Was that REALLY worth ... ?

[teamsaint]

I have to agree. I've just posted on the BaL thread that it is desperately dull stuff having listened to the Karajan recording in advance of the BaL.

Life's too short to subject myself to this again.

Thanks a lot...just ordered 1, 2 AND 3. Thats £2.25 I will never see again !!
Then again perhaps you are wrong !!

[ahinton]

Bolero by Ravel is a masterpiece in my opinion.

Well, Ravel himself certainly doesn't seem to have thought especially highly of it; my favourite critique of it, however, is that of Constant Lambert who wrote of the problems inherent in a composer going on for too long in the same dance rhythm, as evidenced towards the end of La Valse and towards the beginning of Bolero (I love La Valse, incidentally and indeed even made an arrangment of it for piano trio once - and the delighful waltz from Richard Rodney Bennett's score for the movie Murder on the Orient Express would not have been quite the same without it, methinks!)...

[Ferretfancy]

I don't think you can blame poor old Berlioz for producing a version of the World's best national anthem for one particular occasion, and if you think you hate Bolero, try listening to the Immerseel performance with Anima Eterna. They use early 20th century instruments, and the result is quite an eye opener, both in Bolero and in a stunning La Valse.

As for the Tchaikovsky. why complain about any of the suites? all four work very well. I've recently received the Eloquence reissue of the LSO / Kenneth Alwyn 1812 which was deliberately chosen to be Decca's first stereo LP SXL 2001. They had, of course, been recording in stereo since 1954, but this was the first disc release. It sounds stunning for its 1958 vintage, and Alwyn gets the nearest thing possible to a musical performance, while the couplings of Capriccio Italien and Marche Slav are superb.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thanks a lot...just ordered 1, 2 AND 3. Thats £2.25 I will never see again !!
Then again perhaps you are wrong !!

[vinteuil]

Tchaikovsky 3

:

... come now, Caliban - why the restraint? Why not say what you (and I) really mean? -

Tchaikovsky!

[ahinton]

if you think you hate Bolero, try listening to the Immerseel performance with Anima Eterna. They use early 20th century instruments, and the result is quite an eye opener, both in Bolero and in a stunning La Valse

I can't and don't speak for anyone else here (or indeed elsewhere), but I don't personally "hate" Bolero; I just find it exceedingly tiresome, especially compared to most of Ravel's output (the G major piano concerto notably excepted!)...

[Nick Armstrong]

I can't and don't speak for anyone else here (or indeed elsewhere), but I don't personally "hate" Bolero; I just find it exceedingly tiresome, especially compared to most of Ravel's output (the G major piano concerto notably excepted!)...

Just following that logic... you mean you dislike his G major PC?

[teamsaint]

well assuming 1 and 2 are OK , I am only 75 p down.

[amateur51]

Just following that logic... you mean you dislike his G major PC?

Not too much shouting at mr hinton, Caliban - you may dislodge a ten-line sentence or a previously-lost piece by maestro Sorabji, infinitely preferable to the combined works of Ravel, Debussy and Frank Chacksfield, I'm told

[ahinton]

Just following that logic... you mean you dislike his G major PC?

Sorry - yes, I do, ewen when played (as all too often it is) by Martha Argerich; it proves to me the folly of trying to compose two piano concertos simultaneously when you've never previously composed one at all! OK, the slow middle movement's not too bad although, remembering the Lambert barb about Ravel en dansant, I've never quite forgotten Sorabji's rueful observation that this movement sounded rather like a cat on lukewarm bricks (and he was otherwise no more a slouch in his admiration for Ravel than I am!)...

[scottycelt]

Franz Schmidt 4 ...
Anton Bruckner Te Deum ...

[ahinton]

Not too much shouting at mr hinton, Caliban - you may dislodge a ten-line sentence or a previously-lost piece by maestro Sorabji, infinitely preferable to the combined works of Ravel, Debussy and Frank Chacksfield, I'm told

He wasn't "shouting", what he wrote did not "dislodge" anything of the kind (as you may now note and which is in any case hardly surprising as there was none such "lodged" anywhere in the first place), I would likewise not "dislodge" any piece - "previously-lost" or otherwise - here and I've never heard the works of Ravel, Debussy and Chacksfield "combined", "preferably" or otherwise (which is almost certainly just as well for all three of their sakes - and woe ebbetide anyone who has). Apart from those minor aberrations, you're not doing too badly!...

[ahinton]

Franz Schmidt 4 ...
Anton Bruckner Te Deum ...

Shame and shame (and Jayne Lee Wilson) upon you!

Eine Kleine Nachtsmusik

...which brings me to wonder whether this thread might usefully be split into those works that their composers might have disowned had they been alive today and those that this forum's members might disown on their respective behalves...

[amateur51]

Sorry - yes, I do, ewen when played (as all too often it is) by Martha Argerich;

What about LBernstein?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYVnNHo3S8

[Nick Armstrong]

Sorry - yes, I do, ewen when played (as all too often it is) by Martha Argerich; it proves to me the folly of trying to compose two piano concertos simultaneously when you've never previously composed one at all! OK, the slow middle movement's not too bad although, remembering the Lambert barb about Ravel en dansant, I've never quite forgotten Sorabji's rueful observation that this movement sounded rather like a cat on lukewarm bricks (and he was otherwise no more a slouch in his admiration for Ravel than I am!)...

Good quote!