Bach's Bungalow

Started by aquablob, April 06, 2007, 02:42:33 PM

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Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

milk

Quote from: Mandryka on April 12, 2019, 04:15:52 AM
Fray's good. Capucon's not bad.
If you ever get a chance, there's Nicolas Dautricourt and Juho Pohjonen. I'd be interested in your thoughts by comparison. I forget which one is the violinist but I think the violin is a bit more assured and the recordings is more energetic. But I have to get to headphones to really compare. I love Fray's past Bach recordings.

milk


This is my favorite recording of these pieces. I'm listening to this and thinking the baroque violin sounds infinitely better than recordings with modern violin.

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

Quote from: milk on April 14, 2019, 05:45:13 AM

This is my favorite recording of these pieces. I'm listening to this and thinking the baroque violin sounds infinitely better than recordings with modern violin.

Your comment sparked my interest, then I saw that on amazon it has only one review, which is disparaging in a way that tends to make be think the recording is very good. Alas, seems to be out-of-print and sporadically available an unattractive prices.

milk

Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 15, 2019, 08:25:33 AM
Your comment sparked my interest, then I saw that on amazon it has only one review, which is disparaging in a way that tends to make be think the recording is very good. Alas, seems to be out-of-print and sporadically available an unattractive prices.
I can understand why people might prefer different Baroque recordings. I don't agree with the Amazon comment about intonation. But, the violinist is a bit "atmospheric" I think. Maybe people prefer very muscular-sounding violin work. Mangoire is like a soft pillow surround song the harpsichord. But she's not brittle the way the modern violinists are - to me - that brittle squeaky modern violin with the anxious sounding vibrato mars the rustic beauty of these works IMO. I guess there are some great alternatives with baroque violin that take these pieces in a different direction.

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

Quote from: milk on April 15, 2019, 03:29:13 PM
I can understand why people might prefer different Baroque recordings. I don't agree with the Amazon comment about intonation. But, the violinist is a bit "atmospheric" I think. Maybe people prefer very muscular-sounding violin work. Mangoire is like a soft pillow surround song the harpsichord. But she's not brittle the way the modern violinists are - to me - that brittle squeaky modern violin with the anxious sounding vibrato mars the rustic beauty of these works IMO. I guess there are some great alternatives with baroque violin that take these pieces in a different direction.

As soon as I see a criticism of intonation I immediately assume the referee is an ignoramus. :) Your description of the violin sound is very attractive. I was hoping to find a lossless download of the recordings but I've not come across one yet.

Que

Quote from: milk on April 14, 2019, 05:45:13 AM

This is my favorite recording of these pieces. I'm listening to this and thinking the baroque violin sounds infinitely better than recordings with modern violin.

My favourite as well....  :)

(Alongside the older, more introvert Kuiken/Leonhardt recording).

Q

milk

Quote from: Que on April 15, 2019, 09:23:00 PM
My favourite as well....  :)

(Alongside the older, more introvert Kuiken/Leonhardt recording).

Q
I should try that. I have a bunch of these like Elizabeth Blumenstock & John Butt and Podger/Pinnock, etc. But  get stuck on the Rannou/Malgoire - I love it so much. I'm not sure if Malgoire has recorded much else as a primary. I have to check.

PerfectWagnerite

Sorry I couldn't help but noticing Bach only has 29 pages on this thread. How is that possible?

Mandryka

If you like Malgoire be sure to try this, which for me was a bit of an eye opener

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Ghost of Baron Scarpia on April 15, 2019, 08:25:33 AM
Your comment sparked my interest, then I saw that on amazon it has only one review, which is disparaging in a way that tends to make be think the recording is very good. Alas, seems to be out-of-print and sporadically available an unattractive prices.

I've never heard this one and I'm hoping that someone will kindly upload it for me . . . however your comment made me think of this very nice recording which received a gloriously disparaging review in Gramaphone




QuoteMusical sea-sickness pervades this curious recording of Bach's mesmerising gamba sonatas. The opening bars augur well with the plangent reticence of the Adagio of the G major Sonata but after that Guido Balestracci enters into a musical rhetoric of striking incoherence. It revolves around a policy of pulling up – even stopping – at cadences, a mannerism which bafflingly truncates the phrasing and, at worst, does so when the musical logic suggests otherwise. Blandine Rannou soldiers on but the harpsichord is already so recessed as to establish her role as assuredly supporting.

