The classical music thread

Not all of them - since 2019 he has re-recorded opp. 101 - 111.

Sorry, I must have misunderstood your earlier post.

PS I’ve looked and don’t see them on the German Amazon site.

Once again I am in agreement with you. This time about Gilels. I never saw him play live, but I too treasure the Beethoven sonatas he did record and I often wonder what he would have done with opus 111. I have some misgivings with just one of the sonata recording and that is Number 15, the Pastoral. It seems a very odd tempo quite unlike anyone else’s recordings. Brendel for example sings and swings. I’d be interested to hear your views on his 15th, graham55.

Chris, I would listen straight away and post my thoughts. Unfortunately, I’m away from home, and don’t know when I will get back.

Think of me as being in prison - it’s not that, but it might as well be for all the difference that it makes. And a number of the other inmates are probably one heck of a lot madder and badder than your average Broadmoor internee.

Anyway, back to music. There was a fairly short-lived classical CD label (perhaps called Revelation) which had white booklets picked out with gold highlights and (perhaps sepia) artists’ photos, which had recordings of ‘uncertain’ origin. I bought at least one Gilels CD which supplemented one of the sonatas missed from the DGG box. The CD label didn’t last long, disappeared very suddenly, and may have been a bootleggers’ playground.

What I find so frustrating about Gilels’ unfinished Beethoven was that it could, indeed should, have been completed. The story goes that Gilels had a favourite place to record for DGG, Turku in Finland, where he was able to move around fairly freely without interference from his KGB minders who followed him around whenever he was out of the Soviet Union. So, rather than stick to his task and finish the Beethoven, he would fanny around recording favourite lollipops such as his seraphic LP of a selection from Grieg’s ‘Lyric Pieces’. What might have been!

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I still have my Pollini Chopin from some time ago on vinyl.

This album gives my wife and I a chuckle every time we pull it out, since the young Pollini is a dead ringer for F1 star Robert Kubica. :rofl:

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And what a shame he took time to record the Kurfuersten sonatas when he could have recorded more of the missing sonatas. What might have been, indeed.

Yes, as I say, he was trying to find excuses not to finish the Beethoven sonatas - you have to assume that it never occurred to him that he wouldn’t live to complete it eventually.

My LP of Pollini playing the Prokofiev 7th piano sonata is a treasured recording. I have never heard a performance to match it (close but never a match).

Fearsome technique from Pollini, I agree, I just wish that I enjoyed the music more.

I think that this sonata was the middle one of three by Prokofiev, known collectively as the ‘War Sonatas’, so that may account for the harshness of the music.

I recall that the original LP from Pollini was released early in his career with DGG, and was intended as a counter to the Chopin solo piano pieces that he had recorded for the Yellow Label up to that point.

Perhaps, as Pollini’s career winds down, and if we are very lucky, Deutsche Grammophon will have a systematic re-release of all his LPs on half-speed mastered German pressings. It’s the least that they could do for Pollini, who has been an exclusive artist on that label for over 50 years now. (He only ever made two other records for another company - his two Chopin LPs for EMI of the First Piano Concerto and various solo piano pieces.)

But I won’t hold my breath.

Yeah, this one? It is indeed a gem.

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I remember being completely flabbergasted when I first heard Pollini playing the ‘Petroushka’ Scenes on that LP. I was at University at the time, and a friend who had an Italian parent kept going on about this extraordinary Italian pianist of whom I had never heard. This was the first LP that we played (on a lovely old Dual 601).

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Indeed it is.

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Ooh - I had one of those back in the day.

They were great.

I was tempted away by the idea of a suspended subclasses. I couldn’t afford a Linn at the time, so I opted for a Thorens TD 160S (which did a lot of what the Linn did for a significant reduction in price).

Yeah, the Stravinsky on it is special.

This album is a “Rosetta” pick in the old Penguin guide from the vinyl days (I still have my ca. 1984 edition).

I used to buy each edition of the Penguin Guide as they came out. They were very good, although I found Edward Greenfield’s taste/judgment less reliable than Robert Layton or Ivan March. I still have a couple of the books near at hand at home, as they can still be useful occasionally.

Although I must confess that I’m coming to accept that it’s silly to buy more LPs these days, as I have more than I could possibly listen to, even if I made myself listen to them from start to finish for eight hours every day.

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Somewhere I have an older version of the guide. I would like to find it, since much that was in it and went out of print is still available, either as reissues or on the second hand market.

I have some 4000 LPs. I can’t hope to listen to them all, but I continue to collect more. When we pass the collection will be sold to a buyer, with the proceeds going to favorite charities (mostly cancer research and animal shelters).

This shows about 75% of what I have. The left half is all jazz. The right half is all classical.

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If I had thought before seeing this photo that I was extravagant, I see now that I am positively frugal.

Well done indeed!

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There are a number of copies of The Penguin Stereo Record Guide on eBay UK. They used to be published every three years or so - some had many more records reviewed than others.

I think that the best one shown is the one with a mainly pale blue cover, with a yellow border all round. Sorry, I’m not at home, so can’t check the publication date.

This is what I have currently. I believe it was the first one – from 1984 – that also started covering CDs. Seems to pass the description of what you consider best.

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