What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[smittims]

Beethoven Violin Concerto. Isaac Stern, New York Philharmonic, Barenboim.

Interesting to hear, in a recording made as late as 1975, the solo violin still miked prominently forward as in 78 days.

[Mandryka]

I managed to find time to listen to a bit of it today and found it very beautiful as expected. If I'd heard it without knowing what it was, I would have immediately guessed Josquin. Is there some subtle difference in style between him and Obrecht? - because if there is I haven't detected it. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course.

If you can get hold of Rob Wegman’s book on Obrecht there’s a lot of discussion about this. He says that in the “mature period”, which basically starts with Missa Fortuna Desperata, Obrecht very much found his own voice. Missa Maria Zart is from that mature period. I’ll try to have a look at the details when I get back home next week - and David Fallows may have things to say too in his book on Josquin.

I’ll report my informal, not very well thought about, impression: I feel that Josquin is more expressive and less earthy than Obrecht. But I only know the masses of both composers through recorded and concert performance, and the performances of Obrecht are much more limited than Josquin’s.


Another thing I’d say about Missa Maria Zart in particular. It is enormous, much more so than anything I’m aware of by Josquin. In concert (I heard Cappella Pratensis about five years ago) it can appear sprawling. I’ve never had that feeling in a Josquin mass.

[Stanfordian]

Entre Nous – Celebrating Offenbach – Excerpts from the forgotten operas
Geneviève de Brabant, La Jolie Parfumeuse, Le Pont des soupirs,
Les Braconniers, Les Deux Pêcheurs ou Le Lever du soleil,
Monsieur et Madame Denis, La Diva, Les Bergers
Le Voyage dans la lune, La Rose de Saint-Flour, L’Île de Tulipatan,
La Boulangère a des écus, Une Nuit blanche, Il Signor Fagotto, La Créole,
Maître Péronilla, Le Fifre enchanté ou Le Soldat magician
Le Château à Toto, Le Roi Carotte, Vert-Vert, Boule de neige, Belle Lurette
Soloists: Jennifer Larmore, Alastair Miles, Yvonne Kenny, Mark Stone,
Diana Montague, Laura Claycomb, Elizabeth Vidal, Colin Lee, Loïc Félix,
Mark Wilde, Cassandre Berthon, Mark le Brocq, Alexandra Sherman, Andre Cognet
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir,
London Philharmonic Orchestra / David Parry
Recorded 2006 Henry Wood Hall, London
Opera Rara Classics part of 7 CD set ‘Celebrating Offenbach’
(originally released in 2007 on Opera Rara ORR243)

[Joseph K]

Just listened/followed:

[Serial_Apologist]

I still have my LP of Daphnis by Ansermet with the Suisse Romande, bought back in the 1970s - at over an hour in all, one of the longest LPs in my collection.

[smittims]

Did you know it had been re-released by Decca in 'new vinyl'? I have it in an Eloquence CD, though the given timing is 55'10". I'm not sure I don't prefer it to the legendary LSO/Monteux.

[Bryn]

I still have my LP of Daphnis by Ansermet with the Suisse Romande, bought back in the 1970s - at over an hour in all, one of the longest LPs in my collection.

So you never got the Mitropoulos Manler 8 on a single LP, then:

[Petrushka]

So you never got the Mitropoulos Manler 8 on a single LP, then:

This surely can't be for real.

Is it the live performance given in Salzburg on August 28 1960 that appeared on an Orfeo CD? The 'Vienna Festival Orchestra' is obviously the VPO but the soloists are not named on that LP reverse sleeve that you show so difficult to tell. That performance clocks in at 80' 56'' and seems an utter impossibility for it to have been squeezed on to one LP considering the sheer volume of much of the music. Where did the side change come?

EDIT: I can just make out from the image that the recording appears to come from a 1960 Vienna Festival performance but the VPO concert archive gives no mention of such a performance, listing only the Salzburg one already mentioned.

[Pulcinella]

This surely can't be for real.

