Come check out my Ebay classical CDs

[PerfectWagnerite]

Okay guys, see if there is anything you like.
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZalbyzhao

I don't ship outside the US normally but I will ship anywhere if a GMG member buys any of the items.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Okay guys, more stuff this week:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZalbyzhao

Mostly Naxos/Marco Polo discs plus a few odds and ends.

Some purchased from me in the previous auction, thank you.

[Gustav]

I use Ebay too. Do you have any Bruckner symphonies (in good condition)?

[PerfectWagnerite]

I use Ebay too. Do you have any Bruckner symphonies (in good condition)?

Does a chicken have wings?

But seriously, I don't have a vast Bruckner collection and I don't really want to sell any of them right now. Awhile ago I sold the Tintner Bruckner set and some Wand (somehow I either had duplicates or I have multiple recordings with Wand in the same work and the interpretation is not dramatically different to warrant keeping multiple copies). I foolishly sold the Karajan Bruckner 7th and 8th with the WP but were able to buy them back used at ridiculously low prices.

So the short answer is I don't have any Bruckner for sale at the moment.

[Gustav]

just out of curiosity, what is your rarest Bruckner recording?

[PerfectWagnerite]

just out of curiosity, what is your rarest Bruckner recording?

Nothing I have is really RARE. Rare recordings cost money and are rarely better than something you can get that is readily available.

I have a Bernstein 9th which I guess isn't too common, an original Wand Luebeck 8th (although the CDR is available from Archivmusic), a Klemperer 4th with the Bavarian Radio SO, and a complete set on Cammerata with Eichhorn, Sieghardt and another conductor. I have the original Inbal set on 11(?) CDs which isn't too common although the individual CDs you can get.

Like I said, nothing worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

[M forever]

Are you talking about the NYP or WP Bernstein Bruckner 9? The former is indeed quite rare. I guess my rarest Bruckner disc is the 8th with Sinopoli/Staatskapelle Dresden.

I also have the Bruckner 4 with Sinopoli/SD on an Eterna CD. The recording was made in 1987 when East Germany (which is where Dresden is) was still the GDR. So recordings made there were always coproductions between the people's own record company (which was VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, and Eterna was the label) and whatever Western company (in this case DG) wanted to record there. So all the recordings were available on both labels. The Eterna editions typically only on LP. Eterna CDs are very rare because I think they didn't produce many. I guess the one I have was produced not long after the fall of the Eastern Block. But Eterna didn't last very long like basically all institutions of the former GDR. The catalog was bought up by companies such as Berlin Classics but that only included actual VEB DS productions, not coproductions with Western labels such as Philips, DG, or EMI.
Anyway, I saw that CD on ebay and got it (for very little money) just for the collecting fun, but while it is extremely rare, it isn't worth much because the same recording is on th DG CD which isn't that hard to find.


BTW, I bought this from you, and it already came in and is being listened to right now:

[PerfectWagnerite]

Are you talking about the NYP or WP Bernstein Bruckner 9? The former is indeed quite rare. I guess my rarest Bruckner disc is the 8th with Sinopoli/Staatskapelle Dresden.

I also have the Bruckner 4 with Sinopoli/SD on an Eterna CD. The recording was made in 1987 when East Germany (which is where Dresden is) was still the GDR. So recordings made there were always coproductions between the people's own record company (which was VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, and Eterna was the label) and whatever Western company (in this case DG) wanted to record there. So all the recordings were available on both labels. The Eterna editions typically only on LP. Eterna CDs are very rare because I think they didn't produce many. I guess the one I have was produced not long after the fall of the Eastern Block. But Eterna didn't last very long like basically all institutions of the former GDR. The catalog was bought up by companies such as Berlin Classics but that only included actual VEB DS productions, not coproductions with Western labels such as Philips, DG, or EMI.
Anyway, I saw that CD on ebay and got it (for very little money) just for the collecting fun, but while it is extremely rare, it isn't worth much because the same recording is on th DG CD which isn't that hard to find.


BTW, I bought this from you, and it already came in and is being listened to right now:

I have the later DG Bernstein 9th which you can get at hmv I guess, although in the states I don't think it is that easy to find. You do find a copy on Amazon once in a while. I do have a NYPO Bruckner 6th with Bernstein. If you are interested I'll share it with you.
I am not too familiar with the less well-known labels. Sometimes I am not sure whether they are legitimate or pirates so I tend not to spend a lot of $$$ on them.
How do you like Sinopoli/Dresden/B8? I can't believe they let that one go out of print. I would probabaly pay $30 or so for a fullprice duo CD like that.

