Classical Music for Aficionados
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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 |
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. |
The big guy. Lord how I miss him !https://youtu.be/gb-B3lsgEfA You idagio freaks are responsible for this and I thank you . |
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. |
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 . |
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). |
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 . |
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" . |
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. |
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 . |
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 . |
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. |
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 . |
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 |
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. |
Aye, Scot W’a Hare is a battle cry , as a pacifist I’m agan it, but as an old squady the war horse in me paws the ground . Flower of Scotland is a better choice . I knew that are parts of Arbroath in it .The US system in general is a bunch of slave owners sacred that capitalism was replacing the system they wanted, mercantillism .The key to understanding the US is that its the not the first new country but the last old one .jim, nobody can take over the discussion , you have a lot to say and everything is related to everything else as any Native American can tell you . And reading anything is optional . As to IDAGIO, I had my desktop decoded few weeks ago , it eats cookies and shows I live in Miami over a bullet proof connection . This may be why I find the idagio sound is like good players playing in a room with no air in it . Also finds that its cookies are lunch in the middle of a piece . Would an plain Apple laptop help or not? Could be I’m just addicted to vinyl as well . |
Another recording to suggest to you is a Scriabin disc by Yevgeny Sudbin on the Bis label. It has some of his early stuff and some when he was experimenting with tonallity but thank goodness not atonallty. It also has my all time fovourite Scriabin piece the Sonata Fantasie No2 in G sharp minor Op.19. It has a very dreamy haunting first movement and then all hell breaks loose in the final movement. Have to say that of the new Russian influences pianists I think in my mind anyway he is the best of the lot but with the exception of Volodos . He certainly has a wonderful way with Scriabin and certainly I think better than Hamelin. |
Yes Len please do check out the Corries as you being an adopted Scot they should stir your heart strings . Roy Williamson from the duo actually wrote Flower of Scotland which has become our now adopted national anthem overtaking Scot W'a Hae written by Burns. Still can't sing them without floods of tears. Did you know that your Declaration of Independence was actually written with our Declaration of Arbroath in mind which was set out by Robert the Bruce in 1320 and I have seen the only copy now in existance in The Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh who put it on display for a couple of days in 2014 to celebrate the 700th anniversary of The Battle of Bannockburn which gave us freedom from Englsh tyrrany.Now onto something completely different and this time music as I am really sorry to be taking over the discussion . Has anyone heard the new recording of Beethoven's Septet in E flat Major Op.20 by The OSM Chamber Soloists. It is seriously good and Len and RV it is on the Idagio site with superb sound quallity, just watch the volume as like all rcordings that have French Horns and bassoons in them they do have to be rained in. You guys have a happy and music filled weekend, Jim. |
jim I’ll check the Corries , never heard them .Zenith of my Scottish music was I got to eat dinner across from Andy Steward after a solo concert in Cornwall , Ontario . Was a very nice and humble guy , we discussed how rotten it was that a Scottish working man could nae fish a Scottish river because some Englishman had the sole rights to . A soft spoken but passionate man . Thanks for the kind words . I know I ’m not dumb but no more more intelligent than your self . I have many Asian friends and a few Jewish ones , they know the home truth that you either do your home work or you don’t . You can’t live long enough to know what is and is not without reading . I don't listen to much Gallic music because it makes me sad . |
Jeremy, I am just now getting a chance to listen to the recording of the sixteen year old doing the Paganinni Rhapsody. After a shaky start she has settled down and is really playing the piece for all she's worth. I have to say it is one of my favourite pieces for piano and orchestra and people I have seen live playing it reads like a "who's who" . Vying for top place were an electrifying Ashkenazy, A very skilled Pletnev and in the slightly lower ranks, Osborne,Hough,Lill and Beresovsky. |
Well Len I'm sure The University of Wisconsin was glad to have you as you too seem a very intelligent and worldly chap. Just earlier tonight I was copying some Scottish stuff for my daughter to put on her little personal MP3 player and one of the things was The Corries Strings and Things. This is a very iconic set of recordings and it is showing it's age now but the songs still stir the heart. Two of my favourites from it are Garten Mother's Lulaby and Jock O' Hazeldean and I have never heard those songs bettered by anyone. My wife and I used to go to the Ayr Town Hall every December to see The Corries and we just loved them. The collection of instruments the two of them had was mind blowing and they didn't just doole with them they really could play them and Roy Williamson actually built a lot of them. It was a really sad day for folk music when Williamson died of a brain tumor. Ronnie Brown the other member of the duo just couldn't sing after that which was sad as he had a lovelly tenor voice. |
