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RebLem
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« Reply #33 on: April 06, 2007, 07:06:43 PM » |
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Ok, what I did was go through the whole thread, copy comments I thought interesting into word, print them, and then come back here to use them as an aid before explicating my own original ideas.
I second Sean's motion for a complete survey of Wagner's non-operas and non-music dramas. I know facehugger's request for a new Beethoven Sym cycle was tongue in cheek, but my specific requests in this area are not--first, I wish Osmo Vanska would quit dawdling and get on with completing his cycle and getting out a box of all of them. Secondly, sometime in the 80's, I think, Ferdinand Leitner did a wonderful cycle in concert with the Boston Symphony, and I wish some record company would issue it. Thirdly, there is a Dorati DGG set with the Royal Phil from the 70's, I think, that I love and would like to see in a CD box.
I also like pjme's idea of getting European national radio systems to go systematically through their archives and issue worthy stuff. His specific mention of Danish radio set my mouth to watering--all those wonderful Mogens Woldike and Nicolai Malko recordings would be wonderful.
I have never heard of any of the Belgian composers pjme mentioned, butg if Lodewijk De Vocht was championed by Milhaud & Honegger, two of my favorite 20th century composers, that's enough for me to be intgrigued.
I like Gurn's idea for a Castelnuovo-Tedesco violin concerti set, but why not a survey of his complete works, too, or at least someone with a sensitive ear going through the works systematically and making worthy selections.
I like Daverz's idea for complete syms and SQs of Vainberg aka Weinberg and Miaskovsky, but I have to tell you I pretty much avoid Svatlanov recordings like the plague. His string tone is brittle and unyielding, andI really detest most of his work.
Now for a few ideas of my own--and some of these are from radio archives. First, the CSO. Sometime in the 1970's, I think, Andre Previn conducted the CSO in the Beethoven Emperor Concerto with Michelangeli. It is by far the best performance of the work I have ever heard (I heard the tape, not the actual concert), and I would like to see it issued.
Secondly, believe it or not, in his brief tenure as MD, Jean Martinon conducted, I believe, more performances of Bach Cantatas than all CSO MDs and guest conductors before and since combined. I'd like to see a big box of them. He really put Margaret Hillis to work, and a good thing, too, because she was a great and wonderful musician and if there is any justice in the hereafter, some people ought to be called to account for not having offered her a major music directorship simply, in my view, because of her sex.
And whever it was who wanted a complete Havergal Brian symphony cycle--I do, too. Sounds like a project for Brilliant. Get the ones already done, and get somebody to do the others--they do this kind of completion project very well; its something of a specialty of theirs.
A few conductors (Klaus Tennstedt, for one) seem to conduct things the same way every time; others do not, and I have been to and have heard on record radically different performances from various conductors, particularly Giulini and Kubelik. I attended a Giulini CSO concert where he conducted Mussorgsky's Pictures a week, I think, before they recorded it together. The recording was very good; the concert, IMO, was even better. For me, the touchstone of this work is the Ballad of the Little Chicks in their Shells--I want it to sound onomatopoeic. In the concert, it did; in the recording, it didn't. So, I'd like to see a recording patched together from his several concert performances of the work with the CSO.
And Kubelik. I went to a CSO concert once in the 70's (?) where he did the best performance of the Brahms 4th I have ever heard anywhere in concert or on CD. I eagerly went out and bought his CD set of the Brahms syms with the BRSO when it came out, and was sorely disappointed. It was nowhere near as good. The live performance was one of those experiences where I found myself sucking in huge gulps of air between movements because I had kept my air intake during the performance to a minimum so as not to distort my perception of the music. Not consciously, mind you, just something I realized I had done at the end of the first movement, and continued to do throughout the performance.
Back when he was musical advisor to the Cleveland Orch., Pierre Boulez did a wonderful cycle of the Schubert Symphonies in concert with them that I would like to see released in a CD box. And Leinsdorf did a number of performances with them of Mozart symphonies that I thought were both better than Leinsdorf's own with the BSO and Szell's. What I think happened was that the Clevelanders played them the way Szell had taught them, except for the special insights which Leinsdorf brought to them, making for, IMO, very special experiences. I 'd like to see those perfs released on CD.
There is also, believe it or not, a concert tape around which I heard broadcast of a Detroit Symphony performance of Strauss's 4 Last Songs conducted by Gunter Herbig and sung by Jessye Norman. Much better than Norman's recording with Masur and the Gewandhaus, and, in fact, IMO, better than any other performance I have heard from anyone. Needless to say, I want it on CD.
Naxos said a while back they were going to do a complete John Phillip Sousa. They did 5 CDS of marches and suites with Brion and the Royal Artillery Band, 4 of which were excellent, and then---what? Has this project petered out, or is it still in progress? In any event, I would like to hear complete recordings of all his operettas.
I would like to see someone do the complete non-film music of Miklos Rozsa. cpo, actually, seems to be well on its way with this; does anyone know if they have plans for more?
Oh, and back in the LP era, Vox did a set of the complete chamber music of Zoltan Kodaly with, mostly, Chicago Sym musicians. The box I had was horrible--performances were excellent, but production values sucked. All kinds of zips and electronic noises opn it. If it can be cleaned up, it should be, and if not, someone should re-record this repertoire and release a big box.
I have this old Capitol LP in glorious monaural sound from the 50's of the greatest performance I have ever heard of the complete Sibelius Legends of Lemminkainen, Op 22 with Sixten Ehrling conducting the Radio Stockholm Sym Orch--I want it on CD.
I also want to ask for EMI to release on CD the great Perlman/Previn/LSO collaboration on the Bartok VC 2. But they will probably release it as 1 CD in a 10 CD box with other things I already have on CD, so maybe I shouldn't even ask.
I would like to see a reissue of the only set, or a new set, of the 6 Stenhammar string quartets, one of most unjustly neglected cycles of great works ever composed.
Another project Naxos has announced and gotten underway with is what is to be an allegedly complete Henry Cowell cycle. I would like to see them get around to a complete cycle of the Hymn and Fuguing Tunes sometime soon--and not spread over a whole bunch of records with lots of other things, either, but all together.
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