Tír Na HiFi

Jared wrote:
Fergus and I will shortly be commencing our 'Learning to love Bruckner' initiation programme.. ;-)

Nay Jared, I gave up the ghost on that crusade many years ago I am afraid!

Jared wrote:
Incidentally, when I went to see Verdi's Otello, there were 500 people in the audience, and I kid you not, at 44 year of age, I WAS the youngest!

That does not surprise me unfortunately; the attention span of the young nowadays has become such that they will not even buy a full album but merely a single track at a time so I very much doubt that they would have the mental capacity to sit through a full opera LOL!!!

Two very nice masses this morning....

fergus wrote:

Jared wrote:
Fergus and I will shortly be commencing our 'Learning to love Bruckner' initiation programme.. ;-)

Nay Jared, I gave up the ghost on that crusade many years ago I am afraid!

Good man, stick to Mahler, Bach, Beethoven & Strauss, that's quite enough for any young fellow.

Seán wrote: Good man, stick to Mahler, Bach, Beethoven & Strauss, that's quite enough for any young fellow.

No list of that nature, no matter how small, is complete without a mention of Brahms.. discredit Bruckner at your peril, but you'll never get away with omitting my 'desert island' composer... ;-)

Rimsky-K: Sheherazade
Titov, BBC Scottish

Lyadov: Nana-Yaga, The Echanted lake, Kikimora
Titov, BBC Symphony

Fine versions to be fair, and very well recorded.

Jared wrote:

Seán wrote: Good man, stick to Mahler, Bach, Beethoven & Strauss, that's quite enough for any young fellow.

No list of that nature, no matter how small, is complete without a mention of Brahms..

Oh perhaps my post was misleading. I feel that Fergus does promote -- through his sheer natural enthusiasm -- works by said composers, perhaps Brahms should be included on the list too, but he certainly does champion works by the 4 mentioned above.

discredit Bruckner at your peril, but you'll never get away with omitting my 'desert island' composer... ;-)

Heavens no, I do like Bruckner but not to the same extent as I love Mahler....but that's just me.

^^ I apologise... as you will have gathered over the years Sean, I have developed a 'Brahms can do no wrong' mentality, which I'm sure is probably an incorrect stance, but the principle criticism of 'too many notes' is precisely why I love him... even with his piano work, which I have been revelling in, over the past couple of weeks.

I was in the kitchen washing up on Friday morning and heard the final movement of Brahms' Piano Quintet.... I have to say, it was a slightly understated version with a slower than frenetic tempo that I prefer, but even then I wallowed in it.... I have this relationship with the piece which is, if I'm listening to a new work which I'm struggling to come to terms with and feel its all a bit heavy going, then I put the Brahms on and realise all over again, why it is that I love classical music so much....

I realise I've just digressed considerably, but felt it needed saying... lol.

Rimsky-K: The Snow Maiden - Suite.
Vassily Sinaisky/ BBC Phil.

Vinyl....





....a powerful performance!