Building an essential library ?

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  • Barbirollians
    Full Member
    • Nov 2010
    • 11759
    #1

    Building an essential library ?

    Erm
    Some new Vivaldi from Alessandrini( good but hardly a revelation)
    Karajan’s Carmen with Price and Corelli (doesn’t sound much like Carmen more like Tosca ! )
    Brahms - Violin Sonatas - Suk/Katchen now we are talking !
    A 1610 adaptation of Spem in Alium- which proved how much better the original was - how could this be in an essential library as much as I admire The Sixteen.
    Beethoven Appassionata from Richter in Prague in 1959 - not heard it before thought it sounded a bit hysterical
    Britten’s Peter Grimes conducted by the composer -no argument with that one
    Taneyev’s Symphony No 4 - an OK piece superbly conducted but essential ?
    Tags: None
  • Ein Heldenleben
    Full Member
    • Apr 2014
    • 6962
    #2
    No problem with Suk / Katchen in anything .
    Ditto Britten .
    But Josef and Rosa Lhevinnne’s Mozart 2 Piano D major is one of my Desert Island Discs - one of the greatest piano recordings I’ve ever heard. The inestimable Marina F-W put her finger on it - the modern pianists sound too uniform.

    Comment

    • Master Jacques
      Full Member
      • Feb 2012
      • 1953
      #3
      ... and we might have predicted that K. Hamilton would end up 'on the Beach, at night alone'! Pleasant, soothing, soundly constructed ... but essential? Perhaps only if you believe that box-ticking is an essential library activity.

      Comment

      • Goon525
        Full Member
        • Feb 2014
        • 606
        #4
        I think the problem with this BaL is simply the title. It’s not an ‘Essential Library’ - it’s just ‘stuff I really like’. Quite interesting as that, but the title raised expectations not met by the actual programme.

        Comment

        • Bryn
          Banned
          • Mar 2007
          • 24688
          #5
          Originally posted by Master Jacques View Post
          ... and we might have predicted that K. Hamilton would end up 'on the Beach, at night alone'! Pleasant, soothing, soundly constructed ... but essential? Perhaps only if you believe that box-ticking is an essential library activity.
          I will have to listen to that contribution again. I was otherwise engaged at the time and (mis?)heard it as a reference to the Glass opera, of which I remain rather fond, in each of the three recordings I have of it.

          Comment

          • french frank
            Administrator/Moderator
            • Feb 2007
            • 30508
            #6
            To be picky, I'm not sure that there can be such a thing as an 'Essential Library'. Essential to whom? Does it mean the works everyone knows, CFM style? Or somebody's 'must have' recordings? If choosing a Mozart piano sonata, why the sonata for two pianos rather than a 'more essential' one for solo piano? Or is it just like Inside Music - just a compilation of favourites?

            Excuse repetition - there was only one reply when I started. Must speed up!
            It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

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            • Ein Heldenleben
              Full Member
              • Apr 2014
              • 6962
              #7
              Originally posted by Master Jacques View Post
              ... and we might have predicted that K. Hamilton would end up 'on the Beach, at night alone'! Pleasant, soothing, soundly constructed ... but essential? Perhaps only if you believe that box-ticking is an essential library activity.
              I don’t think the Beach is either essential or a masterpiece but than neither is the Taneyev….
              No Wagner yet , or Haydn, or Bruckner …..

              Comment

              • Master Jacques
                Full Member
                • Feb 2012
                • 1953
                #8
                Originally posted by Bryn View Post
                I will have to listen to that contribution again. I was otherwise engaged at the time and (mis?)heard it as a reference to the Glass opera, of which I remain rather fond, in each of the three recordings I have of it.
                I'm with you on that - much rather Einstein on the Beach than plain Beach for me, too; and the more complete, the better! Of course, we have not heard a single living composer from these three guests' fave lists.

