2016 Rolling Classical Listening Thread

okay the kubelik box sounds bad. took it off. really mushy sound. the recordings are from 1966 to 1977, so, you know, the sound will vary. but the first disc was making me snooze.

i put on van beinum/concertgebouw doing bruckner no.7 and it sounds MUCH better. and it was recorded in 1953...(sounds more alive anyway...)

(i've been struggling with bruckner since the 90's. i keep trying though. i'm plucky like that.)

Bruckner 9 is a good entry point IMO. He didn't finish it so it's shorter! And it has the most metal of his (always fairly metal) scherzo movements.

1960s berlin philharmonic recordings always sound mushy to me. Dvorak symphonies with classic stereo sound = the Rowicki recordings with the London SO on Philips. Nice dry and colorful sound, great performances.

Or anything pre-digital on Supraphon. The Karel Sejna recording of Dvorak 5 is heaven in a bottle even though it's mono.

You know how I feel about Nielsen 4 and 5. They should be as obligatory as the rite of spring! So good.

yah, supraphon dvorak i have on vinyl is all good.

would definitely be interested in hearing NEW dvorak on cd. will keep an eye out for the london/philips ones though.

Well, Jerusalem String Quartet have an awesome disc of Dvorak quartets on Harmonia Mundi. I don't have any recommendations for recent dvorak symphonic recordings though. I'll bet the Ivan Fischer ones on Channel Classics are good, he seldom disappoints.

i have a ton of dvorak on cd that i haven't even listened to yet but most of them are late 80's/early 90's reissues of old vinyl-era recordings. so, not much new. but i must have some that are cd-era contemporary. i will dig around.

harnoncourt did some dvorak discs not long ago w/concertgebouw that were supposed to be great

found a bruckner 9 cd in back with christoph von dohnanyi/cleveland. will check that out here tomorrow. (i am really digging all the dawn of CD discs i have. so many of them sound outstanding. classical people knew what was up. i'm actually a big fan of digital classical vinyl of the prehistoric era. rock people are still trying to figure it out...)

Dohnanyi/Cleveland are underrated. In fact, you need to hear them do bruckner!

felt bad for my vinyl so i put on a pristine 1st emi u.k. pressing of beecham doing schubert symphonies nos. 3 & 5. released in 1960. recorded in 1959. sounds like a dream. so nice. and yes i realize this thread will never be a hot spot if i go on about beecham playing schubert...

yeah i will listen to that bruckner disc tomorrow when i come in. will crank it to 11.

(also found haitink doing no.9 from 1981 on disc. if i am up for it maybe i'll compare and contrast.)

beecham and boulez are my two favorite conductors

well, more fair to say those two, monteux, ansermet and bernstein are my top 5

man, bruckner's 9th....i have a really hard time following the action. i keep drifting off...

i was playing haitink's version and i gave up and put on bruno walter's version.

i feel like bruno is holding my hand more. which i appreciate.

was bruckner on laudanum when he wrote this...

possibly!

But the rest of the symphonies are easily just as shoegazy as the 9th.

Even the scherzo isn't grabbing you?

bruno is definitely holding my attention. sometimes i forget it's playing though...

so, you know, i am in and out.

half simpleton, half god. that's what mahler called him.

you really have to let go of certain expectations of the usual argument and development structure. His paragraphs are real real long and you have to be willing to wallow in the stew. It's like thunderous ambient music.

idk i sound dumb

no, that sounds about right! yeah, i think it would help if i were stoned and not on coffee. i do see the appeal. that's why i've tried for so long. bruno really got me there for a minute. closer than anyone else has.

(but now i am listening to vaughan williams for some sweet relief....)

furtwangler's bruckner will make you feel like you're on the receiving end of real dramaturgy. None of it is well recorded enough to wallow in, but that may be to the better in a weird way.

the bruno walter is from 1960 and it sounds great.

the dying bruckner would get on his knees and pray to god that he could live long enough to finish the 9th. i like how it ends though.

