BaL 13.11.21 - Strauss: Eine Alpensinfonie

[Ein Heldenleben]

The Kempe / RPO Testament CD arrived this morning.Tremendous performance . The string attack so much more vivid than on the Karajan BPO - but refined where it needs to be. Things are just more rhythmically marked and not smoothed over with (an admittedly beautiful) legato as with Karajan.
There is the odd tape blip ( damage to original masters ? ) and I don’t find it as easy to place instruments in the stereo image as on the EMI DSKO / Kempe but that is a reflection of a different recording philosophy.
All in all £11.50 well spent .
Can’t see why both performances weren’t mentioned on Saturday’s BAL.

[Keraulophone]

Not sure if this has been mentioned previously, but the Philharmonia's first concert with Rouvali as principal conductor (RFH, 30/9/21) catches them on very fine form in Also Sprach Zarathustra as well as Ein Alpensinfonie. Well worth a listen. The sound isn't too bad considering the venue, and the visuals are done reasonably well. The principal trombonist used to provide a reliable foundation for Truro School band. The sight of the not-very-far-offstage brass is quite something. Not a likely night off for pro horn players in the capital.

Re the RPO/Kempe disc, the Horn Concerto No.1 played by Alan Civil is a considerable bonus, worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Dennis Brain's classic version.

https://youtu.be/RVLaAFKj3H0

[Keraulophone]

Can’t see why both performances weren’t mentioned on Saturday’s BAL.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Not sure if this has been mentioned previously, but the Philharmonia's first concert with Rouvali as principal conductor (RFH, 30/9/21) catches them on very fine form in Also Sprach Zarathustra as well as Ein Alpensinfonie. Well worth a listen. The sound isn't too bad considering the venue, and the visuals are done reasonably well. The principal trombonist used to provide a reliable foundation for Truro School band. The sight of the not-very-far-offstage brass is quite something. Not a likely night off for pro horn players in the capital.

Re the RPO/Kempe disc, the Horn Concerto No.1 played by Alan Civil is a considerable bonus, worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Dennis Brain's classic version.

https://youtu.be/RVLaAFKj3H0

Blimey the size of that orchestra . Not a night for my traditional row B seat .
Thanks Keraulophone for this radical alternative to a Saturday of Armchair Rugby viewing

[Barbirollians]

The Kempe / RPO Testament CD arrived this morning.Tremendous performance . The string attack so much more vivid than on the Karajan BPO - but refined where it needs to be. Things are just more rhythmically marked and not smoothed over with (an admittedly beautiful) legato as with Karajan.
There is the odd tape blip ( damage to original masters ? ) and I don’t find it as easy to place instruments in the stereo image as on the EMI DSKO / Kempe but that is a reflection of a different recording philosophy.
All in all £11.50 well spent .
Can’t see why both performances weren’t mentioned on Saturday’s BAL.

Available £10.99 direct from Testament - free postage in the UK.

Yes this was also raised with McGregor on Twitter with no response.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Available £10.99 direct from Testament - free postage in the UK.

Yes this was also raised with McGregor on Twitter with no response.

Yes I ordered through Amazon who put postage on top yet it came direct from Testament through Royal Mail

[Ein Heldenleben]

Not sure if this has been mentioned previously, but the Philharmonia's first concert with Rouvali as principal conductor (RFH, 30/9/21) catches them on very fine form in Also Sprach Zarathustra as well as Ein Alpensinfonie. Well worth a listen. The sound isn't too bad considering the venue, and the visuals are done reasonably well. The principal trombonist used to provide a reliable foundation for Truro School band. The sight of the not-very-far-offstage brass is quite something. Not a likely night off for pro horn players in the capital.

