropriately good things about generally unappreciated conductors. I'm certainly an un-appreciator of Maazel, but there is one recording of his that I think is excellent. His late-'70's Cleveland Orchestra Beethoven 9th (CBS), which has great pace, clarity (...

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Bösendorfer, thanks for this link. I'm currently listening to the splendid opening allegro (vivace! con spirito!) of Adam Fischer's Maria Theresia (No. 48) (this will get you going on a lazy Sunday morning!).

BTW, I'm listening in Firefox, and having no trouble.

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I think Anner Bylsma & friends did the D. 956 on Sony Vivarte. It may have been 15-20 years ago, however. Wouldn't that have been on period instruments?

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gfweis, your Ivo Pogorelić YouTube is wonderful. What ever happened to this dynamic Croatian pianist? 8) Good Question! I think his most recent cd was a 2002 release of Chopin, Ravel, and Prokofiev. The wikipedia entry describes some health problems going way back that may still be issues for him, ...

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I am very interested and grateful to read these recommendations for Scarlatti, as my library is pretty thin on him, yet I like his sonatas very much. I had the Horowitz Scarlatti on lp for many years, then got the cd, and still could never warm to his manner; but then I'm not overall a fan of Horowi...

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For me, the top group is the Hollywood, the Casals Prades Festival, Grumiaux & friends (my first love, on lp), the Vienna String Quartet (Camerata), and the Stern-Lin-Laredo-Ma-Robinson. I wouldn't now care to try to rank these, but the last one I heard that knocked me over was the Casals Festival. ...

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My parents had a record player, and in the '50's, when I was a boy, they played mostly Broadway show music, much of which I liked, and some pop vocals (like The Three Suns), which I also liked. I also sang Mass at my parish church in a boys' choir before school every morning from about the age of 9,...

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Jared wrote:Liszt: Les Preludes (Masur: I know, I know... please don't judge me too harshly...

Oh, yes, Jared, I didn't think anyone would name the incredibly low-brow Les Preludes...that one is truly SHAMEFUL!!!

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Just heard an lp with the Stokowski/RCA Victor SO Handel Water Music. It's all very regal and slow and lush, and one section has the most glorious, luxurious oboe solo playing. I'll bet that was Robert Bloom, once principal oboe in Toscanini's NBC Symphony and in the '50s a member of freelance New ...

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Just heard an lp with the Stokowski/RCA Victor SO Handel Water Music. It's all very regal and slow and lush, and one section has the most glorious, luxurious oboe solo playing. I found myself shamelessly wallowing in it. Akademie fuer alte Musik Berlin this ain't! All of it is very romantic. OTOH, a...

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DavidRoss wrote:Well, Mel--I guess you could always switch to this one:

This photo reminds me mightily of the gum-chewing alien dressed up in the form-fitting dress in the movie Mars Attacks! I wonder if Anne-Sophie has seen that film.

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Thanks for these facts. I don't know enough to know whether I should be bothered by the cuts. I think I will get this Karajan recording. I've read great things about the Solti, but I'm not a big fan of Domingo (responses to individual voices is such a subjective thing, isn't it?).

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I am considering getting DG's new (re-)release of Karajan's 1964 Die Frau at BMG, where it's currently available to me for about $12, incl. tax. (free shipping). I'm not well educated about Strauss operas, having heard Salome a couple times (I like it!), and once most of Ariadne . I don't buy many c...

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For contents of the Violin Masterworks 35-cd box:

http://decca.ddd.de/tracklist.p3p?produ ... 0221515045

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I'm to a large extent with Chalkie, val, and Muniini. My current thoughts are: Kogan, Oistrakh, Francescatti, Morini, and Grumiaux, with special mention of Tretyakov (on the strength of his live Shostakovich VC No. 1 with Temirkanov), and a special favorite, the tragically short-lived Ginette Neveu,...

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Lance, I'm reminded of the famous line (I'm sure you've heard of) uttered by Gilels, who when he was praised after a U.S. recital in the '50's, replied, "Wait until you hear Richter!"

Well, Lance, "Wait until you hear the 1959 Smetana/Janacek Mendelssohn Octet!"

