Your Latest CD/DVD/Download Purchase

[Bryn]

Not quite my latest purchase, but delivered today (two days ahead of schedule), "Richard Stolzman: The Complete RCA Album Collection", a 40 CD boxed set. Disc number 1, unsurprisingly, is the justly famous Tashi recording of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps. There are, for me, a few duplicates such as that in the box, but not that many and at the amazon.it price, not to much of a dent in the back balance.

[mathias broucek]

Channel Classics offer at Qobuz. Mahler 2 excellent but Firebird and Rite have faulty gapless playback - grrrr

[Dave2002]

Not quite my latest purchase, but delivered today (two days ahead of schedule), "Richard Stolzman: The Complete RCA Album Collection", a 40 CD boxed set. Disc number 1, unsurprisingly, is the justly famous Tashi recording of Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps. There are, for me, a few duplicates such as that in the box, but not that many and at the amazon.it price, not to much of a dent in the back balance.

Bryn

Was that on a good offer somewhere? I perhaps missed that, though maybe large sets are something I might even be cutting back on, but Stolzman's work does sound appealing to me.

[Jonathan]

Just received volume 47 of the ongoing Naxos Liszt recordings - music from the oratorios and a recording by the phenomenal Giovanni Belluci of Alkan - really impressed by both.

[Bryn]

Bryn

Was that on a good offer somewhere? I perhaps missed that, though maybe large sets are something I might even be cutting back on, but Stolzman's work does sound appealing to me.

Check the Amazon.it link in my previous message. It may still be at a good price.

[Dave2002]

Check the Amazon.it link in my previous message. It may still be at a good price.

Thanks. A bit cheaper than am.uk - but I think one has to really like clarinet music a lot. We shouldn't, perhaps, always expect - or at least hope for - this stuff to be dirt cheap.

[Kamisama]

Check the Amazon.it link in my previous message. It may still be at a good price.

It seems to be on offer at Amazon.It. Only for the next couple of hours though.

[Bryn]

Not just the 3 CD set, but the book, too. How come I was previously unaware of the very existence of these:

[pastoralguy]

I've just posted off an Lp I bought before Christmas to have transferred to cd. It's of Alan Loveday playing the Beethoven violin concerto. His playing of the solo part in Scheherazade is some of my favourite music making on disc. Alas, his records have been out of the catalogue for many years and there seems little hope of them ever surfacing on cd.

I hope this initiative is going to be a theme this year.

[richardfinegold]

Mahler6, Kiril Kondrashin and the SW German Radio Orchestra. This is apparently a Studio recording made in 1981 a few months before KK died suddenly. An American critic writing in Fanfare who fancies himself an expert Mahlerian stated that he couldn’t abide this work until he heard this recording. The inner movements are Scherzo-Andante, which contrary to most Forumistas, is my preference. At any rate this is a sweeping account, suitably Tragic, but suffering from one major drawback, which is that while the Orchestra is giving it’s all, compared with some of the stupendous bands that have recorded this, it just can’t compete in the tonal refulgance department

[Bryn]

Mahler6, Kiril Kondrashin and the SW German Radio Orchestra. This is apparently a Studio recording made in 1981 a few months before KK died suddenly. An American critic writing in Fanfare who fancies himself an expert Mahlerian stated that he couldn’t abide this work until he heard this recording. The inner movements are Scherzo-Andante, which contrary to most Forumistas, is my preference. At any rate this is a sweeping account, suitably Tragic, but suffering from one major drawback, which is that while the Orchestra is giving it’s all, compared with some of the stupendous bands that have recorded this, it just can’t compete in the tonal refulgance department

Available on QOBUZ, I note (£7.99 in the UK).

[jayne lee wilson]

Mahler6, Kiril Kondrashin and the SW German Radio Orchestra. This is apparently a Studio recording made in 1981 a few months before KK died suddenly. An American critic writing in Fanfare who fancies himself an expert Mahlerian stated that he couldn’t abide this work until he heard this recording. The inner movements are Scherzo-Andante, which contrary to most Forumistas, is my preference. At any rate this is a sweeping account, suitably Tragic, but suffering from one major drawback, which is that while the Orchestra is giving it’s all, compared with some of the stupendous bands that have recorded this, it just can’t compete in the tonal refulgance department

Want to hear the same reading, but even faster, with a better, warmer, fuller-sounding orchestra, and above all - far more individual character, tension and drama in the playing itself?

