Can anyone recommend a recording of .................?

[Richard Barrett]

that Mengelberg Mahler 4

As it happens I was listening to that the other day, having discovered I'm quite happy to listen to historical recordings on my laptop so I can pretend all the missing elements are actually there but I just can't hear them! And I was struck by the thought that if anyone nowadays did with the tempi what Mengelberg did, especially in the first movement, they would be panned for pulling the music to pieces.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Those people at Bridge make some quite interesting CDs, like their Carter edition, but the cover designs - damn!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One of their "better" ones:

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Their DVD covers are equally "instantly identifiable":

[jayne lee wilson]

I bought this Poul Ruders CD on its release or soon after having read a review in Gramophone (I think) in 1993/4. It's served me well and I've never added any more of Ruder's work to my collection. I saw a great bargain on Quobuz - his 5th symphony for £2.39. It's 36 minutes long and I'm looking forward to giving it a spin.

Does anybody have a recommendation for any of his other works, especially for smaller forces?

I found this very gripping -

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/poul-ruders-nightshade-trilogy-various-artists/0090404943324

Three works based on the same material, moving from 10-instruments (1986), to Chamber Orchestra (1991), to Symphony Orchestra (2003).... the notes would be helpful but I can't find them online... still the titles of the last two "A Symphonic Nocturne".... "An Adagio of the Night" do give you some idea of what to expect....Review - Gramophone 1/2015, DJF.

I also very much enjoyed the earlier Da Capo anthology of concertos....

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/concertos-poul-ruders/0636943603420

..which covers an impressive range of style and expression. The Monodrama percussion concerto (30' continuous play...) is, well.... uncompromising. Ruders himself said "It's pretty grim"...!

http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recordings/concertos

[Beef Oven!]

I found this very gripping -

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/poul-ruders-nightshade-trilogy-various-artists/0090404943324

Three works based on the same material, moving from 10-instruments (1986), to Chamber Orchestra (1991), to Symphony Orchestra (2003).... the notes would be helpful but I can't find them online... still the titles of the last two "A Symphonic Nocturne".... "An Adagio of the Night" do give you some idea of what to expect....Review - Gramophone 1/2015, DJF.

I also very much enjoyed the earlier Da Capo anthology of concertos....

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/concertos-poul-ruders/0636943603420

..which covers an impressive range of style and expression. The Monodrama percussion concerto (30' continuous play...) is, well.... uncompromising. Ruders himself said "It's pretty grim"...!
http://www.dacapo-records.dk/en/recordings/concertos

Jayne, you're an absolute star

Many thanks indeed! Just what I wanted!

This will keep me occupied for a while. The 30 minute 'grim' percussion concerto sounds like my cup of tea!

[jayne lee wilson]

As it happens I was listening to that the other day, having discovered I'm quite happy to listen to historical recordings on my laptop so I can pretend all the missing elements are actually there but I just can't hear them! And I was struck by the thought that if anyone nowadays did with the tempi what Mengelberg did, especially in the first movement, they would be panned for pulling the music to pieces.

Yes... exactly what I've been going on about re. creative (or recreative - playing music) interpretation (and so inspired by with Knappertsbusch, Toscanini etc.)....

Richard Osborne (ITMA!), Gramophone 4/1986, on the Philips CD issue of Mengelberg's Mahler 4:
"It is by any standards a superb performance, very decently engineered by AVRO Hilversum in 11/1939, a wonderful demonstration of a great orchestra playing at the peak of its powers in a live concert. It also offers an inexhaustible source of insights, particularly in the matter of the use of rubato in Mahler's music, into a particular and in some measure authenticated tradition of Mahler interpretation."
"...A performance which must of necessity be in the collection of anyone who loves this symphony in particular or Mahler's music in general."

It's this kind of historically aware yet musically responsive understanding that seemed to be missing from those recent comments about Furtwängler's 1951 Bruckner 4 by PQ in the current Gramophone.

I must add that there's not much missing from the Pristine transfer of the Mahler, even scrutinised in room-sized stereo; and some of their Mengelberg Beethoven Symphony restorations are really beautiful - the best I've heard from 1940 for sure.

