The only part of it that I actually listened to was, Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor, Op. 86: (After Bach's Fantasia, BWV 537). Absolutely exhilarating!  But I did order the original master vinyl, so I'll have all of it.

I do have recordings of both Elgar and Dvorak Cello Concerto's. Jaqueline du Pre' on both. The Dvorak is one of my favorite pieces of music.

Back in the listening chair after vacation, and listening to Bach.



16/44 FLAC download.

Bach's Art of the Fugue is a tough nut to crack, even if you love both Bach and counterpoint as I do. My favorite AotF delivery vehicle is often string quartet, but Craig Sheppard does an amazing job making the music sing on a modern concert grand.

Gave this one a listen earlier today.  Thanks CAJames…  it was a solid recommendation.

Next up on the Beethoven Symphony tour: The Seventh.

This is one of the big ones, and based on my highly unscientific survey of orchestra programs over the decades probably the most frequently performed. Of course all the the great "Beethoven Conductors" have recorded it, usually several times, but my choice is not one of them. For the symphony Wagner famously called "the apotheosis of the dance" I go with Antal Dorati on Mercury.



16/44 FLAC download.

Dorati is no ones (except maybe me) idea of a "Beethoven Conductor" but he is, if any label fits, a dance conductor. And he really makes Beethoven swing. Of course the famous Mercury engineering doesn't hurt either.

Walter Gieseking is one of the great pianist of the 20th century, and one of the great tone poets of all time. He was also an enthusiastic Nazi, but that is a topic for another time. He is best known for his Debussy, but those same qualities make him exceptional in some of Schubert's "little bits."



16/44 FLAC download.

This weekend is the (unofficial) start of summer.



On CD from the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra box.

Note however in "sunny" costal California we have "May Gray" followed by "June Gloom" so actual summer usually doesn't get started until July or August.

As far as I can tell Giovanni Pergolesi is much more famous for being the "inspiration" for Stravinsky's Pulcinella than for the music he actually wrote. Which is too bad because the Marian Vespers (from which Stravinsky borrowed) is wonderful Italian High Baroque music.



On CD.

I have been slowly (very slowly!) working my way through the Beethoven "middle" quartets over the last few months.  I think I am done through the three "Rasumovsky" quartets (Opus 59) for now.



While I had consistently felt that I could tell I was listening to the same composer as the Beethoven symphonies when listening to the early quartets, that feeling was less strong on these quartets.  For some movements I felt that way, while for others I did not feel that way at all.  

The liner notes for this recording called attention to the slow movement of the third quartet, with words like "the slow movement of No. 3 gives the impression of something abnormal, of 'a remote and frozen anguish, wailing over some implacable destiny.'"  It has some "plucked" strings for the bass line in places, which to my ears seems like a very familiar sound for bass - so perhaps I like that "abnormality!"

So what did I learn?  Perhaps just that quartets are different than symphonies.  I certainly think that I will be revisiting these at some point in the future.  But for now, moving on to Beethoven's Opus 74 ("Harp" quartet) and Opus 95 "Serioso" quartet).

Listening to Debussy, starting with "La Mer" and "Prelude to the afternoon of a faun" on EMI, with Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker Orchestre de Paris:



And then listening to those same works on CD1 of the Naxos Box Set, "Debussy - Complete Orchestral Works" performed by the Ochestre National de Lyon as conducted by Jun Markl:



I don't do a lot of listening to different performances of classical music, but I wanted relisten in order to compare these.  I preferred the version conducted by Markl, though I think my opinion may reflect my preference for a version that has a detailed sound more than any judgment on the relative merits of each performance.  

The box set includes music composed by Debussy but orchestrated by others.  CD1 includes "Children's Corner," which apparently was composed by Debussy for solo piano and later was orchestrated by Andre Caplet.  I don't know how much "wiggle room" the orchestrator has (is the music exactly as written for piano, except specific notes are assigned to different instruments, or are there other adjustments made to the music?).

CAJames post about the quality of Debussy's piano music has made me want to listen again to this box set, and particularly the orchestrations of his piano music.  

Hi, Geno.  It took me a while to get into Debussy, but I am there now!  Don't know a lot about the other French impressionist composers (at least yet), except for a few pieces by Ravel.

