Unfashionable records that you love

[Richard Tarleton]

Michala Petri and Julian Bream could be seen as unfashionable but who cares?

I was nearly going to mention Julian Bream. Still supreme in the guitar repertoire - but lute playing has moved on (or back ) to the extent that I no longer get quite the same pleasure from listening to a lute played with nails. It's partly that the instruments have changed. But Bream was my introduction to this repertoire, as he was to the vihuela and early guitar repertoire. And only last June at the Aldeburgh Festival, I heard Ian Watt perform a feat I haven't heard anyone do since Bream in the early '70s - play the lute and the guitar in the same concert, nails and all. He accompanied some Dowland songs on the lute and played the Britten Nocturnal for guitar on the same stage where Bream had given the first performance 50 years ago. So it can still be done.

[Roehre]

The Amadeus Quartet.

Those DG complete Beethoven and Mozart boxes,plus some Shubert (the Quintet too) and Haydn,have been part of my life for many years.
They always seem to be dismissed as old fashioned,but I love them.

I started to know especially the Beethovens through the Amadeau (and the Italiano) and I cannot see why these performances should be regarded as old fashioned or "out-of-fashion".
The Bergs, Brittens, Lindsays and all those others are just as "fashioned".
It is and remains a matter of taste.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... and I cannot see why these performances should be regarded as old fashioned or "out-of-fashion".
The Bergs, Brittens, Lindsays and all those others are just as "fashioned".
It is and remains a matter of taste.

But fashion is largely dictated by an "elite" group and has little to do with general consensus. Take the Paris "fashion designers" as an example, who proudly announce "next year's fashions". It's rather like the DVD Top 50 at Tesco - decided upon well before release day. With music, it's the performances that haven't been sidelined by the derision of a small group of critics.

[Richard Tarleton]

1) Raymond Leppard

Two or three years ago I emailed AMcG to complain when he and a guest had been, I thought, unnecessarily rude about Leppard. I received a rather unapologetic reply. OK things have moved on but his Glyndebourne Orfeo ed Euridice and Calisto remain fabulous recordings.

[Mary Chambers]

The Klemperer St Matthew Passion, with Pears, Schwarzkopf, Fischer-Dieskau, Baker, Gedda. Definitely not fashionable, I imagine, but the recording I learnt the piece from, and therefore very important to me.

[BBMmk2]

Georg Solti's Chicago account of Handels Messiah.

Surprisingly moving and spiritual. Thanks to Petrushka for the introduction.

I must get round to buying that recording. Sounds great!

[Ferretfancy]

Bruno Walter's stereo set on CBS of the last Mozart symphonies, big band, slow slow movements, doubtless inauthentic, but the love comes through.

Almost anything with Stokowski, even when he's really naughty

[richardfinegold]

But fashion is largely dictated by an "elite" group and has little to do with general consensus. Take the Paris "fashion designers" as an example, who proudly announce "next year's fashions". It's rather like the DVD Top 50 at Tesco - decided upon well before release day. With music, it's the performances that haven't been sidelined by the derision of a small group of critics.

Some HIPP performances are so fast that that if I had been listening with a turntable, I would be checking to see if the speed had inadvertently been changed to 45 rpm. Older performers such as Richter and Leppard may have had some anachronisms but in the end wind up being more listenable .

[BBMmk2]

Stowkowski et al's orchestral transcriptions!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Some HIPP performances are so fast that that if I had been listening with a turntable, I would be checking to see if the speed had inadvertently been changed to 45 rpm.

That would make all the music approximately a 4th higher, rather than a semitone lower.

[aeolium]

Two Handel examples:

Lisa della Casa singing Handel arias in German including "Breite aus, die gnäd'gen Hände" ("Se pieta di me non senti"). Quite beyond fashion for me.

Beecham's Solomon, heavily cut and rearranged by the conductor in a way that would be regarded as almost criminal now, but wonderfully powerful with some excellent singing. It was my first exposure to the work (in LPs with red covers IIRC) and I have since heard better and more faithful performances but I can still appreciate its virtues, and especially the greatest virtue any recording can have, to inspire the listener to want to hear more of the composer's music.

[hmvman]

I'm with Brassbandmaestro on Marriner and Leppard: Particular favourites are Marriner for the Bach Suites and Leppard for the Brandenburg Concertos.

Another favourite, and probably deeply unfashionable, recording is the KCC/ASMF under Willcocks in Bach's Cantata 147. I love it for the sound and also for the line-up of great talent from the era: Ian Partridge, John Shirley-Quirk, Elly Ameling, Janet Baker, Janet Craxton, John Wilbraham, Iona Brown etc.)

[Madame Suggia]

Malcolm Sargent's Sibelius

[tigajen]

Marriner Bach Suites and Brandenburgs.Also Marriner Handel Coronation Anthems

[gradus]

Beecham again in his arrangement of Messiah, to paraphrase the original Gramophone reviewer; do acquire this set, sell your car if you have to, in any case there's nowhere to park it nowadays (c 1960).
To which I'd add another favourite Messiah, Sargent RLPO and the Huddersfield Choral Society in all their majesty, I guess my aversion to more recent small-scale performances is evident.