Elgar's Hillside

Started by Mark, September 20, 2007, 02:03:01 AM

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karlhenning

Znajder landed by me yesterday, will give it a listen a bit later.

drogulus

Quote from: Scarpia on May 05, 2010, 09:04:08 PM
This one arrived today.



(After I ordered it, the Amazon page changed from "in stock" to 'this item has been discontinued by the manufacturer," so I officially have the last copy distributed in North America.)   :(



     Uh oh....

     I opened my confirmation email and clicked on the tracking #. The tracking info said:

     "Not Yet Dispatched           

     We'll notify you via e-mail when we have an estimated delivery date. You can cancel at any time."


      It doesn't look good.
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karlhenning

Spike in Bean demand . . . .

Sergeant Rock

My copy of the Hugh Bean twofer arrived today from the UK. As soon as I've heard it, I'll rejoin the discussion.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Elgarian

#764


My copy of the Elder/Halle/Zehetmair recording arrived today. I decided to try this partly because of the favourable reviews, but also because of the unusual couplings (bits from Kingdom and Gerontius, with Alice Coote doing the Angel's Farewell. Listening to the whole CD, with the VC sandwiched in this way was quite interesting!

But as for the VC itself .... I found myself at the end asking again the question I asked years ago: do I actually need any more versions of the VC, and does this add anything to them? And I think the answers are no, and no. This is not to say there's anything significantly wrong with it; there isn't. Elder is a good Elgarian, and anyone wanting a copy of the VC would do OK with this - it touches most of the bases, but isn't in any danger of displacing Bean and Kang from the pedestal I've put them on. The recording quality seemed adequate but not outstanding: both soloist and orchestra seemed a bit 'distant' and the sound a little constricted perhaps - but nothing that other people's personal preferences might not gladly welcome. For me, though, this was pretty much an unnecessary purchase, I'm sad to say.

Rummaging around afterwards, I dug up Menuhin's 1965 recording (with Boult and the New Philharmonia), which I haven't heard for ages, and played a few minutes of it: it sounded very good indeed (Menuhin understandably has a significantly different, steadier approach in 1965 than he did when recording it as a young lad with Elgar), and I hope to give it a more serious listen sometime soon and refresh my memory of it.

karlhenning

Well, and Kang just landed, so I'll load that disc right up.

DavidRoss

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 06, 2010, 06:38:43 AM
Well, and Kang just landed, so I'll load that disc right up.
I just listened to it via Naxos streaming and liked it quite a bit...better, in fact, than any other I've heard--but bear in mind that thanks to Alan's impassioned but civil and thoughtful advocacy, I've listened to this concerto more in the past few days than in the previous few years, and it's likely that increased familiarity is opening my heart to it more than before.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

Franco

QuoteI dug up Menuhin's 1965 recording (with Boult and the New Philharmonia), which I haven't heard for ages, and played a few minutes of it: it sounded very good indeed

That's the one I have, and have been happy with it, but because of this thread I ordered the Bean from Presto Classical (reasonably priced at $11.49), it should arrive soon (I just got the dispatch notification).  I may have gotten their last copy since they no longer list it on their site.

karlhenning

My amazon third-party order of the Bean has got canceled.

Scarpia

Well, since the recording is impossible to obtain, perhaps unobtrusive electronic distribution is called for.  Extracting files from a CD is easy, but I'm not familiar enough with such practices to know where such rather large files can be tucked away.

sTisTi

Quote from: Scarpia on May 06, 2010, 07:26:16 AM
Well, since the recording is impossible to obtain, perhaps unobtrusive electronic distribution is called for.  Extracting files from a CD is easy, but I'm not familiar enough with such practices to know where such rather large files can be tucked away.
Mediafire.com is a possibility, though if you want to share the content of a CD in a lossless compression format (e.g. FLAC, ALAC), you'd better have a fast internet connection for the upload as a full CD typically takes up ~250-350 MB ;)

Luke

Quote from: 71 dB on May 05, 2010, 08:35:59 AM
Compared to Elgar's other orchestral works the Cello Concerto sounds thin. It's composed for smaller orchestra (lack of players just after the war). I find the Violin Concerto more complex structurally than the Cello Concerto. Superb concerto nevertheless.  ;)


Just FWIW it's not really composed for a smaller orchestra - apart from the lack of a double bassoon in the later work the orchestras called for are identical. The orchestras of Europe may have been depleted after the war, true, but that fact doesn't find itself reflected in the instrumentarium of the cello concerto.

