Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #1)

Hey, if you have the room...

 

.

 

I'm now listening to Grumiaux and Haskil do Beethoven's Violin Sonatas.

He's RIGHT HERE.








she's way over here somewhere.

 

Yeah, Jay. I hear you dude. When I saw you post that box I recalled my disappointment with that set. I've heard that the original CDs sounded much better. Surprise!!

To me it sounds like the piano was recorded in a room and the violinist was down the hall playing.

 

Composer: Antonio Bazzini
Work: Virtuoso Works for Violin and Piano
Performer: Chloe Hanslip Violin and Caspar Frantz Piano
Medium and Label: CD, Naxos 8.570800
Date of Performance: Recorded 12 - 14 September 2007

These are outstanding performances of music that was completely new to me. Chloe Hanslip in particular continues to grow as an artist and enhanve her reputation. I strongly recommend this disc.

Best Wishes
David

 

Not if I go classical. Like giving into the Dark Side according to my wife. Oh well, The Force is weak with me, so may as well give in.

 

Mine began, like many people's who don't grow up listening to classical, at the movies: Barry Lyndon with the Handel and the Schubert Piano Trio; The Vivaldi 425 in Kramer v. Kramer; practically all of Woody Allen's movies.

Then I got a CD player. I quickly got bored with my first 30 pop/rock CDs, as most of them were the CD versions of stuff I had since years before, and didn't play as obsessively as I once had. I had a roommate who listened to Bach's Motets every Sunday morning. I liked what I was hearing, but I wasn't hearing much. The Motets, and a couple of operas, and HVK's digital Beethoven were the limit of his classical interest, so I had to look elsewhere.

I had a lot of new friends those days, including a music critic, a piano teacher, and a classical "fanboy" (not a word I used in 1986). And soon, another opera queen and another fanboy, but he was really only interested in organ music. We made lots of organ jokes--yes, we did. And we met another couple of fanboys, including a composer. So, I had true critical mass when it came to classical CD shopping.

Fridays, we'd go to Leon's, a.k.a. Serenade Records. He'd have some label or other on sale, and we liked supporting the local guy. We always bought from Leon first. Then Friday night, we'd all be in Foggy Bottom anyway, so we had to stop at Tower, where the prissiest clerk in the entire classical firmament worked. If he thought you only wanted something you heard in a movie, he made no bones about letting the store at large know that, "Oh, people, another Out of Africa fan is in the house. Someone get the Mozart." It was fun to see him go on, or go off. And we'd buy what wasn't on sale at Leon's. And then a trip to Olsson's during the week, as that was closest to home.

I had never had, and I have not had since, the social experience I had shopping for classical music. Now, of course, I hardly buy things in stores. I didn't realize what a thing that was, back in the '80s and early '90s, or that it was something that would, or could, ever go away.

I didn't really get back into pop until I got a turntable in 1997. That wasn't, and isn't, much of a social thing, vinyl. When I moved to Pittsburgh, I would see some of the same people week-to-week at Jerry's, but I don't have a single real-life friend who's into vinyl. I'm the only person I know who wants to go to garage sales looking for records. But I don't have a turntable anymore.

Now I'm back on a classical tear, one that may last for months. I have no way of knowing. Specific music-collecting obsessions come and go in the blink of an eye. I'm not even aware I'm in one until it's gone on for a couple of weeks. Maybe that's how long it takes me to realize I'm not listening to a lot of my other music. But I've always said I play 10% of my music 90% of the time. That's something that has never changed.

 

Jay,
Movie scores definitely played a role in me starting to sample my father-in-laws collection. Still love what I have, but classical has definitely been my main focus during the last few years. However, the vinyl jazz soundtracks I mentioned earlier are beginning to make their mark on my resources I have to spend on music.

 

Well, you know, Bill, these obsessions can be very fluid. A little jazz in the here and now, then, in an instant, all I want to listen to are my Beach Boys CDs for six months.

Seriously, I wore out a copy of the Miles Davis '65-68 Box Set--the chartreuse one on Columbia. I literally played nothing else for a year, sometime in the '90s. In 2005, it was Paul Lewis' first Beethoven CD and an indie pop CD, the hereafter is here (by John Elliott, whom I'm seeing live tonight: www.thehereafterishere.com). I hardly played anything but those CDs for a year. Mahler has taken up a year of my musical life at least three times since 1988.

However, I found I prefer classical on CD. I can't take the ticking and popping, and cleaning records did not help. The nicest looking records can sound totally crapulescent.

 

Good, good....talk me away from the edge.

 

That's exactly what I said to myself, "down the hall." It's too bad. I was hopeful for this set. But it has the effect of two different musics going at the same time, rather than two players making music together, which is, of course, the very definition of chamber music. It ain't "chambers music," plural.

 

Luckily there's some great performances out there in great sound, like Kremer/Argerich.

 

Beat me to it.

 

I'll look for that. Because I like the music. I just pulled a "Comic Book Man," and issued forth my disgust with the Grumiaux/Haskil Beethoven not just here, but also at the Decca/Philips website.

http://www.deccaclassics.com/dmg/contact.asp (should you wish to share).

 

Is the soloist Alan Loveday? If so, great recording IMO.

 

Barbirolli

Mahler taken up a year of your life? wow!! even bigger fan than me.
i'm going to see Mahler 9 at the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra on Nov. 18 & 19--yep, going both nights. the great David Robertson conducting. hmmm...i think i shall put on some Mahler now...

Sir John Barbirolli/Berliner Philharmoniker
Symphony No. 9
Mahler
EMI Classics CD [orig. rel. 1967?]

this just may be my favorite 9, and i have more 9's than any other classical work. i really enjoy Barbirolli's readings of Mahler.

 

Anyone like The 8 Symphonies of William Boyce, or Albinoni's 12 Concerti a Cinque?
The former performed by Neville Marriner and ASMF, and the latter with I Musici.

Very joyous music.

 

Being in The City, I am partial, er, biased, toward MTT's readings of the Mahler Symph's. My wife and I have seen/heard most of them performed under the baton of MTT.
We've heard Nos. 2 and 8 twice.
I know what heaven is like.

 

i caught Esa-Pekka Salonen's Mahler 8 twice at the Hollywood Bowl last month w/ a cast that included soprano Christine Brewer. a very romantic reading of a tough symphony to pull off (and only three rehearsals, from what i was told). that said, i'd really like to hear the Eighth with a cast of a thousand!! i enjoy MTT's Mahler, too. so many to choose from these days!

anybody like the Gergiev/LSO cycle on SACD?

 

I have the same pressing of the cd....stunning is a perfect description.

 

My wife and I really enjoy these. I have them with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta under the charge of Ronald Thomas. CRD is the label.

 

Composer: Tchaikovsky
Work: Manfred Symphony
Ensemble: CSR Symphony Orchestra/Ondrej Lenard
Medium and Label: CD/Naxos 8.550224
Date of performance: 1988

 

Composer: Mozart
Work: String Quartets 1-5 (KV 80;155;156;157;158)
Ensemble: Quatetto Italiano
Medium and Label: CD/Philips-Complete Mozart Edition
Date of performance: 1970-71