BaL 18.01.20 - Beethoven: Symphony no. 1 in C, Op.21

[gradus]

It's just a lovely thing. I owe my enjoyment of it to the LSO under Krips, a performance that is as charming as it is sprightly.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As a matter of interest, does anyone have the complete Beethoven cycle with Rene Leibowitz and the RPO? ... It was recorded for Readers Digest and produced by Charles Gerhardt with a top-class Decca engineering team.

Yup! (I have the Chesky reissues of the set - recording and performance quality are both superb.)

The RPO was the orchestra on the first Beethoven recording I ever bought: the 10 inch LP that came with the "Great Musicians" magazine series at the start of the '70s. Charles Groves was the conductor (as he was in the Pastoral which was released a few issues later) and both were specially recorded for the series (many of the other LPs were from the Turnabout label - Brendel in the Piano Sonatas for example) and were very fine indeed - I'd be very happy if both received a CD release.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's just a lovely thing. I owe my enjoyment of it to the LSO under Krips, a performance that is as charming as it is sprightly.

- I've got that, too! (I doubt that I'll be spending very much money as a result of this Thread or the BaL! )

[Bryn]

Yup! (I have the Chesky reissues of the set - recording and performance quality are both superb.)

The RPO was the orchestra on the first Beethoven recording I ever bought: the 10 inch LP that came with the "Great Musicians" magazine series at the start of the '70s. Charles Groves was the conductor (as he was in the Pastoral which was released a few issues later) and both were specially recorded for the series (many of the other LPs were from the Turnabout label - Brendel in the Piano Sonatas for example) and were very fine indeed - I'd be very happy if both received a CD release.

Not the first I bought but I also had that Great Musicians issue (along with many others). Many thanks to Michael Nyman for passing on to me a few issues of a companion series of New Music issues from Italy. These included Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not the first I bought but I also had that Great Musicians issue (along with many others).

I still have them! Nowt to play them though - and, with the condition of the discs (I was 12, and played them regularly for the next ten or more years) I'm not forking out on a new system just to play them! I didn't get them when they first came out - the local Boots sold them off at around 30p each a couple of years later. I'd pop into town on a Saturday, buy a copy, and go and see the early James Bond films being shown in sequence on Saturday afternoons at one of the local cinemas.

Many thanks to Michael Nyman for passing on to me a few issues of a companion series of New Music issues from Italy. These included Cage's String Quartet in Four Parts .

Now, I don't think that that series was ever issued in Britain!

[seabright]

Eine Alpensinfonie does an amazing job with his weekly BAL listings but I wonder how many of all those Beethoven Firsts will actually have been listened to by Richard Wigmore. Incidentally, I presume it's OK to add a 'Pristine' release to the list ... Paul Paray and the Detroit SO, recorded by 'Mercury' in 1959 but in the 'public domain' as of 50 years later, in accordance with the EU Directive on Sound Recordings dated 1 November 2013 ...

https://www.pristineclassical.com/collections/artist-paul-paray/products/pasc209

[pastoralguy]

Another 8 mega-lists.

Thank you for your heroic work, Alpie.

[pastoralguy]

Eine Alpensinfonie does an amazing job with his weekly BAL listings but I wonder how many of all those Beethoven Firsts will actually have been listened to by Richard Wigmore. [/url]

I once had the opportunity to ask a BaL reviewer how they coped with repertoire that had a huge list of recordings. They replied that they choose moments in each movement that they regarded as being important and listened to those in isolation. If the version 'passed' this criteria only then would the reviewer listen to the whole movement.

I suspect that these days the BaL producer does the 'whittling down' and the results are passed onto the reviewer.

I've just counted Alpie's list and it's approximately 200 recordings! Let's say an 'average' of 30 minutes per symphony so that's 100 hours of listening to each performance ONLY ONCE!

I don't know how much a BaL reviewer is remunerated but I suspect it's not enough to justify AT LEAST 100 hours of listening time quite apart from the fact that I suspect you would never want to hear Beethoven's First ever again!

[Once Was 4]

I still have them! Nowt to play them though - and, with the condition of the discs (I was 12, and played them regularly for the next ten or more years) I'm not forking out on a new system just to play them! I didn't get them when they first came out - the local Boots sold them off at around 30p each a couple of years later. I'd pop into town on a Saturday, buy a copy, and go and see the early James Bond films being shown in sequence on Saturday afternoons at one of the local cinemas.


Now, I don't think that that series was ever issued in Britain!

I have that Groves/RPO Pastoral as well - a lovely performance. Please let us never forget 'Charlie'; he once admonished an an orchestra in which I was playing in the following manner - "that is the kind of playing which turns conductors into bores and I do so hate bores!" The result? Instant attention and everybody friends when he joined us in the tea queue. That just about sums him up and compares him more than favourably with some of the conductors eulogised on this discussion group from time-to-time who were/are complete disasters as human beings.

BTW: there are some interesting names, of less than world status, on that BaL list for Beethoven 1. Being much less than world status myself I have played and recorded for/with several of these. Most deserve to be known a little better; just one so incompetent that he should be barred for life from conducting orchestras (no - not telling!)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Groves and Loughran were the conductors who appeared most frequently to conduct concerts at the Town Hall nearest where I grew up - I have the very deepest gratitude to (and fondest memories of) them.