One could perhaps argue that the intimacy of the cello concerto might mean it doesn't require so many string players - but a) the scores themselves don't tell us this and b) I don't really think it's true anyway - in its relatively few fully-scored passages the cello concerto makes just as big a noise as the violin concerto.

No, the thinness of the cello concerto, if it is to be called that, is above all just superb scoring, Elgar showing that he knew how to hold things back to allow the cello through to the top of the texture. This affects the tone of the work, of course, intensifies that lonely, pensive soundworld which this concerto makes so much its own.

Elgarian

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 06, 2010, 04:01:40 AM
Znajder landed by me yesterday, will give it a listen a bit later.
I hovered for some time trying to choose between Znaider and Zehetmair before plumping for the latter, so I hope you're going to tell me that I don't need to buy that one, Karl....

I betcha a million pounds you'll enjoy the Kang.

Elgarian

Quoted with corrections:

Quote from: DavidRoss on May 06, 2010, 06:49:23 AM
I just listened to it via Naxos streaming and liked it quite a bit...better, in fact, than any other I've heard--but bear in mind that thanks to Alan's impassioned but civil and thoughtful advocacy persistent brainwashing, I've listened to this concerto more in the past few days than in the previous few years, and it's likely that increased familiarity my need to do anything to make him stop is opening my heart to it more than before.

Drasko

Quote from: Scarpia on May 06, 2010, 07:26:16 AM
Well, since the recording is impossible to obtain, perhaps unobtrusive electronic distribution is called for.  Extracting files from a CD is easy, but I'm not familiar enough with such practices to know where such rather large files can be tucked away.

Why would anyone bother when there is about 99% chance that some blogger-pirate has already been there, done that. Took me about two minutes to find this one for instance:
http://organ-music-for-all.blogspot.com/2009/03/edward-elgar-collectors-edition-30cd_28.html
Disc 6 looks like what you've been looking for.

drogulus

Quote from: sTisTi on May 06, 2010, 07:48:06 AM
Mediafire.com is a possibility, though if you want to share the content of a CD in a lossless compression format (e.g. FLAC, ALAC), you'd better have a fast internet connection for the upload as a full CD typically takes up ~250-350 MB ;)


      If "someone" wanted to post a zip file without breaking it up Google Docs would be the place. The zip could contain tagged lossless files of the CD in question. Google allows up to 1 GB total which can be used for a single file.
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Scarpia

Quote from: drogulus on May 06, 2010, 01:40:45 PM
      If "someone" wanted to post a zip file without breaking it up Google Docs would be the place. The zip could contain tagged lossless files of the CD in question. Google allows up to 1 GB total which can be used for a single file.

Well, it seems there is no need, since it is already available via the link cited above.

drogulus

Quote from: Scarpia on May 06, 2010, 02:00:25 PM
Well, it seems there is no need, since it is already available via the link cited above.


      I was just scheming out loud. What's the point of life if you can't help people?
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DavidRoss

Quote from: Elgarian on May 06, 2010, 12:31:59 PMQuoted with corrections:
Quote from: DavidRoss on May 06, 2010, 06:49:23 AM
I just listened to it via Naxos streaming and liked it quite a bit...better, in fact, than any other I've heard--but bear in mind that thanks to Alan's impassioned but civil and thoughtful advocacy persistent brainwashing, I've listened to this concerto more in the past few days than in the previous few years, and it's likely that increased familiarity my need to do anything to make him stop is opening my heart to it more than before.
;D ;D ;D

Although your edits are amusing, Alan, I think the original more accurate.   8)  BTW, I enjoyed the Kang/Leaper recording so much that I just ordered the CD.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

kishnevi

Quote from: Elgarian on May 06, 2010, 06:09:27 AM


My copy of the Elder/Halle/Zehetmair recording arrived today. I decided to try this partly because of the favourable reviews, but also because of the unusual couplings (bits from Kingdom and Gerontius, with Alice Coote doing the Angel's Farewell. Listening to the whole CD, with the VC sandwiched in this way was quite interesting!


Would I be correct in assuming the Gerontius excerpt  is from the Elder/Halle recording of the complete Gerontius,  in which Coote sings the Angel?
(Recording dates for the Gerontius are given as 15-19 July 2008, if that is needed to clinch the deal).