Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie
View Post
-
I think so too. Nevertheless, Robert Philip will have to settle on some criteria for dismissing the vast majority of the available recordings. The sensible approach would be to concentrate on recordings made since the mid-Sixties and to recommend both a 'modern' performance and a 'HIPP' one."The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink -
I quite agree.Comment
-
Thanks, Vinteuil. Sadly I don't think my shelves can take another complete cycle, but you have me sorely tempted!Originally posted by vinteuil View PostComment
-
Thanks from me too, Vinteuil - that Sofronitzky set sounds interesting. But since I haven't yet listened to all of my Immerseel set (which I like a lot), I'll probably pass on it... The extract on her site sounded pretty good, though the orchestra didn't sound as polished as Immerseel's Anima Eterna.
She's made a very wise marriage choice for a fortepianist - her husband is Paul McNulty (who made the excellent pianos used on Brautigam's wonderful Beethoven sonata series, and in many other recordings). And I see she's doing a Wigmore on July 26, using 5 of hubby's pianos in a programme ranging from CPE Bach to Chopin & Liszt. McNulty is doing a pre-programme talk at 6.Comment
-
Two more I didnt spot on anyone's list:
Previn/Boult on HMV
Ralph Kirkpatrick/Alexander Schneider on mono Nixa
Both on vinyl. I'm pretty sure that old Nixa will have sunk without trace, but Previn might still be around - does anyone know?
And Salymap, if you've got Richter-Haaser on the original Columbia blue and silver label LP (SAX 2426) and its in good nick, its worth a bit of money. My 2006 price guide suggests £85. You might be lucky to get that much these days, but those original Columbias are highly collectible, none the less. Look after it!Comment
-
umslopogaas, I have the Kertesz/Richter-Haaser on a CFP LP - I don't suppose that is worth £85?
Anyway, I'm not selling - I like the performances
Comment
-
Thanks for alerting me to her Wigmore Hall concert in July, ostuni.Originally posted by ostuni View Post
Her Mozart piano concerto set is available here at under £27 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis...&condition=new
Comment
-
Ostuni - well, I never knew that she was Mrs McNulty! - clever her!!!Originally posted by ostuni View Post
Many thanks for the Wigmore flag-up. If I'm around I shall certainly be there...
Ostuni - named after that brilliant white-painted hill town in Puglia, I presume? ... "Nothing in the unprepossessing approaches to Ostuni prepares you for the surprise of coming across the old city itself, proudly facing the sea on its separate hill and crowned with its Byzantine cathedral. Every angle of the town is painted a dazzling white and its beauty lies not in any one particular building but in the glorious whole.... " ['Italy on Backroads', 1993]Comment
-
That's the place! When I'm not here in Glos, I'm usually to be found there...Originally posted by vinteuil View PostComment
-
Oh, how I would love to be in London for this concert, it sounds absolutely fascinating. Will you go, Ostuni? I'd love to know how they are going to get five fortepianos on the stage of the Wigmore!Originally posted by ostuni View PostComment
-
I'm certainly hoping to be there. Stage-wise, I suppose they can always swap around at the interval... And anyway, you can fit more than a couple of fortepianos into the footprint of a big Steinway!Comment
-
Agreed. The stage at Wigmore Hall can hold a small orchestra - it's quite deep front-to-backOriginally posted by ostuni View PostComment
-
aeolium post 21
Classics For Pleasure? Afraid not, I think it was a reissue label and the big money is only on the originals. There's often little or no difference in sound quality and in fact, the reissues are sometimes better than the originals, but collecting is a curious thing, and the sound is only part of the attraction. Its a bit like book collecting, the first editions are usually the most valuable, even if the second edition corrected mistakes in the first. Apparently a first edition of 'The Origin Of Species' will fetch fifty thousand quid, but its the same words as my Penguin edition, which is worth about tuppence.Comment
-
I don't know whether it's à propos - but I always liked this episode -Its a bit like book collecting, the first editions are usually the most valuable, even if the second edition corrected mistakes in the first. Apparently a first edition of 'The Origin Of Species' will fetch fifty thousand quid, but its the same words as my Penguin edition, which is worth about tuppence.
De Quincey writes: "[Robert] Southey had particularly elegant habits (Wordsworth called them finical) in the use of books. Wordsworth, on the other hand, was so negligent, and so self-indulgent in the same case, that, as Southey, laughing, expressed it to me some years afterwards ... 'To introduce Wordsworth into one's library is like letting a bear into a tulip garden.'"
De Quincey continues, recounting the tale of the "first exemplification" he had of Wordsworth's 'less than gentle' treatment of books. It was, he writes, "early in my acquaintance with him, and on occasion of a book which (if any could) justified the too summary style of his advances in rifling its charms. On a level with the eye, when sitting at the tea-table in my little cottage at Grasmere, stood the collective works of Edmund Burke. The book was to me an eye-sore and an ear-sore for many a year, in consequence of the cacophonous title lettered by the bookseller upon the back - 'Burke's Works.' I have heard it said, by the way that, Donne's intolerable defect of ear grew out of his own baptismal name, when harnessed to his own surname - John Donne. No man, it was said, who had listened to this hideous jingle from childish years, could fail to have his genius for discord, and the abominable in sound, improved to the utmost. Not less dreadful than John Donne was 'Burke's Works'; which, however, on the old principle, that every day's work is no day's work, continued to annoy me for twenty-one years. Wordsworth took down the volume; unfortunately it was uncut; fortunately, and by a special Providence as to him, it seemed, tea was proceeding at the time. Dry toast required butter; butter required knives; and knives then lay on the table; but sad it was for the virgin purity of Mr. Burke's as yet unsunned pages, that every knife bore upon its blade testimonies of the service it had rendered. Did that stop Wordsworth? Did that cause him to call for another knife? Not at all; he
'Look'd at the knife that caus'd his pain:
And look'd and sigh'd, and look'd and sigh'd again';**
and then, after this momentary tribute to regret, he tore his way into the heart of the volume withis knife, that left its greasy honours behind it upon every page: and are they not there to this day? This personal experience first brought me acquainted with Wordsworth's habits in that particular especially, with his intense impatience for one minute's delay which would have brought a remedy..." De Quincey goes on to say that he'd purchase the Burke volume cheaply and wouldn't have mentioned the incident at all, "only to illustrate the excess of Wordsworth's outrages on books, which made him, in Southey's eyes, a mere monster..."Comment
-
Does Radio 3 have shares in promoting the music of Mozart?
Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
Comment