Re the RPO/Kempe disc, the Horn Concerto No.1 played by Alan Civil is a considerable bonus, worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Dennis Brain's classic version.

https://youtu.be/RVLaAFKj3H0

Thanks again so much for posting the link . As it turned out I couldn’t wait - I think I heard this performance on In Concert . Superlative performance - string section particularly resplendent Some wonderful contributions from the leader and co leader , cor anglais , 1st trombone , Ist trumpet , horn section . To be honest everyone involved. I could have done with the hotshot Ist trumpet being even further forward in the sound mix but superlative sound overall as well. What a player he is ….
Thing is though Kempe / RPO had way more cowbells . Now that’s what I call a dairy herd.
Finally the Phil have really struck gold with Rouvali . Promising light tenor if his humming in The Meadows section was really him,,,

[HighlandDougie]

Does anyone know how the EMI DVD-Audio of Kempe’s Dresden ASZ and EA compares in sound quality with the 2013 remastering for CD?

Back in Scotland where I have the DVD-A disc. Most definitely inferior sound-wise to the later remastering which features in the Warner box. The DVD sounds a bit like Phase Four - muffled overall with some spotlighting. Listening to the DVD will satisfy my quota of listening to the work no more than once a year. Sorry, EA!

[mikealdren]

Sorry if this sounds sceptical but did you play them on the same machine? DVD players set up for video playing often have fairly poor sound compared with CD players.

[HighlandDougie]

Sorry if this sounds sceptical but did you play them on the same machine? DVD players set up for video playing often have fairly poor sound compared with CD players.

Played using a Pioneer UDP LX-500 which, as a Universal Disc Player based round the same MediaTek chip as the late lamented Oppo, sounds a touch better than a bog-standard DVD player. The CD listened to on its big brother (UDP LX-800) which uses the same chip. If I remember, I’ll take the DVD-A back to France next month and do a straight A/B comparison. The 2013 CD remastering is based on the original EMI/Eterna tapes which were “refound” and represents a startling improvement over earlier CD issues such as the EMI box from the early 2000s. The DVD-A issue is not, I would surmise, based on the original tapes.

[mikealdren]

Thanks of that, it does look like a difference between the reissues, EMI/Warner do seem to have handled a lot of reissues in a rather cavalier fashion.

[Barbirollians]

The RPO/Kempe is fabulous - sweeps to the top of my personal tree in this work. Much more exciting than his estimable Dresden account.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The RPO/Kempe is fabulous - sweeps to the top of my personal tree in this work. Much more exciting than his estimable Dresden account.

Ah - someone who agrees with me.

[BBMmk2]

Ah - someone who agrees with me.

I think one of the top five!

[Lordgeous]

A big but interesting sidetrack?

Kempe had not conducted the Alpine Symphony before and a Royal Festival Hall performance (in April 1966) preceded the recording which, after prodigious booking efforts to secure the extra number of brass players needed, was made in a very short time (and in normal working hours) at London’s Kingsway Hall. The sessions are particularly well remembered by conductor Elgar Howarth who had recently, and rather reluctantly, become the RPO’s first trumpet (“it meant that I would have to practice!”) – and was immediately faced with “one of the real frighteners in the repertoire, with high, loud and difficult solos, especially that chromatically slippy passage in On the glacier”. However, the only real problem that Howarth recalls in the sessions for the Alpine Symphony was keeping the organ in tune. The horn player Alan Civil (1929-89) was famously cynical about many conductors. On his stand he would keep a complete pocket score of the work he was rehearsing – and was known to make musical points from it to conductors he felt were lacking in talent or detail. Rudolf Kempe, however, was one of the conductors (along with Beecham, Karajan and Klemperer) that Civil especially admired. Indeed, when Kempe moved in 1975 from the RPO to the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Civil thought it would be the start of a golden age for the orchestra, an important antidote to the modern, what he sometimes called ‘contemptible’ music which the orchestra regularly programmed in the Glock era. When Kempe died in early 1976 Civil was immensely disappointed. Civil had been one of the two most famous pupils of the legendary Royal Academy of Music horn professor Aubrey Brain, father of the equally legendary Dennis Brain, alongside whom he played in wartime military bands, and the early days of Beecham’s RPO and the Philharmonia. By universal approval, Civil moved up from third horn to inherit Dennis Brain’s principal chair at the Philharmonia’s recording sessions for Strauss’s Capriccio after Brain was tragically killed on 1 September 1957. “I don’t use the word great very often,” says horn player, conductor and professor Michael Thompson, “but Alan Civil was a great horn player.” Excerpt from the note, © Mike Ashman, 2008