Classical Music for Aficionados

I'm using a Audioquest  Red Dragonfly  which has great reviews and has always been very good  for me .

Has the SQ improved yet with IDAGIO?

RV   i am glad you enjoyed my recommendations as I have been listening to them a lot especially the Scriabin . You are so right with your observation of Chopin and Rachmaninov because I think his earlier pieces are every bit as good as Chopin's, epecially the Mazurkas that he composed. Did you know that Scriabin was in the same classes as Rachmaninov and Joseph Lhevinne, in fact he nearly ruined his hands for good because he was trying to become as good as Lhevinne especially in octave playing. Lhevinne and Rachmaninov had huge hands and Scriabin had very small hands and he damaged them very seriously but eventually got them to work properly again.Len   You are saying about laptops yes you can get really good sound especially from Apples so if you don't want to go the bespoke way get an i Pad and I think you could be very happy with it. A few years ago I did go the bespoke way and built myself a really high quallity but admittedly very expensive one with hand made Linear power supplies Femto USB and Network cards and loads of other things designed just to get the best quallity from a computer. This machine is so good that I have ripped all my CDs to Solid State Hard Drives . After I did that and listened to it for a few weeks from my ripped CDs I then sold my CD player which was a Gryphon Mikado Signature because the difference was so profound, it is so good and dare I say sounds very analogue with no digital nasties.
The Mikado now resides in a house in South Korea with a very nice wee man. If there is any chance that you could even beg a loan of someones Pad then please do so before you fully commit but I am sure you would get sustantially better sound than now because if I am anyone to go by all I can say is Idagio can sound stunning on my set up. Good luck my friend.

Sudbin
He has recorded some Beethoven as well as the Scriabin you mention.
I have his Haydn and Scarlotti, both of which I love.
Now downloading Borodin, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich - \
Russian Cello Sonatas Yevgeny Sudbin, Alexander Chaushian 2011
https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Cello-Sonatas-Alexander-Chaushian/dp/B004QI14WU

Its on my laptop and least it stays on eating cookies .My go to Beyer DT 990 Pro is too much for the laptop so I just ordered 2.5mm connects for my senns and bought some Audioquest Nighthawk phones which are low impedence and might work better with my Audioquest Dragonfly .
I LOVE the Leos Janacek string qts and they sound OK with a cheap pr of Sony’s I had hanging around.I don’t like the baby ABC way it sets up but see why they need too .But for 10$ a month so what.

I must be rich , the US Social Security Bureau just sent me a letter telling me I am in the top 5% in wealth of all folks receiving Social Security which
is 95% of all Americans over 65 . I am fairly well off but not rich , must be a lot of poor folk out there ! Why they would write such a letter is beyond me .  Perhaps they think I'm a MAGA  prospect .

Len.       Have you ever considered a dedicated Headphone amplifier as they can usually take just about any impedence you care to throw at them. I think they would also allow much more quallity of sound as well. I have a Sennheiser HDVD800 head amp driving a pair of Sennheiser HD800 Phones which are high impedence at 300 Ohms and they are a breeze with the dedicated amp. In fact the head amp is so bomb proof that many times a friend of mine and I have had nights over at my place and he has connected his Hi Fi Man phones to the amp also and we have sat for hours listening to lots of music in fact a couple of times my wife joined us and we had three pairs of phones though the Headamp and it didn't even get warm.

Thanks , jim . I have a Beyer A 20 amp, built like a brick, as all Beyer gear is , that drives my DT 990 600 ohm easily . By my bed so I can have a Leos Janacek Qt . lull me to sleep . The "On an Overgrown Path" album on idagio is outstanding . Perhaps 15 years ago I heard my first Janacek and became a groupy within 30 seconds . Were such possible I’d like one of his Qts. played at my funeral .

There is a great recording of Janacek's  First and Second  Qts . on IDAGIO
by a Qt. I had never heard of , Quartetto Energie Nove  ,  members of the Swiss Orchestra for the Italian area out of Lugago .There must be twenty recordings of his Qts . on idiagio ( good taste in Berlin) . I dipped into most of then and another goody is the Martinu Qt.
It is usually best to get Czech/ Slovak players in that every bar he ever wrote had the West Slavic language of  Slovakia in mind .Slovakia was the country mouse to Prague and Janacek was a Moravian patriot in the best sense of that word .There are exceptions of course , but even the great Sir Charles Mackerras
immersed himself into Czech culture to take on the fantastic operas of Janacek that have put him in the highest echelon in Europe .