I'm back on opera again, Rossini specifically

rossini was the best thing i heard yesterday. not an opera though. i was gonna crack open an opera after my vaughan williams interlude. i got a zillion of them and they will remain in my store forever.

the only rossini i have really rocked is a beecham album of the overtures. But that record is awesome.

more recent recordings of bruckner do him better justice imo -- my fave single recording is herreweghe's 5th

stabat mater is intense. that was the rossini i was rockin' yesterday.

i am going with bellini and callas right now though. la sonnambula.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJobIzO4uZM

so weird to be playing rachmaninoff and start singing eric carmen songs. i forget every time!

"Carmen thought that Rachmaninoff’s music was in the “public domain” and no copyright existed on it. Subsequent to the release of the album, he was contacted by the Rachmaninoff estate and informed otherwise. An agreement was reached in which the estate would receive 12 percent of the royalties from "All By Myself" as well as from "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again", which was based on the third movement from Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2."

also: i almost started crying while playing sibelius this morning. feeling wistful.

have you all seen Colin Stetson's new project?

http://pitchfork.com/news/63205-colin-stetson-announces-new-album-sorrow-shares-trailer/

https://youtu.be/HkkQlupXb4o

I did see that, and actually got a chance to chat w him about it during a show about a year ago. I'm not really into the composer that much, but I will always love the idea of new artists (particularly ones who aren't known primarily for performing classical music) producing versions of classical works. From the sound samples I've heard, guessing his won't be of the ELP Pictures variety ;)

listening to rca disc of evgeny kissin doing prokofiev piano concerto no.3 and MAN is it something. like, almost shocking at times. electrifying? those kinds of words. so good. 1989 recording. gonna play it again.

I have Martha argerich for that concerto, stunning recording

Okay, this is one where I feel like I'm dipping into a shark tank BUT i compiled a Spotify list that attempts to be as close to the version/players/conductor/edition/publisher as possible with the conversation here... and I'm aware questions of sound fidelity may render the exercise not especially helpful to thread regulars. It's interesting to me though! Let me know if I've taken a radical step off the path anywhere... in many cases there are hundreds and hundreds of identical tracks of course and many are in public holding and listed as "99 CLASSIX TO CHILL BY" and while I avoid those, I may not always square up. In any case, I'll be back for more next month in case the 12 hour playlist here doesn't hold your attention.

ILM's Rolling Classical Thread 2016 Spotify Playlist

<3

today's the birthday of my favorite composer Sibelius. I am spinning the new recording of his incidental music for the play Jedermann (Everyman) conducted by Leif Segerstam on Naxos. Segerstam is doing a series of S's incidental music for the label and there's already 4 discs out. I am a huge, huge fan of Sibelius' incidental theater music, it inhabits such a different world from his symphonies and tone poems. His enormous self-pressure is let up a bit there. It's kind of like Sibelius' b-sides, full of odd ideas, bits of strange atmosphere and great little self contained moments. Jedermann is particularly unusual, though, by far the most grim and brooding theater music he wrote (RIYL the slow movement of the 4th symphony) with chorus here and there, most notably in the closing Gloria In Excelsis Deo which has pretty avant garde choral writing (use of disorganized murmuring) that sounds more like it would have been composed in the 1960s.

Love you Sibelius.

Holy shit, nice work, forks!

I can't believe you found all those guitar pieces! Had no idea Bream's recording of "Polifemo" was even available in any format other than OOP old LPs.

New recording of a flute piece by Jeff Stadelman (full disclosure: my PhD advisor)

thanks... it was an arduous (but fun) project!

Oh, btw, not to be a dick but the other two movements (III and IV) of the Ginastera guitar sonata are available on the same Marcin Dylla album you used for the first two movements. I wasn't sure if you were intentionally just giving a sample or if you missed them.

Thanks for finding Kraft's recording of the Villa-Lobos!

Ah, Aussel sounds great on this Piazzolla.