What are you currently listening to (Classical)?
- Thread starter Bachtoven
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What is it about this recording? Ansermet was never a Royal Ballet conductor. This was recorded in a short period between two great conductors Robert Irving and John Lanchbery (who also made many great arrangements). It's on RCA Victor so presumably recorded in the USA, not London, and gala shows are always a bit half-hearted. It was pre-MacMillan, so no Romeo & Juliet which he produced in 1965. Carnaval only ever had one performance and Boutique Fantastique was a Ballet Russes piece (presumably why Anserment included it) performed only 11 times,
This is a fabulous box set from Ansermet's vast repertoire.
Correction - was recorded at Kingsway Hall, so effectively a studio not a gala performance. Ken Wilkinson engineered, but he was chief engineer of Decca. I'm curious how this recording came about. I shall be at Covent Garden tomorrow, maybe there's something in the bookshop that will explain. Discogs says although recorded in the UK was never released in the UK.
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I love the performance and the sound is exceptional. Also, the original is very rare to find.
There are quite a few online around the $150 mark.
It’s a Decca production (it’s in the Decca database) at Kingsway Hall, their No. 1 venue, and the reason for the quality may be because they had 4 days to record mostly standard repertoire, which they could easily have done in 2. Ansermet only ever conducted at Covent Garden for ballet once, in 1954, which included La Boutique Fantasque.
We went to a Covent Garden first tonight, a play-ballet performed by two of the leading principals. Having never opened their mouths on stage in 20 years, they got to talk for an hour, and dance to Bruce Springsteen.
Decca had a contract with RCA at the time to do all the recordings on British soil for them. This saves RCA the expense of sending people and equipment across the pond. The rights to the recordings would revert back to Decca after a number of years. In exchange, Decca had the distribution rights for RCA in the UK and I think vice versa. This recording was initially issued by RCA in the luxury Soria series at a high price. It was later reissued by Decca in the 1970s. Ansermet founded the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and had a recording contract with Decca. He modeled his career after Pierre Monteux and was apparently quite jealous of the older maestro. His output with the OSR was mainly recorded by Roy Wallace at Victoria Hall in Geneva. These are great recordings sound wise, but the playing of the Orchestre was usually second rate at best. The playing on this recording is something else altogether, much more professional. This is one of Wilkie's best recordings, which means one of the best recordings ever, period. The original Soria box set costs big bucks nowadays. I have a copy of the production master tape from the Decca 1970s reissue, and the sound is superior to the Classic Records reissue LP. Much more natural and life-like. I have not heard the Analogue Productions reissue. Was it made from the Classic Records metalwork or a new remastering ?
There is a little more to it. Checked the programme notes. Hindemith had worked with Massine on Nobilissima Visione, first performed in London, on 21 July 1938. They'd decided to do another project which they abandoned, half-written. I read someone else that Balanchine bumped into Hindemith on the street and they got chatting. He commissioned a work, The Four Temperaments completed in 1940, but first performed in concert in 1944 and then as a ballet in 1946. The original theme of Brueghel was reworked to the Four Temperaments, no doubt at the direct request of Balanchine who had a strong neo-classical bent. His next main piece, Symphony in C, was far more successful and regularly performed around the world.Not so hard to see why George Balanchine was so taken with this piece of music he'd commissioned that he choreographed a ballet around it.
Does the album cover say whether the concert and ballet versions are the same? They rarely are.
We got good value - the Balanchine, a pice by Hofesh Schechter and then Das Lied von Der Erde.
A spare bit of honesty may go some ways. I spun the wheel on my digital library folder and picked the first appealing album on screen. About halfway through the first track I quit what I was doing and looked up the ballet. By far a more internet friendly casual search than obscure recording or composition overwhelmed by length of staging in NY alone.
The champagne crowd elected this was a piece commissioned for pleasure inside the home that proved so skillfully prepared it placed demands on GB to share it. By rights it appears he received the composition for strings and piano with training on the piano allowing him to entertain guests in private concerts. Suggestion is exclusive enjoyment. Then professional extension of his oeuvre as savvy return on fuller investment.
The entire set, including all of Op. 3 and Op. 6, are outstanding.
In the old days in the interval of a Handel oratorio at Covent Garden or Lincoln's Inn Fields you'd get the old man playing an organ concerto or one of these Italian style concertos, intended to boost ticket sales. I'm off to a Handel oratorio at Covent Garden tonight and all I get in the interval is the privilege of a $10 gin and tonic. At least the gent's toilets are very good, probably a hole in the ground in GFH's day. Given the poor ticket sales tonight for an oratorio about a war in the Middle East, albeit 2,500 years ago, I think a hasty concerti performance should have been arranged. I listened to these when they came out, I enjoyed, have a soft spot for Richard Egarr's performances and his wind section.
I've listened to this a couple of times recently. Il Pomo D'Oro/Emelyanchev and Joyce DiDonato have done some fine recordings with lush sound (like Agrippina, but at a different venue to this) and I'm in love with Lisette Oropesa, who did Alcina this time last year. After that show, I've never seen so many beaming faces walk out of a venue, it was so much fun.
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Interestingly, rather divided opinions of this on the web. The Strad giving a decidedly negative review while The Violoncello Foundation awarded it "the winner" in its 1st Annual Listener's Choice Award.
Personally, I think it's superb in all respects.
Johannes Brahms: Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Op. 38 & 99
Laura Buruiana, cello
Matei Varga, piano
Personally, I think it's superb in all respects.
Johannes Brahms: Sonatas for Cello and Piano, Op. 38 & 99
Laura Buruiana, cello
Matei Varga, piano
Here are a couple of moving chamber symphonies by Mieczys?aw Weinberg. I was reading a critic who said of him, “Weinberg's writing is lyrical yet angular, as intense as the music of his friend Shostakovich but less sardonic”, which seems a fitting observation from my limited exposure to him.
I usually pick up releases on this label (Valley Entertainment) when I come across them in a preowned bin. Rarely are they of repertoire that will be played again. Further, they are almost completely hit or miss on sound quality.
This compilation pulls together what must be the first choice in recordings or a near rival they could license. Performers are exactly who you would hope for or now do.
Edit: I realized that was a bit vague. Bach Collegium Japan, Musica Antiqua Köln, The King's Consort as well as The Rose Consort are all present and indicative what is on tap here.
This compilation pulls together what must be the first choice in recordings or a near rival they could license. Performers are exactly who you would hope for or now do.
Edit: I realized that was a bit vague. Bach Collegium Japan, Musica Antiqua Köln, The King's Consort as well as The Rose Consort are all present and indicative what is on tap here.
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