What are you listening to now?

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

Oh heck, I have quite a few Tristans already. I recently got hold of a 1971 Vickers/Nilsson/Bohm live version from Orange and thought to myself that I had all the bases covered now. It is a really impressive performance. Though of course the sound quality is less than ideal.

I have never heard any of the Goodall version despite knowing his Ring performances. I seem to recall the reviews of the set were not all that good and I know his propensity for slow speeds. But out of curosity I went to Spotify. Of well, that's it ordered from ArkivMusic. Difficult to get hold of, but I have signed up to their site so I can get it for about 2/3rds what Amazon marketplace discs cost.

What wonderful forward sound. I never liked the dry theatre balance of the Ring. I have been enjoying the pacing which does not feel slow at all to me. The meeting in act 2 is like a lavaflow. Even Mitchenson, not a favourite, sounds very good. But Esther-Gray is just stupendous. I don't understand why this set does not get a whole lot more attention than it has had. I have been slowly buying versions for about 40 years, replacing my LPs with the CD versions 30 years ago. But it has hardly merrited a mention in the many reviews I have read.

Linda Esther-Gray is Scottish and was contracted to sing with Scottish Opera. However, I never heard her as she kept cancelling, there was Fidelio and then Turandot, both no-shows. The latter she withdrew from while we were waiting for curtain up. For Turandot she had special coaching from Dame Eva Turner. However, the problem was extreme stage fright which blighted her otherwise promising career, a great pity. Goodall I know prepared the singers in lengthy one to one rehearsals; this was his custome. It pays dividends in terms of confidence and the way he so closely supports yet challenges his singers. I frequently felt that he ruined singers for other conductors and got them to sing better than they did with others, Hunter and Remedios and now Esther-Gray for three. I know an artist who was commissioned to paint her portrait right at the crisis time. I don't know whether it was ever completed.

Thanks, I think, for drawing my attention to the recording. My credit card is throbbing somewhat.

Mike

Wonderful dish on Linda Ester Gray- thanks for that, Mike.

I find the tempi of the Goodall Tristan entirely too slow for my liking. . . except of course for the sections with Linda Ester Gray- where funnily enough, it works 'perfectly.'   

Her singing is so expressively feminine and gorgeous with that emotionally-inflected silvery-timbre of hers that I really can't exhaust superlatives on how it makes me feel.

I'm excited that you bought the performance.

I absolutely love her in it. . .

Now 'I' need to get that Orange Tristan with Nilsson and Vickers.

I do on occasion like a more 'muscular' Isolde.

[Mirror Image]

Now:





Listening to Socrate. Absolutely gorgeous work.

[Todd]

Disc 2.  That's a spicy meatball!

[Todd]

Easily one of Kissin's best discs.  Virtuosic firepower when needed, but lots of nuance and sensitivity, too.  Outstanding.

[knight66]

Wonderful dish on Linda Ester Gray- thanks for that, Mike.

I find the tempi of the Goodall Tristan entirely too slow for my liking. . . except of course for the sections with Linda Ester Gray- where funnily enough, it works 'perfectly.'   

Her singing is so expressively feminine and gorgeous with that emotionally-inflected silvery-timbre of hers that I really can't exhaust superlatives on how it makes me feel.

I'm excited that you bought the performance.

I absolutely love her in it. . .

Now 'I' need to get that Orange Tristan with Nilsson and Vickers.

I do on occasion like a more 'muscular' Isolde.

I enjoy the spaciousness of Goodall, Tristan needs to be as close to a narcotic as possible. I best like Furtwangler Act 1, Kleiber Act 2 and Karajan with Vickers Act 3. Then it is lights out for me.

The Bohm is on Spotify if you want to test the sound out. If you occasionally like on overpowering Isolde, do you know Gertrude Grob-Prandl? It is a voice that was possibly even larger than Nilsson's. It is a great pity that she was not dragged into the recording studio. There is a live Tristan which is well worth the modest outlay to hear Act 1 and the Liebstod. The tenor is a poor lad shoved on stage to do a man's job. She overpowers him and sails through the music, over the orchestra and sounds as fresh as a daisy throughout.

I heard Nilsson in Elektra in a small theatre and the force of her voice, live, was stupendous and alarming. I was near the back of the stalls and felt I was being physically pinned to the back wall. Again, she seemed inexhaustable. A tenor who sang with Flagstad said that the secret of her breath control was that she expanded the ribs at the back in an extreme way. On stage he had his hand on her back and could feel the expansion. Jessye Norman did this too. I used to observe her from the choir stalls and watch it happen. Although she tended to wear loose clothes, the top of her back was usually exposed and you could see the material round the top of the garment go taught as she breathed in. Her whole back must have been expanding substantially. We used to joke that she breathed in at the start of a work and out at the end. I verer saw this expansion phenomenon with any other singer.

Mike

[SimonNZ]

Georg Friedrich Haas' Morgen und Abend - Michael Boder, cond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyFTJBLywPU

[Que]

That was my reaction today, as well. Its a recording I don't play very often, but I can't now remember why, or if its just that there are now so many other top-shelf recordings of the work.

Not so many for me....
I had actually great difficulty in finding a recording [of Bach's Mass in B minor],  until I encountered this (then) "dark horse" [Hengelbrock].

Q

[SimonNZ]

Not so many for me....
I had actually great difficulty in finding a recording [of Bach's Mass in B minor],  until I encountered this (then) "dark horse" [Hengelbrock].

