Never Recorded, O-O-P, or A Better Recording Needed: Your Wish List!

[springrite]

To my knowledge, this never made it to CD. It's an excellent recording of the Field Nocturnes, played without the mushy overuse of rubato that, when you consider the date of composition, is historically incorrect.

Noel Lee is best at this kind of music. This reminds me that I have a cassette of Noel Lee playing the piano music of Griffes. I have yet to hear anyone come close to that. Magical stuff. It was on nonesuch.

[Cato]

Just checked for the opera Wuthering Heights by Bernard Herrmann in the hope that perhaps the Minnesota Opera performance might make it to CD.

I did find a French (!) CD released a few years ago, according to Amazon.  It has not appeared before on Amazon, and only U.K. vendors offer it.  The prices beat the nearly $200. for the Herrmann Unicorn release.

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One rave review!

[Uncle Connie]

My first thoughts (my second thoughts, etc., would fill several screens):

Some years ago a set of discs was issued in France of the complete works of Guillaume Lekeu (1870-94), who died far too young and was one tremendous young genius.  Most of his work is now out of print and really hard to find (or pay for).  Someone needs to jump in and fix this....

In an earlier post DieNacht mentioned some Scandinavian people needing more work; I would add Karl-Birger Blomdahl, who has never been well represented given his importance and influence.  Also, I notice there has never been much of anything issued from Lars-Erik Larsson's last period, in which he finally wandered into the world of atonality that he had tried to enter in the 1930s.  I have no specific suggestions, I just want to hear some of what he did late in life.

And a decent recording of Enescu's opera "Oedip" (yes, it's that story in all its bizarre glory) would be just yummy, thank you.  (For those old enough and strange enough to remember, we might want to preface this recording with Tom Lehrer's 'theme song' which, unlike the opera, is still easy enough to obtain in reissues.) 

[Brian]

And a decent recording of Enescu's opera "Oedip" (yes, it's that story in all its bizarre glory) would be just yummy, thank you.  (For those old enough and strange enough to remember, we might want to preface this recording with Tom Lehrer's 'theme song' which, unlike the opera, is still easy enough to obtain in reissues.)

Michael Gielen's reading with the Wiener Staatsoper not good? Or perhaps Lawrence Foster with Jose van Dam?

[Uncle Connie]

Michael Gielen's reading with the Wiener Staatsoper not good? Or perhaps Lawrence Foster with Jose van Dam?

Twenty lashes to me for not pursuing enough sources before posting.  My understanding was that the Foster had slipped out of circulation, and I confess I didn't double check.  Now, thank you very much, I've done so (or rather, you've done so) and it's ordered.  Remove this item from my wish list.  (Based on a couple of iffy reviews I wasn't pursuing the Gielen; that's what I meant by "decent" recording.)

[Brian]

Twenty lashes to me for not pursuing enough sources before posting.  My understanding was that the Foster had slipped out of circulation, and I confess I didn't double check.  Now, thank you very much, I've done so (or rather, you've done so) and it's ordered.  Remove this item from my wish list.  (Based on a couple of iffy reviews I wasn't pursuing the Gielen; that's what I meant by "decent" recording.)

Very, very glad to unite at least one person in this thread with the recording they wish for!

[Uncle Connie]

Well, now with "Oedip" out of the way, here's another really wild thought:

In 1795 there was a concert in Vienna at which Beethoven made his formal 'debut,' playing the B-Flat concerto and at least one of the early sonatas.  But he shared the concert with another up-and-coming composer named Antonio Cartellieri, whose contributions included a c minor symphony and sections of a grand oratorio "Gioas."  Needless to say, in the end Cartellieri up-and-came rather less than Ludwig did, but he still turned out to be an excellent second-rank composer.   

Well, the oratorio has long since been done, and also a second oratorio from his later years    (his dates are 1772-1807, so "later years" is tragically absurd), plus a fair amount of his chamber music and his clarinet and flute concertos.  Thank Dieter Klöcker for much of this.  But nobody has ever even hinted at recording that symphony!  It was allegedly very well thought of at the time....

