Past Purchases (CLOSED)

[Ataraxia]

...and Brahms... and Bach...

Oh, yes.

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

I've been wondering the same. House renovations can be intense and a contstant headache, so hope they are going well.

House renovations are never going on schedule, lol. Its a intense job, with lots of nasty surprises, but also some real progress, naturally the listening room, is giving me the most problems. I said 2 months, it will likely be 3. And no time for listening, so I am starving...

[Opus106]

And no time for listening, so I am starving...

Oh, you should consider listening to music from an iPod! Do you have one, Harry?


*Runs away*

[Willoughby earl of Itacarius]

Oh, you should consider listening to music from an iPod! Do you have one, Harry?


*Runs away*

[Todd]

   


 


 



Needed a new LvB PC cycle, so I opted for Mustonen.  Should be unique.  A few other goodies made their way into my basket.

[jlaurson]

Needed a new LvB PC cycle, so I opted for Mustonen.  Should be unique.  A few other goodies made their way into my basket.

A favorite among recent LvB PC Cycles!

When you do take care to listen to yet another, new, recording of Beethoven's Piano Concertos, it simply sounds terrific. Not a surprise, if you think about it: most modern recordings are presented in such excellent sound and nearly all modern recordings artists of such technical facility, that they leave even the classics from olden times in the dust. Not only that: most pianists who get to record such standard repertoire on a mainstream label are such considerable musicians that the result is much more than merely impeccable notes strung on a string—or 225 strings, as it were. Often enough we think of such standards as having been sufficiently covered, deem ourselves overexposed—but how many times have we actually heard them in concert? Or when have we last listened to them attentively, perhaps with headphones? Perhaps not as often as it feels. And when we do, it isn't particularly astonishing that we are awed afresh, always again, coming across these masterpieces; among the best such concertos written.

How much does the recurrent revelation of greatness among Beethoven's Piano Concertos owe to the particular recordings we are playing, and how much to our disposition, approaching them—which is to say: Beethoven, rather than the particular artist? The question has come up a few times in the last months, as I've heard, dismissed, and been surprised by several new recordings. Most recently Olli Mustonen's final installment of the five concertos containing the Fourth and Fifth on one disc, released late last year on SACD by Ondine. (He also includes Beethoven's transcription of the Violin Concerto for piano—which is coupled with the Third on ODE 1123.)

Composer—conductor—pianist Olli Mustonen leads his Tapiola Sinfonietta (concertmaster Meri Englund) in two performances that, after a colleague had pointed them out to me, I listened to with great eagerness and found duly riveting. The first quality that jumps out is the immense energy to the unit of soloist and orchestra. This interpretation does not suffer from understatement. Even if there is less a sense of grandeur than a focus on chamber music making, the vivid results are overwhelming. The second quality is a certain wilfulness. Mustonen's is not unlike Mikhail Pletnev's performances (the last that really stood out to me) in its familiarity with whimsy and playful tempo changes, contractions, expansions. Listen to the Rondo of either, but especially of the "Emperor" Concerto to be irresistibly pushed and pulled along.

In the years in which classical music, especially standard repertoire, was tamed, groomed, and raked, revered and embalmed, we never heard such gutsy rubato, such exuberance. I'm not sure if there is anything ironic, or at least revealing about it, but performances like Pletnev's and Mustonen's finally make me appreciate what Arthur Schnabel's greatness was all about—his willingness to take risks and even cut corners in pursuit of the spirit of the music; obsessive, supreme fidelity be damned. It's a new-ish generation, imbued with greater technical facilities and finally the necessary modicum of courage, boldness, perhaps even irreverence that bring us—at least me—back to those days. Of course we can't tell if it is Beethoven's spirit that Mustonen (or Pletnev, or any of the others that don't put on the straitjacket of properness) musters, but it is spirited, which is enough to get me excited.

There's a little—a lot, actually—less of that in Artur Pizarro's Beethoven concertos. On the audiophile Linn labels (also SACDs) he has recently followed up the first two concertos with Nos. Three through Five, playing alongside the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Sir Charles Mackerras. The performances don't jump out at you, which might be preferable to those who take their Beethoven with poise, not nervously charged energy. Mackerras certainly elicits artless perfection from the Scottish band, the sound is superb, and everything else is perfectly delightful. The Third Concerto, particularly, is a treasure.

