Classical Music for Aficionados

sfseay:

Can you provide a link to your Audiogon advertisement? Doesn't come up in my search.

Have always found Haydn Symphonies difficult -- they are not quite as dramatic as Mozart's later works and most performances do not bring me back for repeated listenings.

Then, this last year, found the Thomas Fey/Heidelberger Sinfonien Haydn CDs. These performances work for me -- very powerful and the content is perfectly matched to the performance style. They are available online. Listed as "Complete Symphonies" they seem available only as individual CDs.

The other candidate is the London Mozart Players/Glover sets that make a close second for me.

Sevs:
Recently picked up the Seattle Symphony/Schwartz recording of Hovhaness's Mysterious Mountain and God Created Great Whales CD. Has become a regular listen and am wondering if Hovhaness, like some of the English symphonists mentioned on this thread, will turn out to be a winning historical figure.

BTW, can the pundits on this thread recommend a complete Vaughan Williams symphony set? Would like to investigate the works en toto.

newbee:

When I google on Archiv Classics I get either the DG site or Classical Archives, a streaming/MP3 site. Can you provide the URL?

Thanks. Am currently considering either the Haitink or the Thomson set -- both available at Amazon.

Newbee:

Thanks. Go for the aspirin...

Well, the clarity of Mozart's mind is heightened by the precise nature of many early music performances. Recently ran across a Nimbus CD of the Hanover Band/Goodman doing his most popular items: the g-minor symphony (#40), Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, and the Clarinet Concerto. Nothing special in this -- except the clarinetist is playing a "Basset Clarinet;" with a lower range than the modern instrument and sounding very, very smooth.

This used purchase set me back the handsome sum of fifty cents and has become my goto selection for the clarinet concerto  -- one of those works you definitely should take with you to a desert island.

Thanks Again, TwoLeftEars!

Based on your recco ordered the Chandos Vaughan Williams CD with "Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus." You're completely right; this is a fabulous/addictive piece and recording.

Still haven't gotten the CD but am listening through Amazon music -- that automatically adds SOME of the CDs you buy to its media player. Sadly, this audio animal only produces MP3 files and these, truly, suck for quality orchestral playback. Can't wait to get the CD later this week, There is no sense of immediacy with MP3 -- the orchestra sounds distant and muffled (am using the best settings and computer equipment, btw).

Also took your advice and picked up the Chandos Pleyel Symphonies and the CPO Sinfonia Concertantes. Amazon puts about 1/5 of the CDs you buy into the AutoRip media player and only the symphonies appeared (suspect this is licensing -- does anyone know?). In any case, the Pleyel is what I remember from the Mozart quotes -- effortless and airy with a tendency towards casualness. Still, worth investigating.

Now its back to another listen of the "Dives." It's a keeper.

Schubert:

Must check out your Schubert/Goodman recordings. Have a number of the symphonies with Weil/Sony that are good but just a touch sterile. Surprise, but the older Karajan Schubert recordings are powerful and fun -- he had a real feel for the language.

BTW, not to offend you, but assume you are a big fan of the Schubert Quintet. Have grown accustomed to the Smithsonian recording played on all Strads. Oddly, took a little while to become accustomed to the timbre but now cannot listen to anything else. That second movement goes with you to the grave, right?

Alwyn: Complete Symphonies by LSO/Hickox. Have now been able to thoroughly preview this 3 CD set and it is a solid 5 stars (or, perhaps we should say 2 "LeftEars").

The bookend pieces of the set leave you breathless -- the first symphony (written in 1950) and the Sinfonietta for strings (in 1969). Perhaps because of his film score background, Alwyn is listenable while still being innovative. Check out his characteristic melodic style in the first movement of the Sinfonietta. The 4th movement  of the 1st shows off his sophisticated contrapuntal abilities. The 3rd movement of the same has a beautiful melody reminiscent of Elgar who might be considered Alwyn's rightful mentor.

Grab the LSO Hickox set while it's still available. Reviewers keep talking about how important this composer is but he seems always relegated to a minor status. If you get just one of the symphonies, go for the first.

TwoLeftEars

Think you're right: the texture and crescendo sound very derivative. Have often thought that Mahler was in the same mood when he composed the slow movements for symphonies 4 and 5. Still go back to the Bernstein recodings for Mahler and Bizet...and think that the flutist in the Carmen Intermezzo should have been given an award.

Don't have that CD but think the approach will work and will tell you a good deal about the timbral accuracy of the audio system. Check this out with my systems regularly for piano CDs as well as the tapes made in my studio on a German Grand. It is VERY difficult to capture completely the timbre of an instrument you know well. Not even tuned studio equipment will always produce perfect results. The free software app REW can do a lot to check out the accuracy of your system but it requires measurement mics and a quality converter.

