Tír Na HiFi

Jared wrote:
There is however one box set I really do have my eye on for the near future however:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biber-Profane-M ... ZD1431VVOK

I own the 2 McCreesh disks, but not the 5 Goebel ones, which would be a very welcome addition to my collection, especially for the Mystery Sonatas...

Yet another very interesting set Jared. I think that you are correct to go for it when the price is right as Goebel is always good (in my opinion).

Jared wrote:

Peter wrote:I have this feeling of that you guys only post a very small selection of what you actually buy!!!

I'm not sure about that Peter, I think we all like to share our purchases with our friends. There's been much discussion on this over the past year and I think some of us are at the point where we have been slowing down the rate of our purchases. Of late, I have been adding to my Baroque collection but frankly I don't anticipate large amounts of new purchases going forward, with constrictions on time, space and money. I am therefore hoping to enjoy my collection more, from now on.

There is however one box set I really do have my eye on for the near future however:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biber-Profane-M ... ZD1431VVOK

I own the 2 McCreesh disks, but not the 5 Goebel ones, which would be a very welcome addition to my collection, especially for the Mystery Sonatas...

Hi Peter, I am buying less cds than I used to. It took me less than 5 years to acquire nearly two thousand cds so I decided to concentrate on listening to the cds in my collection and to only buy cds to make good some of the glaring gaps, for example, in baroque and opera. I tend to spend time listening to the same music for days or maybe even weeks on end. :) For the past few weeks it has been the various recordings of the Eroica, supplemented, of course, by Bach, Mahler, Haydn, Schubert, etc. I do still have the urge to buy and I do watch out for any goodies that are mentioned in the Bargain Thread too. I will return to buying in bulk in due course.

Personal Note
I HAVE JUST bought an Apple iMac and it's mine, all mine. This will replace the 11 year old clapped out Dell that has been the bane of my life for the last few years: it often took 10 minutes or so to load a comment, no more, it's much easier to do so now. I intend to post more often.

Jared wrote:

Peter wrote:I have this feeling of that you guys only post a very small selection of what you actually buy!!!

I'm not sure about that Peter, I think we all like to share our purchases with our friends. There's been much discussion on this over the past year and I think some of us are at the point where we have been slowing down the rate of our purchases. Of late, I have been adding to my Baroque collection but frankly I don't anticipate large amounts of new purchases going forward, with constrictions on time, space and money. I am therefore hoping to enjoy my collection more, from now on.

There is however one box set I really do have my eye on for the near future however:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Biber-Profane-M ... ZD1431VVOK

I own the 2 McCreesh disks, but not the 5 Goebel ones, which would be a very welcome addition to my collection, especially for the Mystery Sonatas...

Ha ha! It sounds very logical indeed, but we all go through the "stop" phase every now and then! I know that you are right though and I certainly try to focus on attuning to the numerous pieces I own. Perhaps it is some type of search for the mystery of music - the almost magical listening experiences that we all partake in as we travel the road?

Interesting Biber collection. I have very much enjoyed his works as I come across them. I own the Veritas release (below) which is just a minor part of his works. Do you happen to have heard this album? How does it compare to Goebel?
Is this period one of your passions in music?

Seán wrote: Hi Peter, I am buying less cds than I used to. It took me less than 5 years to acquire nearly two thousand cds so I decided to concentrate on listening to the cds in my collection and to only buy cds to make good some of the glaring gaps, for example, in baroque and opera. I tend to spend time listening to the same music for days or maybe even weeks on end. :) For the past few weeks it has been the various recordings of the Eroica, supplemented, of course, by Bach, Mahler, Haydn, Schubert, etc. I do still have the urge to buy and I do watch out for any goodies that are mentioned in the Bargain Thread too. I will return to buying in bulk in due course.

Personal Note
I HAVE JUST bought an Apple iMac and it's mine, all mine. This will replace the 11 year old clapped out Dell that has been the bane of my life for the last few years: it often took 10 minutes or so to load a comment, no more, it's much easier to do so now. I intend to post more often.

I am impressed that you could handle the 11 year old Dell. Mostly from an environmental perspective as the world cannot handle the current 3/4 year old cycle of replacing electronics. Very cool that you held on to you Dell for so long!!!!

