Reader’s Digest Favourites from the Classics Brahms

[cloughie]

Found a box of these other Reader’s Digest CDs on eBay for a song.

All in good nick but some major disappointments. The Tchaikovsky boxes include an absolute cracker of a Tchaikovsky 1 from Wild/Fistoulari. An early and enjoyable Tchaikovsky VC from Perlman/Wallenstein. A rather scrappy Tchaikovsky 4 from Massimo Freccia, an impressive Francesca da Rimini from RPO/Munch .The real disappointments are that Horenstein/NPO symphony 5 and an Alexander Gibson Pathetique are represented only by one movement in each box ! I wonder if whoever compiled this now works on Essential Classics.

You need RDS1451-3 Symphonies:
Berlioz SF - RPO Freccia
Bizet Sym - RPO Munch
Dvorak 9 - RPO Kempe
Medelssohn 4 - SlovakPO Bramall
Schubert 8 - NatPO Gerhardt
Tchaik 5 - NPO Horensten

I picked it up very cheaply in a charity shop.

Don’t know if the complete Gibson Tchaik 6 is available anywhere in a RDS box but there is an Amazon download for £5.49 or a used Chesky CD c/w 1812 and Moldau for £65!

[Barbirollians]

You need RDS1451-3 Symphonies:
Berlioz SF - RPO Freccia
Bizet Sym - RPO Munch
Dvorak 9 - RPO Kempe
Medelssohn 4 - SlovakPO Bramall
Schubert 8 - NatPO Gerhardt
Tchaik 5 - NPO Horensten

I picked it up very cheaply in a charity shop.

Don’t know if the complete Gibson Tchaik 6 is available anywhere in a RDS box but there is an Amazon download for £5.49 or a used Chesky CD c/w 1812 and Moldau for £65!

No sign of those - the Chopin box is better . CD1 contains a marvellous performance of the Second Piano Concerto from Shura Cherkassky and RPO/Kempe

[richardfinegold]

In this Country there was a short lived budget label called Quintessence that released many of the Readers Digest recordings (Supraphon was another source of their recordings). I believe they had their lps pressed by Phillips and the vinyl was remarkably quiet for a budget label. The Reiner/RPO Brahms Fourth was released by them. I also had the Wild/Horenstein Rachmaninov set, the Janacek Qurates by the eponymous ensemble, the Suk Trio in Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Brahms. They were probably my favorite budget lp label

[jayne lee wilson]

It would take a long time to go through my Cheskys of the RD/Decca-engineered catalogue, but among many favourites are Horenstein Strauss Waltzes , and of course Earl Wild in the Rachmaninov Concerti, including a very terse, dramatic Paganini Rhapsody...

Leibowitz' Thrills-and-Spills low-repeat-count Beethoven is better known, but I'm fond of his anthologies like "A Portrait of France" too....

But if you love Brahms, take a look at my Records of the Year 2021; an outstanding year for New Brahms Releases!

[Barbirollians]

In the Chopin box the PC no 1with Earl Wild and Malcolm Sargent awaits - this Cherkassky/Kempe performance of the Second is outstanding . Kempe makes the orchestral contribution taut and much more interesting than most others whilst Cherkassky dreams and smoulders before bursting into flame in the finale.

[Barbirollians]

In the Chopin box the PC no 1with Earl Wild and Malcolm Sargent awaits - this Cherkassky/Kempe performance of the Second is outstanding . Kempe makes the orchestral contribution taut and much more interesting than most others whilst Cherkassky dreams and smoulders before bursting into flame in the finale.

The Wild/Sargent is OK but not really one of the best - one minute he is dazzling , the next seemingly bored and notespinning and Sir Malcolm seems to have rather lost interest by the finale. The finale also suffers from some abrupt tempo changes by both which had me rushing back to Pollini/Kletzki.

[Barbirollians]

On now to Rachmaninov which opens with the well known and very good Wild /Horenstein PC No 2 , A rather soupy rendition of the Romance Op 8 from NPO/Gerhardt followed and now the C sharp Minor Prelude by a pianist I have never heard of Sergia Varella-Cid .

