Old recorded friends

[Barbirollians]

Do you have any recordings that you once played to death but after many years have come to listen to and love again ?

When I was a student in the 1980s I played the Perlman/Ashkenazy coupling of the Kreutzer and Spring Sonatas to death whilst working and revising.

Discovered it again on Amazon music recently after not having heard it for many a year to find how I still know exactly how almost every phrase is going to go but have obtained a great deal of pleasure from it again.

Sometimes one can play a recording to death and struggle to listen to it now. Do you have any recordings that fall ,however, into this rediscovered friend category ?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A couple of recordings that fall into this category:

Mozart: Symphony no 40; VPO/Furtwangler (1948-49)

Tchaikovsky: Symphony no. 6; Bolshoi Threatre Orchestra/Melik-Pashayev - a Saga LP I bought simply because it was cheap! I discarded it when I bought the VPO/Maazel set, and later several other versions, but I had a hankering to hear the Melik-Pashayev once again, and eventually found a Melodiya CD. I wasn’t disappointed!

[cloughie]

Sanderling’s Rachmaninov Sym 1 with the Leningrad Phil - I had on an Artia LP. Two or three years ago I was alerted on a forum thread to a download which I have played many times since - not disappointed and its rustic Russian sound comes through.

[Serial_Apologist]

The Debussy "Le Martyr" coupled with the orchestral "Images" from the 1960s, with Monteux and the LSO, which I bought in the mid-60s and is still for me the best recording of these works: I recently acquired the stereo version!

[Bryn]

Mahler: Symphony No. 3 (Kondrashin). I got this on MK LPs from the then Headquarters and General Supplies (remember them?). I could hear the performance was superb but the first side of the double album just would not track. It jumped all over the place, from the start. I loved it just the same, Russian language vocals notwithstanding. Oh, what joy when it appeared on CD (supplemented by a separate recording of the vocal movements sung in German).

[Serial_Apologist]

I got this on MK LPs from the then Headquarters and General Supplies (remember them?).

Actually no! But I wonder how many here remember The Record Exchange [sic] in Wardour Street, where I obtained a number of recordings on the Présence de la musique contemporaine (Vega) label, from the 1950s, including Barraqué, Jolivet, Schoenberg, Varèse, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky (Agon): all solid in every unbendable way, unscratchable but replete with surface noise, and in appropriately austere grey covers. I still have 'em.

[Bryn]

Actually no! But I wonder how many here remember The Record Exchange [sic] in Wardour Street, where I obtained a number of recordings on the Présence de la musique contemporaine (Vega) label, from the 1950s, including Barraqué, Jolivet, Schoenberg, Varèse, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky (Agon): all solid in every unbendable way, unscratchable but replete with surface noise, and in appropriately austere grey covers. I still have 'em.

Though I bought one or two discs from The Record Exchange, I tended to find their prices a tad high. Though it took more diligent searching out for 'classical' discs, Mr CD, almost across the road, was much more fun.

[cloughie]

Actually no! But I wonder how many here remember The Record Exchange [sic] in Wardour Street, where I obtained a number of recordings on the Présence de la musique contemporaine (Vega) label, from the 1950s, including Barraqué, Jolivet, Schoenberg, Varèse, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky (Agon): all solid in every unbendable way, unscratchable but replete with surface noise, and in appropriately austere grey covers. I still have 'em.

I bought many 2nd Hand from mail order dealers Devoy in Cambuslang, then Glasgow, Ives in Norwich, plus deletions and bankrupt stock from Farringdon Records.

[gradus]

Mahler: Symphony No. 3 (Kondrashin). I got this on MK LPs from the then Headquarters and General Supplies (remember them?). I could hear the performance was superb but the first side of the double album just would not track. It jumped all over the place, from the start. I loved it just the same, Russian language vocals notwithstanding. Oh, what joy when it appeared on CD (supplemented by a separate recording of the vocal movements sung in German).

Yes and I still have the (still working) Stanley Bridges electric drill bought in High Holborn from Headquarters and General Supply Stores. I never found any records there but I bought the complete Bach organ works - Lionel Rogg's first recording - from the Houndsditch Warehouse as fire - damaged stock for 5 shillings each.