Len    You have me going with your Janacek recommendations I used to have Andras Schiff doing On an Overgrown Path and loved it but I lost it years ago. I used to do foolish things like loan records and CDs to people and never get them back because I forgot who I loaned them to in the first place. You have though put me in the mood to listen to a bit of Janacek now and I shall go onto Idagio tomorrow and have a hunt. Speaking of Sir Charles MacKerras have you ever listened to the Beethoven cycle of symphonies he did with The Scottish Chamber Orchestra. I went to the cycle he did up in The Usher Hall just before he committed them to disc. I went up every weekend for about five weeks to listen to them. There is something very right about Beethoven with smaller forces , for a fact he was used to listening to whatever they could cobble together. I always say that the best Eroica I ever heard was from MacKerras and the SCO in fact I do have a recording of him doing the Symphony for I think Linn records , do check it out it is worth a listen.

To the Czechs and Slovaks Rudolf Firkusny is THE man for Janacek’s piano works and I wouldn’t argue with them.
There is something right about smaller forces for many composers , their
music was written for same . My local St.Paul CO is world class and they can knock out Mozart , Haydn and Schubert symphony’s as well or better
than anyone this side of Vienna .The Scottish Orchestra’s show up on FM here often and they are all as ship-shape as a Clydeside built Frigate . I haven’t listened to any LvB symphonies in a long time , still play his String Qts a lot though.

Just grew weary of them , but for whatever reason every time I put on a Brahms or Schubert Symphony its like hearing them for the first time .Ditto plus for
Peer Gynt, I imagine I’ve heard that more than any other piece of music and I’m always happy in" The Hall of the Mountain King" .

Schubert
I share your weariness of Beethoven Symphonies.
But recently I listened to Idil Biret playing the Liszt transcriptions, and it was deja vu all over again.

Well ,   you have  better taste than me jcazador.
There are 3 people in music I just plain don't like .

First and foremost , Wagner, followed by Miles Davis and Liszt .But I will try to listen to the Biret if it doesn't cost me any money .Thank you .

Schubert,

+1 for your dislike of Liszt (except for the spectacular exception of the B minor Sonata.)

Thanks rv .I did hear a rumor in Paris that Saint-Saens , kind soul that he was, wrote the B minor Sonata for Liszt just to make his life worth something .

Hitler did his best for the composer that made his efforts so much easier , but the German people thought the country needed more than one composer .

Re Liszt, I'm not so fond of his original works for solo piano but I really do enjoy a lot of his transcriptions (depending of course on the performer) and his Annes which I listen to more (usually in its parts) than the famous to B minor sonata. Especially his Swiss Annes. Less thunder, much more lyrical I think.

Re Janacek, All's good with his orchestral music, but something I really enjoy that is rarely mentioned is his Danube (unfinished) Symphony. My favorite version is by Otakar Trhlak and the Janacek PO on Supraphon. If you haven't heard this you should (IMHO).

God agrees with you IMO .

I received my Audopquest Nighthawk phones today.Made sure I bought used because they need 150 hours break in .170$ for what sold at 600$.They are both the most comfortable and natural sounding phones I have ever heard . Audioquest has stopped production on headphones.I could have told them making a totally different phone that natural would be a money looser. We are all used to phones that boost the base and highs to make us say "wow" upon hearing .Natural sound is not wow . And their cost must be a least twice what Sennheiser,Beyer., whoever is.

I wouldn’t advise anyone else to buy them but I’m going to buy another pr. from Amazon at 249$ . Its hard to change and 150 hrs is more than a few.Plus,most people like to be wowed and that is not a crime .

jim204, Re 'smaller forces', i.e. big works with a chamber orchestra. I totally agree that there is little more refreshing especially with the old warhorse works by Beethoven, Brahms, & Schubert. I first discovered this with Harrnoncourt's Beethoven (despite his leanings toward HIP), the Mackerras's Schubert, either on Virgin or TELARC - my favorite is the Virgin), and  Berglund's Brahms.  I have Mackerras' but I find the Berglund more transparent which I prefer.  I have not heard Mackerras' Beethoven yet. 

For something unexpected, I have come to really enjoy Berglund's Sibelius with the COE. Sibelius has not suffered as much from over orchestration and denseness as the others, and Berglund rarely replaces my favorites, but is easily recommendable.

The big guy. Lord how I miss him !https://youtu.be/gb-B3lsgEfA


You idagio freaks are responsible for this and I thank you .

