Purchases Today

[JBS]

@Kalevala --

John seems to have taken another leave of absence.

TD
Another purchase from Arkivmusic.


I'll be posting the contents of the Bamberger Symphony CD in Cato's Grammar Grumble.

[DavidW]

@Kalevala --

John seems to have taken another leave of absence.

I guess his avatar mattered more to him than we did.

[JBS]

I guess his avatar mattered more to him than we did.

He did mention taking a break from classical before the avatar problem showed up.

[DavidW]

He did mention taking a break from classical before the avatar problem showed up.

He is posting on classical music on the other forum.

[Florestan]

This is an excellent set.

But that portrait is not of Schubert. 

[JBS]

This is an excellent set.

But that portrait is not of Schubert. 

Do we know who it is a portrait of?

And isn't there another portrait that purports to show him as a boy, but is not him?

Odd that two of the best known portraits of Schubert are not portraits of Schubert.

[DavidW]

But that portrait is not of Schubert. 

I think you're confusing that with this portrait, which has been falsely identified as a young Schubert:


The portrait in the Diogenese set is most likely young Schubert.

[Florestan]

Do we know who it is a portrait of?

https://figures-of-speech.com/2019/05/portrait.htm

[Kalevala]

@Kalevala --

John seems to have taken another leave of absence.

TD
Another purchase from Arkivmusic.


I'll be posting the contents of the Bamberger Symphony CD in Cato's Grammar Grumble.

Thanks.

K

[DavidW]

https://figures-of-speech.com/2019/05/portrait.htm

That article is bananas. It started well, but the sheer amount of sarcasm didn't help. Analyzing a portrait as if it were a photograph, yikes! Trying to convince us with a single quote that Schubert wasn't fat, so he should have a wide figure even when he was young, is dubious at best. The everyone else is wrong but me argument spells crackpot honestly. But it was an entertaining read.

[Florestan]

That article is bananas. It started well, but the sheer amount of sarcasm didn't help. Analyzing a portrait as if it were a photograph, yikes! Trying to convince us with a single quote that Schubert wasn't fat, so he should have a wide figure even when he was young, is dubious at best. The everyone else is wrong but me argument spells crackpot honestly. But it was an entertaining read.

Well, I re-read attentively the whole article and I'm sorry to say that I have found not the slightest trace of the dross you object to. I even dare say you greatly misunderstood some points (for instance, the author doesn't claim Schubert wasn't fat, on the contrary; and the quote you mention is actually criticized, not offered as evidence). His arguments are logical, common-sense and convincing, at least for me, so AFAIC that is not a portrait of Schubert.

[Spotted Horses]

I think you're confusing that with this portrait, which has been falsely identified as a young Schubert:


The portrait in the Diogenese set is most likely young Schubert.

The portrait

That article is bananas. It started well, but the sheer amount of sarcasm didn't help. Analyzing a portrait as if it were a photograph, yikes! Trying to convince us with a single quote that Schubert wasn't fat, so he should have a wide figure even when he was young, is dubious at best. The everyone else is wrong but me argument spells crackpot honestly. But it was an entertaining read.

It is an undated, unsigned painting of an unknown subject purchased from a Paris art shop for a few francs by a Schubert fanatic who got it into her head that it is Schubert. The myth took on a life of its own despite the fact that the odds that the painting is of Schubert is roughly one in a zillion.  

[JBS]

Presto order



The two Strauss operas fill holes in my Strauss shelf: I will be missing only Guntram and Friedenstag.

The Falstaff is essentially a live version of Karajan's EMI recording.

[Madiel]

That article is bananas. It started well, but the sheer amount of sarcasm didn't help. Analyzing a portrait as if it were a photograph, yikes! Trying to convince us with a single quote that Schubert wasn't fat, so he should have a wide figure even when he was young, is dubious at best. The everyone else is wrong but me argument spells crackpot honestly. But it was an entertaining read.

If contemporary people described Schubert as having a broad face, which the death mask has... it's damn hard to envision the basis for thinking the painting is Schubert.

Scientists now literally reconstruct the facial features of ancient Egyptians. So I appreciated the effort behind analysing the facial features. As for analysing a portrait as if it were a photograph, well... the problem in saying that shouldn't be done is you end up defending the painting on the basis that it must be a very bad, inaccurate painting of Schubert. Which is a more twisted interpretation than just saying maybe it ISN'T a painting of Schubert.

[JBS]

Filling some holes in my Verdi shelf

[Florestan]

If contemporary people described Schubert as having a broad face, which the death mask has... it's damn hard to envision the basis for thinking the painting is Schubert.

The last nickname one would think of giving to the man in the portrait, whoever he might have been, is Schwammerl. 

The man in the portrait, whoever he might have been, is elegantly, even a tad foppishly, dressed. He was obviously not an impecunious young man, ie obviously not Schubert. 

[JBS]

The last nickname one would think of giving to the man in the portrait, whoever he might have been, is Schwammerl. 

The man in the portrait, whoever he might have been, is elegantly, even a tad foppishly, dressed. He was obviously not an impecunious young man, ie obviously not Schubert. 

May I remind you that impecunious young men are often the most likely to be foppishly dressed?

TD
Another hole filled in the Verdi shelf, plus an add-on for free shipping. From Amazon.

[71 dB]

Dvořák - Complete Piano Trios - Suk Trio -14.95 € + shipping
(part of larger order)

[Florestan]

May I remind you that impecunious young men are often the most likely to be foppishly dressed?

That may be so, but no other authenticated portrait of him shows the same degree of foppishness as this one.

Be it as it might, the only thing we know for sure is that this is an undated, unsigned, untitled painting which was bought for a pittance from a Parisian antique dealer who had no clue about its provenance. There's absolutely nothing at all that connects it to Schubert. Actually, there's absolutely nothing at all that connects it with Vienna or the Austrian Empire; the young man in the portrait could very well be French, or English, or even Russian. The theory that it actually depicts Carl Zimmermann, a German Jewish painter linked to Schubert's circle is also a speculation, but one which is much more plausible, given the evident resemblance between the painting and Zimmermann's self portrait (the spectacles in both images are strikingly similar, to begin with). We'll never know the truth, but the odds that it's a portrait of Schubert are infinitesimal.

[JBS]

One more thing to report: 8 CDs from the public library's secondhand book/CD rack.

Goldmark: Rustic Wedding Symphony/ Im Frühling Overture
Polish National Radio SO/ Michael Bartos conductor

Bruckner: String Quintet/Intermezzo/Rondo/String Quartet
L'archibudelli

Piston:Symphony No 4/Capriccio for Harp and String Orchestra/Serenata for Orchestra/Three New England Sketches
Seattle Symphony/NY Chamber Symphony of the 92nd Street Y
Gerard Schwarz conductor

Deems Taylor: Through the Looking Glass
Charles Griffes: Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan/White Peacock/Poem for Flute and Orchestra/Three Tone Pictures/Bacchanale
Seattle Symphony
Gerard Schwarz conductor

And a whole bunch of Furtwangler as composer

Symphony No 2
Staatskapelle Weimar
George Alexander Albrecht conductor

Overture in E Flat
Symphony in D (Allegro)
Symphony in b minor (Largo)
Slovak State PO (Kosice)
Alfred Walter conductor

Symphony no. 1 in b minor
Czecho-Slovak State Philharmonic (Kosice)
Alfred Walter conductor

Symphony no. 3 in C Sharp
RTBF Symphony Orchestra, Bruxelles
Alfred Walter conductor