What are you listening to?

[fergus]

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[/quote]


Cheers Darren....I have added it to my Wish List!

[Jose Echenique]

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

I agree, it´s the best period Ninth, and maybe that´s because it´s not very, very period. In the first movement´s coda Minkowski does the Furtwängler thing, slows a little and then picks up the tempo again. From what we know, from the XVIII Century till maybe Mendelssohn, tempi were taken "a tempo" and Schubert didn´t indicate any tempo fluctuations in the score. Mackerras with the OAE was the first to show us that it is possible to take the coda a tempo, and after him, Norrington, Brüggen, Immerseel and Bruno Weil have followed suit. Minkowski is the first with a period orchestra to treat us to the Furtwängler thing, and well, if it works...

[markof]

[Jose Echenique]

Saul has been lucky on records. Mackerras recorded it for Archiv in the early 70´s with the gigantic Leeds Chorus and with some heavenly singing by Sheila Armstrong and Margaret Price.
Gardiner was the first to record it with period instruments in the late 80´s, and for over 2 decades it became the library choice. Some real competition came from Paul McCreesh, whose recording has Andreas Scholl in finest voice as David. Much more recently René Jacobs entered the competition using a German chorus and orchestra, but the RIAS Kammerchor is so good and professional that you´d never guess it´s foreign since their crystal clear pronunciation is flawless.
Gardiner, McCreesh and Jacobs are all excellent in every level, I´d hate to choose between them.

[fergus]

I really like that image!

[fergus]

I only have one version of Mascagni’s Cavalieria Rusticana and it is an old vinyl version so instead of posting the usual image I thought that I would do something a little different and post a short video to display it....




It is a Philips recording of Met. Performance and features the voices of Margaret Harshaw, Mildred Miller, Richard Tucker, Frank Guarrera and Themla Votipka. I do not recognise any of these names but the performance is a good one of this lovely work. Unfortunately there is no year anywhere to date the performance.
I thought that the wire spring binding was interesting.
One detail in relation to the layout that bothers me slightly, and I have it repeated on other vinyl mini sets is that LP one contains sides one and four and LP two contains sides two and three instead of running it straight through. I wonder why they sometimes laid them out like that?

[bombasticDarren]

Beethoven - Mass in C (Elly Ameling/Janet Baker/Theo Altmeyer/Marius Rintzler/Carlo Maria Giulini, New Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus, EMI)

[Jose Echenique]

I only have one version of Mascagni’s Cavalieria Rusticana and it is an old vinyl version so instead of posting the usual image I thought that I would do something a little different and post a short video to display it....




It is a Philips recording of Met. Performance and features the voices of Margaret Harshaw, Mildred Miller, Richard Tucker, Frank Guarrera and Themla Votipka. I do not recognise any of these names but the performance is a good one of this lovely work. Unfortunately there is no year anywhere to date the performance.
I thought that the wire spring binding was interesting.
One detail in relation to the layout that bothers me slightly, and I have it repeated on other vinyl mini sets is that LP one contains sides one and four and LP two contains sides two and three instead of running it straight through. I wonder why they sometimes laid them out like that?

That recording must date back to the early 50´s.
Do you really don´t remember why LP´s had that distribution? Boy, Fergus, am I THAT old? LOL.
You may remember that in the 60´s some record players had a devise (a long stick) that dropped a second LP in order to let you hear sides 1 and 2 continuously. Of course this thing didn´t last long because the records usually got damaged when one dropped over the other. By the 70´s this thing was already extinct. Oh boy, I miss the 60´s...but not EVERYTHING about them :-)

By the way, Cavalleria now fits comfortably on 1 cd. Is that progress or what?

[Seán]

One detail in relation to the layout that bothers me slightly, and I have it repeated on other vinyl mini sets is that LP one contains sides one and four and LP two contains sides two and three instead of running it straight through. I wonder why they sometimes laid them out like that?

I could never get my head around that, United Artists did that on some Jazz LPs too.

That recording must date back to the early 50´s.
Do you really don´t remember why LP´s had that distribution? Boy, Fergus, am I THAT old? LOL.
You may remember that in the 60´s some record players had a devise (a long stick) that dropped a second LP in order to let you hear sides 1 and 2 continuously. Of course this thing didn´t last long because the records usually got damaged when one dropped over the other. By the 70´s this thing was already extinct. Oh boy, I miss the 60´s...but not EVERYTHING about them :-)

I remember it well and I used to warn people not to do it as it would scratch their vinyl and I tried to persuade people that it was a bad idea to use a hand towel to clean their vinyl too, ah memories!

By the way, Cavalleria now fits comfortably on 1 cd. Is that progress or what?

Indeed it is, in fact it is very important when listening to Classical Music, but not for other forms of music like Jazz for example.

[Jose Echenique]