What Classical Music Are You Listening To?

[JSngry]

Mahler's nervous breakdown has more sanity to me than what passes for normalcy these days. Exponentially more.

Heard Runnicles guest-conduct with the DSO once, and on several CDs since. He deals!

[soulpope]

5 hours ago, mjzee said:

"...being locked into someone else’s nervous breakdown."  LOL!  I'm not the biggest fan of Mahler's work, so I'm probably not the best judge of the performance.

While being dedicated Mahler follower (don't know said performance though) I found this short review witty ....

[soulpope]

Earlier .... :

Glorious dismay .... this recording hits the spot ....

[Peter Friedman]

[soulpope]

Another Schubert "Lieder" classic in re-rotation .... wundervoll ....

[T.D.]

On 12/30/2024 at 9:56 AM, soulpope said:

These are steep pirces indeed .... btw but do remember that a new copy of the Naive had a cost of some Euro 50 back then (btw was a special offer) .....

I bought this [Vegh complete Beethoven / Valois] back in the '90s. I don't think it was ever cheap in the US (Auvidis has always been a pricey European import), but at the time the price was "in the pack" with alternatives. I was a new collector and bought based on the Penguin Guide, which I haven't looked at in decades. 🤪

The performances are good indeed, but the sound quality might not satisfy audiophiles (though it's fine to me) and Sandor Vegh does not have perfect intonation. I think the OP would enjoy hearing this set, but by now there's so much competition that it's difficult to justify paying a lot. There are some moderately priced (Euros) Valois sets on discogs if you're willing to forego the slipcase.

Is it streamable? I see complete Vegh sets on both Spotify and Youtube, but am not certain they're from the original Valois releases. [ISTR there was another, less highly regarded Vegh set, but could be wrong.]

[soulpope]

6 minutes ago, T.D. said:

I bought this [Vegh complete Beethoven / Valois] back in the '90s. I don't think it was ever cheap in the US (Auvidis has always been a pricey European import), but at the time the price was "in the pack" with alternatives. I was a new collector and bought based on the Penguin Guide, which I haven't looked at in decades. 🤪

The performances are good indeed, but the sound quality might not satisfy audiophiles (though it's fine to me) and Sandor Vegh does not have perfect intonation. I think the OP would enjoy hearing this set, but by now there's so much competition that it's difficult to justify paying a lot. There are some moderately priced (Euros) Valois sets on discogs if you're willing to forego the slipcase.

Is it streamable? I see complete Vegh sets on both Spotify and Youtube, but am not certain they're from the original Valois releases. [ISTR there was another, less highly regarded Vegh set, but could be wrong.]

Have the Naive edition and the sound is fine (to my ears) .... off course there is stiff competition, nevertheless these performances have their merits .... btw which recording(s) do you appreciate/value most .... ?

[T.D.]

3 hours ago, soulpope said:

Have the Naive edition and the sound is fine (to my ears) .... off course there is stiff competition, nevertheless these performances have their merits .... btw which recording(s) do you appreciate/value most .... ?

My recommendations are not worth much, as I'm cheap and don't often go for multiple recordings of the same work. I have the aforementioned Vegh and the 1951-1952 Budapest on UA. Both are excellent and I enjoy their "old-fashioned" style, so I stopped there. A while back I bought the Quatuor Stanislas on Forgotten Recordings, on a whim because I liked the project and am a Francophile when it comes to classical performance. It's pretty good but I can't recommend it over the usual suspects.

I'm getting old and have more than enough CDs, so not likely to add more. If so, being old-fashioned I'd probably go for the old Hungarian Q set, which got a really inexpensive reissue a few years ago.

Edited Thursday at 08:39 PM by T.D.

