BaL 13.07.24 - Shostakovich: Symphony 5

[ucanseetheend]

Although it won’t appeal to every one I have to say that Clive Myrie’s Music Matters interview with war photographer Paul Conroy was one of the best bits of interview radio I’ve heard in a long time. Some hair raising stories from a very brave and intelligent man . Not everything the new controller has done is a disaster.

Agreed it was excellent. But not exactly a" Classical music " programme

[oliver sudden]

the Kondrashin had an extra level of excitement and I was fine with the sound quality.

The sound of the Kondrashin cycle on CD was pretty ropey in the Chant du Monde days. I think it was back in the noughts that a new remastering using the original tapes came out, from the Korean label Aulos. No comparison as far as sound quality goes. I don’t actually know whether the subsequent Melodiya reissue is the same remastering, or if it’s different how it compares.

As far as I’m concerned it’s unassailable as a single-conductor cycle.

[LMcD]

Agreed it was excellent. But not exactly a" Classical music " programme

This seems to confirm my suspicion that programmes of classical music are steadily being replaced by programmes about classical music or programmes which include, but are not predominantly comprised of, classical music.

[Retune]

The sound of the Kondrashin cycle on CD was pretty ropey in the Chant du Monde days. I think it was back in the noughts that a new remastering using the original tapes came out, from the Korean label Aulos. No comparison as far as sound quality goes. I don’t actually know whether the subsequent Melodiya reissue is the same remastering, or if it’s different how it compares.

As far as I’m concerned it’s unassailable as a single-conductor cycle.

Looking at the images on Discogs, the Aulos has a DSD label on the box but there are no pictures of the contents, while the latest Melodiya mentions the names of remastering engineers with Russian names on most of the disc sleeves, so this may or may not be a second remastering. From the discussion here it appears there was definite improvement between the original and latest Melodiya releases, and an unnamed Amazon reviewer apparently thinks the latest Melodiya also sounds better than the Aulos.

[oliver sudden]

Looking at the images on Discogs, the Aulos has a DSD label on the box but there are no pictures of the contents

The contents are just CDs but the remastering was done in DSD. Which raises the lovely thought that there must be some DSD files of these recordings already sitting on someone’s hard drive somewhere!

Although the reality that said files presumably belong to Melodiya brings that thought down to earth a bit.

[Barbirollians]

Yes, a poorly conceived and badly structured BaL. There seems to be room for a finely played, wisely interpreted, new version to complete with the faded sound of Soviet lions and the patchy American conductors.

Petrenko on Naxos ? Sanderling from 1982 on Berlin Classics . Neeme Jarvi on Chandos- all very good indeed.

[Lordgeous]

sounds very compressed on FM and as Andrew has pointed out some instruments are weirdly forward in the balance (spot mic ing again) but musically very fine.

Yes, very compressed. Also rather thin sound and NO BASS! What a shame as its certainly an exciting performance.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes, very compressed. Also rather thin sound and NO BASS! What a shame as its certainly an exciting performance.

Underlines the need for a modern all digital recording with an engineer who knows what they are doing.

[edashtav]

Underlines the need for a modern all digital recording with an engineer who knows what they are doing.

I hear you, loud and clear, Ein Heldenleben.

[Goon525]

Underlines the need for a modern all digital recording with an engineer who knows what they are doing.

Isn’t that what the Pittsburgh/Honeck does superbly?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Isn’t that what the Pittsburgh/Honeck does superbly?

Yes well that got rather glossed over . The Previn sounded fine (technically )* way better than Bernstein NYPhil , Mravinsky and Kondrashin.
*also musically - better than fine in fact.

[ucanseetheend]

Yes well that got rather glossed over . The Previn sounded fine (technically )* way better than Bernstein NYPhil , Mravinsky and Kondrashin.
*also musically - better than fine in fact.

Well once again there's an opinion you can agree or disagree with ...as I do

[Darloboy]

Previous BaL recommendations (apologies for long delay):

Geoffrey Norris (April 84): Concertgebouw/Haitink
Michael Oliver (Jan 97): Previn
Geoffrey Norris (June 13): Jansons