Well I sent your package first. You paid quickly and I knew it was you

[Gustav]

How do you like Sinopoli/Dresden/B8? I can't believe they let that one go out of print. I would probabaly pay $30 or so for a fullprice duo CD like that.

LOL, 30 bucks?? Those things are RARE! Just a week ago, i seen one Sinopoli Bruckner 8th sell for 78 dollars!

[PerfectWagnerite]

LOL, 30 bucks?? Those things are RARE! Just a week ago, i seen one Sinopoli Bruckner 8th sell for 78 dollars!

Well, now you know why I don't have that particular recording then

[M forever]

I have the later DG Bernstein 9th which you can get at hmv I guess, although in the states I don't think it is that easy to find. You do find a copy on Amazon once in a while. I do have a NYPO Bruckner 6th with Bernstein. If you are interested I'll share it with you.
I am not too familiar with the less well-known labels. Sometimes I am not sure whether they are legitimate or pirates so I tend not to spend a lot of $$$ on them.
How do you like Sinopoli/Dresden/B8? I can't believe they let that one go out of print. I would probabaly pay $30 or so for a fullprice duo CD like that.

Well I sent your package first. You paid quickly and I knew it was you

How did you know that? Because I am known as a fanatic Mravinsky collector?

I have the NYP Bruckner 6, but thanks for the offer. I also have the NYP 9th which is pretty bizarre. The WP performance is now also available on DVD. With some interesting continuity errors because it was recorded/filmed over the course of two performances. In some passages with a few edits between different angles you can see Bernstein with glasses, without, with, without...That was the last time Bernstein conducted the WP, BTW 

The Sinopoli/SD 8th is marvelous. The chemistry between him and the orchestra is as evident as ever here and his way of opening up and relayering the textures, combined with his accurate sense of musical line and inner detail, and the intensely glowing sound of the SD make for a very special reading. DG sometimes had problems recording in the Lukaskirche, some of the recordings they made there are really a little too distant (like the 3rd and 4th), but here, they got it totally right and found the right balance between distance and immediacy, detail and presence and atmosphere. It sounds great.
Another recording in which they got that totally "right", BTW, is the Heldenleben with Sinopoli. The sheer beauty and complexity of the sound as captured by DG is pretty overwhelming, and it is musically a great reading, too. Sinopoli later said about the time he became principal conductor of the SD "the first thing I had to do is to teach them how to play Strauss". One might think that was a strange remark given that the SD is *the* Strauss orchestra - but the way he said that wasn't arrogant at all, it came with a smile and a wink. What he meant was that he wasn't overawed by the orchestra's unique Strauss performing tradition, he was still able to review it critically and fuse what he called the "art deco sound" of the orchestra with his own personal view of the music.

[PerfectWagnerite]

How did you know that? Because I am known as a fanatic Mravinsky collector?

I have the NYP Bruckner 6, but thanks for the offer.

The Sinopoli/SD 8th is marvelous. The chemistry between him and the orchestra is as evident as ever here and his way of opening up and relayering the textures, combined with his accurate sense of musical line and inner detail, and the intensely glowing sound of the SD make for a very special reading. DG sometimes had problems recording in the Lukaskirche, some of the recordings they made there are really a little too distant (like the 3rd and 4th), but here, they got it totally right and found the right balance between distance and immediacy, detail and presence and atmosphere. It sounds great.

The 6th I have is from this:


not sure whether it is the same as his SONY 6th.

The only Sinopoli/Bruckner I have is 3 and 5. I don't remember the 3rd much but I remember the 5th being fanatically intense. Every nuance stands out in relief and you can almost visualize the score in your head. I almost had a 4th (almost in the sense that I saw it in the used CD store. But that day I didn't have my walet so I said: what the heck, let me get it next week and next week it was a goner )

[PerfectWagnerite]

Okay, some more stuff:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZalbyzhao

For some of you modernists I have listed the complete symphonies of Valen and the 9 symphonies of Robert Simpson. Check them out, you may like them

[M forever]

I don't know of a Bruckner 6 on Sony either, the one from the NYP live set is also the one I have. Apart from this and the WP 9th on DG, the only other Bruckner recording by Bernstein I know is the NYP 9th on Sony.

