Bal 24.01.15 - Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta

[Don Petter]

RC is a massive fan of Ivan Fischer so much to be expected .

Why would he disagree with it anyway, when he had chosen it?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why would he disagree with it anyway, when he had chosen it?

That was the joke. A little moment of idle, light-hearted banter between the two.

[ardcarp]

A little moment of idle, light-hearted banter between the two.

...I was ROTFLMAO

[Don Petter]

That was the joke. A little moment of idle, light-hearted banter between the two.

Sorry! That went over my head. Hadn't realised RC had earned a reputation for disagreement.

[Pulcinella]

Which has little to do with the format and more to do with AMcG. And I hope I understood you right in not ascribing that to the format.

As I said, as the format develops I expect the interaction to become more dynamic.

Beefy: surely this has everything to do with the format?
If no second person no aural nods of agreement from anyone; I don't think that AMcG would be the only culprit.

[Ferretfancy]

I suppose it wasn't possible to mention all versions, but I have three other interesting ones that were not mentioned, Dohnanyi / Cleveland, Rolla / Ferenc Liszt CO and Lehel / Budapest SO

None of the extracts as broadcast sounded anything like as good as my CDs played at home. On my system the two presenters were caught in crisp clear sound, almost in the room, while the music appeared to be happening about 200 yards away with what suspiciously sounded like added reverb. The antiphonal strings calling to each other across the stage in the last movement seemed to be squeezed through a funnel.

I find this imbalance between voices and music to be a common shortcoming of BAL. In this edition there was not one climax that began to approach the immediacy of the voices. It's the old story, engineers watching the ppm but not listening to the subjective balance. What reads on a meter does not necessarily reflect what we hear.

I listened to the programme on a hard disc recording from Freeview. Could this be part of the problem? I don't usually manage to listen on transmission. but I can't see why things should differ that much. A very disappointing hour.

[Don Petter]

I see the DGG 'Originals' Fricsay is being reissued in the current Presto Classical batch:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/DG/4474432