                Comment

                • Ein Heldenleben
                  Full Member
                  • Apr 2014
                  • 6962
                  #9
                  Originally posted by french frank View Post
                  To be picky, I'm not sure that there can be such a thing as an 'Essential Library'. Essential to whom? Does it mean the works everyone knows, CFM style? Or somebody's 'must have' recordings? If choosing a Mozart piano sonata, why the sonata for two pianos rather than a 'more essential' one for solo piano? Or is it just like Inside Music - just a compilation of favourites?

                  Excuse repetition - there was only one reply when I started. Must speed up!
                  Probably because the two piano sonata is up there with the greatest of the solo sonatas e.g the A minor or the late D major . Actually I think it’s greater than any of them - one of the finest expressions of classical sonata construction in the repertoire.

                  Comment

                  • LHC
                    Full Member
                    • Jan 2011
                    • 1567
                    #10
                    It's a very odd programme. Radio 3's blurb for the programme states "This morning's Record Review is a special programme, looking at how to start Building An Essential Library". While the guests might have reasons for liking these pieces and recordings, hardly any of them seem to me to be 'essential' and certainly not for someone starting to build a library of classical music.
                    "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
                    Lady Bracknell The importance of Being Earnest

                    Comment

                    • Ein Heldenleben
                      Full Member
                      • Apr 2014
                      • 6962
                      #11
                      Originally posted by LHC View Post
                      It's a very odd programme. Radio 3's blurb for the programme states "This morning's Record Review is a special programme, looking at how to start Building An Essential Library". While the guests might have reasons for liking these pieces and recordings, hardly any of them seem to me to be 'essential' and certainly not for someone starting to build a library of classical music.
                      In what sense is this rather dated recording of some rather obscure Chabrier more essential than the Solti Ring ?

                      Comment

                      • Master Jacques
                        Full Member
                        • Feb 2012
                        • 1953
                        #12
                        K. Hamilton, all is forgiven - for choosing that marvellous Janine Micheau performance of Chabrier's Ode to Music. I didn't know this recording of a favourite piece of mine, and have rushed off to acquire it instantly!

                        Comment

                        • Ein Heldenleben
                          Full Member
                          • Apr 2014
                          • 6962
                          #13
                          Originally posted by Master Jacques View Post
                          K. Hamilton, all is forgiven - for choosing that marvellous Janine Micheau performance of Chabrier's Ode to Music. I didn't know this recording of a favourite piece of mine, and have rushed off to acquire it instantly!
                          Didn’t you think some of the intonation a bit off and rather harshly recorded ?

                          Comment

                          • Master Jacques
                            Full Member
                            • Feb 2012
                            • 1953
                            #14
                            Originally posted by Ein Heldenleben View Post
                            Didn’t you think some of the intonation a bit off and rather harshly recorded ?
                            Yes indeed, reduced vocal support was a Micheau 'feature' at this stage of her career, and the intonation is not consistent. But I love her open, full-hearted approach to this (and all) music. She makes the Chabrier Ode sound as if it really matters, where my go-to versions of the piece risk mere efficiency and/or prettiness. Perfection - in sound or technique - can sometimes seem paradoxically imperfect.

                            As to the recording, I offer the Joanna MacGregor response!

                            Comment

                            • Barbirollians
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 11759
                              #15
                              Ah - Emma Kirkby ‘s Hildegard of Bingen record . Properly legendary record.
                              K448 Schiff/Serkin - liked the playing the piano tone not so much. I am with MFW on this one.
                              Bach Mass in BMinor - Parrott’s skinny latte version
                              Beethoven 9 ORR/Gardiner - didn’t like that slow movement not a question of speed just made it sound pretty and shallow
                              Messiaen organ music - not my thing at all so no comment
                              Amy Beach - piano quintet ( pretty enough piece but essential ? )
                              Purcell Dido and Aeneas - Hogwood - some hammy witches
                              Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No 2 - Perlman/BBCSO/ RozhdestvenskyI know this record but Perlman is just too close for my ears beautiful as it is.

                              Liked the unusual Chabrier piece and I see the audience member chose the one really essential recording Previn/LSO Rachmaninov 2.

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