Q

Why difficulty? My personal favorite would be Herreweghe's second. What is your opinion of that one?

[Que]

Why difficulty? My personal favorite would be Herreweghe's second. What is your opinion of that one?

It is too long ago that I went through the recordings then availble to comment on a particular recordings, but my main issues in finding a recording that suited my taste were transparency and choral balance.  Also in quite a few recordings the Mass sounded not as a unity but as disjointed choral mvts.

BTW I am sure that since then recordings have come to light with similar benefits as the one by Hengelbrock. I haven't kept track of the field...


Thread duty:

[asin]B00SM3M0KU[/asin]
Q

[SimonNZ]

It is too long ago that I went through the recordings then availble to comment on a particular recordings,

Was it on GMG you did that? I'll have to hunt it out.


playing now:



Kaija Saariaho's Poèmes de Saint-John Perse - Saint-John Perse, voice, Kaija Saariaho, electronics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf-LePcHsf4

[Que]

Was it on GMG you did that? I'll have to hunt it out.

I meant that it is (way) too long ago that I listened to other versions, like the Hereweghe, to be able to comment on it in particular now. Sorry...

I don't  recall posting all my impressions on different recordings, I did post comments on the Hengelbrock. Besides, we switched "forums"  since then (some years ago) due to software problems.

It is a work I'd love to revisit again by comparative listening, taking into account new recordings since the last time.

Q

[king ubu]

first spin of a new arrival:

[asin]B00020HCH2[/asin]

[ritter]

From this recent arrival:

[asin]B00004XROP[/asin]
Suite No. 1 in C major, BWV 1066

[Tsaraslondon]

Karajan's first studio recording of Il Trovatore, to my mind, remains his best, and is one of his very best opera recordings, as much a classic as the Schwarzkopf Der Rosenkavalier. His conducting has such rhythmic bounce and verve, such elegance and style, such lyricism on the one hand and rude vigour on the other, and he brings out marvellous detail in the orchestration whilst maintaining a sense of the long musical line. I don't think I've ever heard a better conducted version of the score, not even by Karajan himself.

Then there is his cast. The first voice we hear is that of Nicola Zaccaria, who, with Karajan's masterly support, brings a lovely basso cantate and an appropriate air of mystery and suppressed terror to Ferrando's opening scene. Next up is Callas. By 1956 the voice was already beginning to show signs of trouble, and she was never again to sing Leonora on stage, having sung it for the last time in Chicago in 1955 ("perfection", according to her Manrico, Jussi Bjoerling), but from the very first notes she makes her mark on the character. Though less free at the top than in some of her live recordings of the opera, she still phrases expansively, binding the filigree of the role (coloratura passages and trills often smudged or ignored by other less accomplished singers) into the musical line. Her phrasing is ever aristocratic and there is something so inevitably right about the way she shapes a Verdian cadence, that I am willing to forgive the occasional hardness on top.

Panerai sings with elegance and style, but also with an underlying sense that this is a man barely holding it togetherm and his Il balen del suo sorriso beautifully shaped. I've always liked his basic timbre with its quick flicker vibrato, and this, along with his Ford on the Karajan Falstaff is, I think, one of his best recordings. Di Stefano is no doubt too light a tenor for the role of Manrico. Di quella pira, with its (unwritten) top Cs taxes him to the limit, but he sings a beautifully lyrical Ah si, ben mio. Elsewhere he is an ardent lover, tenderly solicitous of his mother, something some of the more heroic Manricos miss. Still I would prefer Bjoerling, who has both the lyricism required and a properly heroic swagger when necessary.

Last, but not least, there is Fedora Barbieri as Azucena in one of her greatest roles. She is not so interesting as Fassbaender on the Giulini, but probably has the more appropriate voice, and, though she has masses of power when required, she doesn't sing without subtlety.

The La Scala forces play and sing wonderfully for Karajan, and, though the sound can't compare to more modern rivals, it sounds remarkably good in this Warner transfer. A classic of the gramophone, and still my first choice for the opera.

[prémont]

From this recent arrival:

[asin]B00004XROP[/asin]
Suite No. 1 in C major, BWV 1066

The recordings in this box were made in the 1960es and were stereo recordings and released on LP in stereo and in mono on the French Discophiles label and later in stereo by Nonesuch. About ten years ago they were finally released on CD by Accord. In my item of this Accord box the version of the Brandenburg concertos is unfortunately the mono version. What about yours?

[NikF]

Saint-Saens: Symphonie n°2 - Martinon/Orchestre National de lORTF.

[asin]B007762J3Q[/asin]

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Symphony no. 2



Pacey, exciting colourful, lovely soloistic writing, chamber writing and tutti orchestral writing....is this the French symphony that has everything? (Besides Turangalîla of course )

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Dean's Violin Concerto The Lost Art of Letter Writing a chunky, colourful, emotional, fun composition, and definitely my favourite violin concerto.

[NikF]

Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto 2 - Rubinstein/Wallenstein/Symphony of the Air.

[asin]B000003FEC[/asin]

I think this is the only recording I have that features Rubinstein, but I've my eye on the 'Great Concertos' box.

[Mirror Image]

Dean's Violin Concerto The Lost Art of Letter Writing a chunky, colourful, emotional, fun composition, and definitely my favourite violin concerto.

Your favorite violin concerto of all-time?