Interesting! I will look into Savall. That said, I am listening to the 1943 Furtwangler remastered by Pristine...it is truly excellent.
On the Fischer, I mean Ivan Fischer Budapest plying the 5th (not Adam Fischer whose Haydn symphonic cycle I like quite a lot).
UPDATE: WOW! JUST LISTENED TO SECTIONS OF THE SAVALL...VERY, VERY PROMISING. ORDERED IT! LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING IT FULLY. THANKS FOR THE RECOMMENDATION!
Fully understood the reference to Budapest was Ivan. While we were throwing out conductor cycles the other Fischer's Naxos came directly to mind as an under the radar offering among those flocked into the anniversary release cycle.
I vaguely remembered hearing Savall, like Ma, were mining different ground. An all caps positive response would appear to support he's still capable of plying Eastern mysticism as a rare commodity.
Well, we shall see but listening to the Savall clips was more promising than I have heard in some time to these old warhorse compositions. For what its worth, I forgot to add that I was intrigued by Masaki Suzuki's Beethoven 9th...I think his Bach choral works were far more successful (not saying much in my opinion because I think his Bach choral work is sensational)...but I do prefer other Beethoven's 9th to his. That said, I very much like his Beethoven Missa Solmenis.
Pristine shifted away from what I considered immensely valuable work after being recognized with just this type of response. With so much ground to cover I haven't been back to investigate.
If you hear their 9th, do let us know what you think. Sounds like you've spent a lot more time with various recordings than I have. That said, I do own both the DG remaster and the Pristine and whether Pristine properly mastered it or just artificially 're-inflated' it to get it to sound more 'real'...frankly, for me, I'll take it. Less like listening thru tin can and a string.
Various recordings would be accurate where a lot more time is doubtful. HDTT and Pristine XR were two excellent discoveries I'm glad others recognized. Will certainly give that 9th a listen.
Tin can or passed through a string wrapped in tin (aluminum) foil is exactly right. Finally, truncate sections of high notes and dissipate lows among rumble due to source degradation. That's a proven recipe for destroying enjoyment. Both companies went from improving the recipe for each recording towards what might easily have become cooking on an industrial scale.
Where does one stop improving for modern digital clarity and leave that lacking assuredly popular appeal to the palette? All of their earlier attempts were focused on compiling immense amounts of study and badgering people nearing their grave (and anyone else who might have soaked up vital remembrances) for explicit details. Then rushing to experiment while a sense of it was packed so densely. Results speak for themselves.
Thanks for the lead on the Jordi Savall Beethoven. We have seen Savall every year for almost a decade (except for this past year during Covid). He comes to Cal Performances in Berkeley every year, usually with a different set of musicians and their original instruments, different groups that he has formed over the years. They have ranged from one other person playing a special baroque or earlier drum, to a large ensemble of original instruments and singers. He is a real musicologist, finding great music from obscure (to me at least) composers, usually from the 17th and earlier centuries. His most recent performance was the Monteverdi Vespers which combines a pretty large (for Savall) instrumental ensemble with singers. I have several of his Alia Vox recordings (on SACD including multichannel hybrid). So Beethoven and even Mozart is very intriguing.
One of our friends got to know him and his wife Monserrat Figueras, a wonderful soprano who performed with him. She died in 2011 and he went into a deep depression. He recovered and we began to see him shortly after that.
Concerning the Beethoven symphonies, when our daughter was in our local youth orchestra in the early '90's (and I played in it with one other parent - last stand of the violas), we had a new, young conductor. Among the pieces we played was the Beethoven Pastorale symphony. The tempi were much faster than my audiophile standard (the Bruno Walter Columbia Symphony recording on the TAS Super Disc list). I asked the conductor, who was just out of conservatory training about the tempi and recommendations for recordings - he told me he was using the metronome markings on the score and to get the Roger Norrington recording, which had come out only a couple of years earlier. I think this was the first of the HIP recordings of Beethoven. It was quite amazing, having middle school and high school students playing Beethoven at the original tempo. They didn't know they couldn't do it. We also played the Stravinsky Firebird Suite, Tchaikovsky's 3rd Symphony, Rossini's William Tell Overture (where I learned to play spiccato bow!) and many other pieces.
Ooh...I just bought 6th row left of center seats to hear Daniil Trifonov next April in Berkeley! Check out his program:
PROKOFIEV Sarcasms, Op. 17
SZYMANOWSKI Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 36
DEBUSSY Pour le piano
Intermission
BRAHMS Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5
Thus, I'm playing this spell-binding recording now:
That will be the 6th time I've seen him in concert. He's an utterly amazing player, and extremely friendly and down to earth with fans. (I've met him on 3 of the occasions that I've attended his concerts.)