Schubert, Nice headphones - I have a pair and use them often with my Marantz CDP which has a built in headphone outlet. I can see why you like them. I found they had a warmer mid range than my Senn's and were very easy to listen to and much more comfortable.

But for my lazy bones I have set up a separate dedicated headphone system next to my listening chair, consisting of a MrSpeakers Mad Dogs headphones, a Woo3 tube amp, a Loki tone control, and a cheapo TEAC CDP. My hearing has probably gone to hell, but FWIW, I almost prefer this to my regular system. Sum of the parts and all that...but that is what it is and surprised the hell out of me. Pure chance.

newbee, try them with the Audioquest Red Dragon !
The mid-range is not warmer, it just seems so when base and treble are not boosted, aka coherence =natural sound .
Checked it against 650 and 800 's . That kind of "detail" is not natural , but if you like you like it .

RE: Janacek
Now listening to Slavka Pechocova, excellent.
Could not find a free torrent download of Firkuskny.
This review prefers Pechocova to Schiff.https://www.amazon.com/Janacek-Piano-Works-Sonata-Overgrown/dp/B002XG8KHO

I don’t doubt that Schiff is a better player but doubt he could best an excellent Slav on Janacek..

He is an ICON in Slovakia for not only his great talent but his lifelong defense of their language. He could have had any number of jobs that paid more than his teaching career in his home of Brno, but there he stayed. A true Moravian Patriot. All I know is Czechs and Slovaks seem to swear on Firkuskny for his piano pieces . https://youtu.be/WHEk9Iemd5s

Re: Janacek, Mackerras
Now listening:  Janacek, Capriccio - Conertino (piano & chamber orchestra)- Sonate - Conte - Presto

Features Mikhail Rudy, Pierre Amoyal, Gary Hoffman, and soloists of Orchestra of the National Opera of Paris conducted by Mackerras
EMI  7243 5 55585 2 7(1996)

very fine

May I make a suggestion. I have increased my classical listening. I have a good sound-bar. I listen to a lot of classical on YouTube. I have amazing good sound on sound-bar. Utube seems to have endless recording. I find one I like and download from iTunes. My collection is what I would call ( classical music for people who don’t like classical music. Listen to The Nutcracker. Hauser on Cello. Etc. Starschovdky has many excellent recording. 2nd waltz. Waltz of flowers. I have downloaded prob 100 with this system. 

Please excuse spelling 

If it works for you that's all that matters . Thanks .

RV and Len,      I am so sorry you don't like Liszt but I bow to your judgement on that. I on the other hand do like him very much, not so much his barn stormng works but his more introspective works. As Alfred Brendel once said if you don't like Liszt then blame the pianist who is trying to play him, words I totally agree with. Some pianists just don't attempt him and I say there are a lot who just shouldn't. Even the great Richter would only play a few of his transcendental etudes. Enough said I think.

If Brendel said it , it IS so .I just don't like him . My bad as they say .

It’s all a question of what you like.
I don’t like beets.  My wife loves them!

Which brings us neatly back to De gustibus…….

Ireland's piano concerto.  These Chandos recordings from the 1980s are really excellent.  Often I feel I prefer them to more recent efforts.  The layering of the soundstage and non-spotlighting of the piano are to be commended.

Do anybody listen to this swathe of "other" British composers who were near contemporaries, between Elgar and Vaughan Williams?

I am not into "crash and bang", and I include some of Liszt in that category.
My favorite Liszt recordings are
Nelson Freire, Liszt: Harmonies Du Soir
Barenboim, Nocturni - Consolations - Sonetti del Petrarca
Annees, played by Arrau, Cicollini, Lazar Berman, Brendel, and too many others to recall

Cheer up jim, all is well . The UK now has a savior just like us,blond wig, affairs and all .!MUKGA !!

Yes Len we are now ruled by two buffoons , heaven help us.

Thats just UK, Russia helps us !

Len    Going back and reading previous posts I had a good laugh about Saint-Saens maybe writing the Liszt Sonata , that was a scream. Did you know that the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony was dedicated as follows" To the memory of a great man Franz Liszt ". When asked who he thought was the greatest sight reader he had ever came across Liszt thought for a moment and said " well if you discount me it would have to be Hans von Bulow and then Camile Saint-Saens ". Very humble man wasn't he ?Another thing about Saint Saens was he was in company with von Bulow and Wagner and he had gotten tired of the other two speaking in German all night so he went over to the piano and looked at what was sitting on it. He opened a score and it happened to be Wagner's latest opera possibly Parsifal and he started playing it through from full score and at this time no one had heard Wagners latest work. The room went quiet and Saint-Saens carried on playing and at the end of the first act there was a howl of surprise and Liszt who had heard it from the adjoining room thought it was Bulow who was every bit as precocious and Liszt was flabbergasted to see it was Saint-Saens. Liszt worked tirelessly for young pianists and composers.

