The classical music thread

I never listen to it. For reasons that I don’t understand, I simply don’t ‘get’ Mahler’s Seventh Symphony at all. I have tried many times without success, and now I don’t bother any more.

And yet I love every other piece of his music. Very strange.

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That’s a good question @Douglas and Monteux is a good answer. I find his recordings consistently enjoyable too. It’s not easy to find anyone who is always, or even mostly, good. Abbado I find pretty reliable in most things ( and that despite being always recorded on DG which doesn’t help).
Hard though to trust anyone to get every style right.
Otherwise it comes down to specialisations in style. Ansermet in French repertoire. Kertesz in Dvorak. Mravinsky in Tchaikovsky, Boulez in Stravinsky and so on.

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Hello KJC. In my RFH days back in the early 1970s or thereabouts I always seemed to be at concers by the LSO. So that included Pappa Monteux and Andre Previn plus a few more as well. I used to buy the concert booklets which often was a reprint from old and wish I had kept them.
One that sticks in the mind was a substitute second half with the first symphony by Walton under Previn. The days of deputys perhaps?
From the off this was a work I took to with no reservations. Very easy to follow its development.

Continuing my toe-dipping project into the world of Classical music, I recently pulled up a few versions of “Enigma Variations” on to my Qobuz list.

I started with Georg Sholti and the Chicago Symphony Orch. I have already saved their Beethoven Symphonies cycle which are, to me, the best versions I’ve heard in both recording quality and musical interpretation. One or two other pieces from this team are also favourites.

So I was disappointed to hear that version of “Nimrod”. It sounded way to brusque and lost all the elegiac quality that I had grown used to in the Halle orchestra version, enough to make ask the question “Why? What was he thinking?” :flushed::thinking:

I went my usual route of finding some trustworthy-seeming opinions on the internet and found that the 1970 version by Adrian Boult and the LSO was often cited as the best version.

There are several “digitally remastered” versions done since then and I tried a few. In my opinion, the 1991 EMI Classics version is the best. Clean and comparitively distortion-free without losing any of the original analogue “natural sound” quality where others seemed kind of “thin” and forced.

I’d be interested in other’s opinions.

Toodle-pip.

Adrian Boult conducted the premiere of ‘The Planets’, and he went on to record the work five times. By common consent, his last recording (for EMI) with the London Symphony Orchestra (with a cover photo of the cosmos) is his best recording. It has a degree of ferocity which is perhaps rather surprising for a nonagenarian conductor, and it is a brilliantly clear recording (made, I think, just before digital recording came to prevail).

I never like to have a single recording of a favourite piece, so as an alternative I would choose something that may come as a surprise - Herbert von Karajan’s early stereo Decca account with the Vienna Philharmonic. (Whatever you do, avoid Karajan’s digital remake with his Berliners for DGG, which has horribly shrill and glassy sound.)

Of course there are many more recent recordings out there, two from Rattle (EMI), Dutoit in Montreal (Decca) and so on.

If you’re looking for something completely out of left field, try finding the 1970s recording from William Steinberg conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra on DGG (made in the face of strong opposition from the American Musicians Union, for reasons that I can no longer recall). Lovely analogue recording, brilliantly catching the sound of an orchestra which must have been wholly unaccustomed to the music which it was playing.

My only recording is Yehudi Menuhin conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Julian Lloyd Webber in Elgar’s Cello Concerto plus the Enigma Variations. The Philips recording is typically quite good, I believe with none of the harshness you sometimes get with DG recordings (in my opinion anyway).

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Solti recorded the two Elgar symphonies to divided opinion, with often quicker than usual tempi - to my mind these work for the symphonies. He said at the time he had gone back to the composer’s own performances.

His timing for Nimrod in the Enigma Variations is far too quick. He recorded the work with the Vienna Phil as well & the track listing shows a timing of just over 3 minutes, still too quick. It’s much quicker than eg Rattle and Colin Davis who both take more than 4 minutes with more conventional tempi. Solti’s recording of the Elgar Pomp & Circumstance marches are well worth hearing if you don’t know them. He also recorded the violin concerto, if my memory serves me, with Kyung Wha Chung. Aside from that particular Enigma variation, Solti’s Elgar has received many plaudits.

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Listening to this now - it will become one of my favorite versions of the piece…., suggested to others to listen to it as well.

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John Barbirolli made a number of recordings of the ‘Enigma Variations’ mainly for EMI, but his late 1950s/early 1960s version for Pye was truly wonderful. I don’t know if it’s still in the catalogue.

Eugen Jochum’s 1970s London Symphony Orchestra recording for DGG is special, played with great warmth and very well recorded.

Simon Rattle has made a couple of very good recordings as well.

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Second the Steinberg/Boston Planets.
I’ll have to look for the Boult/LSO on EMI… only found the LPO so far.

And agreed about that shrill Karajan. Ouch.

Apparently this was recorded in 1956 and first released in 1957. There are copies of the original vinyl available on eBay and no doubt elsewhere. You can also buy it as a download from Presto Classical. It seems to be in the Warner catalogue now, but Pye records vanished years ago so presumably Warner acquired the back catalogue.

Do please check which orchestra Boult conducted on his last ‘Planets’ recording. I’m pretty sure, but my memory may be letting me down.

David, my recollection is that Pye was acquired by the EMI Group (who released the CD that I have, bought many years ago), and that EMI was in turned swallowed up by Warner Classics. (Guy Hands was involved in all this, switching assets and pocketing the proceeds.)

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It was in fact the LPO (I’ve just dug out my old vinyl copy to check).

My recollection was that the performance was not universally appreciated at the time but its reputation has grown over time. OTOH my memory may be playing tricks. I will have to have a listen and remind myself of what I think!

Yes, the last recording was with LPO it seems (from a website reviewing Boult’s various Planets).
The copies I’ve bookmarked on Ebay have a KEF link, from 1979. Haven’t yet found an earlier release so will probably get this one.
Thanks for the heads up, @graham55 :slightly_smiling_face:

That must be it. (I don’t remember the KEF link-up, which I’m surprised at, as I had KEF 104AB 'speakers before I bought my first QUAD Electrostatics.)

image

Note the KEF logo lower right, and there’s some blurb from KEF on the back cover.
A hifi showcase I guess.

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Thanks for that, my memory is obviously worse than I realised.

I’m still convinced that it’s the best recording that I’ve heard, though. I can recommend it strongly, if you’re after a recording of the piece.

It’s the “newly recorded” line that gave me pause…seeing that this release was 1979, lol.

I love this discussion. But to be honest, there is no such thing as the “Best Recording” of any piece. too many variables, as the mathematician would put it.
And just for the records (no pun intended), I have sooo many favorite recordings - some that others may not even have heard of. But are these “The Best”?