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/mahler-symphony-no-6-academic-symphony-orchestra-of-leningrad-state-philharmonic-society/0888002824189

Kondrashin and the Leningrad Philharmonic, Melodiya 1978. A stunning 65'40 compared to the SWR at 68'24. I bought the SWR one (originally released 2011) later, but never went back to it much after returning to the extraordinary Leningrad reading - one of the quickest, if not the quickest, on record....
Oh, don't worry - Kondrashin makes every minute of it count.
When I still listened to Mahler regularly it soon became my off-the-beaten-path hidden Mahlerian treasure, in my musical secret garden.

The beautifully illustrated Melodiya boxset of the KK Mahler (includes all except 2 & 8) has the drawback of earlier, dynamically-compressed recordings of 3 and 9, but 1 and 5-7 are outstanding and pretty well-recorded. The Leningrad 7th is wonderful in that fantastical, evocative way that was Kondrashin's unique gift......the 4th is gorgeous, but IIRC, does suffer some pulling back at the climax of the slow movement...
The Gold CDs of 1 and 5 are worth hunting down too.

(BTW - scherzo-andante for me too!)

[richardfinegold]

Want to hear the same reading, but even faster, with a better, warmer, fuller-sounding orchestra, and above all - far more individual character, tension and drama in the playing itself?

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/mahler-symphony-no-6-academic-symphony-orchestra-of-leningrad-state-philharmonic-society/0888002824189

Kondrashin and the Leningrad Philharmonic, Melodiya 1978. A stunning 65'40 compared to the SWR at 68'24. I bought the SWR one (originally released 2011) later, but never went back to it much after returning to the extraordinary Leningrad reading - one of the quickest, if not the quickest, on record....
Oh, don't worry - Kondrashin makes every minute of it count.
When I still listened to Mahler regularly it soon became my off-the-beaten-path hidden Mahlerian treasure, in my musical secret garden.

The beautifully illustrated Melodiya boxset of the KK Mahler (includes all except 2 & 8) has the drawback of earlier, dynamically-compressed recordings of 3 and 9, but 1 and 5-7 are outstanding and pretty well-recorded. The Leningrad 7th is wonderful in that fantastical, evocative way that was Kondrashin's unique gift......the 4th is gorgeous, but IIRC, does suffer some pulling back at the climax of the slow movement...
The Gold CDs of 1 and 5 are worth hunting down too.

(BTW - scherzo-andante for me too!)

Apparently, after reading the liner notes, the SWR account is a live recording. The only extraneous noise that I detected was some grunting from the podium.
It would be interesting to hear the Leningrad recording but I am not wanting to invest in a new Mahler cycle currently.

[jayne lee wilson]

Apparently, after reading the liner notes, the SWR account is a live recording. The only extraneous noise that I detected was some grunting from the podium.
It would be interesting to hear the Leningrad recording but I am not wanting to invest in a new Mahler cycle currently.

Looking at both the Hänssler/SWR (2011) and SWR Classic (2018) release notes, all I can see is: 13-15.01.81 Hans Rosbaud Studio Baden-Baden. Where does it say live, rfg?
The NDR 3/81 Mahler 1st, briefly touched on (unspecified) in the notes, was live of course, and all too famously so, as the conductor died, aged 67, a few hours afterward...

But in any case, the Leningrad Phil recording (which the SWR note writer seems unaware of) certainly feels much more live and alive! If you love the reading do at least put the Russian one on a shortlist somewhere... I guess the only problem some might have with it is the swift andante (13'26 SWR, 12'40 Leningrad...)...

[cloughie]

I've just posted off an Lp I bought before Christmas to have transferred to cd. It's of Alan Loveday playing the Beethoven violin concerto. His playing of the solo part in Scheherazade is some of my favourite music making on disc. Alas, his records have been out of the catalogue for many years and there seems little hope of them ever surfacing on cd.

I hope this initiative is going to be a theme this year.

If my memory serves that was a Saga LP with George Hurst conducting. There were some really good Saga LPs - who owns them now and have any come out on CD other than the English Songs sung by JSQ?