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How many of you can say that a new recording made within the past ten years or so stacks up to your old favorites from the analog years? Please give examples. There must be more, but actually, if I really limit myself to just the past ten years, not a whole lot comes to mind: 1. Franck, Piano Quint...

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Curiously, perhaps, a former colleague of mine, who might be expected to know this, always said "Pay-Yay"!

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Chalkie, you and your wife are in my thoughts and you have my great hope for her steady, even if, as you say, gradual, recovery. When I first saw my wife after her second cancer surgery, with tubes in her, it was quite disturbing, but I guess now I think of those tubes, machines, etc. as actual life...

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Ken: yes , you are correct about Kempff and the organ. This is from the Naxos website; "Less well known is Wilhelm Kempff’s activity as an organist and as a composer. The foundation of his many-sided musical activity lay in his early years in Potsdam. Even before his first recital as a pianist in th...

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Lance, I had exactly the same reaction to Kempff's DG Schumann recordings. But the Kempff in this youtube film, which I was put onto by my friend Horace Fleming in Savannah, is I think Schumann playing of the highest order.

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Recently I wanted to get a second recording of the Schumann Violin Sonata in a minor, Op. 105. I was able to audition several cds, including those with violinists Koh, Malikian, Marwood, Widmann, Turku, Kaler, Weilerstein, Faust, and a couple others I can't remember right now. I chose the Koh. I sup...

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Ditto that Rattle's earlier recording with the Bournemouth was superior to his later one with the BPO.

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This 3'33 put me into the most pleasant trance imaginable. For lovers of the keyboard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPxAEw8S ... re=related

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As Imperfect Pitch and JackC have praised Curzon's Op. 142 Impromptus, I'll throw in a word for the Op. 90 (D. 899), which I forgot to mention. Here my favorites are Schiff and Kempff, Schiff for the first two, Kempff for the last two, in which he is simply perfect.

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JackC, thanks so much for the link to this youtube recording, which I had not heard. This is truly magical playing. I still have the German Electrola gatefold lp with Schnabel's D. 959 and 960, and your post has motivated me to get it out tomorrow and play it. In the D. 780, I have always loved the ...

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Gosh, I had no idea he recorded 51 cds worth of stuff! Unless a person is more tolerant than I am of the pitch-wavering that sometimes infected his playing past a certain age, I think one should be selective. I do know two recordings of great value: his Beethoven VC with Furtwangler, and his Brahms ...

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I know the first thing I'll play is the Andante with Variations in f minor performed live at Wigmore Hall by Nikolai Demidenko (Hyperion). He stretches this masterpiece to 16'26, and thereby pulls from it the most extraordinary depth of poignant sadness and loss. It has been suggested that it was th...

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I have mixed feelings about Mutter. I like many of the things she does in the Beethoven violin sonatas, for example; even though her rubato is often extreme (relative to other violinists), I think it's usually effective in making passages more expressive and interesting (especially true, too, in her...

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The Op. 8 is my favorite. I respond to, and identify with, its glowing, ardent sentiment---the kind Brahms does so well that the adjective "Brahmsian" has come to stand for it. I've been fortunate to hear many recordings, and although the Rubinstein-Szeryng-Fournier, the Istomin-Stern-Rose, the Pane...

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I was shocked when my most-knowledgeable of all friends lent me Wurtz's Mozart and Beethoven piano & wind quintets (which, from him, meant a recommendation). What on earth could Wurtz and the Netherlands Wind Soloists really bring to these works after the world-crushing Serkin (my friend's favorite)...

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I'm usually not much of an Ormandy fan, but I'd say the earlier Ormandy Rach 2nd symphony...the one in the Columbia Odyssey box that has the three symphonies and the Vocalise...trumps the Previn in every movement. But I've read that the Ormandy is cut, and I did notice years ago that Previn's (iii) ...

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hassid wrote:There's a CD on Slovart records by the Bratislava string trio, with Hummmel string trio G major plus the clarinet quartet (1996).

Thanks, hassid, I see it listed on amazon. If you know them, what do you think of the performances on this cd?

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I always liked the trumpet concerto. I learned the piece (as I'll bet many others did) from the Marsalis recording in the early '80's. It was coupled on this early cd with the Haydn. I don't know why I never explored his chamber music. Just plain dumb.

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Jared, Good Lord! I too feel a Hummel streak coming on!

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