The Five Beethoven Piano Concertos and The Choral Fantasy

[George]

Thanks; I actually have 3-5 with Katchen, I probably should relisten to them.
If the information on the back is correct my Serkin box combines 3+5 conducted by Bernstein with the rest conducted by Ormandy. IIRC I quite liked them although I seem to recall mostly 1-3.
I also liked the cheapo dark horse recordings with Roll/Shelley(cond.), esp. in 1 and 5. And to be fair, Szell's accompaniment for Fleisher is also rough and military in #5 but I was never as fond of this as one is supposed to be.

Military is Szell's middle name. I hear his parents almost chose it as his first name. 

[Todd]

If the information on the back is correct my Serkin box combines 3+5 conducted by Bernstein with the rest conducted by Ormandy.

Serkin didn't make a bad recording of the Fifth, or at least I have not heard one.  The Ormandy is the best of the lot.

And to be fair, Szell's accompaniment for Fleisher is also rough and military in #5 but I was never as fond of this as one is supposed to be.

Fleisher is better in the earlier LvB concertos and Mozart.  His later LvB PCs are not my thing.

[Jo498]

I listened to Katchen/Gamba in #5. This comes pretty close to what I described above, I'd guess. It's good but I didn't like it quite as much as expected. Maybe I don't really want it that fierce or I wasn't really in the mood for the piece in general.

Overall, I am pretty content with what I have and I don't listen to this music so frequently anymore, therefore I am not really seeking for more recordings. But I often had the impression that pianist and conductor tend a bit to "neutralize" each other, so recordings of the concerti are far more often in some middle ground. And while Beethoven is not as "extreme" in the concertos as in some other music, he's not really a middle ground guy.

[Jo498]

Listened to Serkin/Ormandy in #1 (stereo 1965), and it is very good as I remembered and also fairly close to the assertive orchestral accompaniment in the first movement (although not as fast and brassy as Golshman). Unfortunately the editors of that box included live recordings of the 4th and triple from Marlboro (both in mediocre sound, IIRC) instead of the early 1950s 3+5 with Ormandy).