New releases

[BBMmk2]

I have Steven Osborne’s new Rachmaninov cd. It’s certainly a jaw dropping, mouth watering experience of top notch piano playing. I don’t think that SO has made a dud recording!

[silvestrione]

I have Steven Osborne’s new Rachmaninov cd. It’s certainly a jaw dropping, mouth watering experience of top notch piano playing. I don’t think that SO has made a dud recording!

No, I think you are right (or should that be 'yes'!). I love his way with the finale of the 'Hammerklavier', rhythmically vital.

[BBMmk2]

No, I think you are right (or should that be 'yes'!). I love his way with the finale of the 'Hammerklavier', rhythmically vital.

I haven't bought that one yet.

[silvestrione]

from the Bernstein thread....

Last night/early this morning (I'm never quite sure of the difference these days) I discovered (on Qobuz HiFi) the new release of the Symphony No.2 with Zimerman/Berlin Phil/Rattle... oh, it's poor value as a CD/download purchase yes, but the performance! Utterly wonderful, the subtlest and most beautiful I've heard yet, even alongside the more "operatic" Rana/Pappano.

I'd just heard the 1950 Foss/Bernstein and was about to return to bed, but scanning Qobuz Discover blear-eyed, I stumbled upon this new one, and the cat-on-me rule persuaded me to go one further. Thanks, Mizzy!
Anyone who loves Bernstein or the Symphonies in particular, needs to hear this any which way!

I had better report my very different experience, in case anyone is weighing up whether to go for this one or not, and needs to be confused a little. I listened to Rattle/Zimerman in the Bernstein Sym 2 today, a work I am unfamiliar with, and do not want to hear again. Empty rhetoric, bombast, banality....until a spirited appearance by Art Tatum just before the end, tickling the ivories like mad, at least gives a moment's (4' 30'') pleasure!

[jayne lee wilson]

I had better report my very different experience, in case anyone is weighing up whether to go for this one or not, and needs to be confused a little. I listened to Rattle/Zimerman in the Bernstein Sym 2 today, a work I am unfamiliar with, and do not want to hear again. Empty rhetoric, bombast, banality....until a spirited appearance by Art Tatum just before the end, tickling the ivories like mad, at least gives a moment's (4' 30'') pleasure!

I'm sorry to hear that, Silver....I did say elsewhere that despite the immediate accessibility or expressiveness of the idiom, it took me a few hearings to really click with No.2, Jeremiah or the Serenade, works which I'd been too impatient with a few years ago...it was almost as if I'd assumed that, because of the music's directness, I didn't need to give it any more time, or "work".... I'm so, so glad I did now.

So it goes...!
Did that lovely, delicate first piano entry not touch your heart at all..? Really? Maybe listen again once or twice....?

[Beef Oven!]

I would urge silvistrione to come back to this work at some point in the future. Like so many things in Bernstein, beauty, character and meaning go together and are never far below the surface.

[Petrushka]

I've lost count of the number of times I failed to 'get' a work on it's first, or even tenth, hearing only for it click into place on the eleventh! I'm sure most of us can say similar, which is why I can well understand those early reviews of well loved masterpieces that now make hilarious reading.

[silvestrione]

Did that lovely, delicate first piano entry not touch your heart at all..? Really? Maybe listen again once or twice....?

It didn't, I'm afraid, but I will try it again tomorrow!

[jayne lee wilson]

It didn't, I'm afraid, but I will try it again tomorrow!

Let's hope it's a grower for you too....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've lost count of the number of times I failed to 'get' a work on it's first, or even tenth, hearing only for it click into place on the eleventh! I'm sure most of us can say similar, which is why I can well understand those early reviews of well loved masterpieces that now make hilarious reading.

(I'd strongly recommend you give the Schmidt Second Symphony another ten goes, Pet! )

[Petrushka]

(I'd strongly recommend you give the Schmidt Second Symphony another ten goes, Pet! )

I was in the hall for the VPO/Bychkov Prom a year or two ago, coming to it cold, and found it beyond belief dreary but, yes, in my case that would be a good candidate for another go! At the moment, it's in the 'life's too short' category.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I was in the hall for the VPO/Bychkov Prom a year or two ago, coming to it cold, and found it beyond belief dreary but, yes, in my case that would be a good candidate for another go! At the moment, it's in the 'life's too short' section.

I remember you saying this earlier in this season - I love it, but it did take a few hearings. Even better is the Fourth, which features in the first of the BPO Proms on Saturday: absolutely unmissable, and strongly recommended. And, no doubt, due for a forthcoming recording he said, grinding the gears to get back to Thread Topic!

[cloughie]

A couple of interesting Australian Eloquence releases next month Robert Irving’s Decca recordings from the 50s on 2CDs and another 2CD set of Mahler with Yvonne Minton CSO and Solti - Das Lied von der Erde, Fahren Gesellen and Knaben Wunderhorn. There’s also on the same label an early Haitink recording with the Concertgebouw of Beethoben 8 and Mendelssohn 4 & Hebrides Ov. I hope this is the opening shot of Haitink’s 60s recordings, many of which have never been transferred to CD!

[Bryn]

This appears to be the height of craziness. The Austrian label "God" has released a recording of Morton Feldman's String Quartet 2 played by the Pellegrini Quartet. That's the good news. The bad is that it is on 6 vinyl LPs only, and costs around £100 plus p&p. I have emiled them to enquire whether they intend to stick to this obsolete media or also issue the recording on CD, audio DVD or as high resolution download. 11 side changes for a continuous performance just seems so stupid, let alone the audio defects of vinyl.

[Beef Oven!]

This appears to be the height of craziness. The Austrian label "God" has released a recording of Morton Feldman's String Quartet 2 played by the Pellegrini Quartet. That's the good news. The bad is that it is on 6 vinyl LPs only, and costs around $128 plus p&p. I have emiled them to enquire whether they intend to stick to this obsolete media or also issue the recording on CD, audio DVD or as high resolution download. 11 side changes for a continuous performance just seems so stupid, let alone the audio defects of vinyl.

Crazy - this is political correctness gone mad