[Petrushka]

Jayne, you are really selling these Pristine Classical recordings to me! So far, I've resisted on the not unreasonable grounds that I have many of the recordings you've mentioned in other incarnations, sometimes twice or three times over, so can I really justify yet another? I sampled the Mengelberg 1940 LvB 9 last night and found it to be very fine indeed - catch those timpani! - and my resistance is crumbling. Ah well, birthday coming up soon!

[jayne lee wilson]

Jayne, you are really selling these Pristine Classical recordings to me! So far, I've resisted on the not unreasonable grounds that I have many of the recordings you've mentioned in other incarnations, sometimes twice or three times over, so can I really justify yet another? I sampled the Mengelberg 1940 LvB 9 last night and found it to be very fine indeed - catch those timpani! - and my resistance is crumbling. Ah well, birthday coming up soon!

Well, I hope it's a happy one... (never had too many of those myself ).

ALWAYS though - tread carefully with Historic Recordings i.e. mono pre-1950. Try-before-buy wherever possible.

When I first settled down to listen to the 1940 Mengelberg Beethoven 4th, after enjoying 2, 8 and 1 so much, I was nonplussed.... serious problems with the source, obviously. What had I let myself in for? Checking again, this is made clear on the Pristine website and in the quoted Fanfare Review - damaged acetates. After a few minutes, there is so much to enjoy and learn from in a truly remarkable reading. But I was left with the feeling that the offered excerpt should have been this first movement rather than the finale, with the precise explanatory note.

[Beef Oven!]

Anyone got an opinion on a good Schnittke symphony #4?

[Beef Oven!]

Does anyone have a view about a really good Aulis Sallinen symphony?

I only have 1 Naxos Sallinen CD of Works for string orchestra and I would like to check out one of his symphonies.

[jayne lee wilson]

Does anyone have a view about a really good Aulis Sallinen symphony?

I only have 1 Naxos Sallinen CD of Works for string orchestra and I would like to check out one of his symphonies.

Here I am, gazing upon the gorgeous CPO Boxset of the Symphonies, with the individual very intriguing cover designs by Kimmi Kaivanto....
The only comment I made was this snippet from 12/2015: (The lovely CPO complete set was my very rewarding present-to-myself.)

***
"Aulis Sallinen: Cello Concerto OP.44 (1976). Jan-erik Gustaffson/Norrkoping SO/Rasilainen. CPO CD, Sallinen Edition 2011.A superbly imaginative 20-minute adagio/moderato is followed by a light and brilliant presto-prestissimo. A stunning piece, c/w...

Symphony No.6. OP.65 (1990). " From a New Zealand Diary".

When I first heard it, I was - disappointed. It seemed loose, overlong, episodic, anecdotal of its songs, marches and dances. It seemed no match for the brilliance and memorable cogency of 3 and 4 (thrilling discoveries!). But early this morning after the concerto I was gripped from the first bar by a sonic imagination & a freewheeling musical allusiveness which I seemed completely to miss, or misunderstand, first go... the 3rd movement, "Kyeburn Diggings", is an extraordinary Ivesian Vision, where dark, static, dreamlike chords and glittering textures are cut across by raucous popular marches - and yes, it actually quotes... Columbia, Gem of the Ocean...."

***
Looking back now, I do at least recall my disappointment with the 7th, called "The Dreams of Gandalf" based on an abandoned Lord of the Rings ballet... No.8 seemed like a fragmentary, weary echo of former glories...the 5th has three very evocative middle-movement intermezzi but I felt the longer outer ones were...(critical cliché alert) - "over-extended"...

For me the "core" achievements were the Symphonies 3 and 4 - very spare, sub-25' 3-movement works tightly argued from short, simple motifs...
No.2 "Symphonic Dialogue", a brilliantly playful percussion concerto. (What?! An ENTERTAINING percussion concerto? It's really true...)
Best single CPO issue, or best starting point at least, is probably the one with 2,4 and the Horn Concerto, another work in his lighter lyrical vein...
Oh and, the BIS issue of 4&5 seemed to me less recommendable than these CPO releases, which have excellent, audiophile grade sound.

(See Gramophone 11/2015 for the Andrew Mellor feature which got me into Salllinen. This fills you in on Sallinen's operas, which I'm certainly never going to!)

[Beef Oven!]

