What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[prémont]

Re: Weingartner's Bach

Well, my opinion on Weingartner so far is that his set is a mixed bag. Major attractions are the quality of the recordings, the wonderful instruments that are used and Weingartner's well informed and generally expressive style. Frustrating is that Weingartners hits the nail right on the head and goes for it on several occassions, just to return ot downright plodding and dragging performances in other instances.... Though he is by no means like Harald Vogel, who in a historically correct style, wonderfully recorded and on great instrumenst plods right through Buxtehude's entire organ œuvre...

Q

Who is Weingartner, certainly not Felix, maybe Infelix, - I suppose you think of Gerhard Weinberger. And your words about him hit the nail on the head. He is unfortunately very variable, but I think he is first rank, when best.

His HIP mate Ewald Koiiman is in my opinion more reliable and generally more inspired, and I look very much forward to his new Bach integral on Aeolus, even if I find, that a complete set played on Andreas Silbermann organs (the ones in Ebersmünster, Marmoutier and Buxviller) may run the risk of missing the Bach organ idiom.

[Renfield]

In honour of Gurn, I ultimately decided on this entirely uncommon (for me) pre-Romantic listening, which I'd picked up on a whim a while ago...

[Que]

Who is Weingartner, certainly not Felix, maybe Infelix, - I suppose you think of Gerhard Weinberger.

Oops! Too much Wein, I guess. (or work, rather..)

And your words about him hit the nail on the head. He is unfortunately very variable, but I think he is first rank, when best.

Agreed. And I probably will get the set because of that.

His HIP mate Ewald Koiiman is in my opinion more reliable and generally more inspired, and I look very much forward to his new Bach integral on Aeolus, even if I find, that a complete set played on Andreas Silbermann organs (the ones in Ebersmünster, Marmoutier and Buxviller) may run the risk of missing the Bach organ idiom.

I have bad news. Just checked the Aeolus site for this reply and found that Ewald Kooiman has died just over a month ago...

Q

[prémont]

Ok, as I thought one must have all Karajan cycles. Am I wrong in thinking there are five?
1) EMI 1950es with Philharmonia
2) DG 1962 BPO
3) DG 1977 BPO
4) DG 1980es BPO
5) I have some idea of a DVD set, different from the CD sets.

PS: I never favored (American spelling, I know) the sound of the BPO, - it is in my opinion too string and especially too bass-heavy. Still I get some enjoyment from Cluytens Beethoven cycle from the late 1950es, before the orchestra became heavily Karajanized.

[Kullervo]

I misread that title as "Concerti perch archi"  

Once again:



Magical indeed.

[prémont]

Oops! Too much Wein, I guess. (or work, rather..)

Do you work with wine?

I have bad news. Just checked and found that Ewald Kooiman has died just over a month ago...

Certainly bad news.  I hope this will result in a rerelease of his second integral on Coronata.

[jlaurson]

Ok, as I thought one must have all Karajan cycles. Am I wrong in thinking there are five?
1) EMI 1950es with Philharmonia
2) DG 1962 BPO
3) DG 1977 BPO
4) DG 1980es BPO
5) I have some idea of a DVD set, different from the CD sets.

I think you are wrong, actually. As far as I've come to understand, you are right about 1 through 4.
The DVD cycles are not additional cycles, though.
There's one on SONY which I believe is analogous to #4 (Berlin III)
There's on on Unitel/DG which I believe is analogous to #3 (Berlin II)

[prémont]

I think you are wrong, actually. As far as I've come to understand, you are right about 1 through 4.
The DVD cycles are not additional cycles, though.
There's one on SONY which I believe is analogous to #4 (Berlin III)
There's on on Unitel/DG which I believe is analogous to #3 (Berlin II)

Thanks for clearing up this, Jens.

But what have you got to say about which cycle(s) to own?

[jwinter]

Ok, as I thought one must have all Karajan cycles. Am I wrong in thinking there are five?
1) EMI 1950es with Philharmonia
2) DG 1962 BPO
3) DG 1977 BPO
4) DG 1980es BPO
5) I have some idea of a DVD set, different from the CD sets.

PS: I never favored (American spelling, I know) the sound of the BPO, - it is in my opinion too string and especially too bass-heavy. Still I get some enjoyment from Cluytens Beethoven cycle from the late 1950es, before the orchestra became heavily Karajanized.

I think you may be right about the 5 cycles -- not sure about the DG DVD, I know the Sony DVD is the 80s DG CD set. 

