Shostakovich Piano Quintet

[Norfolk Born]

I have an EMI recording featuring Sviatoslav Richter and the Borodin Quartet (a concert performance in Moscow in 1983) c/w the
7th and 8th string quartets.

[umslopogaas]

#16 Norfolk Born. Woops, overlooked that one. I didnt know they had issued them in that form, but I have a box set of LPs of the Borodin Quartet playing all the Shostakovich quartets, with the Piano Quintet (with Richter) for good measure. They were issued very late in the LP era and are made with "Direct Metal Mastering": not quite sure what that is, but the sound is very fine.

By the way, whereabouts in Norfolk? I used to go to Somerton, on the Broads, often when I was a child, but havent been back for many years. Fascinating part of the country, but perishing cold in winter, the wind from the east comes straight from Russia and the first thing it hit since it left Moscow was us!

[Barbirollians]

Very fine it is too ! I am also very keen on Argerich's version.

[Norfolk Born]

#16 Norfolk Born. Woops, overlooked that one. I didnt know they had issued them in that form, but I have a box set of LPs of the Borodin Quartet playing all the Shostakovich quartets, with the Piano Quintet (with Richter) for good measure. They were issued very late in the LP era and are made with "Direct Metal Mastering": not quite sure what that is, but the sound is very fine.

By the way, whereabouts in Norfolk? I used to go to Somerton, on the Broads, often when I was a child, but havent been back for many years. Fascinating part of the country, but perishing cold in winter, the wind from the east comes straight from Russia and the first thing it hit since it left Moscow was us!

Thetford - only just in Norfolk! There were no beds in the hospital in Ipswich, which was were my parents were living, so my uncle drove my mother to Thetford, which was presumably where the nearest available bed was. I don't know whether the fact that there was a war on was relevant. Can you imagine such a thing happening in today's NHS?

[umslopogaas]

#19 Norfolk Born. Ah, Thetford, land of my youth! I've a more apt pseudonym than you might imagine. I have never wielded a mighty battle axe against savage enemies, but I have wielded an axe, hatchet and spade against a few trees in the Thetford Forestry Commission plantations - with the full permission of the FC, I hasten to add. I even had a legally obtained key to the padlocked gates on the rides. Reason? I did my research degree there, way back in the dark ages, and my supervisor at Cambridge was greatly revered for his work on root diseases of pines in East Anglia and yes I know that's another giveaway to my true identity, but again I'll risk it, I doubt that very many of the users of these boards are tree pathologists.

Its all getting very vague, but I used to go (had to drag out the thesis and look this up) to Thetford Chase and the King's Forest (just across the border in Suffolk). Its hard to remember where, at this distance, but I do remember having lunch in 'The Flintknappers' Arms', which was presumably in Brandon, but its all a blur, I cant remember.

That thesis was hard work. If you are a scientist you have to accept that anything you claim as a newly discovered fact has to have been repeated many times to stand the test of truth. In my case, the truths being related to root diseases of trees, I had to dig up an awful lot of roots. There are probably little mounds of soil of mine out there in the woods to this day.

But Thetford Forest is a lovely place and a great escape if life at home or work is getting you down. 'Off out, Umslopogaas?' 'Yes, need to go and check a few roots.' And the Department paid for the mileage.

Re. the NHS and births, I cant comment - so far, mercifully, I have very litte experience of the former and none of the latter. Not that I'm ungrateful to those who have, but I'm happy to leave healing and procreation to others.