What are you listening 2 now?

[Mirror Image]

+1 for the Ozawa. I don't mind the paired Petrouchka either.

VS

Indeed. I love the Petrouchka performance, too, which features a younger MTT on piano.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

NP:

Revueltas
Ventanas
Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de México
Enrique Bátiz




This is a smoking performance! Completely visceral and in-your-face. It certainly blows the Salonen on Sony away (even though he has better audio quality).

So do you think this is largely due to Batiz?

[Mirror Image]

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5

Very good performance overall, but not my first choice. A big disappointment was the tame tam-tam. I was expecting a real explosion from it, but it never happened. The 4th movement is just insane, extremely fast! It seems like Bernstein had an urgency to go to the bathroom whilst conducted. 

It's difficult for me to forget Bernstein's live 1979 Tokyo performance, which is my reference recording for this symphony. This performance on Columbia is quite good, but this is one of those cases where his later self outdid his earlier self.

[Mirror Image]

So do you think this is largely due to Batiz?

He's a part of it for sure, but there's also no denying this orchestra has Revueltas in their blood, too. I think the rawer sonics also help here.

[Linz]

James Galway and Myung-Whun Chung conducting the Royal Phiharmonic Orchestra

[Madiel]

Moscheles, Ignaz (1794-1870) - Piano Sonatas w/ Michele Bolla on a McNulty fortepiano after Conrad Graf, 1819 and Music for Flute and Piano w/ Kazumori Seo & Makoto Ueno on modern instruments. Moscheles was a Bohemian piano virtuoso, composer, and teacher who studied early with Albrechtsberger for counterpoint and theory and Salieri for composition in Vienna. He then became based in London and finally in Leipzig, where he died. His list of compositions included 142 Opus numbers (and more w/o numbers), including 7 extant Piano Concertos (which make up half of my small collection). - Dave

 

All I currently know of Moscheles is his etudes, which were a revelation when I was learning piano. Suddenly I knew that an etude could sound like real music, instead of like... whatever Czerny was doing much of the time.

[Symphonic Addict]

It's difficult for me to forget Bernstein's live 1979 Tokyo performance, which is my reference recording for this symphony. This performance on Columbia is quite good, but this is one of those cases where his later self outdid his earlier self.

An improvement then. I'm curious to hear the Tokyo performance.

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Strauss
Don Quixote, Op. 35
Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), Ulrich Koch (viola)
Berliner Philharmoniker
Karajan



Without question, this performance has always been my favorite Don Quixote. Everything is rightfully measured and the performance itself is a powerful one. The 2017 remastering sounds especially nice and it seems to clean up some of the muddiness of the original.

[Mirror Image]

An improvement then. I'm curious to hear the Tokyo performance.

Cesar, to be blunt, it's a performance of earth-shattering proportions. A must-listen if you care anything about this symphony.

[Symphonic Addict]

Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 21

There is a gesture in the beginning from the 3rd movement that is different to the one I'm used to hear. Anyway, superb performance of one of my favorite Mozart PCs.

[Symphonic Addict]

Cesar, to be blunt, it's a performance of earth-shattering proportions. A must-listen if you care anything about this symphony.

It sounds like a must-hear, John! Let's see if I can find it. Thanks for the heads-up!

[Mirror Image]

It sounds like a must-hear, John! Let's see if I can find it. Thanks for the heads-up!

You're welcome, my friend. If I'm not mistaken, this is also the Sarge's favorite recording of this symphony.

[André]

You're welcome, my friend. If I'm not mistaken, this is also the Sarge's favorite recording of this symphony.

It's mine too ! There are a few that I really dig, but this Tokyo/NYPO trumps them all.

[Mirror Image]

It's mine too ! There are a few that I really dig, but this Tokyo/NYPO trumps them all.

Great to read, Andre.

[SonicMan46]

All I currently know of Moscheles is his etudes, which were a revelation when I was learning piano. Suddenly I knew that an etude could sound like real music, instead of like... whatever Czerny was doing much of the time.

Thumbs up!    Moscheles was really an important 19th century composer, pianist, and pedagogue in his time - I'm up to about 8 CDs now w/ this music - if interested, check out his Piano Concertos (I have 3 discs w/ Shelley on the Hyperion label, i.e. in their piano series).  Dave

[kyjo]

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5

Very good performance overall, but not my first choice. A big disappointment was the tame tam-tam. I was expecting a real explosion from it, but it never happened. The 4th movement is just insane, extremely fast! It seems like Bernstein had an urgency to go to the bathroom whilst conducted. 

To the bolded text: You're turning into Hurwitz!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

He's a part of it for sure, but there's also no denying this orchestra has Revueltas in their blood, too. I think the rawer sonics also help here.

I like some of the recordings by Enrique Batiz! 

[Mirror Image]

To the bolded text: You're turning into Hurwitz!

[André]

A concert from August 15, 1970.

Concerto no 27 with Gilels: pianist and conductor recorded the work 3 years later with the Wiener Philharmoniker on DGG. At that time their already broad interpretation had broadened even further. Despite a few tiny horn clams in Berlin I find their 1970 performance better integrated than the Vienna remake. It's ideally relaxed yet alive to every nuance (delicious wind solos).

The Brahms 2 was a Böhm specialty. He recorded that symphony more often than the others. It seemed every few years he programmed it. I have recordings of it with the BP and the WP (both from the studio), the LSO and now the BP live. There's at least 2 others I know of. Böhm's view of the work varied somewhat from one occasion to the other. For one, an audience seemed to move him to firmer, tauter tempos in I and II. But he also seemed to elicit different orchestral colours depending on the orchestra: he let them be their own and revelled in having a crackerjack ensemble prove their mettle. Here he clearly challenges the Berlin players to play on the edge of their seats. A lesser orchestra would have been on the skids. The weight of string tone is remarkable. Woodwinds are characterful and the brass burnished.

In I the orchestra almost goes into a frenzy in the development. Unexpected and hugely exciting. In 1970 the BP had some of the best wind soloists in the world among their ranks (James Galway, Lothar Koch, Karl Leister). Needless to say they shine in this symphony. Galway's beautifully cool tone is a thing of wonder. Böhm's way with the finale has always been relaxed yet tightly held together. Not for him the intemperate explosions of some other conductors. The inexorable buildup of tension pays huge dividends in the coda where he lets the brass rip gloriously..

Superb performances then. The audience is quiet throughout and the sound is very good.

[classicalgeek]

Beethoven
Symphony no. 2
London Symphony Orchestra
Eugen Jochum



A beautiful slow movement, but I felt the other three movements were bit underpowered and a touch slow. In the finale in particular I prefer a brisker tempo; I could have used more woodwinds throughout the symphony as well.

Berlioz
Grande Messe des Morts
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Charles Munch



Definitely a lot to like about this recording - Munch has the BSO playing with commitment and passion, and he revels in the work's unusual sonorities. I found the choral singing a touch disappointing (I believe it's the New England Conservatory Choir), and for as good as it sounds for a performance recorded in 1959, it doesn't match Robert Shaw's recording on Telarc. Maybe the sound is why I still prefer that recording to Munch's, even though Munch is still excellent.