Great cover!
I ordered a copy of the Bartok String Quartets on vinyl, performed by the Vegh Quartet and released on both the Valois (France) and Telefunken (Germany) labels. I got the Telefunken version from a Discogs seller in Germany. It looks mint all around, although I discovered it’s a “trade copy” which can be a good or bad thing.
I’m cleaning the records now (heavy double-tank cycle on a Degritter Mk II), so I’ll see how they sound. The nice part of getting the Telefunken vs Valois version is that I get liner notes in English (vs only French).
I looked for the Vegh Quartet’s Beethoven recordings on LP for ages, but never found them. (I have the recordings on Valois CDs.)
I got it on Discogs. When I bought it there were still Bartoks available. I believe I have seen the Beethoven ones on Discogs as well.
I bought this some weeks ago on Discogs from a seller in the Netherlands. A perfectly mint copy of the Haitink/Concertgebouw Mahler Symphonies (1962-1972) on Philips (16-LPs). I am listening to No. 2 now and it sounds wonderful. The discs are perfectly quiet.
It’s no much nicer to play Philips from the period than the crappy DG recordings.
I still have a copy of Haitink/Concertgebouw Bruckner Symphonies on Philips coming from germany (12-LPs)
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Damn…I’m still trying to find a place to hang my hat on with Mahler 7. I just can’t quite wrap my head around it. Maybe I need to find the right performance. Why is this so difficult?
Listened to Ivan Fischer’s version last week. I liked the interpretation. But also the sound quality is outstanding, which helps.
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Now I’m listening to Haitink on the 6th, which is great. As for the 7th, sound quality isn’t going to help me. Either I need to find a performance that explains it for me, or I have to live with it as the one I don’t listen to.
The nearest I’ve got to understanding the last movement is the Fischer/BFO performance—although I have to confess I still usually play the piece excluding that perplexing last movement.
Stephen
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I always used to listen to Abbado/Chicago on DG which is good. A couple of years ago I discovered this Klemperer version on vinyl and it works well for me too. Quite deliberate as is often the Klemperer way I find, but it works well for such personal music which needs no additional styling from the conductor.
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I listened to Klemperer’s version for the first time while plowing through the mega-box. After reading comments, I was fearful the tempos would ruin it, but that did not prove to be the case. He brings out the architecture of music so well.
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On Radio 3 Record Review, Andrew Gallagher and Iain Burnside reviewed Warner Classics collection of over 100 CDs of Maria Callas on the hundredth anniversary of her birth. Really interesting. I loved how they explained, using the recordings, the way Callas used her voice to achieve various effects with an apparent effortless brilliance.
The Seventh is the one Mahler Symphony that I don’t ‘get’. I have tried several conductors, but it makes no difference.
You are not alone!
Thanks for the reality check.
Someone elsewhere suggested I revisit the Bernstein DG version I already have, so I may give that one another listen tomorrow. There was another suggestion for Abbado/Chicago or Boulez/Cleveland (both on DG).
Great conductors and orchestras, it’s just the music that’s ‘off’!
The great thing about music is that sometimes it takes some extra effort and patience to latch on to the best of it. It took me many years to learn to appreciate Mahler, Bruckner, the Bartok String Quartets, some avant-garde jazz, and so on but I kept trying and eventually came around.
I think with Mahler’s 7th I will just need to hear the right performance at the right time, for that moment of revelation that bends my mind to its will, and then I’ll be hooked. Or not.
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And in Building the Library, they were covering Bartok’s wonderful Miraculous Mandarin. The Ivan Fischer recommended performance did seem to stand out.
My Mahler extends to 1, 4 & 5 but no further. I have never got anywhere with Bruckner, or Wagner for that matter. I’m OK with the Bartok though!
If you’d like to suggest somewhere my next step could be I’m interested in exploring it.
Yes it brought back memories. A flatmate brought a record of the Miraculous Mandarin over 50 years ago to listen to on my record player. It was one of the first classical records that I heard.