Jim
Yes I have read your story about Saint Saens and Wagner.
Edward Said wrote a slightly different version of this story.
Said says Saint Saens was visiting Wagner at Beyreuth, and that Liszt was also there.  (Wagner's wife Cosima was Liszt's daughter.)  Wagner and Liszt were chatting, Saint Saens sat down at the keyboard where Wagner had left his unfinished score of Siegfried.  And S.S. played a perfect rendition of the score, sight reading it and transposing the orchestral score to piano.
Edw. Said (in case you don't know) was professor at Columbia, most famous for "Orientalism", and before that for revising literary criticism.  He was also a classical pianist, and wrote reviews for NYT and other publications.
Said and Barenboim founded the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, bringing together young Israeli and Arab musicians.

https://books.google.com/books?id=IVp4jNhkffIC&pg=PA279&lpg=PA279&dq=Saint-Sa%C3%ABns+vi...

Cosima was the illegitimate daughter of Lizst and the wife of Bulow before Wagner .Hard to believe but she was even more anti-semetic than Wagner himself and much of the utter vile in Wagners endless anti Jewish articles came from her.She was an early supporter of Hitler and was thrilled to welcome the great man to Beyreuth on his many trips .As I am sure Wagner would have . 

Not a few German Historians draw a straight line from the Wagner's to Adolf .

.



bey

Jeremy, I see where you are coming from here and I know tales can get messed up in the telling. My source is Prof. Alan Walker the official biographer of Liszt who has written three huge volumes on Liszt and his circle .It is probably in volume 2 or 3 and they are huge and I have read them twice and also use them for reference. He writes about all the young pianists and profesional people who came to visit him.

Len    you are spot on about Cosima she was a nasty piece of work, she even left her father on his death bed to go to her beloved Beyreuth and lord it over another of her beloved Richard's diatribes. She even stopped any of his pupils from coming in to tend to him and make his passing a little easier. No out of the three children he had she was definitely the worst and sad thing is she outlived Wagner by nearly forty years.

You may not have a university degree jim , but I GUARANTEE you both know more that 90% of them that do and that you are a born scholar .
I tip my McDonald of the Isles glengarry to a braw man.
Lang may yer lum reek !

Wagner, Barenboim, Said, Israel
quote from Said article

In any event, Wagner’s works in Israel have by common consent been left unperformed, until 7 July, 2001. Barenboim is head of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Berlin State Opera, whose orchestra he was leading on tour in Israel for the three consecutive concerts presented in Jerusalem. He had originally scheduled a performance of Act One of Wagner’s opera Die Walkure for the 7 July concert, but had been asked to change it by the director of the Israel Festival, which had invited the German orchestra and Barenboim in the first place. Barenboim substituted a programme of Schumann and Stravinsky, and then, after playing those, turned to the audience and proposed a short extract from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde as an encore. He opened the floor to a discussion, which ensued with people for and against. In the end, Barenboim said he would play the piece but suggested that those who were offended could leave, which some in fact did. By and large though, the Wagner was well received by a rapturous audience of about 2800 Israelis and, I am sure, extremely well performed.

Still, the attacks on Barenboim have not stopped. It was reported in the press on 25 July that the Knesset committee on culture and education “urged Israel’s cultural bodies to boycott the conductor… for performing music by Hitler’s favourite composer at Israel’s premier cultural event until he apologises.” The attacks on Barenboim by the minister of culture and other luminaries have been venomous, even though despite his birth and early childhood in Argentina, he himself has always thought of himself as an Israeli. He grew up there, he went to Hebrew schools, he carries an Israeli passport along with his Argentinian one. Besides, he has always been thought of as a major cultural asset to Israel, having been a central figure in the country’s musical life for years and years, despite the fact that, since he was in his teens, he has lived in Europe and the United States most of the time, not in Israel.

read whole article here
https://www.mediamonitors.net/barenboim-and-the-wagner-taboo/

More Edward Said
this article contains the description of Saint Saens playing Siegfried at Wagner's home

Cosmic Ambition Edward Said October 20, 2011 Edward Said

• Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician by Christoph Wolff

https://outline.com/fxpNNr

Fantastic writing but from wrong guy .He has no idea, none, how deeply Bach was committed to God .
His Lutheran religion does not want you to be pious or submissive but to be humble .

