Haydn In Plain Sight: The Classical Music Thread

[Nickyboy]

1001 Record of the Day.

I recall Mitsuko Uchida from her appearances at the Ojai Music Festival with Pierre Boulez. Her take on Beethoven is illuminated by her adventurous spirit yet doesn't stray far from the composer's intent. A really lovely recording.

She is a flautist?

 

[Ojai Sam]

She is a flautist?

Only the rare 88 key model.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Beethoven! Brahms!

Oistrakh! Rostropovich! Richter!

von Karajan! Szell!

Berlin Philharmonic! Cleveland Orchestra!

The mere mention of their names tells us why this album was included in EMI's "Great Recordings Of The Century" series, not to mention 1001 Classical Recordings. It's interesting to note that the sessions were all recorded during 1969 (Cleveland in May and Berlin in September), yet this natural pairing wasn't released as such until 1975, and then only in Japan.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Now I know what not to request at the Hollywood Bowl.

 

[axolotl]

View attachment 9997
Now I know what not to request at the Hollywood Bowl.

Ya know what they say. Sluggos Gonna Sluggo.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Ya know what they say. Sluggos Gonna Sluggo.

If he couldn’t have afforded a better seat, at least he could’ve rented a cushion.

 

[axolotl]

If he couldn’t have afforded a better seat, at least he could’ve rented a cushion.

He's not a wealthy man. Besides, he prefers hard rock.

Or, with that nose, boogie.

 

[Ojai Sam]

He's not a wealthy man. Besides, he prefers hard rock.

Then Three Rocks is the perfect town for him:

 

[Ojai Sam]

Wonder if Sluggo attended the show?

 

[Ojai Sam]

Carlo Grante - Scarlatti: Complete Keyboard Sonatas, Vol. III (comp. 1753, rec. 2013)




Massimo Quarta - Paganini: 24 Caprices For Solo Violin (comp. 1817, rec. 2005)

The Paganini album is in 1001 Classical Recordings, the Scarlatti is not. But both records illustrate the power of Italian instrumental music during the Classical Period. No one is better suited to show these demanding pieces to their greatest advantage than the two stellar contemporary Italian artists featured here. Both are performing on legendary instruments: a modern Bosendorfer Imperial piano and a 1716 Stradivarius violin.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Back in the 1980's the BBC began releasing CD's from their vast archive of radio broadcasts. The "BBC Legends" Series eventually numbered more than 250 individual albums plus several thematic box sets. The performances are uniformly superb, delivered in the outstanding sound you would expect from the BEEB.

BBC Symphony Orchestra (Rudolf Kempe, cond.) - Brahms: Symphony No. 4 / Schubert: Symphony No. 5 (rec. 1974-6, rel. 1988)


This was the third BBC Legends release, putting together two Romantic symphonies recorded at London's Royal Festival Hall under the baton of Rudolf Kempe (1910-1976). Kempe, trained as an oboist, first conducted in 1936 in Leipzig. One account holds that he managed to steer clear of the Nazis by enlisting in the German army rather than dismiss a Jewish musician. After the war, he continued to conduct to high acclaim in Germany and later, England. His fluid style suited this melodic material perfectly.

Wiki tells us that Kempe was the first Artistic Director to hire a female musician (Christa Ruppert) for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, saying that an exclusively male orchestra always reminded him of the army.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Here is an important project that I just learned about. Wiki tells us:

Great Pianists of the 20th Century was a 202-CD box set released by Philips Records in 1999 and sponsored by Steinway & Sons.

The box set comprised 101 volumes featuring 72 pianists of the 20th century, each volume with two CDs and a booklet about the life and work of the featured pianist. The set contains a variety of composers from different eras, from Baroque to Contemporary classical. The material was the result of a collaborative association between Philips (who had access to the Polygram Records back catalogue) and a number of other labels, notably EMI Classics, as no single label possessed a representative set of recordings for every pianist considered to be significant. Material from Warner Classics and Sony Classics was also used. The majority of the pianists feature on one set only, with sixteen appearing on a second set. Seven artists (Arrau, Brendel, Gilels, Horowitz, Kempff, Richter and Rubinstein) are featured across three sets.

