Franz Schubert

[Pohjolas Daughter]

This Britten recording is in the "Britten the Performer" box, so looking forward to listening to it later.

I have about a half dozen of those CDs and I really enjoy them.  I have a disc with Schubert on it, but alas that work isn't on it.  I'm trying to remember, how many CDs are in that set?  Just double-checked, I have seven of them.

PD

[Jo498]

Britten the Performer has Britten playing/conducting (mostly) non-Britten and it's 27 discs! I got this years ago cheaply and never listened to all of it, I think. And there is even more in live recordings of course.
Schubert's Arpeggione with Rostropovich, Songs with Pears and piano 4hand with Richter was also issued on single discs.

[lordlance]

An absolute knockout Schubert 8 from a completely unexpected source:




Movement I
Movement II

Forgot to add the second movement turned out to be boring because of the lethargic tempi. A shame.

[Brian]

The Unfinished has a real problem with lethargic tempi - most often in the first movement in my opinion. It's marked "allegro moderato" but most recordings start at allegretto and droop down to andante.

My ideal recording would have HIP style tempi but romantic emotional expression and depth. This is a difficult combination - a lot of faster interpreters (e.g. Dausgaard) are too facile.

[Spotted Horses]

The Unfinished has a real problem with lethargic tempi - most often in the first movement in my opinion. It's marked "allegro moderato" but most recordings start at allegretto and droop down to andante.

My ideal recording would have HIP style tempi but romantic emotional expression and depth. This is a difficult combination - a lot of faster interpreters (e.g. Dausgaard) are too facile.

Not difficult at all

[Brian]

Not difficult at all

Oh! This is not the Teldec Harnoncourt recording in the Concertgebouw box. I didn't know there was another one outside the cycle.

EDIT: Wait, the first movement takes 16 minutes??!?

[Jo498]

Yes, that's my least favorite Harnoncourt recording. There nothing HIP about it, it's personal (not to say idiosyncratic!) and the most leaden, dreary, bleak, but in a boring way, recording of the piece I encountered.
(The one with the Concertgebouw is better but still very slow and no fav, I have not heard any of the surfaced live recordings with Berlin or ECO)

The fastest HIP recordings I know are by Weil/Tafelmusik and Spering/Das Neue Orchester but they are both so fast and lean that many might not like them anyway; the contrasts between the movements are lessened but for the opposite reason as usual, namely fast andantes. A slowish and weighty HIP one is Brüggen's.

[Jo498]

Kleiber too Toscaninian? It's reasonably fast but not too cool. Klemperer is surprisingly quick as well but of course massive in sound and not very flexible. Don't remember Munch's but his C major is one of my favorites, fast but flexible.
Or even older, try Mengelberg but again I can't quite recall his Unfinished. Same for Abendroth who, like Mengelberg, is often a "faster Furtwängler", the last two of course being in 1940s/50s historical sound.

[Spotted Horses]

Oh! This is not the Teldec Harnoncourt recording in the Concertgebouw box. I didn't know there was another one outside the cycle.

EDIT: Wait, the first movement takes 16 minutes??!?

Not everyone takes the exposition repeat. I found it revelatory, when I listened to it decades ago. I remember it was accompanied by very interesting linear notes by Harnoncourt himself.

[DavidW]

A slowish and weighty HIP one is Brüggen's.

Yup my go to at 15:27.

[Leo K.]

Not difficult at all

This is my top Schubert 8. It's so dark and crushing, amazing sonics too.

[Mandryka]

This is my top Schubert 8. It's so dark and crushing, amazing sonics too.

I shall have to hear it!

By the way, I found Scherchen a few months ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm9vKoBz9Os&ab_channel=VerlorneFeldwacht

[prémont]

Van Beinums ,,unvollendete" ist vollendet.

[Que]

Erich Kleiber, Josef Krips, Jos van Immerseel. 

[Mandryka]

Not difficult at all

A most unusual performance - he seems to hold onto the notes in the first movement. Feeling a bit disoriented by it to be honest! But maybe that's not a bad thing in music like this.

I was going to write "familiar music like this" but it seems wrong. The unfinished seems to be one of those pieces which sounds constantly fresh even though I've been listening to it frequently since I was about 10. Somehow always new. Inexhaustible music, yet I feel I could hum most of it.

[Mandryka]

Van Beinums ,,unvollendete" ist vollendet.

Has it ever made it off LP?

Found it on Eloquence - that's a bit of a shock to the system after the Harnoncourt! 

[prémont]

Found it on Eloquence - that's a bit of a shock to the system after the Harnoncourt! 

Which system? Your HI-FI system or your circulatory system. Or both?

[Mandryka]

Just discovered an amazing thing, the B flat major quartet D112. It is like Elliott Carter's first quartet -- an unbridled outpouring of bold original creative ideas. The booklet to this rather good Sorrel Quartet performance is here

https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/CH9700.pdf

[LKB]

A most unusual performance - he seems to hold onto the notes in the first movement. Feeling a bit disoriented by it to be honest! But maybe that's not a bad thing in music like this.

I was going to write "familiar music like this" but it seems wrong. The unfinished seems to be one of those pieces which sounds constantly fresh even though I've been listening to it frequently since I was about 10. Somehow always new. Inexhaustible music, yet I feel I could hum most of it.

My emphasis, as it distills the crucial aspect of Schubert's gift: music which ( imho ) immediately accesses the human heart, in a uniquely personal manner.

As for recordings, I've never heard a wholly satisfactory rendering of the Unfinished. ( A somewhat unfair statement as no recording is utterly without flaws, being a human product. )

So l look for certain strengths at the important areas in each movement, primarily the first presentation of the famous secondary subject in G Major, and the second movement's extended solos for clarinet and oboe.

If those portions come off well, I'm probably going to respond favorably to the rest of the recording.

[Atriod]

As for recordings, I've never heard a wholly satisfactory rendering of the Unfinished. ( A somewhat unfair statement as no recording is utterly without flaws, being a human product. )

Have you heard Jochum/BSO? I've never heard this performance bettered, it's one of my favorite Schubert works.