Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[Bax-of-Delights]

Nanette Newman more likely. The programme is already up to its armpits in the soapy stuff...

[Nick Armstrong]

Turned on R3 this morning - Essential Classics

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

"O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Two movements from the Britten serenade

blah blah blah (etc ad nauseam)

Is this programme actually about music?

I see that was Mr Cowan interviewing the "household name" Fleur Adcock [Who she? Ed.] In any event, poor Rob's hamfisted interviewing technique is to be avoided.

However, I mean to catch up with the following two weeks' interviews, first as it's Sarah Walker (who has imo turned into a very deft interviewer) and second as the individuals are two of my favourite actors, John Lithgow and Sam Neill. All very Hollywood.... and no guarantees of course about the quality of their musical taste. It's one of the advantages of the podcasts, though - the extracts are brief, so naff musical choices are easily endured.

All of which goes to answer your final question - not really, between 10 and 10.30...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Nanette Newman more likely. The programme is already up to its armpits in the soapy stuff...

Oh, very good

[ahinton]

Nanette Newman more likely. The programme is already up to its armpits in the soapy stuff...

No, no, (not) Nanette!...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Fragmente/Stille

(Nono Quartet)

[Serial_Apologist]

Fragmente/Stille

(Nono Quartet)

I come not Dupre's, but to Berio.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I come not Dupre's, but to Berio.

[ahinton]

I come not Dupre's, but to Berio.

Whilst I suspect that this should perhaps have been posted on the Current Favourite Jokes thread, it is much appreciated, believe me!

[Nick Armstrong]

Brahms 3 - Günter Wand / NDR SO....

Never heard that before - terrific !!

[Nick Armstrong]

But is it big boned, hewn out of granite and old fashioned or light, bright and spritely - the latter being my preference for both symphonies and concertos?

Agreed - and it was very much the latter, to my surprise: I started listening after the start and without reference to playlists, so was trying to guess who was performing. Fleet tempi (a distinctly un-soupy third movement), punchy brass and vigorous rhythms - I was thinking one of the young bloods, Jurowski perhaps, or someone like Ticciati... then I thought the quality of the playing was such, could it be Chailly getting his new broom to Brahms with Leipzig, like his Beethoven... I was surprised when RC announced afterwards that it was old Günter in Northern Germany in the early 1980s....

[Stanfordian]

But is it big boned, hewn out of granite and old fashioned or light, bright and spritely - the latter being my preference for both symphonies and concertos?

Hiya Zucchini,

I would put the masterful Wand's Brahms performances with the NDR Sinfonieorchester somewhere in the middle of those extremes.

Regarding the Wand set I most admire, he recorded Brahms symphonies with the NDR Sinfonieorchester in 1990-92 live from the Köln Philharmonie and Hamburg Musikhalle available on Hanssler Profil. Earlier in 1982-83 Wand also with NDR Sinfonieorchester had made a studio recording of the Brahms symphonies for RCA Red Seal; to considerableconsiderable acclaim.

The more I hear Gunter Wand's recordings the more I relish them. I believe he was a genius.

[teamsaint]

Agreed - and it was very much the latter, to my surprise: I started listening after the start and without reference to playlists, so was trying to guess who was performing. Fleet tempi (a distinctly un-soupy third movement), punchy brass and vigorous rhythms - I was thinking one of the young bloods, Jurowski perhaps, or someone like Ticciati... then I thought the quality of the playing was such, could it be Chailly getting his new broom to Brahms with Leipzig, like his Beethoven... I was surprised when RC announced afterwards that it was old Günter in Northern Germany in the early 1980s....

buy the box , you know you want to. Won't fit on your nice shelving though.......

Incidentally, I was listening to his Beethoven 8 with the same lot the other day, which I thought was rather let down by an unsprightly third movement, although elsewhere very good. Although that was after listening to some more recent recordings including David " now you see it now you don't " Zinman....

[peterthekeys]

Over and over and over again

Whilst listening to this programme, I've noticed that when an item is announced, my usual reaction is a despairing groan of: "Oh no, not again!". I've lost track of the number of times I've heard Bernstein's symphonic dances from West Side Story and Pablo Casals' arrangement of the Birds folksong. I wonder who selects the items for inclusion? Surely it can't be the presenters - knowing that most of them are skilled and knowledgeable musicians and musicologists in their own right, I just can't imagine that, left to their own devices, they would select such boring and repetitive fare.

[Lento]

Nicholas Parsons going on at length about himself this morning. Uncharitable of me, I suppose: he is getting on a bit!

[teamsaint]

Whilst listening to this programme, I've noticed that when an item is announced, my usual reaction is a despairing groan of: "Oh no, not again!". I've lost track of the number of times I've heard Bernstein's symphonic dances from West Side Story and Pablo Casals' arrangement of the Birds folksong. I wonder who selects the items for inclusion? Surely it can't be the presenters - knowing that most of them are skilled and knowledgeable musicians and musicologists in their own right, I just can't imagine that, left to their own devices, they would select such boring and repetitive fare.

somewhat different skill sets required I wold have thought, PTK ?