It is interesting that you say

I don't remember the 3rd much but I remember the 5th being fanatically intense. Every nuance stands out in relief and you can almost visualize the score in your head.

because the Gramophone review said

Publishers publish ‘study’ scores, but no marketing guru has ever come up with the idea of the ‘study’ recording. They exist, of course: recordings which do us the singular honour of providing an interpretation while at the same time allowing us to hear all the notes. This doesn’t suit every piece of music (‘Gentleman,’ Richard Strauss once said, ‘Give me an impression of the music!’), nor does it suit all listeners. How will this new Dresden Bruckner Fifth be listened to? Analytically, score in hand, or half-waking in a favourite armchair waiting for the Grail to descend? I mention these possibilities because this is a study recording par excellence, as close as we have come on record to being provided with a sound facsimile of the symphony’s printed page.

Such an undertaking requires immense discipline from the orchestra, the balance engineer (Klaus Hiemann) and the conductor. On this form the Staatskapelle Dresden have no peer. The sound is characterful, the ensemble exact, the concentration absolute. There must be a quarter of a million notes in this symphony and we hear practically all of them more or less flawlessly delivered. (A hair’s-breadth wobble by a player it would be invidious to identify is an event in itself.)

I described the engineering on Sinopoli’s Bruckner Ninth (DG, 6/99) as ‘intensely concentrated: not cold as such but fiercely analytical’. Whether that entirely suited the Ninth is a moot point. The Fifth, though, is very well suited, for it is arguably the most intricately crafted of all Bruckner’s symphonies. The myriad ways in which themes combine and recombine is a source of endless fascination, albeit one hitherto best examined in the silence of the study.

Sinopoli is here more the alpha-quality Kapellmeister than the Bruckner ‘interpreter’. The text is his passion; his trust in it is absolute, his patience immense.

which is basically the exact same view, in more words.

[PerfectWagnerite]

I don't know of a Bruckner 6 on Sony either, the one from the NYP live set is also the one I have. Apart from this and the WP 9th on DG, the only other Bruckner recording by Bernstein I know is the NYP 9th on Sony.

It is interesting that you say

because the Gramophone review said

Publishers publish 'study' scores, but no marketing guru has ever come up with the idea of the 'study' recording. They exist, of course: recordings which do us the singular honour of providing an interpretation while at the same time allowing us to hear all the notes. etc, etc

I don't read Gramophone. Years ago I used to but I think they have a lot of pro-British biased (they lionized every recording by Rattle) so I stopped reading them. Interestingly I was reading classicstoday.com and they didn't seem to like the Sinopoli 5th too much. They didn't rip him like they ripped his 9th (would love to hear that one also) but they didn't exactly glorify that recording.

[Drasko]

I don't know of a Bruckner 6 on Sony either

Don't think there is one.

[M forever]

I don't read Gramophone. Years ago I used to but I think they have a lot of pro-British biased (they lionized every recording by Rattle) so I stopped reading them. Interestingly I was reading classicstoday.com and they didn't seem to like the Sinopoli 5th too much. They didn't rip him like they ripped his 9th (would love to hear that one also) but they didn't exactly glorify that recording.

Gramophone may be a little pro-British biased (which I actually never thought that much), but that's OK, one can take that into account. Most of the reviews are still well written and there is a lot of knowledge behind them. Classicstoday is by and only for idiots. It gives some the impression that their revews are "critical" and "controversial" or "provocative", but most of the stuff there that I have read is just plainly idiotic. The way this works is that people like Hurwitz give their readers the feeling that they can adapt "strong opinions" by reading Cassicstoday. But Hurwitz himself is just hot air, a hobby musician with no real knowledge and understanding of musical performance style. But a lot of dramatic rhetorics. Pretty tragical actually.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Gramophone may be a little pro-British biased (which I actually never thought that much), but that's OK, one can take that into account. Most of the reviews are still well written and there is a lot of knowledge behind them. Classicstoday is by and only for idiots. It gives some the impression that their revews are "critical" and "controversial" or "provocative", but most of the stuff there that I have read is just plainly idiotic. The way this works is that people like Hurwitz give their readers the feeling that they can adapt "strong opinions" by reading Cassicstoday. But Hurwitz himself is just hot air, a hobby musician with no real knowledge and understanding of musical performance style. But a lot of dramatic rhetorics. Pretty tragical actually.

There is one guy on Classicstoday.com, Robert Levine, who reviews opera who is pretty much tone-deaf I think. Performance preferences aside, there are some aspects of a recording that is not debatable. For example, Abbado's Aida on Opera D'oro he thinks the sound is pretty good. Now unless my copy is defective the sonics on that recording is unlistenable. It is from the '70s and most recordings from the '40s sound better. THen there are the likes of Victor Carr Jr. who never heard a recording he doesn't give a 10/10 rating.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Okay, more stuff this week for those of you interested in something off the beaten path:

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZalbyzhao

[M forever]

If I buy several items at once, can you reduce the shipping cost by bundling them in one shipment?