Eugen Jochum

[visualnickmos]

A fine cycle, I agree Calum made with the VPO

Yes - and you also get the violin concerto with Szeryng, the piano concertos with Backhaus, and a couple of overures! I recommend to anyone who loves Beethoven to snap up this box set if you can find one.... I did in a second-hand CD shop in Notting Hill about 10 years ago. One the best bargains I've ever found - £15!

[visualnickmos]

I have (amongst other Jochum recordings) his Bruckner symphonies on EMI. I still, after 15 years, find Bruckner a tough challenge.... I've recently been toying with the idea of putting Solti's set on my wish list, in the hope that he would be more useful in my quest to 'come round' to Buckner. Any advice greatly appreciated, as to whether Dr Solti would be able to help... Thanks.

[HighlandDougie]

Nick

In the local patois, "non, non, non", to Dr Solti in the Bruckner cycle. Not his strong point, in my view. You'd be much better off (if you want a single conductor's cycle) with Wand or even Karajan. Others will no doubt say Barenboim and the BPO (very good value for money) but I find him slow to the point of torpid in the 7th.

Hope it's as beau temps in the midi as here in the A-M

HD

[Bryn]

Yes - and you also get the violin concerto with Szeryng, the piano concertos with Backhaus, and a couple of overures! I recommend to anyone who loves Beethoven to snap up this box set if you can find one.... I did in a second-hand CD shop in Notting Hill about 10 years ago. One the best bargains I've ever found - £15!

Anyone happy to make do with mp3s can find the set at amazon.co.uk for £32.99. Best to search for Schmidt-Isserstedt, rather than Scmidt-Isserstedt[sic] though.

[Karafan]

The Schmidt-Isserstedt box would be a prime candidate for Brilliant Classics to pick up and run with I think! Recorded in the fabled acoustic of the much-lamented Sofiensaal, too.

Useless nugget: his son is/was Decca producer Erik Smith (evidently bored by a surname whose only advantage was that it was wonderful on a triple word score in Scrabble!).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A fine cycle, I agree Calum made with the VPO

Calum made a Beethoven Symphony cycle with the VPO??!! That I'd pay good money to hear! (It'd be an improvement on Thielemann! )


Frivolous Mode switched off, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of the OP: Jochum was a superb conductor of the "mainstream" German repertoire, and I regard his Bruckner recordings as highly as I do Kubelik's Mahler. (This to mention a comparable figure whose star is currently - and quite rightly - in the ascendant.) And Jochum's Enigma Variations are finer than most and leave me wishing he'd recorded the Symphonies, too.

Best Wishes.

[amateur51]

Calum made a Beethoven Symphony cycle with the VPO??!! That I'd pay good money to hear! (It'd be an improvement on Thielemann! )

- sorry!

[mathias broucek]

[And Jochum's Enigma Variations are finer than most and leave me wishing he'd recorded the Symphonies, too.
[/QUOTE]

Wouldn't that have been something! On an obliquely related point, his old orchestra (Bav RSO) did an RVW 6 with Barbirolli in 1970ish which is surprisingly good.

[Bryn]

The Schmidt-Isserstedt box would be a prime candidate for Brilliant Classics to pick up and run with I think! Recorded in the fabled acoustic of the much-lamented Sofiensaal, too.

Useless nugget: his son is/was Decca producer Erik Smith (evidently bored by a surname whose only advantage was that it was wonderful on a triple word score in Scrabble!).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Schmidt-Isserstedt (Switch of Javascript to view it today).

[Dave2002]

The Schmidt-Isserstedt box would be a prime candidate for Brilliant Classics to pick up and run with I think! Recorded in the fabled acoustic of the much-lamented Sofiensaal, too.

Useless nugget: his son is/was Decca producer Erik Smith (evidently bored by a surname whose only advantage was that it was wonderful on a triple word score in Scrabble!).

I thought you weren't allowed to use proper names in Scrabble!

Perhaps the most stunning performance of Brahms Symphony 1 was by Jochum in the RFH sometime in the 1970s. One of the best concerts I ever went to. Maybe some wouldn't like his technique. He had the horns and brass playing so loud that they broke notes, or were on the verge of doing so, but it had terrific impact.

Don't hear many concerts like that these days - a whole orchestra going for broke.