Classical Music Only | What You're Listening to Now, Or Very Recently | Any Mediums :

[socfan12]

Absolutely! This was a TAS Super Disc, both in its original Turnabout release and in the Athena rerelease. Both are wonderful recordings. Reference Recordings version is also top notch. I have all three.

Larry

Larry, I have the RR in CD version and I love its sound. Is it worth getting the vinyl, given that the LP is likely cut from digital files?

 

[astrotoy]

Allen, if you want the original digital version, Ref Rec has it in their HRx series, the disc which has the 176/24 copy of the original master that most everyone has to download to a digital file to play. Not sure whether that is available in any other download. My friend Paul Stubblebine has been doing the vinyl mastering from the digital. He does tweak it a bit to make it sound the best. I think it depends on what DAC and TT/cartridge/phono pre you have to know whether one is better than the other. Certainly, I think both are better than the CD version which is 44/16. Paul did a vinyl lacquer of the digital file about five years ago for me as the main test for trying out different A to D converters for my ripping project, so I got something about as close to the master digital on vinyl. Unfortunately the lacquer has a very limited playing life.

Anyway, I would recommend the vinyl over the CD and, depending on your set up, the HRx file may be superior to the vinyl, may be not.

Larry

 

[socfan12]

Larry, thanks for your feedback, appreciate it. I've downloaded other HRx files and on my DAC, which upconverts almost all files to 700+khz, I don't hear an appreciable difference between the HRx and redbook files I've ripped. So I haven't downloaded any more HRx files.

Based on your feedback, I'll probably order the RR Symphonic Dances and the Mephisto LPs on my next order and will give them a try.


Thanks again!

 

[MikeCh]

Going thru the set collection. Tonight it's Volume Four:

I love these box sets.

 

[socfan12]

I love these Water Lily LPs. Deadly quiet, amazingly recorded. Nice music and superb sonics.

 

[juncers]

Haydn---String Quartet in G major Op.76 No.1
Vertavo Quartet


I understand that I need 10 posts before I can submit pictures (links), so this will have to do for now.

Ray

 

[astrotoy]

Ray, welcome to AS. We spend about a month each year in London, mostly attending the myriad of classical music concerts - usually about 20 or so during our visit. Fortunately, our time share is about 6 blocks from Wigmore Hall, one of our favorite places which also has about 9 concerts a week to choose from. As long as I remember (incorrectly of course) that 1 GBP equals 1 USD, then everything is reasonable in price, except for concert tickets which even at the real exchange rates are bargains compared to the San Francisco area, where we live, or NYC.

I am looking forward to your perspective of the classical music scene.

Larry

 

[juncers]

BachJS-Partita no. 1 in B flat major BWV.825 for keyboard
Schumann--Symphonische Etuden Op.13 for piano
Chopin--24 Preludes Op.28 for piano

Beatrice Rana

Ray

 

[juncers]

Ray, welcome to AS. We spend about a month each year in London, mostly attending the myriad of classical music concerts - usually about 20 or so during our visit. Fortunately, our time share is about 6 blocks from Wigmore Hall, one of our favorite places which also has about 9 concerts a week to choose from. As long as I remember (incorrectly of course) that 1 GBP equals 1 USD, then everything is reasonable in price, except for concert tickets which even at the real exchange rates are bargains compared to the San Francisco area, where we live, or NYC.

I am looking forward to your perspective of the classical music scene.

Larry

Thanks Larry.

Wigmore Hall is my favourite place to hear music. It's so cozy and intimate. it's like listening in someone's living room. The Barbican, South Bank, King's Place, Albert Hall for the Proms, etc.-we're spoiled for choice.

On any given day, someone amazing is playing somewhere. The Russians and Eastern Europeans love playing here and lot of them now live here. I swear there's a factory in Moscow that mass produces pianists and violinists and send them directly here. Western Europeans of course and recently some incredible Chinese musicians are studying, performing and living here. Oh yeah---the occasional Yank pops in too. If you're a classical music fan--it doesn't get any better.

