Saturday Essential Classics

[jayne lee wilson]

I thought the brief was for her to choose her favourites, and not with the caveat that they had to be 'recent'

Point taken, but with the extraordinary surge of renewing and revitalising recordings of Schumann in the last few years, I feel a bit sad if anyone in a critical role doesn't seem aware of them - and yes, truly madly deeply enamoured of such. Schumann is one of my all-time favourites, and some of those I listed are really marvellous - not least the new disc of Violin Sonatas...

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/schumann-the-violin-sonatas-eriikka-maalismaa-emil-holmstrom/uwgjtg9t9820a

...mind you, perhaps that's so recent it is a little unfair to expect many people to favouritize it! (Yet...its time will surely come...! Just try the leise, einfach of No.2.... and swoon....)

It's a stone-cold, sky-high must-buy!

[Barbirollians]

I meant peachy to mean lovely like a warm embrace, LMcD!

Me too and that Bernstein Schumann Symphonies set is peachy.

[visualnickmos]

Point taken, but with the extraordinary surge of renewing and revitalising recordings of Schumann in the last few years, I feel a bit sad if anyone in a critical role doesn't seem aware of them - and yes, truly madly deeply enamoured of such. Schumann is one of my all-time favourites, and some of those I listed are really marvellous - not least the new disc of Violin Sonatas...

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/schumann-the-violin-sonatas-eriikka-maalismaa-emil-holmstrom/uwgjtg9t9820a

...mind you, perhaps that's so recent it is a little unfair to expect many people to favouritize it! (Yet...its time will surely come...! Just try the leise, einfach of No.2.... and swoon....)

It's a stone-cold, sky-high must-buy!

I take your point too, in that it it does highlight a huge 'positive' in that there are many artists - mostly youngish, I would guess, who are recording a plethora of oeuvres, and that people like you, explore and I suppose - 'promote and encourage' others to do likewise. Keep up the good work......

[Barbirollians]

But how good for an artist to choose what means most to them rather than the latest favourite of record reviewers.

[jayne lee wilson]

But how good for an artist to choose what means most to them rather than the latest favourite of record reviewers.

Depends are on whether they keep up with new recordings from younger artists....new releases (or recordings from the last few decades...) rather than "reviewers' favourites"....
I subscribe to Gramophone, yes, but I've often heard new recordings off Qobuz etc before I read it each month...

With the Maalismaa/Holstrom Schumann it was both together really.... anyone who hears it will, or should, have their Schumann interior landscape changed once again....
But back they go to Argerich, Kremer etc....

So if the list is.... Bernstein, Goode, Walter.... well.... and you wonder why the Proms concerts are so unadventurous...?

[Mal]

Thanks.... come on Lucy, stir yourself, quite a few more recent ones (!), try to keep up now.....!

Accusing Lucy of not stirring herself, and for not keeping up, seems a bit of a low blow. I thought you were encouraging us to go higher?

What makes you think she hasn't listened to more recent ones? What makes you think she doesn't keep up? Given that she's a professional reviewer, I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she just prefers listening to Bernstein and Walter. Actually, these choices make me inclined to listen to the podcast...

Why should we continually seek out all the latest stuff? Dipping into radio 3 at random, now and again, is enough adventure for me. Such adventures usually have me running back to my old CDs with a sigh of relief.

[visualnickmos]

Accusing Lucy of not stirring herself, and for not keeping up, seems a bit of a low blow. I thought you were encouraging us to go higher?

What makes you think she hasn't listened to more recent ones? What makes you think she doesn't keep up? Given that she's a professional reviewer, I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she just prefers listening to Bernstein and Walter. Actually, these choices make me inclined to listen to the podcast...

Why should we continually seek out all the latest stuff? Dipping into radio 3 at random, now and again, is enough adventure for me. Such adventures usually have me running back to my old CDs with a sigh of relief.

[jayne lee wilson]

Accusing Lucy of not stirring herself, and for not keeping up, seems a bit of a low blow. I thought you were encouraging us to go higher?

What makes you think she hasn't listened to more recent ones? What makes you think she doesn't keep up? Given that she's a professional reviewer, I will give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she just prefers listening to Bernstein and Walter. Actually, these choices make me inclined to listen to the podcast...

Why should we continually seek out all the latest stuff? Dipping into radio 3 at random, now and again, is enough adventure for me. Such adventures usually have me running back to my old CDs with a sigh of relief.

"Classical Music" won't last as a living performance art with attitudes like those... the long history of classical recording itself only developed because of, and has kept vital and fresh precisely by, new interpretative, technical and sonic approaches, most especially by younger performers to whom it can mean different things, carry fresher values. How else did we come to have recordings of the 1841 Schumann 4th?

Otherwise you are curating museum pieces - which is not to deny such things their beauty and value. I have an extensive collection of them myself, going back to the 1940s. So I know whereof I speak. Dismissing newer recordings as "the latest stuff" is too dismissive and doesn't help anyone.