I want it recorded.  Now would be fine, thanks.  Tomorrow will do, but let's not drag this out too much longer, please.  It seems to me there are three possibilities:  (1) Matthias Bamert and his "Contemporaries of Mozart" series; (2) Naxos, especially if Dr. Allan Badley, the New Zealand musicologist who does so much work with the 18th-C. symphony, gets involved; and (3) The CPO company.  I have hopes that somebody affiliated with one (or more) of these will see this and get to work.  Or I suppose I could write directly....  ("Dear Dr. Badley:  Hi.  How are you?  If you aren't busy at the moment....")   

(P.S. Does anybody else have the feeling that, at the rate they're going, Naxos and CPO between them will ultimately record absolutely everything that has ever been written, and issue it within our own lifetimes?  And that we will all ultimately bankrupt ourselves acquiring all of it?)   

[Sergeant Rock]

Antonio Cartellieri,...a c minor symphony....I want it recorded.....The CPO company.

CPO, and a damned fine Taiwanese orchestra have already obliged us. I got a copy a few weeks ago:

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Antonio-Casimir-Cartellieri-1772-1807-Symphonien-Nr-1-4/hnum/2273575




Sarge

[Brian]

CPO, and a damned fine Taiwanese orchestra have already obliged us. I got a copy a few weeks ago:

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Antonio-Casimir-Cartellieri-1772-1807-Symphonien-Nr-1-4/hnum/2273575

If it makes you feel better, Connie, this only came out in June!

[Uncle Connie]

CPO, and a damned fine Taiwanese orchestra have already obliged us. I got a copy a few weeks ago:

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Antonio-Casimir-Cartellieri-1772-1807-Symphonien-Nr-1-4/hnum/2273575




Sarge

I quit.  When typing my last post I thought, "Hmm, perhaps I ought to look at least, just to see - nah, I've been looking monthly for ten years or more, never happens, why today?"  And there we are....

Well, I'm slightly consoled by the fact that the disc actually isn't yet in release in the USA.  It comes out Tuesday next.  Then a week or so after that, the after-market discounters will have their prices showing, and I can order at that point. 

And while I'm waiting, let me get to work on another list WHICH I WILL VERIFY FIRST!!!!!!! 

[snyprrr]

Ah. the 'Never Been Kissed' Thread!

Henk Badings String Quartet,...mm,... is it No.4?, or No.6?,... the microtonal one from the early- to mid-'60s. You like microtonal!!

[Sergeant Rock]

I quit. 

Hey, it happens to me all the time, even after I've scoured the internet looking for a recording. Usually it's some treasured LP I've had for 40 or more years, hoping against hope it'll be released on CD. I lament it's unavailability, cursing the music business and, presto, someone (usually Drasko  ) immediately sends me a link to the CD that doesn't exist    The last such occurence was a few months ago: Bernard Herrmann conducting The Planets.

Sarge

[Mirror Image]

My list would be way too long to list but here are a few I would like to see recorded:

Koechlin: Requiem des pauvres bougres, Symphonie d'Hymnes, La Forêt, La Cité nouvelle, rêve d'avenir, L'Andalouse dans Barcelone

Pierne: Giration, Images

Villa-Lobos: Madona, Caixinha de Boas Festas, Evolução dos Aeroplanos, Mandu-Carará, Naufrágio de Kleônicos, Odisseia de uma raça, O Martírio dos Insetos, Fantasia de movimentos mistos

Schuman: Undertow (it's already been recorded but I would like to hear a full-blown stereo performance of it)

Another one that is in desperate need of being re-recorded in a good stereo performance is Roussel's Evocations. What a splendid work! I would really like to hear Stephane Deneve tackle this one. He's so in-tune to Roussel's music.

[Brian]

Another one that is in desperate need of being re-recorded in a good stereo performance is Roussel's Evocations. What a splendid work! I would really like to hear Stephane Deneve tackle this one. He's so in-tune to Roussel's music.

I know! Deneve left a good bit unfinished: Evocations, Aeneas, the psalm setting, the piano concerto. But alas, Naxos has said the series is over.

[Mirror Image]

I know! Deneve left a good bit unfinished: Evocations, Aeneas, the psalm setting, the piano concerto. But alas, Naxos has said the series is over.

Maybe Chandos might pick-up the series then? You never know.

[Brahmsian]

And how could I forget this:

Sergei Taneyev's opera The Oresteia.

