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He/Him | Gay | MN | 🎥 Classical music reviews & shit fitzbattleax.wordpress.com Classical Bluesky journeys: #ManfredJourney #Tchaik4Journey
I’ve got the David Munrow box on order. Sometimes early music is just the thing
It’s amazing how they just unleashed this technology and hoped for the best
One of my favorite recordings of all time is of Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust with the Lamoureux Orchestra conducted by Igor Markevitch. The 1959 sound holds up well, warm and visceral with only a tiny hint of overloading in climaxes.
This disc is an absolute all-timer. Is it too sacrilegious to say this supplants the VPO/Kleiber disk for me? These accounts are so beefy and muscular while keeping transparency of textures, it’s just so goddamn tasty to my ears. The finale of the 5th has never sounded more logical.
I’m exploring Manfred Honeck’s Beethoven recordings with the Pittsburg Symphony Orechestra. We start out with a total knock-out. This is a vibrant, thrilling third. Maybe the only finale that can compete with Szell in Cleveland, and of course stunningly recorded.
The old players are still kicking around! I bought this unit from 1989 on eBay for $50!
I’ve discovered Lawes’ music this past week and it’s just a pure delight. Nothing like chilling to some consort suites
Target canceled my order of the Mackerras Warner box for no reason, but I persevered. This is one tasty box set.
The reason people say music sung in person at the opera while you’re dying of TB sounds better is because music was better.
George Szell’s recordings are so special. A hair-trigger precision accompanied by beauty and transparent textures that make any warhorse sound like an event.
Wonderful new discovery for me, Chausson’s only opera, Le Roi Arthus, a dream-like meditation on the Arthurian legend. Chausson is inspired by Wagner, but this is very much a French opera. The metaphorical death of Arthur with invisible chorus at the end is more moving than any Wagner is to me, wow.
I have two superb recordings of this work, one on a desirable Chausson-only disc, the other a part of an astonishing 2-CD program of obscure French symphonic poems that all bear getting to know.
I can return to this classic LP recorded in 1958 again and again. Stokowski, here on his best behavior, whips up more excitement than just about anyone in both Francesca & Hamlet. He lays out an ironclad line through both works that makes you hear them in a fresh light.
What ended up being the capstone on George Szell’s career, this live concert is so special. Preserved in fine stereo no less! Electrifying performances of Weber’s Oberon Overture, Mozart’s 40th, Sibelius’ 2nd, and Berlioz’s Rakoczy March. Worth the effort to find this treasure.
Honegger’s La Danse des Morts is a delightfully quirky 20th century work with a chorus, solists, and a narrator screaming French into the mic much closer than anyone else. Complete with a major key quote of the Dies Irae, it’s worth a listen even in 78-era sound.
I’m being a bit picky: this is still among the better versions of the finale, with flashes of excitement, but it all comes across a bit manufactured. If you come across this version, it's sure to provide pleasure, but the only reason to have it is to get the better parts of the set pictured here.
Our next entry in the #ManfredJourney is one I've listened to many times on account of it's reissue as part of an economical DG Trio set. This 1993 recording comes from the start of Pletnev's conducting career. Pletnev thankfully does not drag his feet in the first movement like so many.
I’m on a Munch kick! Just got a hold of this box of Decca stuff. Lots of Paris Conservatory Orchestra recordings, such a joy. Will report back when I get some real time with it.