Is it the live performance given in Salzburg on August 28 1960 that appeared on an Orfeo CD? The 'Vienna Festival Orchestra' is obviously the VPO but the soloists are not named on that LP reverse sleeve that you show so difficult to tell. That performance clocks in at 80' 56'' and seems an utter impossibility for it to have been squeezed on to one LP considering the sheer volume of much of the music. Where did the side change come?

EDIT: I can just make out from the image that the recording appears to come from a 1960 Vienna Festival performance but the VPO concert archive gives no mention of such a performance, listing only the Salzburg one already mentioned.

Looks like it's this:

https://www.discogs.com/fr/master/454841-Gustav-Mahler-Dimitri-Mitropoulos-Conducting-Soloists-Choirs-And-The-Vienna-Festival-Orchestra-Symph

Two Everest LPs that somehow became one in a 1978 release!

Side break shown here:

https://www.discogs.com/fr/release/10249887-Gustav-Mahler-Dimitri-Mitropoulos-Conducting-The-Vienna-Festival-Orchestra-Symphony-No-8-Symphony-Of

[Petrushka]

Looks like it's this:

https://www.discogs.com/fr/master/454841-Gustav-Mahler-Dimitri-Mitropoulos-Conducting-Soloists-Choirs-And-The-Vienna-Festival-Orchestra-Symph

Two Everest LPs that somehow became one in a 1978 release!

Side break shown here:

https://www.discogs.com/fr/release/1...-8-Symphony-Of

Many thanks for that. The information there does confirm that it is indeed the Salzburg performance. It still seems impossible to get it on one LP at around 40'' a side. The 1999 Orfeo issue on my shelves is actually on 2 CDs (!) and have to say that the sound, even though digitally remastered, calls for a great deal of tolerance so dare not imagine what the LP must sound like.

[Bryn]

This surely can't be for real.

Is it the live performance given in Salzburg on August 28 1960 that appeared on an Orfeo CD? The 'Vienna Festival Orchestra' is obviously the VPO but the soloists are not named on that LP reverse sleeve that you show so difficult to tell. That performance clocks in at 80' 56'' and seems an utter impossibility for it to have been squeezed on to one LP considering the sheer volume of much of the music. Where did the side change come?

EDIT: I can just make out from the image that the recording appears to come from a 1960 Vienna Festival performance but the VPO concert archive gives no mention of such a performance, listing only the Salzburg one already mentioned.

I may still have the Everest in the loft. The sound was at a very low level, to cram it on a single disc, and the audio quality was pretty execrable. I bought it in a sale at, I think Farringdon Records. At one point the sound of what appears to be church bells breaks through. There is no mention of the specific soloists anywhere on either sleeve or disc label:

[Petrushka]

I may still have the Everest in the loft. The sound was at a very low level, to cram it on a single disc, and the audio quality was pretty execrable. I bought it in a sale at, I think Farringdon Records. At one point the sound of what appears to be church bells breaks through. There is no mention of the specific soloists anywhere on either sleeve or disc label:

If you want a historic Mahler 8 I can recommend a NYPO/Stokowski live performance from 1951 which is in far better sound. I have it in the NYPO 'Gustav Mahler Radio Broadcasts' box but think it's available on various labels.

[Bryn]

Janacek: Sting Quartet No. 2 'Intimate Letters' in the Mandelring reconstruction of the version with viola d'amore.

[Bryn]

If you want a historic Mahler 8 I can recommend a NYPO/Stokowski live performance from 1951 which is in far better sound. I have it in the NYPO 'Gustav Mahler Radio Broadcasts' box but think it's available on various labels.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8HOUmyY56c)

[Pulcinella]

Rubbra

The complete chamber music and songs with harp
c/w Berkeley and Howells
ASV, now Lyrita

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8121976--rubbra-the-complete-chamber-music-songs-with-harp

Songs by Edmund Rubbra
Chandos

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9450089--the-jade-mountain-songs-by-edmund-rubbra

(New release: four stars for performance and five for recording in May 2023's issue of BBC MM.)