Music recordings that had to go to the charity shop

[Barbirollians]

I am not talking about disposing of a whole collection e.g those who gave away all their LPs etc or disposing of a recording because you disliked the performance but records that no matter how hard you tried they contained music you actively disliked and had to go .

For me it was the 3rd and 8th symphonies of Tubin. I couldnt stand them and off they went .

I suppose nowadays the benefit of streaming services and indeed You Tube is that you can hear music you do not know before buying it very easily .

[crb11]

That's one of my favourite CDs! (Although, assuming it's the BIS recording, the out of tune tuba note at the start of the third movement of #3 always makes me wince.)

There's been a handful of CDs which were so bad I put them in the bin. One I remember was a Menuhin recording of the Sibelius and Nielsen violin concertos from just after his divorce when his playing went to pot. Having wasted a few pounds on that mistake, I didn't want to subject anyone else to it, even though the charity shops might benefit from the repeated regiftings!

[mikealdren]

One I remember was a Menuhin recording of the Sibelius and Nielsen violin concertos from just after his divorce when his playing went to pot. Having wasted a few pounds on that mistake, I didn't want to subject anyone else to it, even though the charity shops might benefit from the repeated regiftings!

Yes I bought them both on LP too and they are spectacularly bad.

[smittims]

I used to buy quite a few records of music I'd never heard, in an adventurous spirit to broaden my listening. Yes, some turned out to be disappointing and were in time given away to Oxfam, but the process did bring me some lifetime favourites I'd have missed otherwise, sch as Robert Still's Concerto for Strings and Rudolf Maros' Symphony for String Orchestra. I've never heard either of these two pieces anywhere else

[richardfinegold]

I haven’t played that Tubin CD in years and will give it a spin. I remember liking it quite a bit.
I tend to burn discs to my server that I am going to discard. And with streaming I guess I need not bother to do it, but I tend to feel that since I shelled out for them originally I want to keep it in some fashion

[AuntDaisy]

I almost got rid of Michel Corboz's Monteverdi "Selva Morale e Spirituale" Erato set - it's sooo sloooow and lifeless. But, the hoarder in me just couldn't do it.

[Barbirollians]

I have got rid of Cds when I didn't like the performance . The worst I recall was the generally admirable Andrew Marwood's recording of the Schumann Violin Concerto on Hyperion - weedy and lifeless - a performance that suggested it was a good idea the work had been repressed for so long .

Unlike the Menuhin/Barbirolli which is terrific .

[Petrushka]

The only time I have got rid of a CD because of the performance was Roger Norrington's Mahler 9. Normally, I'm perfectly happy to explore a tolerably wide range of interpretative possibilities, and indeed that's the whole point of my large CD collection.

However, this one was an utter travesty, a totally bizarre reading of Mahler's work that I was ashamed to have on my shelves next to Walter, Klemperer and Karajan so out it went.

No regrets.

[Roger Webb]

The only time I have got rid of a CD because of the performance was Roger Norrington's Mahler 9. Normally, I'm perfectly happy to explore a tolerably wide range of interpretative possibilities, and indeed that's the whole point of my large CD collection.

However, this one was an utter travesty, a totally bizarre reading of Mahler's work that I was ashamed to have on my shelves next to Walter, Klemperer and Karajan so out it went.

No regrets.

I remember Norrington's Mahler 1 at the Proms a few years ago, with the Youth Orchestra I think. He got the strings to play without any vibrato - his obsession at the time...probably still is. Anyway it was dreadful, especially the double bass intonation at the start of the slow movt.....I suspect because these players were asked to play in a way they just weren't used to. His attempts to uglify 19th century music, whilst wholely successful, seem often inappropriate.

[MickyD]

I would like to bin the John Marsh symphonies recorded by the Chichester Consort made for Olympia. The performances are seriously out of tune and suggest lack of rehearsal - but I haven't got the heart to get rid of it as there are no other versions of this rare music available!

[smittims]

Norrington's Mahler was, for me,the epitome of 'don't give up the day job!'. I'd admired him for years as a conductor of 17th century choral music (Schutz, etc.) but his ideas on 19th and 20th century music seemed a sad waste of effort. I had an enjoyable exchange with someone on the old BBC board about RN's attempt to ban vibrato .

They said 'Sir Roger Norrington has never ever told anyone to play without vibrato. So the question is , why are you telling lies about Sir Roger Norrington?' . I cited the TV documentary in which the string players showed their parts to the camera,where he had told them to write 'NO VIBRATO!' over every page. Collapse of stout party...

[smittims]

Thanks, Micky, your mention of John Marsh took me to a google search. Thirty-nine symphonies! If only the English Concert would take him up and play a few.

If he'd been a woman he'd be 'Composer of the Week', I'm sure.

[vinteuil]

.
César Franck, Symphony, Carlo Giulini and the Vienna Phil on sony. Beyond lugubrious

Sylvius Leopold Weiss, lute sonatas played on the guitar by Kurt Schneeweiß, 10 CDs on arte nova. I just don't think he understands Weiss's lute writing at all

I can't throw CDs away, but these are just WRONG


On the other hand I am an enormous admirer of Roger Norrington in 19th and 20th century orchestral repertoire - for me his recordings of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler have been a revelation.

[Barbirollians]

I would like to bin the John Marsh symphonies recorded by the Chichester Consort made for Olympia. The performances are seriously out of tune and suggest lack of rehearsal - but I haven't got the heart to get rid of it as there are no other versions of this rare music available!

I have a record of four of Marsh's symphonies with the London Mozart Players /Bamert ?

[richardfinegold]

The only time I have got rid of a CD because of the performance was Roger Norrington's Mahler 9. Normally, I'm perfectly happy to explore a tolerably wide range of interpretative possibilities, and indeed that's the whole point of my large CD collection.

However, this one was an utter travesty, a totally bizarre reading of Mahler's work that I was ashamed to have on my shelves next to Walter, Klemperer and Karajan so out it went.

No regrets.

I could not agree more with this.
I dug out the Tubin disk that Barbs has such a fondness for. The first movement of the Third Symphony sounds suspiciously like the I of the first Walton Symphony . I didn’t come to know the Walton work until years after hearing the Tubin , but Walton was there first by a few decades.
I pulled a review of the Tubin from Fanfare Magazine in 1986. The critic noted that Tubin composed it in the early forties, after Hitler had conquered Estonia from the USSR. The reviewer suggested that the martial is and triumphant tone of the work was due to the fact that most Estonians (in his words) would have preferred life under Hitler to Stalin.
That is a loaded conclusion, and although Tubin fled Estonia after the return of the Soviets in 1944 I hardly find that conclusive that he was some type of Nazi supporter and that his music is a reflection of that. The very suggestion however has now tainted my view of the work and I probably would have difficulty listening to it going forward without scrutinizing it for some hidden agenda. So I now burned it to my NAS and tossed it; my shelves need the room for the constant inflow of newTchaikovsky and Telemann discs and the ever omnipresent Politics has ruined this one for me