My belated investigations into Handel’s works has highlighted this gem. Handel seems able to take a direct route to something in my soul and the Harp Concerto here, particularly the first 2 movements, is riveting as well as being a superb Decca recording - truly demo quality sound. I think the Harp reproduces very nicely in a good HiFi system(?). It’s a Penguin Rosette recording and I can see why.
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I looked this up. My Penguin doesn’t give it a Rosetta, but no matter.
I’ve actually never listened to this work in the Harp form. I’ve always loved and played in the organ form as part of the Opus 4 set of Organ Concertos (Opus 7 too). Now I need to hear the harp version.
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I think I’ve pretty much gotten my new cartridge broken and dialed in. A big benefit of it is that I am enjoying classical so much more. It really sounds great for everything, but classical might be the biggest beneficiary. I’m starting to rediscover old favorites and others left forgotten for so long.
Currently enjoying this very nice 7-LP box set of the Mozart piano sonatas. This is from ca. 1970 and even has the linen box DG used throughout the 60s.
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Those old DGG boxes always look so appealing! Whoever was in charge of their artwork/packaging back in those days was doing a great job.
Product from their sister company Philips, by contrast, was usually pretty nondescript.
I will look it up. Handel had an enormous music output although he would reuse some of his compositions where it suited him. Most people know the story that he wrote the Messiah in one sitting but I have read that nearly everything was written at a breakneck speed. On the web I saw today Gramaphone magazine is listing the best 50 Handel recordings.
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Viktoria Mullova’s Bach started out as austere, strict, bare, and absolutely compelling. When she got around to re-recording these works for Onyx, her performances had become warmer and more period-informed, but not as cool (in both meanings) as her first thoughts. One of my desert island discs.
Cheers
EJ
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Is this just the Partitas (3), or the Sonatas (3) as well?
I love the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. I have five complete performances on vinyl, and I still don’t have a favorite.
Partitas (3) only.
The incomparable Nathan Milstein recorded the Bach Solo Sonatas and Partitas twice in his career.
First for Capitol/EMI in the USA in the 1950s. Then, after he had withdrawn from the platform as a performing musician, he was coaxed out of retirement by Deursche Grammophon to make new recordings of a handful of treasured works, which included the Brahms, Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky Violin Concertos (with the Vienna Philharmonic under Eugen Jochum and Claudio Abbado), a handful of violin and orchestral encores/l’lollipops’, and the Bach.
The DGG Bach recordings were deleted long ago, but were rereleased as a ‘worldwide limited edition’, for no apparent reason, a couple of years back. I doubt whether any copies are still unsold, but it may be worth enquiring in any old fashioned classical music record shops.
The music that Bach wrote is extraordinary, visionary perhaps, and it is hard - when listening to it - to imagine that one person, with a single instrument, can possibly be making so much sheer, pure music.
Desert island stuff.
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Let’s see - on my shelves I have Isabelle Faust, Christian Tetzlaff, Augustin Hadelich, Sirrka-Liisa Kaakinen-Pilch, Viktoria Mullova (2x), Christine Busch, Jaakko Kuusisto, Frank-Peter Zimmermann (vol 1), Alina Ibragimova and Hélène Schmitt. Too many to have a clear favourite, I listen to them all - but partial to Mullova’s first recording of the partita’s, and I also really enjoy Christian Tetzlaff’s most recent account.
Cheers
EJ
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Yes it is great. You just encouraged me to put it on. My other recording, at least two of the partitas, is on guitar by Julian Bream who is my favourite classical guitarist. He plays perhaps the most famous classical guitar, the 1940 Rose Augustine Hermann Hauser. The tone is incredible. It now resides in the New York Museum of Metropolitan Art. Rose Augustine’s family made guitar strings and Bream used their strings and got a free loan of the guitar! Segovia generally played HH guitars.
Hearing Tetzlaff perform all six works in a one-day/two-part recital was one of the great concert-going experiences of my life. Ironically, I have never bought his recordings for fear of disturbing the memory.
If you are referring to CDs, Presto has the Milstein DGG set in stock. CD quality downloads are available.
Presto also has a five disc set of all of Milstein’s recordings for DGG.
Thanks, I have the LPs of Milstein’s Bach.
I urge anyone else who’s interested to grab a set while they’re available.
I have both on vinyl. The 50s mono on Capital and the later stereo on DG. Both are great. Otherwise, I have Szeryng (Philips), Kuijkin (Deutache Harmonia Mundi) and Luca (Nonesuch).
Another favorite is the Bach Cello Suites and I have 5 sets of it on vinyl: Furnier (Archiv), Starker (Mercury), Shafran (Melodiya), Bijlsma (Deutache Harmonia Mundi) and Harnoncourt (Harmonia Mundi France). The Harnoncourt includes a very nice facsimile score in Bach’s hand.
This is what happens when you’re a CD boy. You post tiny images no one can read. 
You need to get into vinyl. We have bigger images. 
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Fair cop. Though I confess to a few LPs as well … picture edited for the vinyl challenged.
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My vinyl eyes appreciate the change. Now I need to look this up.
Thank you so much. Very moving.