What download have you bought?

[mathias broucek]

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/shostakovich-the-great-symphonies-various-artists/5055354460043

Less than 10 quid for:

4 with Barshai
5 with Maxim (LSO)
7 with Kondrashin (the Ivanov attributation is bogus)
8 with Mravinsky (1982 at the correct pitch)
10 with Maxim (LSO)
15 with Kondrashin
VC2 with Oistrakh and Kondrashin

Have only listened to 15 and 5 so far. The 15th is predictably excellent and the 5th is an interesting take with slower tempi and less bombast - well worth hearing. I had the 4th and 8th already and can remember being impressed by the latter in a brutal sort of way

[Bryn]

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/sh.../5055354460043

Less than 10 quid for:

4 with Barshai
5 with Maxim (LSO)
7 with Kondrashin (the Ivanov attributation is bogus)
8 with Mravinsky (1982 at the correct pitch)
10 with Maxim (LSO)
15 with Kondrashin
VC2 with Oistrakh and Kondrashin

Have only listened to 15 and 5 so far. The 15th is predictably excellent and the 5th is an interesting take with slower tempi and less bombast - well worth hearing. I had the 4th and 8th already and can remember being impressed by the latter in a brutal sort of way

Not a patch on all 15 under Barshai for less than a fiver, which a good few here got on CDs from Superdrug some years back, e.g..

[Bryn]

Re. the new Debussy/Roth issue, has anyone here tried the CD/DVD version? If so, what is the DVD like?

[cloughie]

Alas, we can't know what was in Boulez's mind. I'd like to think that a forward motion, but with no regular beat or guiding home key, had something to do with his declaration.

Maybe at times over-analysis gets in the way of just enjoying listening to beautiful music. I think I could listen to L’apres- midi and La mer all day ( well at least before noon and in the afternoon) without tiring of them, in a number of recorded versions.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Maybe at times over-analysis gets in the way of just enjoying listening to beautiful music.

Nah - it makes you ever more aware of how beautiful it is so you enjoy it even more.

Knowing the facts of life doesn't make sex any less enjoyable.

[cloughie]

Nah - it makes you ever more aware of how beautiful it is so you enjoy it even more.

Knowing the facts of life doesn't make sex any less enjoyable.

I did say at times! And do you want to analyse sex or just enjoy!

[Bryn]

I did say at times! And do you want to analyse sex or just enjoy!

Hmm. Historically, the eventual recognition of the link between sex and procreation might well have diminished the level of enjoyment for some heterosexuals.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I did say at times! And do you want to analyse sex or just enjoy!

Well, at the very least, I'd want to know the name of my partner. And knowing her requirements and preferences also contribute to the enjoyment, as well as knowing which anatomical features best "coincide" when.

As with everything - knowledge enhances pleasure.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... all of which adds a rather novel aspect to the word "download".

[cloughie]

... all of which adds a rather novel aspect to the word "download".

I like your host skills for assuring that you/we are not off topic.

[cloughie]

Well, at the very least, I'd want to know the name of my partner. And knowing her requirements and preferences also contribute to the enjoyment, as well as knowing which anatomical features best "coincide" when.

As with everything - knowledge enhances pleasure.

But sometimes too much knowledge gets in the way!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But sometimes too much knowledge gets in the way!

Nah.

[HighlandDougie]

Re. the new Debussy/Roth issue, has anyone here tried the CD/DVD version? If so, what is the DVD like?

Back on topic and away from the slightly off-colour nature of the previous few posts (I was going to write 60 and 70-somethings channeling their inner schoolboy but that's a bit rude), the DVD is rather good. Recorded in the alfresco performance space in the Charles V Palace in the Alhambra, there are occasional noises-off (birdsong usually) but nothing too distracting. You get the Marche Écossaise rather than the Prélude. The acoustics are rather more chaleureux than those of the forensically clear Philharmonie de Paris but, unsurprisingly, F-X R and the orchestra haven't changed their interpretations between January and June of this year. The chorus (City of Granada Orchestra Chorus) - well, one has heard better and the balance of voices and orchestra will probably be less to JLW's taste than in Paris. The orchestral playing has the odd slip but, in the context of such committed playing, it doesn't hugely matter. As a bonus to the CD, the DVD is certainly another good reason for buying the package. I find it hard to fault but then I don't like mushy "impressionistic" Debussy - and I do like F-X R's way with his music.

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes I read those two morsels. Doesn't tell us much other than Boulez thought the flute in Faun was the key to his reason why the piece was so important in terms of form, and that Mallarmé thought that Debussy had captured the feeling of his poem. But I agree that it's fun to project onto this with one's own ideas.

I think Boulez was using "the flute of the faun" as part-for-whole, a new conception of musical form which began with the piece; Mallarmé and Debussy were cross-fertilising each other's late-19thC symbolist/impressionist ideas (about how we perceive image, sound, colour); and those and Boulez are inseminating my own, which I of course genetically modify as I bring them to birth...

....Anyway!
I do think Debussy was very clear about his desire for orchestral shading and subtlety "a study in grey" "as if backlit" etc... his own words are out there. Think of the contrasts across the Images, for example, from cold winds and night and shadows into bright sun... if it's all explicit then many of its effects are lost.

I recall Rattle saying in an interview about this that, sometimes "hearing everything" is precisely what these particular Debussy works don't need, or not in any conventional sense. I think it's become a bit too easy for a given reviewer to marvel at the audibility of detail in a given new recording, not giving enough thought to the more difficult task of blend and subtlety in the service of contrast, poetic evocativeness or intensity...

A good example of the approach I adore to Nocturnes would be Abbado's 2003 Berlin Phil recording (c/w the Pelleas Suite, Pahud's Faun, etc.). A little swift sometimes, but set at a lovely atmospheric, mid-hall distance, with a marvellously skilful and evocative instrumental blend, yet never misses any telling detail. The Sirens soar to truly ecstatic peaks...
Compare his Fêtes to Roth, and you'll hear Abbado so spontaneous, much fresher and rhythmically lifted, natural springy rhythms, and then - that climax! Those Berlin brasses - never too heavy - really put most other recordings I know in their secondary place, never mind Roth's oddly stifled offering at this point. A procession approaches from distance; comes into the dazzling sunlight; if this climax disappoints (all too often) it is emotionally as well as musically frustrating.

Recorded in the Jesus-Christus Kirche, with shades of Karajan's '64 vintage La Mer hovering nearby...

[HighlandDougie]

A good example of the approach I adore to Nocturnes would be Abbado's 2003 Berlin Phil recording (c/w the Pellets Suite, Pahud's Faun, etc.).

À chacun son goût. It was exactly this recording I was thinking of when I said that I didn't like impressionistic Debussy. I'm afraid that I've always found it to be a disappointment, particularly as Abbado's Boston recording (that single LP in a box) was the mainstay of my listening for a long time. But, then, I could never get excited about Karajan's 'La Mer' either, in any one of the three BPO versions. All a bit glossy for my no doubt coarse tastes (give me Boulez or, more recently, Tabachnik any day).