Carl Nielsen Symphonies

[Flosshilde]

Nothing - except that I'm possibly not so interested in them. I heard a BaL on the 5th (while I was cleaning the bathroom) & thought it was rather stupendous. I think the recommendation was a recording by Bernstein, but Blomstedt was either second choice or else the Penguin Guide rated it (& it was in stock in HMV & quite cheap)

[Karafan]

The Schmidt recordings have been praised on this thread a couple of times. I myself always held them in high regard, though I could hear a few smudgings. I always put that down to he LSO playing in a cold hall during a cold winter when there was no heating available. I can actually feel the coldness in their recording of the fifth - it seems to emanate almost physically out of the loudspeakers. If my memory serves me right (and as I reached my seventies I found that it often didn't) they recorded the set during the miner's strike and/or Edward Heath's three-day week, so the players must have been frozen through. It is a wonder we got more than just a few squeaks and scrapes.

Yes, Alf, there were power cuts at the time of the recordings in the cold and draughty London church in question...

Karafan

[Karafan]

The gripes of Roth

Tres amusent!

[Sir Velo]

What comparisons have I made? Well, I have lived with Nielsen almost all my life and I have listened to every single LP and CD released, nearly anyway. I don´t read Gramophone anymore and you say that David Fanning didn´t like the Gilbert 2 & 3. I would worry if he liked it. It is a magnificent recording, try it!

Andrew McGregor definitely expressed a marked preference for the sound on the Gilbert over the Davis on CD Review, this Saturday. Looks like we shouldn't have been doubting Thomas.

[Nick Armstrong]

Andrew McGregor definitely expressed a marked preference for the sound on the Gilbert over the Davis on CD Review, this Saturday. Looks like we shouldn't have been doubting Thomas.

Being better than the LSO Live sound doesn't necessarily make the Gilbert brilliant, however. It wouldn't take much....

[Flosshilde]

LSO playing in a cold hall during a cold winter when there was no heating available.

Perhaps they should have started with the Helios overture as a warm-up.

[Roehre]

Perhaps they should have started with the Helios overture as a warm-up.

[Karafan]

They sound fine to me, and I can't add anything useful to JLW's thoughts. However, I have listened to Michael Schønwandt's cycle, now on Naxos, with great pleasure. I have been addicted to these works for so long, and have accumulated so many recordings of them - I think the only cycles I don't have are Rozhdestvensky's (the disc of shorter works has some tempi which seem terribly slow) and Salonen's.

The BBC MM DVD is well worth getting if you haven't got a copy - tremendously exciting, my nearly needing Propranolol to listen to it.

PS I did try a few weeks ago to thin out the Nielsen collection, and failed to move a single disc to the get-rid-of pile.

That warms the heart to read, PJPJ! These culling bouts are better avoided - they only end in tears, in my experience (and I wish to cause maximum work for my executors: let them earn that bequest!)

[Karafan]

I smiled smugly when I saw the hearty recommendations for the Dutton disc of 2 with Jensen and and 4 with Grøndahl, thinking I had them on another label (Danacord). I soon discovered that those recordings are of 2 with Grøndahl and 4 with Jensen! It put me immediately in mind of the old Tommy Cooper joke in which he's found a violin and an oil painting in his attic and was delighted to have an expert confirm that he had a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt; sadly Stradivarius was a bl**dy awful painter and Rembrandt made terrible violins!

Joking aside though, the 1956 Grøndahl Four Temperaments I am listening to at the moment is extremely good, the malincolico movement is beautifully judged and strikingly profound and intense, followed by a frenetic closing movement contrasted with idiomatic lyrical passages. I am grateful to this thread for sending me back to the Nielsen shelves for the first time in a few moons.

For the Inextinguishable I have a great fondness for the Chicagoans under Martinon on RCA, but I haven't seen this mentioned on here yet...?