There are a few moments of relieving ordinariness (such as in the gentle sequencing of the Trio, BWV528) but the great G minor Sonata – a kind of implied concerto – continues to harness the wrong points of interest; rather as in a fine monologue, the sense is distorted by an actor who fails to distinguish between poetic moment and syntactical necessity. The first movement gets slower and more ponderous as the cadences again become the catalyst for needless fragmentation.

The D major Sonata comes out least affected and there is the occasional moment of plausible phrasing, but throughout the gamba sounds decidedly short of the body, colour, bite and personality (odd, given how unrelentingly close is the sound) to convey these remarkable works with the eloquence they deserve. For all the natural facility, severe misjudgement underpins this disappointment.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on April 16, 2019, 08:11:05 AM
Sorry I couldn't help but noticing Bach only has 29 pages on this thread. How is that possible?

Start posting, then!
:)

Jo498

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on April 16, 2019, 08:11:05 AM
Sorry I couldn't help but noticing Bach only has 29 pages on this thread. How is that possible?
There are many other threads for more specific subsets of Bach's music. Considerate posters write in the more specialized threads that are more focussed.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

Jo498

Didn't you see what I was responding to? I was mainly offering an explanation why this thread is fairly "short".

I don't think I ever bothered anyone by "moderating" and complaining that s/he was posting in the wrong thread (although I do think that it is a disservice to the usability of the forum).
Not even complained about you posting the same link to your often paywalled reviews in up to three parallel threads...
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

milk

#574
Quote from: Mandryka on April 16, 2019, 08:13:20 AM
If you like Malgoire be sure to try this, which for me was a bit of an eye opener


Oh great! Thanks I'm really looking forward to it!

Quote from: Mandryka on April 16, 2019, 08:49:07 AM
I've never heard this one and I'm hoping that someone will kindly upload it for me . . . however your comment made me think of this very nice recording which received a gloriously disparaging review in Gramaphone


This Gramaphone review is hilarious. I've got to hear this!

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

#575
I've found the gamba sonatas can be downloaded individually



From a box set on Prestoclassical.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8047746--bach-sons

Anyone know of a place where a lossless download of the violin sonatas can be found



The box set contains recordings of the violin sonatas by a different pair of performers.

SurprisedByBeauty

Quote from: Jo498 on April 17, 2019, 12:42:24 AM
Didn't you see what I was responding to? I was mainly offering an explanation why this thread is fairly "short".

I don't think I ever bothered anyone by "moderating" and complaining that s/he was posting in the wrong thread (although I do think that it is a disservice to the usability of the forum).

Then I mis-understood your post even more than I thought. Sorry.

calyptorhynchus

I suspect that with Bach he is so well recorded that everyone has managed to find 'their' Bach. A lot of the threads here are lamenting the lack of recordings, or pointing out the flaws in the few recordings available, of one composer or another.
'Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth.' Robert Burton

PerfectWagnerite

Quote from: calyptorhynchus on April 17, 2019, 01:21:16 PM
I suspect that with Bach he is so well recorded that everyone has managed to find 'their' Bach. A lot of the threads here are lamenting the lack of recordings, or pointing out the flaws in the few recordings available, of one composer or another.
Maybe, my theory is the "classical music" as we know is dominated by Austrian/German composers of the Romantic and post-Romantic era. Look at how many pages in the Bruckner and Mahler threads.

Ghost of Baron Scarpia

Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on April 17, 2019, 02:13:50 PM
Maybe, my theory is the "classical music" as we know is dominated by Austrian/German composers of the Romantic and post-Romantic era. Look at how many pages in the Bruckner and Mahler threads.

That doesn't explain the huge relative size of the Brian thread.

It is just that Bach discussion doesn't typically end up in the Bach thread. It doesn't collect the hundreds or thousands of posts in which people report on their 50th recording of the WTC or 100th recording of the unaccompanied cello suites, or their rage that someone did (or didn't) use vibrato, a male alto, a harpsichord, in performance of a certain work.