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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #1920 on: 00:02:02, 19-12-2007 » |
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I rather enjoyed the Foerster concerto on R3 earlier - I don't recall having heard his music before.
More Czech music spinning now: Suk's Pohádka with the Czech PO/ Jiří Bělohlávek
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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Catherine
Gender: 
Posts: 32
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« Reply #1921 on: 06:50:40, 19-12-2007 » |
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The Rite of Spring, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Proms 2006. I've become obsessed with this music!
I recall hearing or reading something about Stravinsky's favourite interpretation ( Leonard Bernstein involved?), but can't remember whether there is a recording and if so whether it's on CD.
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Bryn
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« Reply #1923 on: 09:31:10, 19-12-2007 » |
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The Rite of Spring, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Proms 2006. I've become obsessed with this music!
I recall hearing or reading something about Stravinsky's favourite interpretation ( Leonard Bernstein involved?), but can't remember whether there is a recording and if so whether it's on CD.
Catherine, I think it fair to say that Stravinsky had something negative to say about most conductors' approaches to The Rite. His own last commercial recording of the work, with the "Columbia Symphony Orchestra" (an orchestra made up principally of session musicians normally associated with work on Hollywood film scores), remains my personal favourite. You can get this in the Sony box of close to Stravinsky's complete works ( 22 CDs for as little as £16 including p&p). Although it's a bit annoying that Sony did not take the opportunity of this re-issue to sort out one or two glaring editing problems, (especially in the late Movements for Piano and Orchestra), the set remains an incredible bargain. As to Bernstein, he regarded The Rite as a major symphonic work (he even included it in a television series he did on the history of the symphony). He recorded it several times, I think. His recordings with the NYPO (Sony), and the Israel Philharmonic (DG), are available at sensible prices, (I prefer that with the NYPO). [Update: It looks like Bernstein's recording with the NYPO is not in the catalogue at the moment. Sony have chosen one made about 10 years later, with the LSO, in recent re-issues.] |
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« Last Edit: 10:13:55, 19-12-2007 by Bryn »
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #1924 on: 13:37:50, 19-12-2007 » |
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Just the three recordings, as far as I know, Bryn. The LSO remake was one of CBS's early quadraphonic recordings.
Those not mentioned in the list which I listen to most are the first Boulez recording, made in France (at present out of print), the three by Dorati (two for Mercury, and a more recent digital version for Decca), an earlier Tilson-Thomas for DGG, Haitink on Philips, Mackerras on CfP and Yoel Levi on Telarc (probably the best recorded of the lot, and a BBC BaL choice). There are considerable doubts as to how much of the last Stravinsky recording was actually conducted by the composer: his 1940s version, again with the NYPO, is a much weightier, violent affair, whereas the stereo version is tightly spring, with the emphasis on transparency of scoring rather than impact. When a work is as multi-faceted as Le Sacre, a multiplicity of recordings allows for more views of the piece - a three dimensional approach if you like. I have upwards of 40 versions on LP, but rather fewer on CD - perhaps 20, all told, and quite a few from radio broadcasts. The only three that really get my goat are Solti's for Decca; so fast it loses impact, and Mata's for Dorian: too slow, leading to the same result, and the one I dislike most of all: Gergiev's - it seems his method of accentuating the work's primal power is to encourage his orchestra to play as raucously and approximately as possible, the result being sadly (to my ears) a travesty.
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Bryn
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« Reply #1925 on: 14:02:57, 19-12-2007 » |
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Well, I have read your message through a couple of times, Ron, but still can't find mention of Monteux or Markevich. How can this be?  As to the various stories about Craft's role in the January 1960 recording, I doubt very much that Stravinsky was even a quarter as much under Craft's influence as some suggest. He did, after all, continue to conduct in public occasionally, after those recording sessions in New York. Oh, and regarding Bernstein, in addition to the audio only recordings, there is, is there not, at least one performance, filmed fot television, which I think has appeared on VHS if not DVD. |
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« Last Edit: 14:13:04, 19-12-2007 by Bryn »
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #1926 on: 14:28:03, 19-12-2007 » |
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Monteux and Markevitch are both on that original Wiki list though, Bryn, and I do start the paragraph "Those not mentioned in the list which I listen to most"....