And then there is Ronald Brautigam, who has added the five + one (op.61a) concertos to his complete Beethoven solo-piano cycle on BIS (also SACDs). The solo works he plays on a fortepiano—and if you've been ever, at all, even just a little bit, intrigued about Beethoven on original instruments (but turned off by the ungainly clang-clang of extant attempts), you simply must give Brautigam a listen. His Paul McNulty copies (especially of the 1819 Conrad Graf used from volume 7 onward) are gorgeous-sounding instruments that allow us to listen to the differences to the modern grand, not just the inferiorities. What a surprise then that his concerto recordings with the Norköping Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Parrott don't use fortepianos. Surely if he had, his cycle would have blown the competition (hitherto the best: Levin/Gardiner; also-rans Tan/Norrington, Lubin/Hogwood) away. And surely it's easier to make a big splash in the small but increasingly important niche-pond of fortepianism, than even a small splash in the saturated 'regular piano' ocean?

In an interview printed in the liner notes, Brautigam speaks of his modern instrument approach being influenced by his having played these works on a fortepiano on more than one occasion. He does not reveal* whether economic or artistic reasons made him chose a modern instrument and orchestra (albeit an "[open minded one], willing to experiment with non-vibrato, different ways of bowing etc.") for the recordings. What we get (generally and specifically here in Concertos 1 & 3 ) is somewhere between Pizarro's modern mainstream and Mustonen's chamber-fierce approach. Delectable detail, nuance, and subtleties mark Brautigam—as well as the intimacy between orchestra and soloist. But he doesn't bend or break pre-perceived notions of Beethoven; doesn't grab our lapels like as his Finnish colleague. He gets a more subtle recommendation. 

* I know now, after writing this, that he wasn't able to get an appropriate orchestra lined up for the project...

[Mirror Image]

I own a ton of Debussy already, but this seemed like a safe bet...

[marvinbrown]

  I've been up to NO GOOD  :

  [asin]B00009AQNL[/asin]


 
  And

  [asin] B002S9USP8[/asin]

  What?? you don't like the Russians, fine how about these then:

  [asin]B000004166[/asin]
And this:

  [asin]B000004284[/asin]

And this:

  [asin]B004LP15NQ[/asin]

  So I splurged, and I have a to listen to pile a mile high, did that stop me? No!


  WELL??

  marvin

 

 

 

[Conor71]

Just ordered this one:

[Mirror Image]

Just ordered this one:

Excellent choice, Conor. Some of my favorite Hindemith performances.

[kishnevi]

Excellent choice, Conor. Some of my favorite Hindemith performances.

I'd say the same thing, but it would slightly misleading, since that set is almost the sum total of Hindemith recordings I own, IIRC--the others being Gould playing the Piano Sonatas and a new Naxos CD of string quartets.  But they are very good performances.

Thread duty: 
Ordered this with a B&N mystery coupon over the weekend that turned out to be 30%, and thus somewhat less than Amazon MP price.
[asin]B006KA34UC[/asin]
With this one, I will now have all of the EMI and DG Argerich boxes. 

At least until DG and EMI dig some more into their archives and release another set!

[Brian]

a new Naxos CD of string quartets.

I quite enjoyed that on a first listen a few weeks ago, by the way.

[kishnevi]

I quite enjoyed that on a first listen a few weeks ago, by the way.

I liked it enough to decide to get the rest of the series as it comes out.

[Uncle Connie]

Definition of "insanity":

Buying this 2-disc set:


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for the sole purpose of having one three-minute march by Michael Haydn.  (I'll play the rest though, and enjoy a good bit of it, which may ameliorate my psychiatric situation a tad....)


And while I'm here, I notice Todd has gone and bought Anton Kuerti doing Schumann.  I need that disc too.  He's one of my all-time favorites for whatever I've heard him do.  Back to the order desk I go....

[Sergeant Rock]

Two items arrived this morning: Mozart played and conducted by Andreas Staier (recommended by Que) and Novák conducted by Karel Ančerl (recommended by Vandermolen):




Sarge

[Conor71]

Quote from: Mirror Image on Today at 05:00:26 AM

Excellent choice, Conor. Some of my favorite Hindemith performances.

Thanks - I tried Hindemith a couple of years ago and he didnt click for me but I was listening to some samples from this set today and was pretty blown away - I am very excited about recieving this set!.

[Lisztianwagner]

  This morning:

[asin]B0000C4EXA[/asin]
[asin]B0042GNDPW[/asin]

[madaboutmahler]

Novák conducted by Karel Ančerl (recommended by Vandermolen):




Sarge

Are you a Novak fan, Sarge?

[asin]B0042GNDPW[/asin]

Lovely cd, Ilaria!

[Mirror Image]

This morning:

[asin]B0000C4EXA[/asin]

Great choice, Ilaria. You won't be disappointed. This is the only set I own of Ravel's solo piano works and I never felt the need to own another set.

[Brian]

Two items arrived this morning: Mozart played and conducted by Andreas Staier (recommended by Que) and Novák conducted by Karel Ančerl (recommended by Vandermolen):

Sarge

I'll second that Novak-plus disc.