Happy listening this weekend!

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One of the great lines in musical history is George Szell on working with Glenn Gould, "That nut is a genius."

There are a lot of great Beethoven Piano Concerto performances, starting with Szell/Fleisher but for me, Gould is not one of them. I used to have a bunch of Gould on LP but the only thing beside Bach that worked for me was his Schonberg, YMMV. I do however really like Wilhelm Kempff.



On CD.

My Warner Complete Debussy has several orchestral arrangements, but not Children's Corner.



16/44 FLAC download

But it does have a recording of Debussy himself playing Children's Corner. Which is very interesting.

I have said in the past and will continue to say that Mozart's concertos are better and more interesting than his symphonies. His horn concertos might not be as profound as the later concertos for piano or clarinet, but they are some of the most immediately likeable music I've ever heard. As friendly and uncomplicated as a happy puppy, YMMV.



On CD

I don't know where we're at today, but for much of the 20th century there was an unwritten rule that the best horn players in the world were British. Barry Tuckwell was actually Australian, but that is close enough. This early digital recording isn't great, but it isn't terrible either.

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I love this recording!



On CD.

I have the Chesky CD, which was one of the first "audiophile" CDs I ever bought, and it (still) sounds amazing. FWIW the recording was originally for Readers Digest, for classical music you could buy at the grocery store. Not that there is anything wrong with that .

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It was your suggestion . Just in case it wasn't clear you streamed the same recording as my CD, the only (potential) difference is the remastering. If you want a different Brahms 4 you might try Carlos Kleiber:



On CD.

Kleiber was a very famous conductor in spite of (or perhaps because of) making very few records and giving very few concerts. His father was also a very famous conductor, Erich Kleiber (although a lot of people think is biological father was Alban Berg). In general I'm not sure I buy the Carlos Kleiber hype but this is a very good recording regardless.

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Could you find it? It seems like a lot of early digital audiophile labels are hard to find these days: Dorian, Delos, Chesky (classical reissues), even Telarc to some extent.

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No unfortunately I never found it yesterday.  I’ll give it a try when I get home…but with me getting the ZP3…I’ve been playing vinyl exclusively at home for the past few days.

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With the DAC you have, I’m not surprised your digital is on par with vinyl. While I still have yet to dive into my Japanese first pressing albums…the sound I am getting out of my rig with the vinyl I’ve been playing through the ZP3 is in fact better than digital.  My Bifrost2 Dac is a solid performer, but it seems like to get great sound out of the DAC’s these days, you need to spend upwards of 2-3 thousand…so it seems.  

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Yeah, I think that is a fair assessment. My favorite Rocky 3 is Earl Wild.



On CD.

The piece is really about the pianist showing off, and he just brings a little more juice than anyone else IMO. And, I believe this is another Readers Digest recording, that has been reissued countless times, but Chandos did a great job remastering it.

IMO Don Quixote is the best thing Richard Strauss wrote, at least without singers. There are a lot of great recordings by famous cellists, Karajan and Szell come to mind. But in fact Strauss wrote the piece with the idea that it would be played by an orchestra's own principle cellist, not a wandering virtuoso. And that is exactly what Zubin Mehta and the LA Philharmonic did.



On CD from the Mehta/LA box.

This is also a great performance, and the wonderful London/Decca sound from Royce Hall is probably the best thing about UCLA. (Just a gratuitous dig from a long time USC fan )

My favorite piece of music written in the last 113 years (since Mahler died) is Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. These days a lot of the cognescenti would have you listen to the whole thing, but I find it long and tedious. It is a perfect piece to be excerpted into a Suite, so much so the Prokofiev himself made 3 different ones. But today most conductors choose there own from the hundred or so different bits that make up the ballet.



16/44 FLAC download.

I have like a dozen recordings and have heard many more. I can't pick a single favorite, but Myung-Whun Chung and the Concertgebouw are certainly one of the contenders.

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Interesting. I don't know that recording, but Richter playing Liszt recorded by the Fines is a triple play I should investigate. This has been my goto for the Liszt Concertos, also recorded by the Fines of Mercury .



On CD.

Both the recording and performance are top shelf.

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This would have been a good nickname for their recordings