Well , you have a better command of the English tongue than any person I ever met who did not .I have a strong hunch you daughter did so well because she is your daughter. I asked because I was accepted as an undergrad at Glasgow after being a squady for 14 long years . Wanted to live in Scotland my entire life but the money aspect ruled Glasgow Uni out . Years before in Berlin we had a 6 month exchange program of NCO’s with the East Anglican Regiment . I got a "glowing" report of my soldiery skills from my Major and hopped over to Norwich to the Regiment Recruiting Office, but no your parents had to have a British Passport .The Recruiting Sgt. said we have men from every miserable colony but I can’t take a trained soldier with 3 Scottish grandparents ! Oh well , the University of Wisconsin is rated higher than Glasgow on the Times 100 anyway . ’ |
Hi Len , No I'm afraid I didn't have any university schooling but as we called it the university of hard knocks. all my training in Photography and computing was at adult uni courses which I did while in a job which by the wayI hated. I was apprenticed to be a gardener from a pal of my fathers and in those days you just did as you were told and kept your mouth shut. Happily when I got married and into a place of my own I studied Photography and much later I studied and gained a degree in computer repair . I was glad I did those studies as I could then give my father a two fingered salute as none of my family gained a degree in anything except me. The Uni I gained the degree from was Stow College which is in the middle of Glasgow. I can though boast that my daughter did much better than me as she gained a Masters with Honours in politics at St. Andrews University. |
I do the same with a pr. of Totem Signature 1 stand mounts and a Gallo cylindrical sub which is both fast and unobtrusive . The best thing I did was put the speakers on Target stands with Herbie’s fat dots under them and 40 lbs of a mix of lead and fine sand in each .The detail is unreal !Far better than any of BBC midgets and I’ve had most of them over the years .Driven by a amp that will do 450 watts into the Totems , not to play loud but to not clip on the micro- peaks that a symphony generates and make strings harsh , if the audio guy hasn’t already . Sit 4.5 feet away . jim , may I be so bold as to ask if you went to Glasgow Uni ? |
@phomchick I meant to reply to you on your last post b I'm afraid I got distracted . I too may years ago used to listen to a nearfield configuration wit a pair of Rogers LS3/5a with a hugh Rel sub. I used to get some awesome sound from it with the Rogers producing much more volume than the Quad 57 Electrostats I had downstairs ( Mahler's Second symphony was awesome from that setup). What made me comment was I have just seen an advert for a pair of original Roger's for the eye watering price of £6,500 . Now I'm one for nostalgia but those speakers in the day were just short of £5oo.oo so if someone buy's those they have more money than sense. |
Your Granny couldn't have been more right Len. I have been on Idagio and have found it there and have to say it is just as good as I remember and it is the whole shebang and not just a conductors mix. The sound quality is stunning and quite up to todays if you don't mind some tape hiss. Freeeedom !!!!! All the best Jim. |
And how laddy , I had that and loved It , victim of my many moves . All those decades behind us and Previn still has the very best recordings of many of the best British composers ! Perfect example of a conductor and an orchestra both at their zenith . I’ll Amazon it this day . Scotland Forever . P.S, Done. All 3 new vinyl records at 38$ , A bargain . My Gorbals gran told me "there is nay Scot who isn't penny wise and pound foolish" . |
No wonder you are so wise !I might check it out then , a lot of the best of early music is hard to find and expensive when one does . I often wonder if Brahms music was better or worse given that he had severe what we now call PTST .How great it is that he is buried 10 feet away from Schubert in Vienna . The Viennese knew that was as it should be . |
Does IDAGIO have much early music ?I guess I’m in a rut but as Brahms op.115 in there with me I don’t mind . Over the decades as they in reference to his music as "autumnal", I figured they were not talking about leaves .At 80+ I can tell you his music is comfort food to the elderly , as Claude Rostand put it , "a portrayal of resignation , melodiously enveloped in tenderness" .I still think that for pure intellect no composer was his better . I have heard the Hadley and yes it is very good indeed . But Barbirolli had his Halle as sharp as the best German knife . |
My favorite symphony of Vaughan-Williams as well. There’s a great LP of it with Vernon Handley on the Classics for Pleasure label. On a different subject, I’m finally discovering the true treasure of streaming on IDAGIO. I’m finding whole new areas of enjoyment, such as Baroque opera. One can get into a rut of listening to the familiar. What a pleasure to serendipitously discover new masterworks. Also, the sound quality is first rate. |
For lack of room, and time left on earth , I use what one could call baseball parlance in buying LP’s which I prefer over CD’s . I look for a triple, by which I mean the work is the composers best(or close to it) and, the conductor and orchestra are in their prime . One example is Walton’s 1st Symphony with Previn and the LSO . One of the greatest recordings ever made.I assume most on here are aware of this but if brings it to just one more will be a good day’s work . Another is the great Vaughn Williams outing of the "A London Symphony" bySir John Barbirolle with his Halle Orchestra . Vanguard SRV-134.A caveat is Williams made so many masterworks you could argue all week as to his best .Her did however let it be known this was his favorite symphony . |
It was Shaun Hern Lee age 16 from Australia who played Rach3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8qHMNTjm4g |
For those who fear the death of classical music, please watch this. Eva Gevorgyan, age 15, plays Rachmaninov 3d Concerto at the 2019 Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition. Skip the video to 36:30 where she makes her entrance. https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=65753.msg693511#new |