Have two CD cases recently where the timbre of the instrument has been caught extremely well: 1. the 9' Steinway Ashkenazy uses in his Rachmaninoff Concertos (Decca) and 2. the Geissenhof violin Kurosaki uses in his Beethoven violin sonatas (Accent). For me, the first is a plus, the second a minus. The extreme clarity of the Geissenhof is sabatoged by the dry style Kurosaki prefers.

My experience has been that violins in particular differ more than many acoustical instruments in their overall timbral quality and often it is worthwhile to check multiple offerings though online 30 second samples to find an instrument you can appreciate. Recently did this with the Franck violin sonata and settled on Perlman's violin and performance.

Time to get this thread moving again.

Have thought of several challenges for you astute pundits. The first is the answer to the question "what is the most difficult orchestral work?"

The rules require that it be played more or less regularly and that it be instrumental only (no solo concertos either -- we'll make that another category). Sorry, Mahler 8th lovers...

So I'll start off the sweepstakes with two examples: Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Strauss's An Alpine Symphony. The first has intricate contrapuntal textures and associated rhythmic complexity -- and each orchestral section is treated like a concerto instrument, thus the name.

The Strauss has tremendous bombast along with its technical demands as well as Herculean length and orchestral size. Neither of these opuses is comfortable for the average orchestra.

But you folks can come up with better examples, so I leave it to you to tell me the most difficult orchestral composition. And if you have an orchestra and conductor that tamed the beast, so much the better.

newbee

Owe you a thanks for the Stanford recco you made above. My set came in last week and have been listening for a couple of days. Stanford is very strong in compositional technique and if you can accept his tendency to borrow and use popular Irish tunes his compositional skill makes all sound major league -- no second rate tendencies at all.

Enjoy the 6th Rhapsody (solo violin) and the piano concerto. The latter does owe rather a lot to Rachnaninoff.

Have always enjoyed the Dvorak Slavonic Dances live and noted there was a certain quality to the strings that could be termed "Slavic Rumble." Recently got the Channel Classics album by Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fisher and found it was the first recording I had heard that captured this "rumble" well.

Also spent some time looking for the ideal recording of the New World symphony and settled on the Cincinnati/Jarvi recording on Telarc in order to get a well-recorded performance. Still like the old Bernstein recording of this warhorse as well.

Newbee:

Have some of Fisher's Mahler recordings and find them powerful with system-testing crescendos. Will check out the VC.

Speaking of CD covers, just found an interesting recording of Franck and Szymanowski Violin Sonatas and Chee-Yun is on the cover looking as if she is making out with the instrument.

So.....checked out the reviews on Amazon and there are 9 reviews of the album -- 8 reviews refer only to completely different violinists and recordings. What's going on? Is there sabotage in the violin world?

Her playing is very powerful and the pianist is quite good -- Eguchi.

Superb description, LeftEars. Pontinen has the right feeling for this gesture but the overall rhythm in the BIS recording is ever so slightly muddy at this critical entry. Am going to order the Ashkenazy.

It's an exceptional formal design as the movement starts out like a symphonic theme and variations, then the piano enters as an accompanist, then POW the movement becomes a dramatic piano concerto and, finally, the reversion back to the opening theme.

Have noted this formal experimentation with other symphonies by Scriabin to his credit. Did you enjoy the piano bass notes at the ending?

twoleftears:

Your description of the Scriabin has me interested. Could you expand on the relationship between colors and musical content? Were there cases where it made sense? Or did it appears artificial or contrived?

Schubert:

Congrats on the Bach; they are major works with tremendous variety -- unfortunately I OD’d on them some time ago and have not been a listener since.

Just got the Buchberger recording of all the Haydn String Quartets -- 23 discs. They are period-informed performances with mostly strong violin playing.

However..

...some ripping problems into JRiver caused minor distortion. And, so, have been looking at ripping software apps that compare the rip to an online database to, supposedly, correct any variants.

The first of these I have looked at is Exact Audio Copy. Have not yet gotten it operational but thought I would check with this forum and see if anyone is using these kind of apps to improve their ripped files.

Any experts out there?

Speaking of colors and composers here's a Swedish composer who was also active as a watercolor painter:

Hugo Alfven: Symphonies 1-5, Swedish Rhapsodies, Royal Stockholm Phil/Jarvi.

Have had this for a week or so and was not immediately impressed. Then, listened to the 2nd Symphony a second time, and was hooked. Worth investigating.

The 4th Symphony "from the outermost Skerries" uses two soloists singing only vowels. At times its brilliant and at other times, doesn't quite seem to work.