The prices were a lot cheaper a while back as they were government subsidized. The days of $20 opera tickets, $15 theatre and $10 symphony seats are gone for good I'm afraid. It's nice to know it's still cheaper than the US (can't imagine why??? ).

I'm looking forward to participating in this forum.

Ray.

 

[juncers]

Chadwick--Symphony No.2 in B flat major (Op.21)
Albany Symphony Orchestra
Julius Hegyi

Ray

 

[juncers]

Mozart--Horn Concertos Nos. 1-4
Barry Tuckwell-Horn
LSO
Peter Maag
Decca SDD 364 (1964)

Ray

 

[Julot]

This original version of the third symphony is like discovering Bruckner again, its incredible fantasy, the polyphony, the audacity... there have been other recordings of the original version (eg in Montreal) but to me, they did not do justice to the extraordinary architecture and cohesiveness of the piece and focused instead on an avalanche of details, thus making those who wanted to streamline the symphony sound reasonable. Ballot really does both thing: keep the architecture intact without hiding the varsity.

 

[Feanor]

Ray, welcome to AS. We spend about a month each year in London, mostly attending the myriad of classical music concerts - usually about 20 or so during our visit. Fortunately, our time share is about 6 blocks from Wigmore Hall, one of our favorite places which also has about 9 concerts a week to choose from. As long as I remember (incorrectly of course) that 1 GBP equals 1 USD, then everything is reasonable in price, except for concert tickets which even at the real exchange rates are bargains compared to the San Francisco area, where we live, or NYC.

I am looking forward to your perspective of the classical music scene.

Larry

Wow! Larry, spending a month in London mainly attending concerts: I'll confess to envy.

Attendance at public concerts, at least of artists of any prominence, has priced itselft out of the market for me, even here in southern Ontario. There a fair bit going on in Toronto, (obviously nothing like London or New York), but even a weekend in in that city, (two hours drive from our home), is scarcely feasible financially for me.

More generally vis-à-vis this forum, there is a surprisingly high proportion wealthy folks who not only can indulge themselves in very costly music systems, but in many other of the good things of life not available to us, the less successful or lucky. I hope they appreciate it and give the occasional thought to the rest of us.

 

[astrotoy]

Mozart--Horn Concertos Nos. 1-4
Barry Tuckwell-Horn
LSO
Peter Maag
Decca SDD 364 (1964)

Ray

Ray, that is a great recording. The original Decca SXL6108 was recorded in 1961 (and released in 1964), with the legendary Ken "Wilkie" Wilkinson doing the engineer at Kingsway Hall. As early Deccas had gotten more and more expensive, the midpriced SDD series of mostly reissues of early SXL's gets you quite close to the original sound at a small fraction of the price.

Here is an interesting story about Barry Tuckwell that I heard when researching for the Decca book I wrote for FIM (Decca: Supreme Stereophonic Legacy). After the era of Dennis Brain, probably the best horn player of the 20th century, Barry Tuckwell and Alan Civil competed for the number one position in London. Tuckwell was the more virtuosic player, but also more subject to blats and other pitfalls of the horn. Civil was more reliable to be error free in a concert. So Tuckwell was generally the choice for recordings, where his occasional blats could be edited out and the virtuosity would shine through, while Civil was the preferred player for the live concert horn solos.

Larry

 

[astrotoy]

Wow! Larry, spending a month in London mainly attending concerts: I'll confess to envy.

Attendance at public concerts, at least of artists of any prominence, has priced itselft out of the market for me, even here in southern Ontario. There a fair bit going on in Toronto, (obviously nothing like London or New York), but even a weekend in in that city, (two hours drive from our home), is scarcely feasible financially for me.

More generally vis-à-vis this forum, there is a surprisingly high proportion wealthy folks who not only can indulge themselves in very costly music systems, but in many other of the good things of life not available to us, the less successful or lucky. I hope they appreciate it and give the occasional thought to the rest of us.

