What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[richardfinegold]

Elgar : The Dream of Gerontius (excerpts only, alas!)

Steuart Wilson, Maragret Balfour, Hernert Heyner, Royal Choral Society, Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, Sir Edward Elgar conducting. A concert performance form February 1927.

It's a long time since I last listened to this, and in a digital remastering it's amazing how much detail comes across. If only the whole performance had survived this might have been the elusive 'definitive' recording of this work . The singing is superb, especially the impassioned soloists , and the chorus are better than in the Hereford recording later that year. Just under half the work is represented . It was recorded by HMV and it sounds as if three microphones were used. In various places Elgar is swept away with spontanaeity, perhaps most of all in Praise to the Holiest, taken at a speed I've never heard anyone else approach.

I’ve read that most of Elgars records show him taking much faster readings than the metronome markings

[pastoralguy]

What’s the program? Is the Bach Second Partita featured?

Yes. With a blistering account of the Chaconne!

[Stanfordian]

Frank Bridge – ‘The complete Songs’
45 songs
Janice Watson (soprano), Louise Winter (mezzo soprano), Jamie MacDougal (tenor), Gerald Finley (baritone)
with Roger Vignoles (piano), Roger Chase (viola)
Recorded 1996-97 Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London
Hyperion, 2 CDs

Bax – ‘Tone Poems’
'In the Faery Hills'
'November Woods'
'The Garden of Fand'
Sinfonietta ‘Symphonic Fantasy’
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra / Vernon Handley
Recorded 2005, Studio 7, New Broadcasting House, Manchester
Chandos, CD

[smittims]

Indeed, richard, Elgar was notoriously free with tempi, sometimes faster and sometimes slower: quite a rubato artist. In a letter he asks his publisher to change the metronome marking for Nimrod after his experience conducting it. He certainly does it faster than others.

Janice Watson is, I think, my favourite living soprano, indeed possibly my favourite living singer. I can imagine how well she will sing the Bridge songs.

In the Faery Hills is remarkable for a direct quotation (the opening horn call) from Elgar's incidental music for Grania and Dairmid. Bax knew Elgar about the time the play was staged (1902) and given his intererest in things Celtic may have gone to see it .

I have that Bax CD but my knowledge of Bridge songs is limited to Peter Pears singing 'Go not, happy day' and 'Love went a-riding'; and an ancient acoustic record of Olga Haley in 'Would it were so' , a sentimental but curiously poignant song.

[smittims]

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. The London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens. An Everest recording from, I guess, around 1959, released in Britain by the World Record Club .

I was very impressed by this: the recording is outstanding for its age, indeed the brass, timpani and bells quite spectacular, and the performance ideal to my ears. I could not agree withe Penguin Guide who found 'a lack of forward movement' ; maybe they didn't like the slow tempo for the third movement , the scene in the fields. I thought it revelatory.

I see that it was reissued on the budget LP label 'Hallmark' where it would have been a bargain indeed.

The original Everest version is on YouTube if anyone wants to investigate.

[Stanfordian]

Verdi – ‘Otello’
Opera in 4 acts (premiered 1887 Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
Mario del Monaco (Otello), Aldo Protti (Iago), Renata Tebaldi (Desdemona),
Nello Romanato (Cassio), Athos Cesarini (Rodrigo), Fernando Corena (Lodovico),
Tom Krause (Montano), Ana Raquel Satra (Emilia)
Wiener Staatsopernchor,
Wiener Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan
Recorded 1961, Sofiensaal, Vienna
Decca, The Originals, 2 CDs

[Petrushka]

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. The London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens. An Everest recording from, I guess, around 1959, released in Britain by the World Record Club .

I was very impressed by this: the recording is outstanding for its age, indeed the brass, timpani and bells quite spectacular, and the performance ideal to my ears. I could not agree withe Penguin Guide who found 'a lack of forward movement' ; maybe they didn't like the slow tempo for the third movement , the scene in the fields. I thought it revelatory.

I see that it was reissued on the budget LP label 'Hallmark' where it would have been a bargain indeed.

The original Everest version is on YouTube if anyone wants to investigate.

I have an Everest recording on CD of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with the LSO/Goosens and, while it's slower and with less precision than we take for granted nowadays, the 1959 recording is spectacular with the most amazing bass drum sound I've ever heard on disc.

[richardfinegold]

Yes. With a blistering account of the Chaconne!

I saw Milstein in concert about a year before he died and my main memory is of that Partita and the Chaconne

[richardfinegold]

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique. The London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Eugene Goossens. An Everest recording from, I guess, around 1959, released in Britain by the World Record Club .

I was very impressed by this: the recording is outstanding for its age, indeed the brass, timpani and bells quite spectacular, and the performance ideal to my ears. I could not agree withe Penguin Guide who found 'a lack of forward movement' ; maybe they didn't like the slow tempo for the third movement , the scene in the fields. I thought it revelatory.

I see that it was reissued on the budget LP label 'Hallmark' where it would have been a bargain indeed.

The original Everest version is on YouTube if anyone wants to investigate.

In the early days of DVD-Audio that recording, along with several others from the Everest catalog, was reissued. I picked it up from the cutout pile of Tower Records when both the record store chain and the DVD-A medium were going bust. It’s a good performance that has more character than most but Paray and the Detroit SO still blow my socks off

[vinteuil]

.

Stanford: The Revenge (Ballad of a Squadron) (BBC National Choir and Orchestra of Wales/Richard Hickox).

... amazing what YLE delivers

.

[cloughie]

In the early days of DVD-Audio that recording, along with several others from the Everest catalog, was reissued. I picked it up from the cutout pile of Tower Records when both the record store chain and the DVD-A medium were going bust. It’s a good performance that has more character than most but Paray and the Detroit SO still blow my socks off

PCO Argenta claim my foot coverings!

[richardfinegold]

PCO Argenta claim my foot coverings!

I used to have that budget LP. I’m not sure why you wish to step all over it.

[cloughie]

I used to have that budget LP. I’m not sure why you wish to step all over it.

Socks appeal!

[smittims]

Elgar: Symphony no.1. The 1930 published recording (LSO/Elgar) followed by Lani Spahr's reonstructed transfer including seven unpublished 'take 1' s: a fascinating comparison. It seems the published version was assembled from 'safe' takes where the orchestral ensemble and instrumental detail is clearer , a sensible choice as this was the first recording and the only available one for twenty years. The 'alternative takes' however, are more spontaneous and musically satisfying.

[Stanfordian]

Elgar
The Wand of Youth Suite No. 1, Op. 1a
The Wand of Youth Suite No. 2, Op. 1b
Salut d'Amour (Liebesgruß), Op. 12
Nursery Suite (1932)
Chanson de Nuit, Op. 15, No. 1
Hallé / Sir Mark Elder
Recorded 2015 (Wand of Youth) & 2017 Hallé St. Peter’s, Ancoats, Manchester
Hallé own label, CD

Bryn Terfel – ‘The Vagabond’
Songs and song cycles by Vaughan Williams, Finzi, Butterworth & Ireland
Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone) & Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Recording 1995, Henry Wood Hall, London
Deutsche Grammophon, CD