Recordings That You Are Considering

Started by George, April 06, 2007, 05:54:08 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 4 Guests are viewing this topic.

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

milk


vers la flamme

Quote from: milk on February 21, 2021, 01:59:16 AM
Is this a rerelease?

No idea, but it's not a recent release or anything; it was released in 2015.

premont

#16063
Quote from: milk on February 21, 2021, 01:59:16 AM
Is this a rerelease?

The label is given as Romanesca (a label unknown to me), not BIS. But I can't find anything about whether it is a licenced BIS recording or a new one. However I think Suzuki has an exclusive contract with BIS, so it is probably the old recording licenced.

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Goldberg-Variationen-Masaaki-Suzuki/dp/B0145HEBSU
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

milk

Quote from: (: premont :) on February 21, 2021, 04:14:35 AM
The label is given as Romanesca (a label unknown to me), not BIS. But I can't find anything about whether it is a licenced BIS recording or a new one. However I think Suzuki has an exclusive contract with BIS, so it is probably the old recording licenced.

https://www.amazon.com/Bach-Goldberg-Variationen-Masaaki-Suzuki/dp/B0145HEBSU
Thanks. I see.

MusicTurner

#16065
Apparently not much info around, but this website also says that it's the 1997 BIS recording

http://www.a30a.com/goldberg/gvediscs.html

(close to the bottom of that page)

premont

Quote from: MusicTurner on February 21, 2021, 01:41:43 PM
Apparently not much info around, but this website also says that it's the 1997 BIS recording

http://www.a30a.com/goldberg/gvediscs.html

(close to the bottom of that page)

Useful site, which I didn't know. Thanks for posting it. Do similar lists of other works exist?
γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Mirror Image


amw



Post your thoughts, if you have them. I don't really need new recordings of any of this material, but I have the Beethoven, Brahms, and Bartók/Stravinsky boxes and find Gielen's music making in them very close to my tastes.

Jo498

I have had some of these Gielen recordings for years in their earlier incarnations, so I didn't get any of the boxes. He obviously has a particular reputation in 20th century music and also the reputation of being somewhat cool, dry and distant (which is also sometimes a feature of the sound of these recordings). But you already know some of his recordings and therefore these general features.
I'd recommend the Mahler and Bruckner or at least Mahler 3,6,7,9 (I don't know the Lieder recordings, the 4th is flawed by soprano and I didn't find 1,2,5 as distinctive as the others although still not bad) and Bruckner 5 and 7. Bruckner 6 is also quite good, the 4th is the only recording of the ur-version I kept (but I still don't like that version), I didn't keep the 3rd and I am not too fond of the 8th (which is uncommonly slow for Gielen and the sound also a bit drab).
Of the mixed boxes I don't know enough to give clear recommendations. I very much like his Haydn 99+104 and also the Janacek glagolitic mass although the latter was my first and is still my only recording and probably not in favor by experts compared with Czech recordings.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Todd

I have Gielen's Mahler and Bruckner.  Like the Bruckner.  The Mahler is well done, it just leaves me cold.
The universe is change; life is opinion. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

People would rather believe than know - E.O. Wilson

Propaganda death ensemble - Tom Araya

DavidW

I recently listened to Gielen's Bruckner 8th.  It is really good but not among my favorites.  His Mahler on the other hand is top shelf but unorthodox, and not as consistent as say Bertini or Chailly (in exactly the way that Jo described).  I think that Gielen is a conductor that you are better off picking and choosing instead of just buying big boxes of.

André

Quote from: Jo498 on February 21, 2021, 11:17:45 PM
I have had some of these Gielen recordings for years in their earlier incarnations, so I didn't get any of the boxes. He obviously has a particular reputation in 20th century music and also the reputation of being somewhat cool, dry and distant (which is also sometimes a feature of the sound of these recordings). But you already know some of his recordings and therefore these general features.
I'd recommend the Mahler and Bruckner or at least Mahler 3,6,7,9 (I don't know the Lieder recordings, the 4th is flawed by soprano and I didn't find 1,2,5 as distinctive as the others although still not bad) and Bruckner 5 and 7. Bruckner 6 is also quite good, the 4th is the only recording of the ur-version I kept (but I still don't like that version), I didn't keep the 3rd and I am not too fond of the 8th (which is uncommonly slow for Gielen and the sound also a bit drab).
Of the mixed boxes I don't know enough to give clear recommendations. I very much like his Haydn 99+104 and also the Janacek glagolitic mass although the latter was my first and is still my only recording and probably not in favor by experts compared with Czech recordings.

I agree about Bruckner 5, 7 and 8. The 5th and 7th are from the early seventies and are uncommonly fresh and direct (love them). The 8th is from much later and is indeed very slow. It would seem Gielen slowed down considerably in his later years, as is often the case (Wand, Klemperer and Böhm). There's an interesting coupling of 2 Mahler 6th performances showing a considerable change of character regarding both tempi and structure (order of the middle movements) over the years (1971 vs 2013). Excerpts can be sampled on the net. Check the timings here:

.