Bill, thanks for your post. I do sometimes forget how fortunate we are. We attend about 70 to 90 concerts a year, some in London, but most in our SF Bay Area. Lots of chamber music. We are blessed with a great number of fine classical performers - many from the SF Symphony who also like to play chamber music, but don't often have the chance. My wife even runs a classical concert series at her university, UCSF. She was able to get the Chancellor to fund the series, about 20 noon time concerts a year featuring local classical musicians mostly from the SFS, so attendance is free. That is the exception. Attending live professional music is becoming more and more expensive, a luxury that fewer can afford. Opera is the most extreme, with most decent tickets for the top tier companies starting at $100, and even standing room is $20. Even at those prices, the tickets only cover about half the expense of the productions. In the very old days, concerts and musicians were subsidized by the local governments - dukes and princes, who even had their own orchestras. That morphed into governments subsidizing the arts as a public good and tickets were reasonable, as Ray mentioned in an earlier post. Now, we are moving away from that and have wealthy patrons (the successful capitalists are our modern versions of the dukes and princes) to support the arts, although not to the extent that it has been in the past.

PS. I don't know whether you have met Ed Pong, who lives in Ontario and who has regular concerts in his home with very talented young chamber musicians. He also records them on reel to reel tape and sells those extremely fine recordings. (15 ips 2 track). PM me and I will do an email introduction.

 

[astrotoy]

This original version of the third symphony is like discovering Bruckner again, its incredible fantasy, the polyphony, the audacity... there have been other recordings of the original version (eg in Montreal) but to me, they did not do justice to the extraordinary architecture and cohesiveness of the piece and focused instead on an avalanche of details, thus making those who wanted to streamline the symphony sound reasonable. Ballot really does both thing: keep the architecture intact without hiding the varsity.

Thanks for the information. I get mixed up with the Novak and Hess? versions of the Bruckner symphonies, not sure whether one is more original than the other, or whether the original is a completely different version, and of which symphony. I have a couple of recordings of the 3rd, but have not really listened to it - having focused on 4,5,6 (last heard last year with Andris Nelsons conducting the Vienna Phil visiting in Berkeley - whom they said did the first performances of many of the Bruckner symphonies) ,7 (my introduction to Bruckner in the '60's with Bruno Walter's recording) 8, and 9.

Larry

 

[Feanor]

Bill, thanks for your post. I do sometimes forget how fortunate we are. We attend about 70 to 90 concerts a year, some in London, but most in our SF Bay Area. Lots of chamber music. We are blessed with a great number of fine classical performers - many from the SF Symphony who also like to play chamber music, but don't often have the chance. My wife even runs a classical concert series at her university, UCSF. She was able to get the Chancellor to fund the series, about 20 noon time concerts a year featuring local classical musicians mostly from the SFS, so attendance is free. That is the exception. Attending live professional music is becoming more and more expensive, a luxury that fewer can afford. Opera is the most extreme, with most decent tickets for the top tier companies starting at $100, and even standing room is $20. Even at those prices, the tickets only cover about half the expense of the productions. In the very old days, concerts and musicians were subsidized by the local governments - dukes and princes, who even had their own orchestras. That morphed into governments subsidizing the arts as a public good and tickets were reasonable, as Ray mentioned in an earlier post. Now, we are moving away from that and have wealthy patrons (the successful capitalists are our modern versions of the dukes and princes) to support the arts, although not to the extent that it has been in the past.

PS. I don't know whether you have met Ed Pong, who lives in Ontario and who has regular concerts in his home with very talented young chamber musicians. He also records them on reel to reel tape and sells those extremely fine recordings. (15 ips 2 track). PM me and I will do an email introduction.

Thank you for your response, Larry.

I live in London, Ontario. If I lived just a little closer to Toronto I'd be able to catch the occasional live classical performance but there is very little in London. I have to grant that availability and finances alone aren't the whole: my wife isn't a lover of classical music so I would feel selfish if I spent scarce resources on classical concerts.

Speaking of opera, I was fortunate while living in Regina, Saskatchewan, to attend the once-a-year opera performances that happened in that city. I used to attend with my late mother who had come to enjoy that particular art late in life. Here in London opera is very rarely performed. Apparently there isn't the fan base here to support what are doubtless be very expensive productions.