Lots of incidental music of interest; performances/fidelity range from good to very good.

twoleftears:

As regards diverting attention, I have a similar concern with bluray music performances. Have the Holst Planets by philharmonic orchestra/Salonen that is an over-the-top recording (signum vision). Huge number of mics and cameras and the sound is the best of any Holst I have heard.

There is, however, so much visual action/panning that the mind is pulled away from the musical content and I find myself preferring just CDs that simply provide the music.

Curiously, do not encounter this same divergence in live orchestral performances where the musical content and performers' actions seem to blend naturally. Perhaps in one, you decide where to turn your attention to and in the other, the engineer is doing so for you  and you must pay attention to this view.

Dag Wiren: Symphonies 2,3, Overtures by Norrkoping SO/Dausgaard. A CPO release.

Wiren was a Swedish figure (1905-86) sometimes cited as a Nielsen disciple during his lifetime. The 2 symphonies here are very different but the 3rd symphony (1944) is composed of recurring motives, ostinato accompaniments, and limited harmonic motion.

As such, it sounds proto-minimalist in style and you can almost hear Glass waiting in the wings. Play it loud on a good audio system.

The Biggs Rheinberger Concertos reissue

Those of us who were organists in the 1970s fell in love with this LP on its release in 1973; it was a revelation at the time for its energy and compositional mastery.

Then, the LP was pulled by Columbia on copyright objections by the Rheinberger family who had not been paid. My copy was loaned to a friend and never returned; but the memory lingered.

So, when it was just re-issued as a SACD I got a copy ASAP. Have 4 other performances and they are all dreadful by comparison.

This is kick-a** Rheinberger that will make you fall in love with his style, energy and compositional fluency. No 19th-century composer understood the romantic ideology and the pipe organ better. His sonatas are just as incredible.

The Columbia Symphony is superb, Biggs is Biggs, and the recording is immediate and crystal clear.

Yes, you might grouse about Bigg’s organ choice (more classical than romantic) and the brilliantly-miked orchestra that shouts in your face, but face it -- no other recording of these masterpieces has ever had the energy and connection with the 19th-century gestalt that Biggs and the Columbia Symphony pulled off in 1973.

You might want to give it a listen...Presto got it to me fairly quickly.

Oh, and BTW, if you've got a really, really, high end system you will find that blasting this SACD at concert levels is a memorable experience; the organ bass pedals will test your room out thoroughly.

Schubert:

The Bernstein recording of the Metamorphosis has always been my favorite and prefer it over Levi and other more recent offerings.

rvpiano:

Lang Lang's 2013 recording of the Bartok 2nd proves your point. It also shows that Sony is recording well in the post-SACD world.

learsfool brings up wind concertos and just this last week listened to multiple performances of the Copland Clarinet Concerto -- always a favorite.

Was surprised by the fact that all three performances were superb. Rarely have I found a concerto that has received such splendid performances across the board.

And from the original performance by the dedicatee Benny Goodman, this work seems to have inspired the best in its area.

learsfool:

Welcome to the thread and congratulations on being a professional on what is, assuredly, the most "unpredictable" of instruments.

My favorite horn piece has always been the Schumann Konzertstuck and recently found a recording with natural horns by Gardiner and the ORR. Lots of power, needed for the natural horns that seem better at bombast than lyricism.

Have also recently explored the Mozart/Karajan/Brain recording you mention and it is astonishingly good for the 50s. A tragedy that he died in a car accident at the height of his considerable fame.

Keep us abreast of the horn recordings these days and, once again, WELCOME!

Schubert and rvpiano:

Concerning Bernstein

Was a music student, then professor in the 60s-80s. At that time, Bernstein was #1 on the orchestral heap and each of his recordings was an event by itself. Listened to all of them when they first came out. At that time, it was fashionable to disparage anyone that popular and even though several of the recordings made an indelible impression, fell into that "anti-Bernstein" camp -- preferring, instead, the "more accurate" efforts of Boulez and the like.

Then, last year, purchased the Sony remastering of all the non-symphonic recordings. Was absolutely FLOORED at how good they are. His gift was to tell the story of the score -- to make very clear the musical message in simple and direct ways. He believed he was making the music appealing to the masses -- and I think he did so to a great degree.

What is further appealing about these recordings is how good his orchestra was (an army of generals) AND how much they clearly enjoyed playing these works. This enthusiasm comes through with boundless energy and excitement. Often I get new recordings that are essentially perfect as regards notes and interpretation but the orchestra sounds cautious and does not seem to be connecting directly with the listener. Bernstein was all about connection.

SO I agree with Schubert concerning histrionics but think that is secondary to the Bernstein legacy. Check out the remastered recordings, especially the early ones. Would like to hear from you two what you think of his orchestra. BTW, he is particularly successful with American composers, notably Ives, Copland, Gershwin, and Grofe. To my ears, a number of his recordings are the best ever made.