I got all the Barshai Shostakovich recordings in a very low price box from Brilliant Classics some years ago, with lots of fine performances of other works thrown in. An absolute bargain at the time for around twenty quid!
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Like me, you was done. A good many here got them for less than fiver from Superdrug in their Brilliant Classics clearance. I paid £4.99 for a 'backup' set. Each of the CDs was in its own jewel case within a card slip-box. The first time I bought them they were in card envelopes within a flip-top hard card box.Originally posted by MickyD View PostComment
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I haven't been shopping in the UK for years... can't believe that Superdrug sold classical CDs!
If each cd in that set had a separate jewel case, it must have taken up a lot of room...think I prefer the old red box with eac cd in an envelope...space is at a premium chez moi !Comment
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Superdrug was then part of the same Dutch group as Brilliant Classics. They only sold the clearance sets. There was a complete Wagner Ring to be had for around a fiver, too.Originally posted by MickyD View PostComment
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Well, well, I never knew that - would love to have been there to snap up a few of those boxes!Comment
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This was the Ring, though with different graphics: http://www.musicweb-international.co..._Brilliant.htmOriginally posted by MickyD View PostComment
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Pieter van Winkel, the Dutch founder of Brilliant had a connection with the Dutch parent company of Superdrug. My Barshai symphonies were found nestling amid the cosmetics and toiletries.Originally posted by MickyD View Post
The Leningrad is one of those works that's enjoyable as a live event once every few years but I can't imagine listening to it at home.
Edit: I see Bryn got there first!Comment
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Originally posted by Bryn View Post
Yes my set is from that unrivalled & slightly surreal retail moment. I seem to remember £2.50 a pop. A number of family & friends got Shostakovich box sets for Christmas that year (after I staggered from the store with a bagful)
"...the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."
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Seems unreal, now! I got the Barshai set £1,99 in Lewsham, and the Wagner Ring £2,99 in Strand, LondonOriginally posted by Bryn View PostComment
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Slightly off topic but ICA Classics has 20 discs of Barshai for £7.50 right now. Mix of Chamber, Moscow CO and later Western materialComment
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That looks like 20 MP3 "discs" to me. The CD equivalent is >£50.Originally posted by mathias broucek View Post
Back on topic-ish, I picked up the Barshai DSCH set for a tenner way back at a Superdrug in a part of Devon where everyone is their own uncle or auntie. I was moderately annoyed to see it at half the price later on.Comment
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Agreed -- this has been my preference since first hearing the Leningrad performed live in the Colston Hall in the early 70s by the BSO under Paavo Berglund. Subsequently I heard Ted Downes & the BBC Phil perform it at the Proms a few years later, but that still didn't inspire me to acquire a recording. I'll listen to the BAL, as usual, in the hope that the reviewer will persuade me that this curate's egg of a piece is suitable for home consumption.Originally posted by duncan View PostComment
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Well, some of us have no choice now......Originally posted by Maclintick View Post
Back in the 1990s I learned to love the 7th from my own home taping of Edward Downes' live performances with the BBCPO. Later I found new perspectives off CD, with Kondrashin, Rozh, Gergiev, Bychkov..... finally I did get to to two live concerts at the RLPO with Petrenko....remarkable experiences, but made the more so from my knowing it well from recordings.....
The DSCH 7th is still, often, desperately misunderstood. It is a War Symphony (the first of a trilogy); a cinematographic panorama, a music-drama.... and many other things. It could be said to employ socialist-realist styles and techniques, but there is far more (ideologically- and artistically-undercutting) to it.
The Music has its own unique power to move. I didn't need live (i.e in-hall) performances to understand it and love it, very deeply (which I truly do - it is all, every movement, burned onto my soul - one of a special handful of such works). But even if I could still attend, I wouldn't go again.... as with my live experience of Mahler 6, some things are just too intense to even attempt to revisit....I'm not sure if I'll ever even hear it off record again....but its there within me, a part of me.
I recall Karajan saying something similar after his second live performance/recording of Mahler 9...."I would not dare to touch it again"....Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 09-12-21, 15:16.Comment
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Now there’s a challenge! What a marvellous work this is! Looking forward to this one!Don’t cry for me
I go where music was born
J S Bach 1685-1750Comment
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Great BAL this . For years I’ve been wondering what the trite “invasion” tune reminds me of. I now learn it’s “You’ll find me at Maxims where all the girls are dreams “ from the Merry Widow - a favourite of Hitler’s . We did a school production once - I was a waiter…
On a musical note Shostakovich’s bouncy accompaniment at this point is pure orchestral genius.Comment
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