[cloughie]

The Wild/Sargent is OK but not really one of the best - one minute he is dazzling , the next seemingly bored and notespinning and Sir Malcolm seems to have rather lost interest by the finale. The finale also suffers from some abrupt tempo changes by both which had me rushing back to Pollini/Kletzki.

Amazing after all these years it is still the ‘go to’ recording! Was he 19 when he recorded it?

[Barbirollians]

Amazing after all these years it is still the ‘go to’ recording! Was he 19 when he recorded it?

I think so in 1960 - it remains top of my list notwithstanding many other crackers in particular from Argerich, Pires, Rubinstein and Lipatti .

[Barbirollians]

I think so in 1960 - it remains top of my list notwithstanding many other crackers in particular from Argerich, Pires, Rubinstein and Lipatti .

The Dvorak box includes rather a lot of Naxos recordings of Slavonic Dances , an excellent Carnaval fromAlexander Gibson , an atmospheric The golden spinning wheel with RPO/Oscar Danon another name unknown to me and a superbly recorded Trlsrcci think Cello Concerto with France Springuel , I Fiamminghi and Rudolf Werthen. I had never heard of any of them but apparently they are quite big in Belgium .

I like her playing but some of the orchestral contribution is a bit grand and unsubtle.

[Barbirollians]

The Puccini set is to be avoided lots of rather ordinary singing from recordings licensed for Naxos - off to the charity shop with this one.

[Braunschlag]

Leibowitz' Thrills-and-Spills low-repeat-count Beethoven is better known, but I'm fond of his anthologies like "A Portrait of France" too....

And yet (and as a fellow Horenstein fan) the Leibowitz Beethoven cycle is one of the best ever recorded.

Said by none other than FHG, seems that the absence of repeats wasn’t a deal breaker then.

[jayne lee wilson]

And yet (and as a fellow Horenstein fan) the Leibowitz Beethoven cycle is one of the best ever recorded.

Said by none other than FHG, seems that the absence of repeats wasn’t a deal breaker then.

Fhg often expressed as strong a preference for the repeats in Beethoven Symphonies as I do. But they weren't, and aren't, a "deal-breaker" so long as the performance is exceptional enough. The 1939 NBC/Toscanini, for example...
Norrington probably never recorded any Beethoven without them, but he was another admirer of the Leibowitz metronomic energy and attack.

But some of the symphonies suffer more in their absence.
If the scherzo/trio and finale repeats in the 5th are both omitted, the work can seem top heavy, too short, and the triumph not truly hard-won; the 3rd-movement shadows and hushed mysteries do not extend far enough, before that C Major glory blazes out.

So to me it feels like its over far too quickly without them, controversial though the scherzo/trio one still is.....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So to me it feels like its over far too quickly without them, controversial though the scherzo/trio one still is.....

Not really controversial, as there isn't a repeat in the Scherzo. Just a bit cheeky - but if it works, why not?

[jayne lee wilson]

Not really controversial, as there isn't a repeat in the Scherzo. Just a bit cheeky - but if it works, why not?

That has long been the subject of very detailed, profoundly researched, well-documented debate.... Beethoven did include the repeat at some point, and the removal of it is not well proven. Several great conductors do include the repeat, JEG, Zinman and of course Harnoncourt among them.

As Robert Simpson puts it:

"The documentary facts being both indecisive and contradictory, we are faced with a purely artistic problem of a supremely exciting kind, one that can eventually be solved only by a consensus of thoughtful and imaginative (and above all respectful) opinion. Therefore it concerns the ordinary listener more than the fact-finding scholar".

See the chapter on the 5th in his BBC Music Guide, where he has much more to say about this.... and the finale repeat too, including Boult's comments about the problems in performance.

I would (as usual) invite any listener here to comment upon their own (with-repeat(s)-and-without) responses....
(But remember that the 4th, 6th and 7th Symphonies do include such repeats in the 5-part ababa scherzo/trio form).