BaL 23.01.16 - Debussy: Trois Nocturnes

[richardfinegold]

But that Presto listing, which I'd seen, omits Ma mère l'oye (even though it shows on the photo of the original LP cover). And that disc - with or without the Ravel - isn't available as a download...

I'm a bit of a Chabrier fan, so that second disc you cite is a distinct temptation, too..... (Presto lossless download available!)....

And any thoughts on the Schumann symphonies?

The Schumann Symphonies are excellent. Paray, like Monteux, hated being typecast in French music and did excellent Schumann, Brahms, and Beethoven.
And...his Symphonie Fantastique is hair raising...as is his Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah..as is his Salome Dance of 7 Veils....all his Ravel, including Mother Goose and Daphnis. His Bizet is not quite at that level but fun nonetheless. And those Mercury recordings in Detroit's acoustically wonderful Orchestra Hall are the most natural sounding Orchestral recordings I know of

[jayne lee wilson]

The Gramophone reviewers of the 50s and 60s dilsiked Paray's Schumann on LP, finding it lacking warmth, affection, romance etc. They complained of far too much staccato in phrase and accent, thinness of sonority.... Paray was "not a natural Schumann conductor" etc... (have a dig in the archive if you want to put yourself off...)

Well, before I became attached to a later, HIPPS, chamber-orchestral approach, I loved it for the very same reasons! Sharper, swifter and often lighter than the famous German cycles which lay ahead (Kubelik, Sawallisch, HvK...) to my ears it seemed Paray's French accent was truer to Schumann's idiom, its mood-swinging volatility. The sound does vary of course, recorded from 1954 - 1958 - there's some blare and coarseness, and No.2 is slightly veiled sounding. The 1st was last recorded in very good, sparkling stereo and it's the stand-out performance of the set. The prominence to some winds and those brilliant (very Parisian!) trumpets are almost HIPPS avant la lettre. This is offset by a certain tubbiness to drum n' bass here and throughout the cycle (especially hefty in No.3, but with well-defined phrasing riding above...), which some systems may overemphasise, but it's not a huge drawback. Only the 4th is mono, but it's very good mono and an excellent, very urgent performance; some may find Paray's approach too hard-driven at times, too intense - but it IS always thought-through, sharply detailed and delineated. So the 2nd's intro is restrained, expressive, thoughtful - but the allegro is very light & spirited indeed!

So - never a dull bar! Spotchecking & sampling just now around the original Mercury CDs with their lovely autumn leaves cover, I was surprised how much I enjoyed them - I wanted to listen on! But yes, try-before-buy would be wise....

Not a cycle for a lover of traditional Romantic approaches, perhaps a forerunner to Harnoncourt/COE, Dausgaard/SCO, Nezet-Seguin/COE etc... and yet it could be just the refresher for anyone who never yet ventured beyond the big bands of Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Bavaria.....

[reinerfan]

Another fan of Paray's Mercury recordings here as I find the Fêtes wonderful and the Schumann Symphonies stimulating. Fortunately I like both types of approach to the Schumann, with a small overall preference for the Big Band type.
I find the constant talk of high resolution downloads very frustrating as, here in rural Spain Quobuz does not supply and, even if they did, my ADSL supply is, at its best, fair and, more often than not, inconsistent. CD quality seems to take forever, and is often interrupted by ADSL going down. So, for higher quality sound, I have to rely on SACD.

[gradus]

Paray has always had his admirers over here. I remember a conversation with someone in the old Gramophone Exchange (c1963) who was dedicated to rooting out all the recordings made by Paray for Mercury, praising them in much the same way as correspondents above.

[seabright]

I haven't checked to see if Mercury brought out all the Paray / Detroit mono recordings but 'Pristine Audio' had already done so some years ago, as per this link below. Some works Paray re-recorded in stereo but the earlier mono performances were just as well worth having, especially those he didn't re-record in stereo, such as Beethoven's 6th and 7th Symphonies, Brahms's 4th, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Antar," "Russian Easter" and "Spanish Caprice," plus assorted works by Wagner and Liszt, as well as French music by Dukas, Faure, Roussel and so on ...

https://www.pristineclassical.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Paul+Paray+Detroit+Symphony

[Nick Armstrong]

Thanks all for the further comments