Schumann on Record has seen something of a revolution since the 1990s, and very exciting and rewarding it has been. The new Schumann disc I've referenced is just as exciting to me as, say, Karajan's Mahler 6th was when it appeared. It's a real event - especially given the still under-recognised greatness of the music, the 2nd Sonata most of all.
Classical Music Culture can be very conservative & backward-looking - a main reason for the BBC's often misguided or heavy-handed attempts to appeal to new audiences. All too often Record Review features contributors who fail to update their knowledge - case in point the BaL on Schumann 4 last year, for the most part lingering over recordings from the 1970s. But the startling, revelatory Hanover Band/Goodman version appeared as long ago as 1995. Boult's HIPPS-avant-la-lettre take with the LPO for Westminster, for so long in the shadows until the 2010 remaster, was recorded in 1956.

September Gramophone will include a Collection survey on the Schumann 2nd Symphony by Richard Whitehouse. Now that should be worth reading - he has terrific range and depth of musical sympathies.
(I know Lucy Parham as performer, contributor, curator etc.... but can't find much reviewing work. Who does she review for?)

Humankind thrives on curiosity, innovation and open-mindedness. When it comes to time and change, art and preservation and renewal, we should try to be janus-faced.

[cloughie]

"Classical Music" won't last as a living performance art with attitudes like those... the long history of classical recording itself only developed because of, and has kept vital and fresh precisely by, new interpretative, technical and sonic approaches, most especially by younger performers to whom it can mean different things, carry fresher values. How else did we come to have recordings of the 1841 Schumann 4th?

Otherwise you are curating museum pieces - which is not to deny such things their beauty and value. I have an extensive collection of them myself, going back to the 1940s. So I know whereof I speak. Dismissing newer recordings as "the latest stuff" is too dismissive and doesn't help anyone.

Schumann on Record has seen something of a revolution since the 1990s, and very exciting and rewarding it has been. The new Schumann disc I've referenced is just as exciting to me as, say, Karajan's Mahler 6th was when it appeared. It's a real event - especially given the still under-recognised greatness of the music, the 2nd Sonata most of all.
Classical Music Culture can be very conservative & backward-looking - a main reason for the BBC's often misguided or heavy-handed attempts to appeal to new audiences. All too often Record Review features contributors who fail to update their knowledge - case in point the BaL on Schumann 4 last year, for the most part lingering over recordings from the 1970s. But the startling, revelatory Hanover Band/Goodman version appeared as long ago as 1995. Boult's HIPPS-avant-la-lettre take with the LPO for Westminster, for so long in the shadows until the 2010 remaster, was recorded in 1956.

September Gramophone will include a Collection survey on the Schumann 2nd Symphony by Richard Whitehouse. Now that should be worth reading - he has terrific range and depth of musical sympathies.
(I know Lucy Parham as performer, contributor, curator etc.... but can't find much reviewing work. Who does she review for?)

Humankind thrives on curiosity, innovation and open-mindedness. When it comes to time and change, art and preservation and renewal, we should try to be janus-faced.

As a Gemini I have no difficulty in being janus-faced - Schumann 4 1841 - a good basis for the symphony but not the final article that was the 1851 which is wonderful, apply the same to Beethoven Leonora 2 and 3! Also newer interpretations of works may be bright and innovative, but do not always improve more traditional approaches - some are wow! and some are why?

[mikealdren]

I know Lucy Parham as performer, contributor, curator etc.... but can't find much reviewing work. Who does she review for?

Record review!!!

[DracoM]

What is a sensible definition of the now mind-numbingly ubiquitous activity / verb 'to curate'?
Incidentally on the Finnish station I use, currently is playing a complete recording of:

Offenbach: Monsieur Choufleuri, 1-act operetta. (Jean-Philippe Lafont, baritone, Mady Mesplé, soprano, Charles Burles, tenor, Michel Trempont, baritone, Michel Hamel, tenor, and Emmy Greger, mezzo-soprano, plus Jean Laforge Choir and Monte Carlon FO / Manuel Rosenthal).

That's on

https://areena.yle.fi/radio/ohjelmat/yle-klassinen/

[Mal]

"Classical Music" won't last as a living performance art with attitudes like those...

Why not? Does it matter if I listen to no new stuff from here to doomsday? Music will last as a living performance art if a reasonable number of people go to live performances. That seems to be happening... no one's complaining about the Albert Hall being empty this month.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What is a sensible definition of the now mind-numbingly ubiquitous activity / verb 'to curate'?

To interfere?

[LezLee]

To interfere?

[LezLee]

The Cambridge Dictionary says:

To be in charge of selecting and caring for objects to be shown in a museum or to form part of a collection of art, an exhibition, etc.:
She curated a recent exhibition of Indian artwork.

To be in charge of selecting films, performers, events, etc. to be included in a festival:
a Messiaen festival curated by pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard

To select things such as documents, music, products, or internet content to be included as part of a list or collection, or on a website:
a curated library of short movies available online