Naxos favourites

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps I need bigger emoticons

It's not the size; it's what you do with them!

[cloughie]

Does anybody know whether Naxos will get round to issuing recordings of all the Parry symphonies, by the way?

Interesting to know what lights their candle - Done excellent sets of arnold and Bax, but not Parry or Rubbra - maybe working through the alphabet!

[Byas'd Opinion]

Any thoughts on the Naxos version of Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano? There's a strange alien beauty to much of the music which I find utterly beguiling, but how does this performance (by Boris Berman) compare with the others available?

[Parry1912]

Following John Gardner's recent passing I must give a mention for this disc of his works:

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.570406

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Any thoughts on the Naxos version of Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano? There's a strange alien beauty to much of the music which I find utterly beguiling, but how does this performance (by Boris Berman) compare with the others available?

I enjoy it very much and respond to it in much the same way you do: the only other performances I "know" are from the LP days (Tilbury on Decca Headline and the Harmonia Mundy by [?] Claude Heffler[?]) and I respond to Berman more warmly than I did to either of them.

On the notion of "comparisons", a story from Richard Steinitz's Explosions in November might be of interest here. He's writing about driving Cage to his flat after a performance of Cage's piece One2 by Margaret Leng Tan:

Afterwards, John ... was uncharacteristically distressed. [Aspects of the performance] were far from what he had imagined. He would ask Margaret to change her interpretation.
But by the third set of traffic lights the cloud had lifted. He would accept the performance. It was part of life. He couldn't upset her. He would move on.

Best Wishes.

[MickyD]

For the few of us who like the byways of 18th century music, I heartily recommend two discs of symphonies by the esteemed Mannheim court composer, Franz Xaver Richter, invigoratingly performed by the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra.

[Byas'd Opinion]

Are the Naxos Franz Schmidt symphony recordings (Malmo SO, Sinaisky) any good? If so, which would be a good one to start with?

[Dave2002]

Are the Naxos Franz Schmidt symphony recordings (Malmo SO, Sinaisky) any good? If so, which would be a good one to start with?

I can check this further tomorrow. They are on Spotify.

Sinaisky's performances are often very good. Do you know the Schmidt pieces, or are you trying to get to know them? I doubt that you can really go far wrong.

Which to start with? Depends what you want. 2 and 3 are quite easy I think. 4 may be more serious (slightly?).

[Mahlerei]

The new Houston Das Lied von der Erde is very good indeed; well worth hearing.

[mikealdren]

Don't know how I missed this thread till now.

For me, as a violin lover, the range of obscure violin music available in good to excellent performances is little short of amazing. I never expected the complete concertos of Joachim and Vieuxtemps to appear let alone works by Rode, Kreutzer, Sauret, Bazzini, Beriot, Joachim, Godard Chevalier St George etc.

Modern concertos by Alwyn, Havergill Brian, Tor Aulin, Benda, Berwald etc etc.

Not just played by those you have never heard of either, many very fine soloists included.

However I would have to choose one cycle from all of these, Tianwa Yang's superb Sarasate.

............and on a different topic, Benjamin Frith's Field piano music.

.............and lots of others.

Mike

[Jonathan]

I agreee with all those who mentioned Benjamin Frith's Mendelssohn set and also the Tintner Bruckner recordings. I'd also put in a good word for some of their Liszt series (but not all).

I do have one minor gripe with Naxos though - they start a series of "complete" and don't finish it, e.g. the aforementioned Benjamin Frith Mendelssohn set (e.g. no "Songs without words" for a start) but also their Dohnanyi piano music (2 cds, the first brilliant but the second with truly awful sound quality) and Tchaikovsky piano music series (only a volume 1 then nothing). This is rather annoying to me - at least other labels have done / are doing complete sets by these two composers!

[Barbirollians]

Many of my favourites already mentioned e.g the Fidelio and the Ireland Concerto and the early Bruckner symphonies with Tintner .

I would throw in Alsop's excellent Brahms symphonies , McAslan's Britten Concerto rescued from the defunct Collins classics and Langridge 's Britten too, a marvellous Hungarian Telemann record from early Naxos days , the Hurst Elgar 1 and Downes Elgar 2 and the Macdowell Piano Concertos.

[Mahlerei]

The Serebrier/Bournemouth twofer of ballet music from Verdi;s operas is a cracker. And then there's the Schwarz/Hanson series, even though they're Delos originals.

[Pabmusic]

And who'd heard of Lilburn before Naxos introduced him?

I know that this particular conversation is now rather old, but I've only just noticed it.

My introduction to Douglas Lilburn was in 1969, when I played in a very good youth orchestra. They programmed Aotearoa and it bowled me over. I was rather heavily into Sibelius in those days, and this was Sibelian-yet-not. Within a few years I had hunted out maybe six LPs. I have most of those on CDs now, but the Naxos CDs are very much welcome and worth it.

[Bryn]

Not out yet but I am very much looking forward to the release of the John Cage Songbooks (complete), with Lore Lixenberg and Gregory Rose.