No, I don't know Ed Pong, I'm afraid.

 

[juncers]

Ray, that is a great recording. The original Decca SXL6108 was recorded in 1961 (and released in 1964), with the legendary Ken "Wilkie" Wilkinson doing the engineer at Kingsway Hall. As early Deccas had gotten more and more expensive, the midpriced SDD series of mostly reissues of early SXL's gets you quite close to the original sound at a small fraction of the price.

Here is an interesting story about Barry Tuckwell that I heard when researching for the Decca book I wrote for FIM (Decca: Supreme Stereophonic Legacy). After the era of Dennis Brain, probably the best horn player of the 20th century, Barry Tuckwell and Alan Civil competed for the number one position in London. Tuckwell was the more virtuosic player, but also more subject to blats and other pitfalls of the horn. Civil was more reliable to be error free in a concert. So Tuckwell was generally the choice for recordings, where his occasional blats could be edited out and the virtuosity would shine through, while Civil was the preferred player for the live concert horn solos.

Larry

Nice story Larry. I sometimes wondered why Barry got the lion's share of the recording dates. I just thought that given the limited number of horn concertos and the market for them, there was only room for one star horn player. Mystery solved--thanks.


Ray

 

[Julot]

Thanks for the information. I get mixed up with the Novak and Hess? versions of the Bruckner symphonies, not sure whether one is more original than the other, or whether the original is a completely different version, and of which symphony. I have a couple of recordings of the 3rd, but have not really listened to it - having focused on 4,5,6 (last heard last year with Andris Nelsons conducting the Vienna Phil visiting in Berkeley - whom they said did the first performances of many of the Bruckner symphonies) ,7 (my introduction to Bruckner in the '60's with Bruno Walter's recording) 8, and 9.

Larry

Each symphony has a different story. The pattern is that there was an original draft by Bruckner that was deemed too bold and too rich by his contemporaries, who pushed him to revise his scores, sometimes indeed enhancing the cohesiveness of the symphony, sometimes impoverishing it. The Sixth I think only has one version. Nowak and Haas are generally not original versions but composite versions trying to get the best of the successive versions. Wikipedia actually does a good job of keeping track of versions symphony by symphony but the general case is that Nowak, Haas, original and then dated versions (eg 1887) are all different, plus some chefs do their own cut (eg Knappertsbusch, Furtwängler).

In the case of the 3rd, my usual reference was Sanderling, in the 1889 version which is a good representation of how people often think of Bruckner (basically, gigantic and cosmic), whereas this 1873 original version, as I said, emphasized the fantasy and polyphony, while still doing justice to the monumental construction. It's hard to believe it's the same work in both versions, both are great records.

 

[astrotoy]

Each symphony has a different story. The pattern is that there was an original draft by Bruckner that was deemed too bold and too rich by his contemporaries, who pushed him to revise his scores, sometimes indeed enhancing the cohesiveness of the symphony, sometimes impoverishing it. The Sixth I think only has one version. Nowak and Haas are generally not original versions but composite versions trying to get the best of the successive versions. Wikipedia actually does a good job of keeping track of versions symphony by symphony but the general case is that Nowak, Haas, original and then dated versions (eg 1887) are all different, plus some chefs do their own cut (eg Knappertsbusch, Furtwängler).

In the case of the 3rd, my usual reference was Sanderling, in the 1889 version which is a good representation of how people often think of Bruckner (basically, gigantic and cosmic), whereas this 1873 original version, as I said, emphasized the fantasy and polyphony, while still doing justice to the monumental construction. It's hard to believe it's the same work in both versions, both are great records.

Thanks for the tutorial on Bruckner. I'll take a look at the wiki article to learn even more. I've been ripping much of my LP collection and am in the middle of my EMI ASD's. Recently I played the Bruckner Mass 3, which I had not listened to seriously. Very fine composition. I think I have read that Bruckner was very religious.

Larry