[soulpope]

2 minutes ago, T.D. said:

My recommendations are not worth much, as I'm cheap and don't often go for multiple recordings of the same work. I have the aforementioned Vegh and the 1951-1952 Budapest on UA. Both are excellent and I enjoy their "old-fashioned" style, so I stopped there. A while back I bought the Stanislas Quartet on Forgotten Recordings, on a whim because I liked the project and am a Francophile when it comes to classical performance. It's pretty good but I can't recommend it over the usual suspects.

I'm getting old and have more than enough CDs, so not likely to add more. If so, being old-fashioned I'd probably go for the old Hungarian Q set, which got a really inexpensive reissue a few years ago.

Thnx for your feedback, agree on  Hungarian Quartet .... otherwise also the Smetana Quartet and Suske Quartett come to my mind ....

[T.D.]

23 minutes ago, soulpope said:

Thnx for your feedback, agree on  Hungarian Quartet .... otherwise also the Smetana Quartet and Suske Quartett come to my mind ....

No doubt, both winners and I'm a fan of the Suske (own their Mozart). Like what I've heard from Takacs (which is pricey) and ABQ as well.

I seriously considered the recent Quatuor Ébène set, as performances greatly impressed me on computer audio. But the CDs were audio engineered with really blatant "brickwalling" which turned me off (despite not being an audiophile). 👎

Edited Thursday at 05:27 PM by T.D.

[Peter Friedman]

[soulpope]

1 hour ago, T.D. said:

No doubt, both winners and I'm a fan of the Suske (own their Mozart). Like what I've heard from Takacs (which is pricey) and ABQ as well.

I seriously considered the recent Quatuor Ébène set, as performances greatly impressed me on computer audio. But the CDs were audio engineered with really blatant "brickwalling" which turned me off (despite not being an audiophile). 👎

Thnx for the info regarding Quatuor Ebene ....

[T.D.]

Have always been a fan of Grumiaux, even though my violin tastes have drifted to the HIP end of the spectrum.

[T.D.]

Since it came up earlier:

[JSngry]

32 minutes ago, T.D. said:

Since it came up earlier:

Love the sound of those. Very evocative and "of its time". To say nothing of the playing itself!

[T.D.]

Yes on all counts.

To continue an earlier discussion, the Cuarteto Casals Beethoven cycle is a modern one I'd really like to hear, but I'm not going to spend the money [Added: OMG, it's on Youtube]. The old Hungarian Quartet Erato reissue (at $18.95 on Amazon) would be far more likely.

Edited yesterday at 04:35 AM by T.D.

[soulpope]

2 hours ago, T.D. said:

To continue an earlier discussion, the Cuarteto Casals Beethoven cycle is a modern one I'd really like to hear, but I'm not going to spend the money [Added: OMG, it's on Youtube]. The old Hungarian Quartet Erato reissue (at $18.95 on Amazon) would be far more likely.

Heard the Cuarteto Casals in concert quite some time ago without lasting impressions .... probably will give their Beethoven a try as available on YT ....

[Peter Friedman]

Op.12  and  Op.13

[mjzee]

Riccardo Muti - The Complete Warner Symphonic Recordings, disc 20.

[Peter Friedman]

[T.D.]

14 hours ago, soulpope said:

Heard the Cuarteto Casals in concert quite some time ago without lasting impressions .... probably will give their Beethoven a try as available on YT ....

Sign of old age, but I recall making the same comments about Cuarteto Casals quite a while ago (a year or more? too lazy to search). You may even have had the same reply. But at that time their whole Beethoven series was not yet on Youtube, only 1 or 2 of the 3 underlying 3-CD releases. Sadly, I promptly forgot about the project.

I am really going to listen to the whole Casals cycle on Youtube soon. Honest. 😁

[HutchFan]

André Jolivet (composer and conductor) with the Orchestre Philharmonique de l'O.R.T.F.:  
- Concerto For Ondes Martenot (with Jeanne Loriod)
- Concerto For Harp (with Lily Laskine)

 

Originally released on Erato in 1970, as shown below:

[T.D.]

Been revisiting some old LvB collections

[Referentzhunter]

[Peter Friedman]