What are you currently listening to (Classical)?
- Thread starter Bachtoven
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Vol. 4 from the marvellous complete series of Reicha wind quintets by the Albert Schweitzer Quintet on cpo.
The Brahms violin sonatas have a tendency to become too gooey and sentimental for my tastes, but Ilya Grubert and Elena Cherny here on RCA handle them with just that touch of coolness which becomes them well.
I don't know if she's a distant relative, but she certainly plays Clementi well! Her Bosendorfer 280 Vienna Grand sounds great, too. Has anyone else listened to this? I think I've heard several very audible edits, which is unusual with today's technology. Either that or I had some micro-second wi-fi dropouts at what could conceivably be edit points. (e.g. just before a difficult sounding run or something.)
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I'm taking a break from digital to enjoy some pure analog bliss! All are wonderfully played and recorded.
Ah. Connoisseur Society produced by James Goodfriend and E. Alan Silver. The latter was a piano fanatic and they released many, many brilliant recordings. There was (is) a similar label, from Peter McGrath and Julian Kreeger, called Audiofon. In this pair, it is hard to pick who is not the piano fanatic but I can personally attest that Julian* is. Both labels made great recordings although I prize most their piano recordings.
*I met Julian in college and succeeded him as Classical Music Director at WKCR.
Back when I was a recording engineer, I spoke with E. Alan Silver on the phone a few times, but I never got to meet him. I did meet Peter McGrath once. A friend owned a high end audio store in the 80s, and Peter brought his Levinson modified Studer A-80 deck and some 30 i.p.s. master tapes for an audio circle get together. We played them through some Levinson electronics and Apogee ribbon speakers. Some of the best recorded sound I've ever heard. I have a few Audiophon LPs and CDs--all have extraordinary sound.
Interesting story about the recording of the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante by the Oistrakh father and son. The recording was originally done on September 13 and 14, 1962 at Decca's West Hampton Studio 3, which is large enough to hold an orchestra. The recording featured David Oistrakh playing the violin and composer Paul Hindemith playing the viola, with the London Symphony with Hindemith conducting. The second side had Oistrakh, playing the Hindemith Violin Concerto. However, after hearing the playback, Hindemith rejected his own playing on the Mozart. The Hindemith violin concerto was fine. Decca was faced with having half a record. So they regrouped engaged the London Symphony for a substitute with Oistrakh - the great Bruch Scottish Fantasia, with Jascha Horenstein conducting, ten days later, this time at Walthamstow Assembly Hall on the outskirts of London. This recording has become very famous and sought after by collectors.
Almost exactly one year later on September 27th, 1963, Decca engaged David Oistrakh, this time with son Igor to record the Mozart again. This time, as you can see, the Russian conductor Kiril Kondrashin played with the Moscow Philharmonic, again back in the Decca West Hampstead Studio 3. The great Kenneth "Wilkie" Wilkinson was the engineer for this session. Side Two has the Oistrakhs playing one of the delightful Mozart Duos for Violin and Viola. Note that in this recording father David plays the viola and son Igor plays the violin.
By the way, these are the only two recordings that David Oistrakh did with Decca. The Moscow Philharmonic recorded the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 3 with the young Vladimir Ashkenazy (with Kondrashin conducting) a week earlier. These were the only two recordings that the Moscow Philharmonic did with Decca. That was the debut recording of Ashkenazy with Decca (he had won the 1962 Tchaikovsky Competition and Decca signed him to a contract (which continued for more than 50 years).
Larry
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Although, I never met E. Alan Silver but, as mentioned, I've known Julian for many years. As for the other principals, Peter was one of my first dealers when I was in the speaker business (and we are still in contact) and I was a concert reviewer for Jim Goodfriend's "Listen" magazine.
"Listen, A Music Monthly. Today. Listen exists only as a collector's item ($50 for a complete run of five issues), but it had a top-flight, if short-lived, reputation in the music world."
Did you work on classical or pop/rock and or jazz recordings as a recording engineer? Interesting to have someone with that experience in the group. Also nice to hear about Kal's college experience at WKCR in the audio business.
Very nice stories about the Connoisseur label and its principals. I realized over the years that they did have a special interest in piano recordings and I collected them, particularly the Ivan Moravec recordings. His two albums of Chopin Nocturnes also have among the most visually striking album covers in my collection. We got to see Moravec twice, once in San Francisco at the Masonic Auditorium, and once in Prague at the Rudolfinum with the Cazech Philharmonic.
There was also a fine Polish violinist, Wanda Wilkomirski, who recorded several albums with Connoisseur.
An audiophile oddity was a series of Connoisseur cassette tapes that were issued using dolby C and special Chromium Dioxide tape, and recorded, IIRC, in real time. They were pretty expensive, but sounded great through my old Nakamichi Dragon, which was one of the few cassette models that had both the common dolby B and the much rarer dolby C built in. Somehow, I bought a fair number of these tapes - I have them somewhere.
Larry
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Mostly classical with an occasional jazz concert. I mentioned this a few posts back--I recorded concerts for broadcast on my local NPR station from 1978 to 1990. Got to meet all sorts of world famous musicians!
Same - got them all on Kal's recommendation about 6 years ago. Took some tracking down...Beautiful recordings and playing.
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