Humility is having an accurate assessment of both the best of you and the worst of you, which Bach did . He knew what he was worth and asked for it.To an Orthodox Lutheran , which he was, that is standing in front of God
and accepting his Grace as his child , not his slave .

There were pious elements in the Leipzig city government that wanted him to write their way, he never did but came out against them clearly in the
cantata’s and passions . Back would no more revolt against God than, well you name it .
On every piece he wrote were the words "Ruhm gottgegeben" ."The Glory is to God"You can not understand Bach without understanding his religion .Said , clearly does not , indeed from his writing I doubt if he has any himself.

The best book about Bach, by far, I have ever read is John Eliot Gardiner’s "Music In The Castle of Heaven ". Gardiner is one of the greatest musicians alive and a fine writer of this great book. Not an easy read but an uplifting one.
Gardiner ends the book ,pg 558 so:.
" Beethoven tells us what a terrible struggle it is to transcend human frailties.......Mozart shows us the kind of music we might hope to hear in heaven. But it is Bach, making music in the Castle of Heaven who gives us the the voice of God-in human form.He is the one who blazes a trail, showing us how to overcome our imperfections through the perfections of his music , to make divine things human and human things divine ".

To which I say , Amen and Amen .

Len    after your eloquent speech on 
my hero J S Bach all I can say is "Amen".
I too have the Gardiner book and although not always an easy read it is always an uplifting one. Bach is in good hands.

Thanks, jim, for last 5 years my routine has been to listen to a cantata drinking my coffee right after breakfast , I think it is a factor in me still being alive .I plan, God willing , to spend a few weeks in October in my beloved Berlin for the last time . I will get a room near the main train station and spend a few days in Leipzig, two hours from Berlin, where I hope to just sit and meditate in Bach’s St. Thomas Church .

Len ,    Oh how I wish I could travel because Leipzig and Berlin would be top of my list of places to visit. Did you know that the people who were at one time garnering information on Liszt could never ever find the grave of Liszt's son Daniel until low and behold when they were knocking down the Berlin wall that they found Daniel's grave under the wall. Apparently the wall had gone right through the middle of the churchyard. Bloody Russians have no shame. I would love though to go to the Berlin Philharmonie Hall and listen to a full concert, I think then I would be a very happy man indeed. Funnily enough Len my day always starts with some Bach, I am at the moment listening to his keyboard partitas at the moment with Schiff and next week it will be the violin Partitas and Sonatas with one at the start of each morning. I am not ashamed to say that my favourite keyboard piece is the Goldberg Variations , required listening for cleansing the soul. Len I hope you have a wonderful time.

Grand Piano is very hard to record and reproduce, so I’m always looking for recordings that do a good job. Eureka! This recording is the best I’ve ever heard. And bonus points for it being Prokovief.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079JCLZ6G/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_C4GoDb0V440S3

Well, seems great minds do think together(cough, cough) .My fave keyboard pieces of the Great One are the Well Tempered , French Suites and Goldberg’s .
May I ask why you can’t go to Berlin ? There are flights from Glasgow every day, 1 stop wonders on KLM are the best . Berlin is the cheapest major city in western Europe , 2nd biggest city after London and half the price . Metro is outstanding and you can find many hotels within a hundred meters from a station .I usually get one near the the main train station (Hauptbanhof) were one can also go any where on the continent including the bullet train to London on the most reliable national railway this side of Japan .

Of course if health is a problem things are what they are . I lost a few grand
in last 5 years because of not being up to it on the day.
To me the most difficult part of being old is one day you feel find and the next you think you won’t last the day.

@Phomchick      That is a superb recording and may I make a few suggestions, go for anything on the BIs Label these are seriously good recordings and I especially like Yevgeny Sudbin these days. To ease you in I would Suggest his Scarlatti Sonatas they are staggeringly good from a technical point of view in fact I don't think I have heard them bettered. After the Scarlatti I would then recommend his duo of Mozart and Beethoven's C Minor Piano Concertos they are outstanding and then to top it all go for his Rachmaninov Piano Concertos they are definitely hard to beat.
Len,   The reason I can't travel is the doc won't let me so I just sit and moan when my wife and daughter go on holiday together.If you believe that you'll believe anything, no I revel in having the house to myself for a time. I can then sit and listen to my headphones to any time in the AM that I choose. I even sometimes sit and listen to Jacobite war songs with the help of Some Cardhu Golden nectar. Happy Days.