The Hanover Band

[MickyD]

I've just seen that Nimbus have issued a 19 CD set of all the recordings that they made with the Hanover Band... Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Weber etc. I already have them all in their original incarnations, but it's good to see these important early HIP recordings have been collected together. They weren't to everyone's taste, largely because of the very cavernous acoustic that the Nimbus team produced. Personally I liked them a lot.

[LMcD]

I've just seen that Nimbus have issued a 19 CD set of all the recordings that they made with the Hanover Band... Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Weber etc. I already have them all in their original incarnations, but it's good to see these important early HIP recordings have been collected together. They weren't to everyone's taste, largely because of the very cavernous acoustic that the Nimbus team produced. Personally I liked them a lot.

'Currently unavailable' on Amazon.co.uk

[smittims]

Robert Philip* raised an interesting topic relating to these recordings, publishing part of a reply Nimbus producer Adrian Farmer wrote to the Hanover Band whenthey had requested further editing of the finished takes:

'The few corrections that I made ... have already made the Band sound better than they were ... beyond the competence of the Band to reproduce in a live concert ... editing only improves the notes, the more important quality of communication is absolute and cannot be improved by cutting it up'.

I don't want to suggest that the Hanover Band are alone in their request. I've often been told of artists wanting more from producers. Philip asks 'Do recordings need to be perfect? ... how does the modern world reconcile the desire for vivid performance with the need for perfection ?' . It made me thinkof CDs I've heard where the execution of rhe notes is imacculate (for example Magdalena Kozena's Monteverdi arias recital on DG Archiv) , but I find I don't have much desire to listen to the disc again.

The answer seems to lie between the extremes. Edit the obvious 'bloopers' but don't go too far as to iron out the spontanaeity.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Performing Music in the Age of Recording, Yale 2004.

[MickyD]

Interesting, thank you for that, smittims. I do think Adrian Farmer did a great job... I'll try not to think too much of the tweakings when I listen again !

The set is available on Amazon.fr, but I find it pricey for recordings that are getting on a bit. I've also been doing my calculations and feel that 19 cds couldn't carry all the recordings that the Band did for Nimbus. Are there some omissions, I wonder? I'd like to see a breakdown of the discs.

[Dave2002]

This seemed confusing. From Amazon.fr it's listed as produced by C sharp media. It is just about listed on Amazon UK - and can be found by searching for "Hanover Band Nimbus", but details are minimal - and currently this is shown as unavailable.
On the French website it shows up at around 120-130 Euros - so quite pricey. I think it's also on the Spanish Amazon site.

What also confused me was an initial assumption that the Hanover Band only recorded on one label. They didn't. There are recordings on Nimbus, Hyperion and even Sony.

I do have a number of those Nimbus recordings, though perhaps not all of them. Is there a list of what is in the box set?

[oliver sudden]

'The few corrections that I made ... have already made the Band sound better than they were ... beyond the competence of the Band to reproduce in a live concert ... editing only improves the notes, the more important quality of communication is absolute and cannot be improved by cutting it up'.

I don't want to suggest that the Hanover Band are alone in their request. I've often been told of artists wanting more from producers.

I obviously don’t know what those particular parties expected from each other and things may well have changed over the decades but it’s quite normal in my experience for the artist to receive a ‘first edit’ and for things to proceed from there, with the musicians requesting further changes and the producer either doing them or saying sorry they can’t. If I had a producer decline further edits saying ‘I’ve already made you sound better than you are’ I would have serious doubts as to the viability of the project, never mind the probability of any future collaboration!

[Pulcinella]

The Hanover Band featured in this BBC MM 2CD release (a premiere recording and some overtures) of music by Sullivan.
I doubt that it made it into the 'Nimbus' box, but who knows?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305892568114?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D277105%2C276750%26meid%3D6730500d67d0408e9260d5ee8b7cfd38%26pid%3D101224%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D381599233897%26itm%3D305892568114%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2332490%26algv%3DDefaultOrganicWebV9BertRefreshRankerWithCassiniEmbRecall&_trksid=p2332490.c101224.m-1

[MickyD]

The Sullivan disc was originally recorded for the CPO label before the BBC released it. I enjoyed it!

I estimate from my own collection that the Nimbus recordings go past the 19 cd mark, so can only conclude it is not a complete edition.
I must do further research.

[MickyD]

Not much fruit from my research... the box only features on Amazon.fr with no details. It's not on the Presto site, nor even the Band's own website ! The latter threw up an interesting disc of Cherubini overtures for RCA that has yet to be released ... I'm not holding out much hope for that as the RCA contract ended years ago.

Dave, yes, the Band also recorded for CPO, no less than 22 CDs of orchestral works by JC Bach, plus interesting discs of Boyce odes for ASV Gaudeamus. Two discs of Beethoven and Mozart concertos for Cala.