Recordings you used to like

[Dave2002]

Sometimes one thinks back to earlier recordings with "rose tinted ears" - and when these are listened to they don't deliver as much pleasure as before, or else the deficiencies seem more obvious.

One which I reminded myself of tonight is this one - A Christmas Celebration with Kathleen Battle - http://open.spotify.com/user/1218062...5nNozcaof46QH2

In the past I liked that one a lot, but now I find the soprano wobble really rather excessive. There are still things I like about it, but the "vibrato" - no! Despite that, I'll probably still try to get a(nother) CD copy - it can still be bought from the US - but it's no longer at the top of my list of "must have" CDs - Christmas or otherwise.

Are there other recordings which others would like to nominate in the same way?

[verismissimo]

Interesting question, Dave. I usta like Mackerras's pioneering recording of the Fireworks Music from 1959. Very advanced in HIP terms it was. But when I bought it on CD a couple of years ago, it seemed more like wading through mud.

How far Mackerras himself moved in the following decades.

[cloughie]

Interesting question, Dave. I usta like Mackerras's pioneering recording of the Fireworks Music from 1959. Very advanced in HIP terms it was. But when I bought it on CD a couple of years ago, it seemed more like wading through mud.

How far Mackerras himself moved in the following decades.

I remember hearing about it and thought great - a big wind band - then I heard it and your description is very apt.

[makropulos]

Interesting question, Dave. I usta like Mackerras's pioneering recording of the Fireworks Music from 1959. Very advanced in HIP terms it was. But when I bought it on CD a couple of years ago, it seemed more like wading through mud.

How far Mackerras himself moved in the following decades.

I do still enjoy that performance a lot - but I can see your point - and if CM had been able to record it on old instruments later in life, I'm sure that would have been something special.

Among records I liked when I first heard them but find less satisfying now, I can think of a few. There's nothing wrong (!) with any of these - it's just that they don't excite me in quite the way they used to:
Rattle's EMI Mahler 2
Schwarzkopf/Szell Strauss (incl. Four last Songs)
Pinnock's Archiv Bach Brandenburgs and Orchestral suites
Gergiev's complete Nutcracker

[Barbirollians]

Bruckner 9 Cleveland/Dohnanyi - used to think it was thrillingly urgent now it just seems rushed on CD .

[Alison]

A couple of discs Of the Lindsay String Quartet playing Haydn. I cut my teeth on these recordings, well reviewed at the time. Now they seem a bit old fashioned, lacking the technical fluency and musical imagination of some of the newer ensembles