(I've got Loughran's Beethoven #1 on LP, too!)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't know how much a BaL reviewer is remunerated but I suspect it's not enough to justify AT LEAST 100 hours of listening time quite apart from the fact that I suspect you would never want to hear Beethoven's First ever again!

I don't know if I spent 100 hours listening to the work in the years it was on the syllabus, but it was certainly in the dozens - and it never lost any of its attractiveness, and I still love to listen to it - one of the most underrated masterpieces of the Classical repertoire, with many commentators deafened by the later splendours of the Eroica (et al) into underestimating the inventiveness and originality of the work.

[Petrushka]

Groves and Loughran were the conductors who appeared most frequently to conduct concerts at the Town Hall nearest where I grew up - I have the very deepest gratitude to (and fondest memories of) them.


(I've got Loughran's Beethoven #1 on LP, too!)

I only saw Groves once (RLPO, 1977) in the Victoria Hall, Hanley, but Loughran was a frequent visitor and I saw him many times - including in Beethoven's 1st!

[Lordgeous]

As a matter of interest, does anyone have the complete Beethoven cycle with Rene Leibowitz and the RPO? ... It was recorded for Readers Digest and produced by Charles Gerhardt with a top-class Decca engineering team. I remember that Gerhardt gave an interview in which he revealed that he sat Leibowitz down and together they listened to all the great Beethoven recordings of the past - Weingartner, Furtwangler, Kleiber, Toscanini, Klemperer, et al. - and as a result Leibowitz produced a fabulous set. Of course, in those days Readers Digest LPs weren't reviewed, as they were only available to subscribers of the RD magazine itself. Even so, Gerhardt engaged some other great conductors - Barbirolli, Horenstein, Munch, Reiner, Boult, et al. - who all gave him some great recordings for that label.

As to the Leibowitz No. 1 and the rest of the set, it's on Naxos, as per this link ...

https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=9.80964

And for a taster of how it sounds, it is - like so much else these days - readily available on YouTube! ... And a first-rate recording it is too ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4EFEfG819U

Sounds terrific - very spirited playing and excellent recording. Thanks for the link.

[Bryn]

Sounds terrific - very spirited playing and excellent recording. Thanks for the link.

QOBUZ have them in various releases, ranging considerably in price. The lowest cost option for CD rate is £3.99 for the lot:

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/beethoven-9-symphonies-royal-philharmonic-orchestra-rene-leibowitz/4250527469217

Each symphony is presented as a single file in this option. If you pay more, you can get them with a separate file for each movement.

Scribendum issued a CD set of the Symphonies a few years ago. That set has been withdrawn but they have been incorporated into a 13 CD Leibowitz set (£39 direct from Scribendum, or £59 from Amazon.

This from the amazon.com listing of the earlier set of just the Beethoven:

Ludwig van Beethoven ~ The Symphonies & Orchestral Works. Disc One: Symphony No.l in C Major, Op.21. Total (Includes time between tracks) 66'21". Disc Two: Symphony No.3 in E flat Major, Op.55 "Eroica". Total (Includes time between tracks) 71'40". Disc Three: Symphony No.5 in C Minor, Op.67. Total (Includes time between tracks) 71'08". Disc Four: Symphony No.7 in A Major, Op.92. Total (Includes time between tracks) 68'29". Disc Five: Symphony No.9 in D Minor, Op.125 "Corale". Total (Includes time between tracks) 61'49". Royal Philharmonic Orchestra — Rene Leibowitz, conductor with the participation of The Beecham Choral Society and Inge Borkh, soprano - Ruth Siewert, contralto - Richard Lewis, tenor - Ludwig Weber, bass. The New Symphony Orchestra of London. Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8: Recorded in April 1961, Walthamstow Town Hall, London. Symphony No. 4: Recorded in May 1961, Walthamstow Town Hall, London. Symphony No. 9: Recorded in June 1961, on the 3rd, 5th, and 7th, Walthamstow Town Hall, London. Turkish March from "The Ruins of Athens": Recorded in February 1961, London. Egmont Overture: Recorded in January 1962, Walthamstow Town Hall, London. Leonora Overture: Recorded in February 1962, Walthamstow Town Hall, London.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Eine Alpensinfonie does an amazing job with his weekly BAL listings but I wonder how many of all those Beethoven Firsts will actually have been listened to by Richard Wigmore. Incidentally, I presume it's OK to add a 'Pristine' release to the list ... Paul Paray and the Detroit SO, recorded by 'Mercury' in 1959 but in the 'public domain' as of 50 years later, in accordance with the EU Directive on Sound Recordings dated 1 November 2013 ...

https://www.pristineclassical.com/co...oducts/pasc209

This is the recording I bought in order to get to know the work, when it was an O-level set work in 1966. I regretted the fact that the acoustic was so dry, when compared with the recording at school. It was only later, when I bought the Schmidt-Issestedt issue when it first appeared, that I was happy with the sound.