Favourite BALs of the year

[doversoul1]

I hate having to choose one, so let’s say three. What are your favourite BALs of the year and what was it that made them particularly memorable? Mines are:

• Pargolesi Stabat Mater: I enjoyed the reviewer’s enthusiasm
• Bach B Minor Mass: I can’t remember in details but this was one of the most impressive BALs of the year.
• Bach Organ Works: the sheer amount of reference, very well organised. A brilliant introduction (this was not exactly a BAL but it’s much the same thing

)

[doversoul1]

Just to make it clear:
THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION (I hate competitions)

[Don Petter]

I listen to BaL whenever I can, but remembering those I've heard over a year is a bit of a challenge. However good, they don't necessarily stick in the mind for long.

My favourite would not be one where there were two presenters having a jolly conversation. This always seems to me to exclude the listener, and there are too many 'indeed's and 'exactly so's taking up valuable time in a section already too short for the content to be covered in great detail.

I think I would vote for Piers Burton-Page reviewing Brahms' first string quartet. (I told you it would have to be a recent one.) Did I go and buy the CD? No - I was tempted, but having several thousand CDs most of which never get heard, and, I find, six CDs of the work when I gave up indexing them about fifteen years ago, probably more now, I'm trying to cut down.

There are still enough occasional 'must-haves' like the de Larrocha Icon set and the Boult Nixa reissues to keep my 'to hear' pile stocked, together with the some new repertoire, and charity shop finds which are worth a try.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I would prefer more that one person to be involved in the choosing of a BAL recommendation, though I take the point about jolly conversations (reminiscent of interval talks on televised Proms broadcasts).

With a single presenter, it is inevitable that his/her particular biases will come to the fore. For example, some reviewers will automatically dismiss non-HIP performances as a matter of principle. Choosing two reviewers with different ideologies might help to counteract this.

For the record, my favourite BALs were:
Rachmaninov - Isle of the Dead
Shostakovitch - Symphony no. 15
Tchaikovsky - Francesca di Rimini

[doversoul1]

Don

I wouldn't pretend that I remembered them all. Here is the link. It's good to look back.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tmtz/episodes/2010

[Don Petter]

Choosing two reviewers with different ideologies might help to counteract this.

This might work, though there could also be too much time wasted bickering? I only seem to remember a lot of ego-massaging agreement.

I'm happy with one person in the same way that a magazine review is normally by a single person, and one gets used to the axes being ground (or rapidly becomes aware of them if the presenter/author is new). Allowances can then be made for this, and action taken accordingly. (Explore that interesting-sounding performance that was dismissed, or just do the opposite of what was recommended, and avoid the choice like the plague.)

It can become quite cathartic when the views are diametrically opposed to ones own, shouting at the loudspeakers.

It is true that it is enlightening to read different reviews by different authors, epitomised by the occasional double reviews in Fanfare, but I think that in the time slot allowed too much argument would end up to the detriment of the work in question.

[BBMmk2]

There were quite a lot of good ones and a lot of bad ones, IMO. The trouble is taking time out to sive through the BaL's!!

[Don Petter]

Don

I wouldn't pretend that I remembered them all. Here is the link. It's good to look back.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tmtz/episodes/2010

Dover,

Thanks. Oh Dear! That just reminds me how many I managed to miss in spite of good intentions. Too busy shopping or kicking the cat.

The one from there that does stick in my mind is catching the tail end of the Chopin Cello Sonata as I got in the car, with the last movement of what turned out to be the final choice. What horrible scrambled piano playing, I thought. Well it did turn out to be Argerich, so that cemented my already low opinion of her. Give me Starker/Sebok any day.

[Karafan]

Yes, but I'd be interested to know how many people keep them (and from how far back) - all beautifully catalogued ready for the pleasure of a (somewhat outdated) re-listen? I know you're out there, so you might as well just admit it.....!

Karafan

(Personal confesssion: now maintained digitally, but in the process of digitizing old tapes and MDs going back to the mid 1990s)

[bombasticDarren]

Bach - Mass in B minor

Beethoven - The Violin Sonatas

Sibelius - 7th Symphony

Stravinsky - The Fairy's Kiss

[PaulT]

Well I will only list one because it was very special for me. By chance I was in the car and caught Rob Cowan's recent comparative review of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances. If I had been at home I probably would not have bothered as the Dances dont really do anything for me. I have an old EP from the 1960s of 4 dances - VPO conducted by Kubelik. Loved this bleeding chunk but hearing other versions over the years, they just seemed a bit so so. And as for hearing extracts, for example Szell's 2 Dvorak dances as a makeweight coupling to his 1970 recording of Brahms Double Concerto and the odd performance of a dance or two on R3 Breakfast seemed to me just like waiting for paint to dry.

Rob's analysis put the whole cycle in perspective and made me realise how a great performance like his top recommendation (BRSO/Kubelik) can really make this music shine.

[madamesuggia]

I enjoyed the recent Honegger Symphony No. 3, 'Liturgique' BAL

although I've still not got a recording.

[BBMmk2]

Ah yes, the Dvorak Salvonic Dances. I was glad about that one, as I have the Kubelik version to, as part of a DG Trio.

[pilamenon]

I've become rather disenchanted with BaL over the past year or so. I think it's a tired formula, and one of the most enjoyable editions was one that tried a different approach - with a specialist discussing Bach's organ works with AMcG. Having said that, when they had two guests in the Dichterliebe edition, it was painful to hear them cooing together in what turned into a Fischer-Dieskau love-in.

Am trying to work out why it has lost its appeal for me - perhaps quite a lot of relatively obscure works which don't reward scrutiny of comparative recordings and approaches in the way that something like Bach's B Minor Mass does (now this was a good edition) or just not very engaging reviewers. Anyway, no longer essential listening every Saturday for me.

[Don Petter]

Ah yes, the Dvorak Salvonic Dances. I was glad about that one, as I have the Kubelik version to, as part of a DG Trio.

ITYM Savlonic - very soothing music.