Shostakovich: Second Symphony: Leningrad Phil. & Choir/Igor Blazhkov; live 01:xi:1965
                    Tenth Symphony: Leningrad Phil./Temirkanov: live 26:i:1973       Russian Disc RD CD 11 95

Three quid in Gramex; just for old times' sake. Good old Soviet Shostakovich, red-blooded, guns blazing: total commitment. Veronika would love to hear the LP Choir in 2, though not large in numbers they attack the very difficult chorus part fearlessly and clear every hurdle pretty cleanly, and despite a fairly cough-ridden audience, the live experience of the occasion is preserved. Blazhkov is a name that's new to me, but he obviously knows his stuff: the complicated miasma at the beginning has every strand clear (even if I've always thought up to now that it was more for effect than precision) and you just have to hear the timbres of the band to know exactly where they're from.
The Temirkanov 10 is better still: it's obviously school of Mravinsky (3:51 for the second movement) but the priorities are different and the blowsy brass and plagent winds have a blend that's different to what I'm used to hearing from Leningrad of this period. Great drive and momentum - pulse relationships between movements very logical too. There we are: bought on a whim out of curiosty and an anorak need for completeness and it turns out to be a treasure.

There's a Slava/LSO 2 and 3 to spin too, and the Previn LSO Eight. Looks like Ron's moving back into DSCH mode again...

Messiaen, Regard de l'esprit de joie. Aimard, who for me doesn't get the best out of every piece in the set but in this one often has me invoking the great Zen master Ho Li Fak.

Is that the ROH, 1991, Richard? If so,  a very kind boarder made it possible for me to experience it too. Not now though. I need a free evening for it.

Britten: Biily Budd: Live recording of Teatro La Fenice production: 27:vi:2000; Mark Oswald (Billy) Keith Lewis (Vere) Monte Pederson (Claggart)/Ch. & Orch del Teatro La Fenice/Isaac Karabtchevsky; Mondo Musica MFON 22252.

Oh dear: win some, lose some; since I paid less than a fiver for this (three discs), I can't complain too much. It's not so much a catalogue of disasters as a litany of lost opportunities: I don't like this opera rushed - I find Nagano glosses over to much of the surface for me, for example - but this is just too cautious much of the time, and all three major roles disappoint: the Billy is well sung but palidly characterised, the Vere departs from the printed score considerably and the Claggart sounds tired and lacks the required power at the bottom of his range, meaning that he's having to push, and it sounds ugly when he does. The smaller roles are competently handled in the main, but again there seems to be a problem at the bottom of so many of the voices, and ensemble is often a free-for-all: many of the off-stage entries are badly out of tune. Orchestrally, there's some fine detail and excellent balance, but the brass seem to want things their own way when it comes to tempi and ensemble. The performance lacks pace, momentum and contrast: slow and uninvolving, with the silliest side-break I've heard in yonks: instead of starting disc two with the beginning of Claggart's aria: they cut off just before the inexorable climax "I, John Claggart, master-at-arms upon the Indomitable...." so that the second disc begins with the great widespread chords which underpin the climax. Batty.

Again courtesy of a most kind boarder (Dough, Ron Dough, foretopman? The same), L'apprenti sorcier conducted by Pierre Dervaux.

I think it will be a long time before I listen to another recording.

Oo, that was naughty of the trumpets going up the octave there.

Ron, I salute you. This Debussy Prélude is magic. And the bassons going wacko in the Chabrier made me hoot.

                           

"Oh gawain, gawain, gawain, gawain ... you know you want to... gawain, gawain, gawain..." 

Oz,

I'm so glad that it works for you so powerfully. (General note: this was the first LP I ever owned: perhaps its very special qualities have infuenced the way I approach music ever since.)


richard,

It's interesting that this has come up at the same time as the discussion on Œdipus Rex. Might it be that in both circumstances the power of the concept has overridden normal musical consideration, and that in the case of Gawain the intention is that power and momentum should be gained from the trance-like state of its uniformity (albeit at the expense of dramatic variety). I find an interesting analogue of this in the design's obsession with a blueish grey/green, btw.