But I have to say, owning all 4 cycles on CD, I think Karajan's approach to Beethoven was fairly consistent over the years, so I couldn't recommend getting all of them unless to a serious collector (which many of us are, I know -- I was for a long while, though not as much anymore).  Hindsight being 20/20, I'd have been much better served years ago by picking up other interpretations of Beethoven (or indeed of something else entirely) rather than all of that Karajan, and if somebody snuck into my house tonight and purloined 3 of my sets, leaving me with either the 60s or 70s one, I don't know that I'd bother to replace any of the others.  If I had to make a Karajan Beethoven recommendation today, I'd say get the SACD 60s set, with perhaps the remastered double of 5, 6 & 9 from the 70s set as a supplement (all three being improvements, particularly the 6th -- the Penguin Guide was right in pointing out that it was a shrewdly chosen 2-fer).

Thread Duty:  Mahler 2 -- Solti/CSO, Barbirolli/Stuttgart

[ChamberNut]

Part II of my tribute to "The Gurn" (even though I know it's not HIP....it's still Haydn) 

Haydn

String Quartet in B flat major, Op. 76/4 Sunrise
String Quartet in D major, Op. 76/5 Largo
String Quartet in E flat major, Op. 76/6

Kodaly Qt.
Naxos

[George]

if somebody snuck into my house tonight and purloined 3 of my sets, leaving me with either the 60s or 70s one, I don't know that I'd bother to replace any of the others. 

Yes!!! Those are the two sets I own. 

[Jay F]

I continue to listen to Chailly's Mahler. I have on M2 now and, as in the other symphonies I mentioned, he takes things at a deliberative pace. I'm enjoying it, mostly -- it is Mahler, after all -- but I'm glad it's not the first Mahler I ever heard. Actually, I don't believe I wouldn't have liked Mahler if Chailly's were the first I heard, it's just so different from what I'm used to.

[Contrapunctus666]

6th symphony by Beethoven(Bohm).

[karlhenning]

I misread that title as "Concerti perch archi"  

Nevermore!

[prémont]

If I had to make a Karajan Beethoven recommendation today, I'd say get the SACD 60s set, with perhaps the remastered double of 5, 6 & 9 from the 70s set as a supplement (all three being improvements, particularly the 6th -- the Penguin Guide was right in pointing out that it was a shrewdly chosen 2-fer).

Thanks, JW, this was what I needed to know.

[prémont]

...Ewald Kooiman has died just over a month ago...

Afterthought: Reading about the Aeolus project maybe four months ago, I got the thought (but just for one short minute), that he might not live to complete it.

[DavidRoss]

6th symphony by Beethoven(Bohm).

One of the nicer overstuffed Pastorals in my experience.  I listened to the opening of half a dozen different recordings the other night before finding one that agreed with me (after spoiling my aural palate with Brüggen's 6th a few days before), but this was not among those I tried.  Think I'll give it a spin now; for some reason I don't seem to be able to get enough of the 6th these days.

[jlaurson]

Thanks for clearing up this, Jens.
But what have you got to say about which cycle(s) to own?

I think I said the relevant bits here: http://www.weta.org/fmblog/?p=433.

...Karajan-77 might in some ways be the better Karajan-Beethoven cycle – namely because it is more typical of Karajan and what he had achieved with the Berlin Philharmonic in the many years they were his orchestra.

I don't have the complete 4th cycle--and the three discs of it that I do have (1/2, 5/6, 9)--didn't leave much of an impression beyond what I state in the above:

...the 80's cycle might be considered as the exaggerated characteristic of everything that was questionable about Karajan's particular approach – a trend toward homogeneity gone wrong, with edges first overstated, then smoothed over, and captured in sound worse than either of the predecessors.

The Philharmonia cycle I've not heard. I'm not terribly keen on trying it out, I should admit, because often I don't find early recordings all that interesting... Then again: Maybe I should... after all Karajan/Philharmonia are responsible for THIS Till Eulenspiegel.

I was VERY happily surprised by the Third cycle, which I had never considered until it was sent to me. Since I consider the second cycle ('66) a "standard" (which means "very good" but it also means "replaceable" with another excellent set), but the third one of great character, I'd probably recommend the latter over the former to anyone who already has an acceptable first and/or second cycle.

I'd certainly not like to part with it... but if I were left with only three cycles, I'm not sure if it would be among them.  The only one that I'd surely keep is Barenboim... and once my Vanska cycle is complete (I'm still lacking the 9th), that'd be up there, too... though I await P.Jaervi and T.Dausgaard to see if they can improve, further. I guess my foil would be Gardiner, whose Eroica was my touchstone until P.Jaervi came along.

[Henk]

Great works, great performances, great sound, cheap box.

[George]

Great works, great performances, great sound, cheap box.

Great pianist.