What’s Your Favourite Symphony?

[BBMmk2]

Have to play this later, I think. it's sometime since I have heard it.

i

The re ording of this work I like at the moment is the Dresden Statskapelle/Barenboim.

I find with this record, the general ebb and flow is something I’ve never encountered before in others recordings I’ve heard.
Certainly I would say one of the best in recent years.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The re ording of this work I like at the moment is the Dresden Statskapelle/Barenboim.

I find with this record, the general ebb and flow is something I’ve never encountered before in others recordings I’ve heard.
Certainly I would say one of the best in recent years.

I find the "ebbs" interfere a little too much with the "flow" for my preference, Bbm - but there's some magnificent moments, of course. The opening is exactly right, and those thrilling thrilling horns! But then after a couple of minutes, we get to the first rallentando and it chugs to a crawl.

I wish that someone would make Petrenko's 2014 Prom performance of the Elgar #2 available (it used to be complete on youTube, but last time I looked there was just a "taster" available) - that was fantastic!

[Keraulophone]

If memory serves, it was another Dresden recording that BaL recommended a few years ago as first choice, possibly this one with the Dresden Philharmonic conducted by Herbert Kegel. https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item...em_code=C10150

Barenboim/Klemperer was the one I grew up with - stolid.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If memory serves, it was another Dresden recording that BaL recommended a few years ago as first choice, possibly this one with the Dresden Philharmonic conducted by Herbert Kegel. https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item...em_code=C10150

Barenboim/Klemperer was the one I grew up with - stolid.

For a moment I thought you meant there was a Dresden/Kegel recording of Elgar #2, Keraul!

Yes the Barenboim/Klemps Choral Fantasy - reminds me of the time I worked in a record shop, and a customer came in asking for the recording with the "Brian Aldiss Choir". Well, it is out-of-this-world!

[Keraulophone]

For a moment I thought you meant there was a Dresden/Kegel recording of Elgar #2, Keraul!

Ah no, sorry. This is the best I can do: Kegel and the Dresden Philharmonic in Pomp und Circumstance! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDXMOHk88ak

[BBMmk2]

Ferney, really? Hmm, I seem to find different things going on in recordings that other people seem to be perplexed by?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ah no, sorry. This is the best I can do: Kegel and the Dresden Philharmonic in Pomp und Circumstance! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDXMOHk88ak

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ferney, really? Hmm, I seem to find different things going on in recordings that other people seem to be perplexed by?

Well, you're by no means the only listener who feels more enthusiasm for that Barenboim Elgar #2 recording than I do (and, of course, there are listeners who feel even greater antipathy towards it than I do). I think that this is one of the essential features of important Artworks: they appeal to different people in different ways - our different tastes are as important as our different skills; as Social animals, our survival as a species depends on these complementary differences.

For me, as long as the performers give me what the composer has written in the score, I can accept it when they read those instructions differently from how I do (and sometimes, such readings can be revelatory to me - as with Krivine's readings of the Beethoven Symphonies). When Elgar writes that the Music should slow down, I don't think he means to such an extent as DB obviously thinks it does. And he's the one who gets asked to conduct it! And there's a lot in his recordings that is marvellous.

[LMcD]

I find the "ebbs" interfere a little too much with the "flow" for my preference, Bbm - but there's some magnificent moments, of course. The opening is exactly right, and those thrilling thrilling horns! But then after a couple of minutes, we get to the first rallentando and it chugs to a crawl.

I wish that someone would make Petrenko's 2014 Prom performance of the Elgar #2 available (it used to be complete on youTube, but last time I looked there was just a "taster" available) - that was fantastic!

This link doesn't work: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=f8cUF22TOXO[/url] BUT if you google 'Elgar 2nd symphony no. 2 Petrenko' you can see the complete performance.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

This link doesn't work: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=f8cUF22TOXO[/url] BUT if you google 'Elgar 2nd symphony no. 2 Petrenko' you can see the complete performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8cUFZ2T0X0

[LMcD]

You're welcome! I shall watch it myself when time permits.

[BBMmk2]

You're welcome! I shall watch it myself when time permits.

Yes. That looks most interesting!