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fergus wrote:

bombasticDarren wrote:Schubert - Symphony No.5 (Leonard Bernstein, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon)

Interesting one Darren....how did you get on with that one?

Jared wrote:^^ what do you think of that set, Darren?

Diapason wrote:

fergus wrote:

Diapason wrote:

Is it that you do not admire the music itself or the performer; I would be curious on that point Simon.

Oh not the music! No, I admire this music more and more as time goes on, and I imagine that will never change! No it's simply a question of Herrick's playing. When I first heard these discs I was in my teens and they seemed like a breath of fresh air. Herrick was lively and fast, and it was a far cry from the dry and stodgy organ playing that I heard a lot on disc back then. Now when I listen to these recordings, some of the tempi just seem perverse, the articulation is wildly OTT quite a lot of the time (towards the staccato end of the spectrum) which leads to a kind of sameness to everything, and all told I find it lacking in depth. I still admire Herrick's clarity and spirit (not to mention the organs used and choice of registrations), and I still feel as negatively as I ever did about dry and stodgy, but over the years I've probably been exposed to much "better" (to me) ways of playing Bach that I find much more convincing and satisfying.

That said, I don't have many/any such performances on disc, so it might be time for me to look again as I could really do with a Bach set that I both admire and enjoy. As it stands I rarely listen to this music at home (despite it being some of my favourite stuff EVER) and that's a shame. I suppose the better you know the work, the harder it is to find the right recording.

Jose Echenique wrote:

This is really interesting. Gregor Werner (1695-1766) was the Esterhaza family Kapellmeister before Haydn. Surely Haydn must have been familiar with his music, and it´s fascinating to hear Werner´s little string quartets in 2 movements. These must be some of the earliest string quartets before Haydn developed the genre into it´s Classical form.
This disc also contains some Advent songs sung by a treble and a tenor, but surely the most interesting music in this recording are these little but very lovely string quartets.

Jared wrote:I can't say this music sets my pulse racing, and the performance is quite frankly a little pedestrian, but this disk is of interest, nonetheless:

Brahms:
Liebeslieder op.52
Neue Liebeslieder op.65
Jane Glover/ BBC Singers

Diapason wrote:Fergus, I spent some time this evening looking around the web for recommendations, and I didn't find many new leads. I think the Hanssler set might be worth exploring further, as the one disc I have from that cycle is genuinely very good. Ciaran, do you have a few of those? The Zerer discs would interest me especially.