His 2nd is a performance I really like: objective and tough, minutely detailed but with the big payoff clearly the focus of the whole edifice.

Jo498

I was maybe referring to different recordings. As I said, I have none of the more recent boxes some of which include stuff dug out from Radio archives.
Whereas I mean the  recordings on Intercord/EMI/Hänssler.
The Bruckner 5th and 7th I have are from 1986 and 1989, the 8th 1990, the 4th 1994. The 6th is much later, 2001. So the 8th is from the same time but still quite slow compared to the very fleet 7th. The 5th is slow in the adagio and fast elsewhere (19'00, 18'05, 12'15, 20'40).
The Mahler 6th on Hänssler is actually between the two shown above, from 1999 (The Hänssler Mahler is mostly from the 1990s with 4 and 7 from the 80s) and the playing times are also in bewetween 24:51, 14:29, 14:46, 30:40.

Do you mean Mahler 2nd or the 2nd recording of the 6th on that box?
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

André

Quote from: Jo498 on February 22, 2021, 01:05:22 PM
I was maybe referring to different recordings. As I said, I have none of the more recent boxes some of which include stuff dug out from Radio archives.
Whereas I mean the  recordings on Intercord/EMI/Hänssler.
The Bruckner 5th and 7th I have are from 1986 and 1989, the 8th 1990, the 4th 1994. The 6th is much later, 2001. So the 8th is from the same time but still quite slow compared to the very fleet 7th. The 5th is slow in the adagio and fast elsewhere (19'00, 18'05, 12'15, 20'40).
The Mahler 6th on Hänssler is actually between the two shown above, from 1999 (The Hänssler Mahler is mostly from the 1990s with 4 and 7 from the 80s) and the playing times are also in bewetween 24:51, 14:29, 14:46, 30:40.

Do you mean Mahler 2nd or the 2nd recording of the 6th on that box?

Confusion reigns  :D. My bad. I meant his Mahler 2, not his 2nd Mahler 6. The 5th and 7th I know are from Intercord, recorded with the SWF Baden-Baden orchestra in 1990, not early seventies as I thought - don't know if they are the same as in the Hänssler box.

I really should have gotten up from the chair and pulled them out before posting  :-[.

amw

Quote from: ultralinear on February 22, 2021, 02:06:08 PM
The Bruckner 8th in that big box is the 1887 original edition (with the fanfare at the end of the first movement), and not the same as this one:



Which is the 1890 (Haas) revision.
I have heard this one, and don't like it, at least as far as I can recall.

It looks like I'll have to listen to all (or most) of them to get a better idea lmao. Deezer does have all the extant volumes of the edition, although of course everything is just tagged as "III. Andante moderato" and so on, but I think I know all this music well enough to figure out what everything is.

Jo498

I think that this is the 1990 recording. Hänssler mostly re-issued older recordings or made som of music Gielen had not recorded for Intercord. There are a few exceptions, e.g. Mahler's 9th was recorded twice (and they got another live recording or two for some box).

Of course, when I first got some of these recordings 20-30 years ago, I had heard at most another recording or two of the music (or none) and there was also a far smaller range available. So the fastish and lean Bruckner 7 was really different from the Jochum or Karajan or Giulini one had heard before, unless one knew the old Rosbaud or a similar recording. Even the Beethoven from the early/mid 90s was the first on modern instruments since Scherchen and Leibowitz that was close to the metronome markings. (The rather dry Eroica from Cincinnati is still older and used to be a kind of special recommendation.) This has completely changed with half a dozen or so of such fast and lean modern instrument Beethoven cycles.

Anyway, I'd still recommend first Bruckner 5 and 7 and of Mahler 7 and 9 (either one, the earlier from before/around 1990 probably more distinctive but in rather dry sound).

One can also cross-check some information on discogs to exclude the odd recordings only included in the recent boxes and never issued before.

E.g. this Bruckner 8th is the one from 1990, already on Intercord.
https://www.discogs.com/de/Anton-Bruckner-Morton-Feldman-SWR-Sinfonieorchester-Baden-Baden-Und-Freiburg-Michael-Gielen-Symphony/release/1874970
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

DavidW

I just noticed that the pictures show Gielen in attire ranging from tux to wrinkled t-shirt! :laugh:

T. D.



The SQ would be a duplication (I have recordings with LaSalle Q), but there are 3 other CDs of music.

MusicTurner

Concerning the Gielen sets, I own the Mahler box + the Janacek/Ives/McPhee etc. box + the Neue Wiener Schule box, having heard samples of the big Gielen edition series, I decided for those. The Brahms one seemed very good too, but I've got enough by that composer already.

His Mahler is very uneven I think, the Das lied von der Erde is marred in the vocal parts for example, some of the symphonies are very good however. I did a quick sum-up once, characterizing the content, unfortunately I can't find it ...

the one with 20th-century mixed orchestral is good, but I haven't heard it in detail yet; overall, I don't think however that it seems to that those are really essential performances, of one has the music already.