Historical Recordings

Started by George, April 07, 2007, 06:09:15 PM

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Novi

Quote from: Bill on April 15, 2007, 09:14:08 PM
As posted on the purchase thread:

From the Music & Arts Program label:

   

Based on the available samples, I am pleased with the transfers here, but even more so with what I can hear within the performances, especially on the Brahms' set....I will report more when they arrive.


That Brahms set is great. His 4th is right up there for me for rugged excitement. The B flat PC with Edwin Fischer is pretty great too, but as far as I recall, the sound was quite bleugh.
Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraum
Ein leiser Ton gezogen
Für den der heimlich lauschet.

Bogey

Quote from: Novitiate on April 16, 2007, 04:18:15 AM
That Brahms set is great. His 4th is right up there for me for rugged excitement. The B flat PC with Edwin Fischer is pretty great too, but as far as I recall, the sound was quite bleugh.

In sampling I noticed that the sound seemed the "roughest" with the Piano Concerto.....
There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Bogey

#42
As posted on the "Listening" thread....besides, this repeat post helps bring the "Historical" thread off the back pages. ;D



Beethoven

Symphony No. 3 ('44)
Symphony No. 5 ('43)
Symphony No. 9 ('42)


Furtwängler/VPO #3/BPO #'s 5 and 9 (Music & Arts)

After this triad, I am pretty much exhausted.  Though the sound can be a bit rough in places, the performances more than make up for what some may see as audio shortcomings.  The 3rd and 4th movements of the 5th were absolutely incredible....the 9th's Adagio was one of the best I have ever heard...etc., etc., etc.

As for shortcomings so far from this set, the 6th that I listened to earlier today did have poor enough sound that it distracted me from the performance.  I am yet to listen to the 4th and 7th, and unfortunately there is not a recording of the 1st (one of my favorites) and the 2nd.  However, these shortcomings do not even come close to dampening my pleasure of having this on my shelf.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys "historical" recordings, even without having heard the 4th and 7th.

There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Que

#43
Quote from: Bill on April 19, 2007, 07:34:39 PM
As posted on the "Listening" thread....besides, this repeat post helps bring the "Historical" thread off the back pages. ;D



Beethoven

Symphony No. 3 ('44)
Symphony No. 5 ('43)
Symphony No. 9 ('42)


Furtwängler/VPO #3/BPO #'s 5 and 9 (Music & Arts)

After this triad, I am pretty much exhausted.  Though the sound can be a bit rough in places, the performances more than make up for what some may see as audio shortcomings.  The 3rd and 4th movements of the 5th were absolutely incredible....the 9th's Adagio was one of the best I have ever heard...etc., etc., etc.

As for shortcomings so far from this set, the 6th that I listened to earlier today did have poor enough sound that it distracted me from the performance.  I am yet to listen to the 4th and 7th, and unfortunately there is not a recording of the 1st (one of my favorites) and the 2nd.  However, these shortcomings do not even come close to dampening my pleasure of having this on my shelf.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys "historical" recordings, even without having heard the 4th and 7th.

Those performances are terrific stuff, Bill.
I keep coming back to them, in addition to some of his postwar recordings which are markedly different.

Haven't heard the transfers on M&A. These recordings come in several incarnations with differences in sound. The story of Furtwängler's wartime recordings is a bit complicated one. 
In short: several performances were recorded on tape, which is unique for that time. Most tapes were stolen by the Russians after the war and the recordings were issued on Melodiya. Much later - late 80's I believe - "the tapes" were returned to Germany and recordings were issued on DG.

There are several sources. The tapes DG has - and I seriously doubt if those arre the original ones. If they were, their quality must have been deteriorating over the years, as the quality of tapes ussually does. Second are copies floating around that were made by the Russians. Third are the LP's Melodyia issued when the original tapes were still in good condition - Opus Kura is issuing transfers from those. With the best results, I think.

I have most wartime recordings in this set on Tahra, in relatively good sound.



Q





Bogey

Quote from: Que on April 19, 2007, 08:48:48 PM
Those performances are terrific stuff, Bill.
I keep coming back to them, in addtiton to some of his postwar recoridngs which are markedly different.

Haven't heard the transfers on M&A. These recordings come in several incarnations with differences in sound. The story of Furtwängler's wartime recordings is a bit complicated one. 
In short: several performances were recorded on tape, which is unique for that time. Most tapes were stolen by the Russians after the war and the recordings were issued on Melodyia. Much later - late 80's I believe - "the tapes" were returned to Germany and recordings were issued on DG.

There are several sources. The tapes DG has - and I seriously doubt if those were the original ones. If they were, their quality must have been deteriorating over the years, as tapes do. Second are copies floating around that were made by the Russians. Third are the LP's Melodyia issued when the original tapes were still in good condition - Opus Kura is issuing transfers from those. With the best results, I think.

I have most wartime recordings in this set on Tahra, in relatively good sound.





Q


That was very helpful.  Any other info on these recordings that you may recall Que would be appreciated.  It seems that Opus Kura is spreading out the Beethoven recordings and not boxing them together.  I am about to embark on this set tomorrow:

There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

George

Quote from: Que on April 19, 2007, 08:48:48 PM
Those performances are terrific stuff, Bill.
I keep coming back to them, in addition to some of his postwar recordings which are markedly different.

I realize that he has multiple recordings of at least some of the symphonies. Can you say more about the differences between them?





