What are you listening to?

[bombasticDarren]

^^ I'm just jeallous that you own it!! I'm struggling to justify the expense at the moment and indeed find the listening time in what is already becoming a new recording packed 2013 for me... I think it's popular opinion Sean that at any rate, that box set is the finest Complete set on the market, however for the time being, I'll have to make do with:

Pinnock: Sturm & Drang Symphs
Kuijken: Sypmhs 82-92
Harnoncourt: London Symphs

Good as all these recordings are, I beg you guys to consider the Frans Brüggen recordings both with the Orchestra of the XVIII Century and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. His Haydn is something very special.

The Bruggen box set is one that I also check on, price wise, every once in a while. I managed to get the 'Paris' abridgement



very cheaply 4-5 years ago. The 'London' Duo sets I have seen in a couple of specialist London second hand stores but the owners tend to realise the rarity value and price accordingly. Hence no purchase.

The 'Paris' set really is very good though

[bombasticDarren]

Franz Haydn
Symphony No. 1
Philharmonia Hungarica
Antal Doráti - conducting.

I have decided to familiarise myself with all of Haydn's Symphonies in 2013 (that's what happens when I listen to Mr Butcher). I am grateful to Antal Doráti, Philharmonia Hungarica and to Decca to have had the foresight to record them for us. I know that not all will agree with me here when I say that it is a very good set, I have to say that I am very fond of it.

That's a must-have for me Sean. I couldn't be without it.
I also like the Adam Fischer complete cycle. It has is detractors and sometimes the recording ambience is too 'roomy', but the interpretations are lively and well-considered. It does suffer in the 'London' symphonies which I think demand a more robust orchestral texture (Colin Davis always works for me...). I got it a long time ago and still bring out the odd disc when the mood strikes.
I continue to add to my incomplete collection of the incomplete Goodman cycle on Hyperion....these readings are perhaps are the ones I prefer overall in the earliest symphonies. Kuijken is very good too - Beecham an acquired, but spirited, taste.

[Jared]

this is absolutely lovely...

[fergus]

More Schubert....

[Jose Echenique]

Oh Lord, I bought this cd (well, then LP) when I was in high school circa 1977. Back then both José Carreras and Katia Ricciarelli were starting their promising careers. Who would have known that both would develop serious vocal problems because of singing all the wrong roles for their lyrical voices.
Just listen to the Roberto Deveraux duet and you will see how good they were.

[bombasticDarren]

Beethoven - Symphony No.5 (Monica Huggett, The Hanover Band, Nimbus)

[bombasticDarren]

Schubert - Symphony No.9 Great (Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Naive)

[fergus]

Schubert - Symphony No.9 Great (Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Naive)

How did he do with the "Great" Darren?

[Jared]

Butterworth: Six Songs from 'A Shropshire Lad'
Finzi: Let us Garlands Bring
BBC Symph Orch/ Jonathan Lemalu (Baritone)

[bombasticDarren]

Schubert - Symphony No.9 Great (Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Naive)

How did he do with the "Great" Darren?

Expertly. Perhaps the best HIP recording I have yet heard of the piece (level with Norrington/LCP). This symphony perhaps benefits from a full blown Romantic orchestra, but this one came closest to matching that level of grandure with reduced forces. I really like the cycle as a whole too