[Keraulophone]

I bought the complete Bach organ works - Lionel Rogg's first recording - from the Houndsditch Warehouse as fire - damaged stock for 5 shillings each.

That marvellous set, the first of Rogg’s three complete JSB, recorded in the 1960s on the Metzler in the Grossmünster, Zürich has never, to my knowledge, been released on CD. It was very influential on release, being a real antidote to the Helmut Walcha school of Bach playing on the organ. When all seventeen LPs were on sale at an Oxfam shop half an hour across the Tamar, I snapped them up, and they remain a prized possession.

Collets bookshop, of distant memory, in Charing Cross Road was my usual source of Melodiya and other Russian records, such as symphonies by Andrei Eshpai. The sleeves were once described in Gramophone as ‘smelling of Politburo glue’.

More on topic, I caught an ‘old friend’ being played on R3 on a recent Saturday afternoon: the Suk/Katchen Brahms G major violin sonata sounded as fresh as ever after so many years.

[Roslynmuse]

I bought many 2nd Hand from mail order dealers Devoy in Cambuslang, then Glasgow, Ives in Norwich, plus deletions and bankrupt stock from Farringdon Records.

Devoy - gosh, that brings back memories.

I used to send off for so many catalogues... There was a great seller about 30 years ago I bought the Dorati Haydn set from - Gus? Gale? The name escapes me.

[visualnickmos]

Mahler: Symphony No. 3 (Kondrashin). I got this on MK LPs from the then Headquarters and General Supplies (remember them?). I could hear the performance was superb but the first side of the double album just would not track. It jumped all over the place, from the start. I loved it just the same, Russian language vocals notwithstanding. Oh, what joy when it appeared on CD (supplemented by a separate recording of the vocal movements sung in German).

I recently acquired this apparently rare offering. I haven't yet listened to the Symphony no. 3. That's tomorrow sorted! Thank you for the nod / reminder.
Slightly off-piste, do you know the Rozhdestvensky Vaughan Williams complete symphony cycle? Melodiya. I seem to be the only person west of the Elbe, who has it, so haven't heard others' views on it. For what it's worth - I actually find it pretty good, f-a-i-r-l-y consistent; a rather special 'Sea Symphony' if a little unorthodox...

[Edgy 2]

Slightly off-piste, do you know the Rozhdestvensky Vaughan Williams complete symphony cycle? Melodiya. I seem to be the only person west of the Elbe, who has it, so haven't heard others' views on it. For what it's worth - I actually find it pretty good, f-a-i-r-l-y consistent; a rather special 'Sea Symphony' if a little unorthodox...

That makes at least three of us on here who have this set then, briefly discussed here and maybe elsewhere

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?11704-Rozhdestvensky-s-live-Vaughan-Williams-Cycle&highlight=Gennady+Rozhdestvensky

I think it's an interesting and quite impressive survey although I haven't listened to any of them for about 2 years (blimey 7 years ago that thread)

[cloughie]

That makes at least three of us on here who have this set then, briefly discussed here and maybe elsewhere

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?11704-Rozhdestvensky-s-live-Vaughan-Williams-Cycle&highlight=Gennady+Rozhdestvensky

I think it's an interesting and quite impressive survey although I haven't listened to any of them for about 2 years (blimey 7 years ago that thread)

Indeed so edge, when I think of old friends I think of older recordings - my RVW choices would be the Boult Decca 50s, particularly Job, Sym 3 & 5. Though through CDs they’ve never been away.

When I bought the big orange Decca Mono box a few years ago I welcomed many old friends

I have recently also via downloads reacquainted myself with Ferdinand Leitner’s Dvorak 7 and Schumann 3

[Edgy 2]

Indeed so edge, when I think of old friends I think of older recordings - my RVW choices would be the Boult Decca 50s, particularly Job, Sym 3 & 5. Though through CDs they’ve never been away.

When I bought the big orange Decca Mono box a few years ago I welcomed many old friends

I have recently also via downloads reacquainted myself with Ferdinand Leitner’s Dvorak 7 and Schumann 3