George

Quote from: Bill on April 19, 2007, 07:34:39 PM
As posted on the "Listening" thread....besides, this repeat post helps bring the "Historical" thread off the back pages. ;D



Beethoven

Symphony No. 3 ('44)
Symphony No. 5 ('43)
Symphony No. 9 ('42)


Furtwängler/VPO #3/BPO #'s 5 and 9 (Music & Arts)

After this triad, I am pretty much exhausted.  Though the sound can be a bit rough in places, the performances more than make up for what some may see as audio shortcomings.  The 3rd and 4th movements of the 5th were absolutely incredible....the 9th's Adagio was one of the best I have ever heard...etc., etc., etc.

As for shortcomings so far from this set, the 6th that I listened to earlier today did have poor enough sound that it distracted me from the performance.  I am yet to listen to the 4th and 7th, and unfortunately there is not a recording of the 1st (one of my favorites) and the 2nd.  However, these shortcomings do not even come close to dampening my pleasure of having this on my shelf.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys "historical" recordings, even without having heard the 4th and 7th.



Thanks for your review, Bill. Glad to hear you enjoyed it!  :)

Choo Choo

Have you heard the #7 from this set?

If it's the one I'm thinking of, it's performed superbly ... but alas there is terrible overload distortion in the 2nd movement - as if the recording engineer had set the level too high to cope with the quiet start, and then walked away leaving it like that.

George

Quote from: Bill on April 19, 2007, 07:34:39 PM
....unfortunately there is not a recording of the 1st (one of my favorites) and the 2nd... 

Just saw this, Bill:

http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/Orchestral/MA792.php

Bogey

Quote from: George on April 20, 2007, 03:25:13 AM
Just saw this, Bill:

http://www.pristineclassical.com/LargeWorks/Orchestral/MA792.php

Thank you for that George.....this may be the way to go.  I was hoping to locate "war-time" recordings, but it seems that those may not exist.
There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Que

Quote from: Bill on April 20, 2007, 04:47:06 AM
Thank you for that George.....this may be the way to go.  I was hoping to locate "war-time" recordings, but it seems that those may not exist.

Bill, no war-time recordings by Furtwängler exist for LvB nos. 1, 2 & 8 - so you have them all neatly in that M&A set!  :)

Q

Bunny

Talking about "Historic Recordings" does anyone know anything about these transfers:  The first is the 1938 Bruno Walter Mahler 9th and the second is a tranfer of Artur Schnabel doing the Eroica and Diabelli Variations.  They are made by Stephen Worth and are available through his website, VIP Records


Que

Rolf Otterhouse posted on yahoo's rmcr a link to this interesting Guide to 78 rpm's on the site of the UK based Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music.

Q

dtwilbanks

Quote from: Que on May 20, 2007, 02:38:26 AM
Rolf Otterhouse posted on yahoo's rmcr a link to this interesting Guide to 78 rpm's on the site of the UK based Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music.

Q

Good old Rolf.

Does anyone else here collect 78s? I don't but think it would be fun to do.

chrisg

I'll put in a plug for Hubert Wendel's Mengelberg transfers, which get raves from the fan club at rmcr.  I've got a handful of these, with no disappointments. 

http://perso.orange.fr/mengelberg/index.html

cg

E d o

Chris,
Thanks for the link. You've sparked my interest. I may have to grab the Mahler 4 to see if it beats the transfer in the ridiculously cheap Membran box that I recently acquired. I love Mengelberg's almost chamber like take on the fourth and want the best transfer available. I notice that Wendel doesn't use noise reduction. Would you say noise is as noticeable in his transfers as it is in Pearl's?

chrisg

Edo,

The only Pearl recording I have is Schnabel's Beethoven Sonata set, so making any real comparison is unfair. Having said that, none of the Wendel recordings I have come remotely close to the noise level in that set.  I think I've got a high tolerance for the sound of old recordings, but the Pearl Schnabel set is too much for me.  I've heard the same recordings on EMI, which are so over processed with noise reduction that it's just as unlistenable.  When Mr. Wendel says he doesn't use noise filtering, I'm sure that's the sort of thing he's talking about - like the "Cedar" crap used by pirate labels on other label's real transfers.  He does say he applies a careful de-clicking, which from my experience transferring my LP's to CD, is mostly a manual, and non-destructive process when done right  I'm certainly sold on the quality of his work.

I have the Mahler 4th in the Q-Disc Mengelberg set (which got good reviews for the quality of the transfers) and excessive noise and/or filtering is not an issue. 

The best source I've found for information on the Wendel releases, or for historical recordings in general, is the newsgroup rec.music.classical.recordings.  You can either jump in, or search the archives with Google groups advanced search.   

http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?q=&hl=en&

cg

George

Mark posted a link to this indredible site for Historical Downloads.

Entire works for just one euro!! I've already tried it. The sound is decent and they have a nice selection!

:o


Que

#58
An advertisement in The Gramohone on a new historical label caught my eye.

The label is called Medici Masters (see link) and is an offshoot of BBC Legends. The majority seems recordings from the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), which is an interesting source.

Issues that I could find at MDT - looks like another treasure trove!  :)

Q


Harry Collier

Quote from: Que on April 09, 2007, 06:09:54 AM
I thought this might be interesting - it is posted on rmcr.
Does anyone have experience with issues by Pristine Classical? :)

Q

I have a couple of Pristine Audio issues: the Cortot-Thibaud recording of Beethoven' Kreutzer sonata, and the 1936 Weingartner transfer of Beethoven's Eroica. Both CDs are truly first class; in fact, the Weingartner is pretty miraculous and could easily be mistaken for a recording twenty years later.