I, too, try to focus on filling in gaps or exploring the unknown (e.g. do I really need a sixth cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas!! he he he). That is why I went for the recent 'Baroque Opera" set as that is an area I would love to explore and appreciate to a higher degree. Another example is a wish to explore the composer Niels Gade. I listened to some YouTube samples of his symphonies and found them to my liking so they are on their way to my house.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003 ... UTF8&psc=1


I think one of my "problems" is the wish to explore historical recordings and be exposed to the huge array of artists, conductors and orchestras from the past. The sometimes "boxy" sound does not bother me very much any more and I suspect that is the case for you as well. Recently I decided to listen in more to Mengelberg's recordings via the recent Decca set. However, there is so much to expand on in the realm of "historical recordings". Fortunately that arena is getting very affordable at this point in time! Yay! How do you like Mengelberg?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Concertgebouw-R ... berg+decca

Contents:
"Bach: Matthäus-Passion BWV 244
+Bartok: Violinkonzert Nr. 2
+Beethoven: Symphonien Nr. 1-9
+Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem op. 45;Symphonie Nr. 1
+Schubert: Symphonien Nr. 8 & 9;Musik zu Rosamunde
+Franck: Symphonie d-moll
+Strauss: Don Juan op. 20
+Mahler: Symphonie Nr. 4"

Peter wrote:
I think one of my "problems" is the wish to explore historical recordings and be exposed to the huge array of artists, conductors and orchestras from the past. The sometimes "boxy" sound does not bother me very much any more and I suspect that is the case for you as well. Recently I decided to listen in more to Mengelberg's recordings via the recent Decca set. However, there is so much to expand on in the realm of "historical recordings".....

I too have a collection of CDs similiar in size to Seán's collection but I find you comment on recordings from the past to be very interesting Peter in that over the last year I have returned to the worl of vinyl and have concentrated in that time on building up a collection of some 1300 LPs or so. That is where I have obviously concentrated my purchases and of necessity they tend to be older recordings which I enjoy exploring very much.

Peter wrote:Is this period one of your passions in music?

Hi Peter, I've dug this quotation out from earlier on in the thread, which might help answer the question:

Jared wrote:I have been evaluating the overall 'balance' in my collection recently and to my surprise, it's rather deficient in the Baroque choral works stakes, which I have to admit has come as rather a surprise to me... compared with both Renaissance & Classical eras, it's looking rather scant and is something I HAVE to rectify.

Don't get me wrong, Bach, Handel, Purcell and Vivaldi are represented well enough, but after that, I only have a disk or two each of Biber, Buxtehude, Charpentier, both Scarlattis and Telemann all of which I love, but all of which really need adding to... and poor old Zelenka hasn't got off the mark, yet!

It has now been just over 5 years since I started listening to CM and collecting, during which time you can take it as read that my collection exploded in size, in all directions (although admittedly it's still certainly more modest than those owned by Sean and Fergus!) however it is now time to slow down, evaluate and enjoy what I've got. I decided to take this view early summer by standing back to look at the balance of my collection as a whole and fill in some deficiencies, funded in part by losing a few works I either didn't enjoy or those which I had too many recordings of, for my needs. My initial realisation was the above observation, that although I love the Baroque period, it wasn't (and still isn't) that evenly represented.

Peter wrote:Interesting Biber collection. I have very much enjoyed his works as I come across them. I own the Veritas release (below) which is just a minor part of his works. Do you happen to have heard this album? How does it compare to Goebel?

I've yet to 'meet' anyone who doesn't like Biber's choral music, and the work by Savall on Alia Vox and McCreesh on Archiv are amongst the finest. Biber's Mystery Sonatas usually tend to find their way onto most 'Basic Library' selections, and I have heard the excellent Manze/ Egarr set on HM, which usually gets top accolades, but Goebel is consistently excellent in this repertoire, and the 7CD reissue simply looks too good to turn down... next pay day!

That said, the 'Zelenka' cupboard is still bare, and I've managed to pick these two up at very reasonable prices. Besides you know me, I can resist anything except temptation... ;-)

I came late to Zelenka Jared but his is a wonderful sound world and you should enjoy those purchases very much. I must expand my own Zelenka collection!

fergus wrote:I came late to Zelenka Jared but his is a wonderful sound world and you should enjoy those purchases very much. I must expand my own Zelenka collection!

well I must admit, the Requiem is a bit of a gamble because I am not familiar with the forces, but over the years, I have come to trust the Czechs when they perform their own music; it's always filled with such passion and Supraphon is a good label. I noted it was recorded in 1994, and was probably 'Ensemble 94's' debut disk (formed only 5 years after the fall of Communism, of course), from one of their own... let's hope they turn in a performance reminiscent of Kubelik's Ma Vlast, for sheer love of the music.