BaL 12.03.16 - Rachmaninoff: Symphony no. 3 in A minor

[cloughie]

Yes - an irritating stain on an otherwise splendid review and presentation. I notice that Previn was illustrated with his earlier recording - no mention of the later EMI recording. But I was really taken with the chosen recording (Ashkenazy, Concertgebouw, Bbm) - and the programme reminded me how much I enjoy this wonderful work.

Is the RCA Previn currently available?

[Bryn]

Is the RCA Previn currently available?

Looks like it may be re-released April 29th this year.

[rauschwerk]

For me, the number and brevity of the examples detracted from this BAL.

[ardcarp]

...but how do you treat so many available recordings fairly without giving a whirl to quite a lot of them?

[HighlandDougie]

Looks like it may be re-released April 29th this year.

Judging from one of the regular e-mails I get from Japan, it's the later HMV LSO/Previn Rachmaninov recordings which are being re-released by Warners on 20th April in Japan: Symphony No 3 Etc (the etc being the Intermezzo and Women's Dance from Aleko); The Bells/Vocalise; Isle of the Dead/Symphonic Dances. Those titles tie in with what's listed by Amazon as being re-released on 29th April. But I may be mistaken.

The RCA version has been available on CD in Japan but is currently shown by CD Japan as being out of print. I can't find a legitimate download of it anywhere so I'd be very interested in the source used this morning, unless it was the LP (freely available second-hand).

[Nick Armstrong]

I'm posting this having deliberately not read today's posts, as I haven't yet heard this BAL. However I have pursued (into the early hours, as everyone's away ) and again today my listening to various performances of No 3, and wanted to set out my reactions first, before hearing the survey or knowing who 'won'.

Based on suggestions earlier in this thread, I've heard these performances for the first time:

Kletzki - as mentioned above, thrilling in the outer movements but for me ruled out by horrendous woodwind tuning in the middle movement

Jurowski - oddly bland in performance and recording

Maazel - likewise, lacking fire and a somewhat dull recording, I found

Svetlanov (USSR Symphony) - pretty gritty and exhilarating but allowance having to be made for the uneven, echoey live recording (though it's undeniably an atmospheric 'live' experience, with a tangible sense of being in a massive concert hall, albeit sitting towards the back. Must have been overwhelming on the night!)

I've also re-listened to these recordings which I have in my collection

Ashkenazy - terrific performance, stunningly played, but a recording that I find makes the upper strings sound steely and unpleasant when playing full out. But VA really has the knack of delivering the rubato without losing the pulse and impetus of the music

Previn - doesn't have the 'just right' factor of his performance of No 2 imo... I found some of his No 3 sounded oddly like Brahms, it's somehow not idiomatic... Other passages were too stop-start, with a rather 'automatic'-sounding approach to rubato. There are also some vagaries of woodwind tuning in the middle movement, to my ears

Pletnev - pretty horrible, no impetus, all languorous lingering - made me think of someone looking admiringly at themselves in the mirror, running immaculately-manicured fingers through lustrous silken locks. Boomy acoustic too.

Jansons - fabulous. All the fire of Ashkenazy, perhaps the solos a notch less characterful, but a better recording, just the sort of sound-stage I like - I especially love the edgy presence of the bass instruments and timps, giving real fibre. This is the one I want to hear again.

[cloughie]

Oh.... were they different names for the same band?

And on this one, he's billed as conducting No 3 with the "USSR RTV LARGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA" (as opposed, apparently, to the plain old "USSR Symphony Orchestra" in No 1)....

Perhaps this helps Cali

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tchaikovsky_Symphony_Orchestra

[Bryn]

Judging from one of the regular e-mails I get from Japan, it's the later HMV LSO/Previn Rachmaninov recordings which are being re-released by Warners on 20th April in Japan: Symphony No 3 Etc (the etc being the Intermezzo and Women's Dance from Aleko); The Bells/Vocalise; Isle of the Dead/Symphonic Dances. Those titles tie in with what's listed by Amazon as being re-released on 29th April. But I may be mistaken.

The RCA version has been available on CD in Japan but is currently shown by CD Japan as being out of print. I can't find a legitimate download of it anywhere so I'd be very interested in the source used this morning, unless it was the LP (freely available second-hand).

I fear your lead from Japan is correct. However, should cost be of little object, there's http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rachmaninov-.../dp/B000SM6ZFY

[cloughie]

I'm posting this having deliberately not read today's posts, as I haven't yet heard this BAL. However I have pursued (into the early hours, as everyone's away ) and again today my listening to various performances of No 3, and wanted to set out my reactions first, before hearing the survey or knowing who 'won'.

Based on suggestions earlier in this thread, I've heard these performances for the first time:

Kletzki - as mentioned above, thrilling in the outer movements but for me ruled out by horrendous woodwind tuning in the middle movement

Jurowski - oddly bland in performance and recording

Maazel - likewise, lacking fire and a somewhat dull recording, I found

Svetlanov (USSR Symphony) - pretty gritty and exhilarating but allowance having to be made for the uneven, echoey live recording (though it's undeniably an atmospheric 'live' experience, with a tangible sense of being in a massive concert hall, albeit sitting towards the back. Must have been overwhelming on the night!)

I've also re-listened to these recordings which I have in my collection

Ashkenazy - terrific performance, stunningly played, but a recording that I find makes the upper strings sound steely and unpleasant when playing full out. But VA really has the knack of delivering the rubato without losing the pulse and impetus of the music

Previn - doesn't have the 'just right' factor of his performance of No 2 imo... I found some of his No 3 sounded oddly like Brahms, it's somehow not idiomatic... Other passages were too stop-start, with a rather 'automatic'-sounding approach to rubato. There are also some vagaries of woodwind tuning in the middle movement, to my ears

Pletnev - pretty horrible, no impetus, all languorous lingering - made me think of someone looking admiringly at themselves in the mirror, running immaculately-manicured fingers through lustrous silken locks. Boomy acoustic too.

Jansons - fabulous. All the fire of Ashkenazy, perhaps the solos a notch less characterful, but a better recording, just the sort of sound-stage I like - I especially love the edgy presence of the bass instruments and timps, giving real fibre. This is the one I want to hear again.

You're working well Cali - next -
Boult
de Waart
Dutoit
Litton
Mackerras
Ormandy
Otaka
Petrenko
Rozhdestvensky
Sargent
Silvestri
Slatkin
Stokowski
Weller

[BBMmk2]

I might just get the Jansons! :)

[seabright]

No mention anywhere as far as I can see of the Abravanel / Utah Symphony recording but listening to it on You Tube it strikes me as well worth a listen ... it features some nice rubato that the composer himself adopted, so I suspect that Abravanel listened to the old Philadelphia 78s before making his own recording ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG5-n26-NBc

[Barbirollians]

In many ways a good BAL but some extraordinary omissions- Kletzki and Jansons did not even get a mention and poor old Stokowski was just described in passing as weird . I couldn't understand her enthusiasm for the Zinman - very dull . A sound winner though not my favourite by any means .

[BBMmk2]

Just by coincedence, isn't Andrew Litton's cycle available?

[seabright]

Just by coincedence, isn't Andrew Litton's cycle available?

As always, it depends what is meant by "available" ... 10 seconds of googling reveal it to be just that, both as a CD and a download, but I guess the BBC doesn't consider Amazon to be an "available" outlet! ...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Rachmaninov+Symphony+3+Andrew+Litton

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The RPO/ Litton is not really "available" in the UK as a CD, the Amazon examples all being second-hand, but it is available at a download, and was on my list from the start.