Although I grew up with the Markevitch (after I already had the 1940s Igor) I have to say that recent hearings have disappointed, and that it now seems rather ordinary and under-characterised, which is strange, because it's usually the recordings you grow up with which remain the benchmark. I'd need to be able to dig out my Stravinsky-led Russian performances on LP to check, but I rather think that the approach there is much closer to the earlier 78s than the CBS stereo (wonderful though that be). I still listen to the Dorati/Detroit Decca most of all: in a strange reversal of his earlier recordings, the first part is shaky in places, but the second half (at a quite relaxed pace) has a terrific inexorability which I hear nowhere else at all.
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pim_derks
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« Reply #1927 on: 14:32:20, 19-12-2007 » |
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I still listen to the Dorati/Detroit Decca most of all: in a strange reversal of his earlier recordings, the first part is shaky in places, but the second half (at a quite relaxed pace) has a terrific inexorability which I hear nowhere else at all. That's also my favourite recording of The Rite of Spring.  |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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Bryn
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« Reply #1928 on: 15:25:58, 19-12-2007 » |
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Ron, I first got to know the 1940s NYPSO recording through its re-issue on a Philips Concert Classics LP. I always thought it a rather strange recdording. The bass drum, in particular, was so front stage at the end of the first part. My first LP of the work was the Decca Ace of Clubs with the Paris Concervatoire under Monteux. Dorati on Fontana follows next, then the Markevich on CFP. Such very different approaches, and all offering new insights for me. I did eventually get the 1960 Stravinsky recording on LP, but in an Italian pressing, without 'a propos ...' . I have lost track of how many recordings have followed their way onto my shelves over the years, but one further that I would draw positive attention to is that by the LPO and Nagano, originally issued in a double CD package with Perséphone.
Just thought of another, Atherton and the BBCNOW from the 1994 Proms, on a BBC Music Magazine cover disc (Vol III, No. 11). A bit patchy in some of the instrumental playing, but it was live, and very much alive.
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« Last Edit: 15:48:26, 19-12-2007 by Bryn »
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #1929 on: 15:48:38, 19-12-2007 » |
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Bryn, that Philips LP was my introduction too. But surely the series wasn't called "Concert Classics"? That was the HMV budget series, prefixes XLP/SXLP (rather than the expected XSD). Weren't the Philips discs "Concert Favourites" or "Classical Favourites"?
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Bryn
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« Reply #1930 on: 15:49:55, 19-12-2007 » |
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Weren't the Philips discs "Concert Favourites" or "Classical Favourites"?
Looks like a trip to the loft is called for. |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #1931 on: 16:32:30, 19-12-2007 » |
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Hate to be predictable but Kontakte is spinning around a living room in Brockley.
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Bryn
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« Reply #1932 on: 16:36:56, 19-12-2007 » |
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Weren't the Philips discs "Concert Favourites" or "Classical Favourites"?
Well, "Favourites" is right, but I can only find "Stereo Favourites" in the loft, no mono examples. However, glory be, I have found the Gould/Stokowski 'Emperor' again, so will set about photographing its jacket. Found a few gems crying out for transfer to CD-R, too, such as Morton Gould and the Royal Philharmonic and Chorus in Shotakovich's 2nd and 3rd, and Kondrashin doing the slightly Bowdlerized version of the Prokofiev Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution, (though I know the latter is in poor condition). |
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Il Grande Inquisitor
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« Reply #1933 on: 17:59:09, 19-12-2007 » |
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Yoel Levi on Telarc (probably the best recorded of the lot, and a BBC BaL choice).
I don't know this recording, but can thoroughly recommend Levi's recent(ish) recording of The Firebird on Glossa.  Absolutely stunning recording quality and likely to be spinning later this evening. |
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Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #1934 on: 19:13:13, 20-12-2007 » |
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Not spinning as such but on my travels through London this afternoon I picked up the dots for Les Nuits d'été and we've just had a hoon through it. Some lovely stuff there. And some very tricky corners indeed...
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