Right now, after selecting an artist at random, I'm enjoying Andre Watts' interpretations of Liszt that appeared originally on Columbia in the 60's. Due to licensing issues, few of these albums appear on Spotify. However, they were sold individually so you need not invest the money and space in a massive box. Well worth checking out.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, English Chamber Orchestra (Benjamin Britten, cond.) - Schumann: Scenes From Goethe's Faust (comp. 1853, rel. 1973)

Recorded at The Maltings, Snape (September 1972)


Giuseppe Sabbatini, London Symphony Orchestra (Colin Davis, cond.) - Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust (comp. 1854, rel. 2001)

Recorded at Barbican Center, London (October 2000)

Two composers of the same period take very different view of the Faust story. Though both are choral works, neither is an opera. As my high school English lit teacher used to say, "Compare and Contrast". It might even save your soul from You Know Who.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Claudio Abbado, cond.) - Wagner: Orchestral Music (DG comp, 2003)

Spike Jones once released an album called Dinner Music For People Who Aren't Very Hungry, and the collection could similarly be titled Opera Music For People Who Don't Like Opera. Claudio Abbado was justly renowned as a conductor of opera, but here he and the Berliners extract the music sans vocals from three of Wagner's works. He also steered completely away from the Ring Cycle, thereby sparing skittish listeners the agony of waiting for the corpulent female to weigh in. This is no "Wagner For Dummies" knockoff but rather, a well planned, skillfully executed and highly persuasive argument for Wagner's towering musical genius.

 

[Ojai Sam]

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Back to counting down the Acclaimed Music's top 10000 song list - slowly proceeding through it (among other listening) and about to hit the 7000s

But as I looked at the website today, one I frequent often, the following message came up: "Account over Bandwidth - Maximum bandwidth has been exceeded and this page has been temporarily disabled. Please go to your service manager to purchase more and reactivate"

Mother of Rico! I hope this isn't the end of Acclaimedmusic.net...pay those bills already

 

[Zeeba Neighba]

Back to counting down the Acclaimed Music's top 10000 song list - slowly proceeding through it (among other listening) and about to hit the 7000s

But as I looked at the website today, one I frequent often, the following message came up: "Account over Bandwidth - Maximum bandwidth has been exceeded and this page has been temporarily disabled. Please go to your service manager to purchase more and reactivate"

Mother of Rico! I hope this isn't the end of Acclaimedmusic.net...pay those bills already

And just realized I posted here instead of the Random Music Thoughts section

 

[Ojai Sam]

And just realized I posted here instead of the Random Music Thoughts section

It’s OK, Zeeb. All of your posts are classic.

By the way, the Acclaimed website appears to be up.

 

[Ojai Sam]

The Cleveland Orchestra (George Szell, cond. ) / The Philadelphia Orchestra (Eugene Ormandy, cond.) - Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Variations, Hungarian Dances (rec. 1957, 1968, Sony)

The arrival of the compact disc presented new opportunities for the major labels to market their deep catalogues. Classical music was at the forefront of this effort and no one had more longhair product in the vault than Sony/Columbia.



One of their most successful projects was the "Essential Classics" collection. Eventually numbering over 500 titles, for this series the producers opted for releases that focused on composers rather than artists. To further entice collectors and pedants, Sony went so far as to create sub-series such as "Orchestral Works".



This particular album made it to "1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear". It pairs performances recorded years apart by two of the stalwart conductors who spent decades on the Columbia roster: George Szell and Eugene Ormandy. In a bit more than an hour, these maestros give us a heaping slice of Brahms' finest orchestral works that offers lots of stylistic and thematic variety.

Today, we can buy massive boxed sets with more than 100 CD's from both conductors. The Ormandy Columbia Legacy box alone weighs in at 14 pounds. Listening to the whole thing would take you 4 days. 4 hours, 38 minutes and 52 seconds.

I dunno. In this case, I have to say less is more.

on the Sam-O-Meter.

 

[Ojai Sam]

Claridge Symphony Orchestra - Brahms: Symphony No. 2 (rec. 1939, rel. 1955)

Who are these guys and who's conducting them?

You might be surprised.