Yes, Cato!!!  I hear ya.  The overture is incredible, on a massive, Wagnerian scale.   Would love to hear the whole opera, since I really dig Russian Opera.

[zmic]

My ultimate wish is that Sony excavates all the tapes that Glenn Gould made for his recording of Bach's WTC, and just dumps them on a few dvd-roms as flac files, without any editing, so we can listen to the alternate takes or mix our own album. Just imagine how all that stuff is rotting in a cave somewhere.

[Lilas Pastia]

In the early 1970s the HIP movement was still in its infancy. One of the first groups to play baroque and early classical music on original instruments was the Collegium Aureum (founded in 1964). Its conductor was leader (first violin) Franjosef Maier. Theirs was kind of a 'compromise' approach in this repertoire as they played with old instruments or copies but adhered to 'modern' performance practice (no swells on individual notes for example - thank God !). As a group they made many fine recordings, mostly in the superb acoustics of the Cedernsaal (Hunting Hall) of Schloss Kirchheim, near Stuttgart. They often played with soloists Reinhard Goebel, Jörg Demus, Paul Badura-Skoda and many early practitioners of the HIP movement. Over time, they were categorized as old fashioned  .

IMHO there is no doubt that a classical orchestra in the period 1785-1820 must have sounded exactly like that.  These were years when technological advances in instrument-building were making great strides, and the desire to be 'modern' led most artists to adopt the new instruments, adapt performance practices to their enhanced capacities and of course compose music that would showcase the latest advances (Mozart's great clarinet works, composed for clarinetist Amton Stadler, are a conspicuous case in point).  And that's not even speaking of the desire of all monarchs, Dukes, Princes and Counts to be at the vanguard of their time in all areas. If ever there was a time where things modern were the 'in' thing throughout Europe, this was it !

IOW, this group, quickly dismissed as passé in the 1980s should be reappraised for what they brought to the music world: the closest replication we have heard so far of the Classical era's Court Orchestra. Their accounts of Beethoven and Mozart symphonies as well as many concertos, Masses etc still deserve attention. In the baroque repertoire they have been superseded in terms of performance practice by many other ensembles. In a sense it's ironic that their interpretations of Bach and Handel were dismissed whereas the contemporaneous but more conservative I Musici,  Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra of Karl Münchinger and Munich Bach Orchestra  of Karl Richter enjoyed great popularity as well as lucrative recording contracts, even though they were unwavering in their determination to play the same repertoire on modern instruments !

Probably the CA's approach fell between the cracks of the chasm created by the seismic rift created by Harnoncourt and Leonhardt on the one hand (the 'Telefunken Band') and the powerful Münchinger-Richter consortium and their traditional-comservative satellites (I Musici, Roland Douatte, Karl Ristenpart, etc).

Delegated from the main ensemble, first dest players Maier, Gerhard Peters, Karlheinz Steeb and Rudolf Mandalka created Quartett Collegium Aureum and recorded works by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. Playing on gut strings, their ensemble sound was incredibly deep, 'rustic', a perfect match of elegance and rusticity.

Most of the Collegium Aureum's recordings for DHM are either OOP or hard to find. Particularly lamentable is the absence from the catalogue of the QCA's unrivalled accounts of Beethoven's op. 132 and Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartets. After almost 40 years I still count these as the best interpretations and sonic recreations of these masterpieces. These are among the most oft-recorded quartets, and yet, no version I know of reaches the level of musical understanding and sonic truth of these recordings. Although I haven't heard them in many a moon, my memory can vouch for the sonic beauty of these recordings.

[Bogey]

Which works do you want to hear, which have not yet been recorded?

Or a good or great performance was recorded, but is currently unavailable?

Or a recording or two might be available, but are less than satisfactory?

Off the top of my head, I would like the following:

Bernard Herrmann: On Dangerous Ground ,

You did snag one, correct?

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[Cato]

You did snag one, correct?

[asin]B0006SSQB6[/asin]

Yes, I have the original mono soundtrack from the movie.  It comes from recordings that endured damage, and so a good amount of noise is present on some of the tracks.  Still, one hears Herrmann conducting the orchestra.

The movie itself is also very worthwhile: the soundtrack of course is in better shape!

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