I wish to also throw a bouquet JLW's way - always enjoy your contributions, Jayne. It's just a pity your wholehearted enthusiasm often results in me taking a toffee hammer to the piggy bank (as indeed I have with the BIS set you recommended with Chung et al ).

Karafan

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, I like that firecracker 2nd from Chicago/Morton Gould too, especially if you have that RCA Classic Library remaster, a big improvement over the Navigator issue...

Just downloaded the 24/96 of Davis in No.2, only had time for (i) so far, musically seems very good, well-judged tempi & dynamic gradation, (if, as with so many performances, lacking enough choler in the coda, asitweretocoinaphrase).
I really didn't like Gilbert's charmless (phlegmatic doesn't mean po-faced), slightly dim-and-distant recording of No.2 from Carnegie (3 was much better, but truly memorable? Hmm..), but to judge from various comments it does appear "system-dependent" and may well sound better in multi-ch.

Will get back about the Davis when I've listened more closely, but sonic first impressions were fine, if not as special as I would hope from hi-res. But we'll see later in the small hours.

[richardfinegold]

I smiled smugly when I saw the hearty recommendations for the Dutton disc of 2 with Jensen and and 4 with Grøndahl, thinking I had them on another label (Danacord). I soon discovered that those recordings are of 2 with Grøndahl and 4 with Jensen! It put me immediately in mind of the old Tommy Cooper joke in which he's found a violin and an oil painting in his attic and was delighted to have an expert confirm that he had a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt; sadly Stradivarius was a bl**dy awful painter and Rembrandt made terrible violins!

Joking aside though, the 1956 Grøndahl Four Temperaments I am listening to at the moment is extremely good, the malincolico movement is beautifully judged and strikingly profound and intense, followed by a frenetic closing movement contrasted with idiomatic lyrical passages. I am grateful to this thread for sending me back to the Nielsen shelves for the first time in a few moons.

For the Inextinguishable I have a great fondness for the Chicagoans under Martinon on RCA, but I haven't seen this mentioned on here yet...?

I wish to also throw a bouquet JLW's way - always enjoy your contributions, Jayne. It's just a pity your wholehearted enthusiasm often results in me taking a toffee hammer to the piggy bank (as indeed I have with the BIS set you recommended with Chung et al ).

Karafan

The Martinon/CSO Inextinguishable is indeed excellent. the lp had a terrible side break in the middle of III that ruined it. If it has been reissued on CD, it should be a keeper

[jayne lee wilson]

Following on from msg.220, I returned at greater length to the new Colin Davis 2nd. I'm afraid I didn't find it very distinctive. It's a thoughtful reading, warmer, fuller and more expressive than Gilbert/NYPO but I still felt those 4 Temperaments to be a little undercharacterised. A few individual touches - a lovely lightening of mood in the coda to (iii) (IRR's reviewer puzzlingly refers to "a lack of gravitas" here...) and the darker central episode in the finale is more fully expressed than usual, almost a miniature slow movement, like the 3rd fugue in Symphony No.5 (ii). I wished the performance had more such episodes (The contrast with Morton Gould/CSO in the coda of (i), the sense of sheer rage, could hardly be greater.). But the LSO Live sound, spatially too contained, dynamically constrained, and as 2-dimensional as ever does tend to dominate any interpretative interest. As with Gilbert in Carnegie, one regrets the apparent economic necessity to record in less-than-ideal concerthall acoustics.

[Parry1912]

Happy to stick with Chung and Blomstedt.

[gurnemanz]

Chung and Blomstedt

Firm of solicitors?

[Karafan]

Yes, Alf, there were power cuts at the time of the recordings in the cold and draughty London church in question...

Karafan

Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, Barbican, London, Jan 1974 - just checked...

I don't suppose anyone ever transferred the fascinating commentary disc by Dr. Robert Simpson in this complete LP set to
MP3, did you? If so, I would be delighted to hear it! He was the recording supervisor and advisor on the set I think.

K.