Here I am, gazing upon the gorgeous CPO Boxset of the Symphonies, with the individual very intriguing cover designs by Kimmi Kaivanto....
The only comment I made was this snippet from 12/2015: (The lovely CPO complete set was my very rewarding present-to-myself.)

***
"Aulis Sallinen: Cello Concerto OP.44 (1976). Jan-erik Gustaffson/Norrkoping SO/Rasilainen. CPO CD, Sallinen Edition 2011.A superbly imaginative 20-minute adagio/moderato is followed by a light and brilliant presto-prestissimo. A stunning piece, c/w...

Symphony No.6. OP.65 (1990). " From a New Zealand Diary".

When I first heard it, I was - disappointed. It seemed loose, overlong, episodic, anecdotal of its songs, marches and dances. It seemed no match for the brilliance and memorable cogency of 3 and 4 (thrilling discoveries!). But early this morning after the concerto I was gripped from the first bar by a sonic imagination & a freewheeling musical allusiveness which I seemed completely to miss, or misunderstand, first go... the 3rd movement, "Kyeburn Diggings", is an extraordinary Ivesian Vision, where dark, static, dreamlike chords and glittering textures are cut across by raucous popular marches - and yes, it actually quotes... Columbia, Gem of the Ocean...."

***
Looking back now, I do at least recall my disappointment with the 7th, called "The Dreams of Gandalf" based on an abandoned Lord of the Rings ballet... No.8 seemed like a fragmentary, weary echo of former glories...the 5th has three very evocative middle-movement intermezzi but I felt the longer outer ones were...(critical cliché alert) - "over-extended"...

For me the "core" achievements were the Symphonies 3 and 4 - very spare, sub-25' 3-movement works tightly argued from short, simple motifs...
No.2 "Symphonic Dialogue", a brilliantly playful percussion concerto. (What?! An ENTERTAINING percussion concerto? It's really true...)
Best single CPO issue, or best starting point at least, is probably the one with 2,4 and the Horn Concerto, another work in his lighter lyrical vein...
Oh and, the BIS issue of 4&5 seemed to me less recommendable than these CPO releases, which have excellent, audiophile grade sound.

(See Gramophone 11/2015 for the Andrew Mellor feature which got me into Salllinen. This fills you in on Sallinen's operas, which I'm certainly never going to!)

Jayne thanks for this, it's very much appreciated. I'll look through it and respond fully in a few days - I'm currently snowed under with chores. 3 & 4 sound interesting and I have no idea why I subscribe to the full digital Gramophone, because I never open it until I ask about something and you refer me to the relevant issue!!! For example, last time was the American string quartets!!

[jayne lee wilson]

Reverse-charge thanks to you too, Beef, for your explorations - I'm listening to more Schnittke now (having felt that, identifying strongly with it, I wore his music out in the 1990s/2000s) & would never have (re)discovered the wonderful St. Florian Symphony otherwise, or recognised the role in his output, and true stature of, his 7th Symphony......the Polyansky CD of this is before me now in its shiny wrapper, c/w with the Cello Concerto No.1. I can't recall a note of this, but searching around find listeners raving about it... so, quite some anticipation for later... !

Something about the finale of the Schnittke 7th which I've never seen noted anywhere - that theme which appears on horns (track 7, after 2'30 on the Otaka CD) and then on tuba solo later (sounding like a rather gloomy variation of "On Top of Old Smokey", gloomy enough as it is... ) is surely the same theme from the 5th Symphony's 2nd Movement, i.e. the Mahler juvenilia quote from GM's early Piano Quartet; it seems to have meant a lot to Schnittke.

Incidentally - got around to the Concertgebouw/Chailly CD of Concerto Grosso No.4/Symphony No.5 and - it's CLEARLY the best of the three extant, musically and sonically ahead of Jarvi or Rozh. Stunning recording, embracing the epic and the intimate. Truly seminal 20th C masterpiece should be in every collection (as they say, cliché alert, again...)

[teamsaint]

1) Thanks
2) Nor do I

I'm just listening to 13 Postludes by Poul Ruders from this CD.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/20th-Century-Danish-Piano-Works/dp/B000024ODQ/ref=tmm_acd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

all very nicely atmospheric music.

No 16 is entitled March. I think it must represent the Danish weather that time of year, rather than the walking activity........