Again a question from me. but really, it's just a small one. I was thinking of buying some classical music, but as I don't buy classical music frequently, I realize that there are a lot of different renditions of the same piece by different orchestras. For example: I saw Messiaen's Quartet pour le fin de temps for really cheap. I was thinking that maybe the reason why it's cheap is because it's a performance by a bad orchestra (2nd hand instruments maybe?). To the people on this list who do listen to classical music frequently: does it matter which rendition I choose? Maybe it's different for each person. Or should I buy the earliest recorded performance of a piece? Or maybe there is an orchestra that you recommend, or disrecommend? Is there an orchestra that I can always trust on? Or should I just buy the cheapest cd? What should I do? Any help is appriciated. Kris
Kris: Actually, your question isn't such a small one; in fact, I'd say the overwhelming glut of choice is probably one thing that keeps more people from buying classical recordings, especially since not everyone has access to a store that has a courteous, knowledgeable and quick-thinking clerk like Joseph Zitt behind the counter. To cut to the chase, low price is normally NOT an indicator of performance quality anymore, not since a label called Naxos came in and revolutionized (some say "killed") the industry by offering good new digital recordings of both basic repertoire and an increasingly wide patch of unusual repertoire, in performances that ranged from decent to absolutely excellent. It used to be assumed that Naxos recorded everything with second rate Eastern European orchestras and soloists to keep the costs low, but for my money, *almost* everything they've done over the last five to seven years has been completely competitive, and I have no trouble recommending their recordings to newcomers on a budget. Some Naxos recordings can now be considered top contenders... for instance, the Maggini Quartet's series of early 20th century English string quartets, the composer-supervised Lutoslawski cycle and the ongoing cycle of Messiaen's piano music by Hakan Austbo are all especially good. The Naxos recording of Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony, by Antoni Wit and the Polish National Radio Symphony, is better than almost every full-priced alternative available. Your average Naxos release is as good as just about anything out there in unusual repertoire, but in mainstream repertoire, there's usually another attractive option. The major labels have a tendency to recycle recordings by their biggest stars over and over and over again, usually at a lower price and with improved sound quality each time. You can find important recordings by Bernstein, Ormandy, Szell and many others at dirt-cheap prices, and as far as the interpretations go, they're still some of the best. These series include Sony's Essential Classics (usually around $7) and the late, lamented Bernstein Century line (usually $10), Universal's Eloquence series, Warner's Apex series and EMI's Seraphim line. In fact, it's these increasingly good-sounding remasterings of legendary performances at lower prices that have truly undercut the ability of today's performers to issue mainstream repertoire with impunity. Who needs a new, full price recording of Debussy's 'La Mer' by Daniel Barenboim when you can get a completely fabulous performance by Vladimir Ashkenazy with, arguably, a better orchestra - AND in a first-rate digital recording - for less than half the price? There's one more thing I should mention: Naxos has begun to issue truly legendary recordings from the dawn of recording to the '40s on their Naxos Historical label, snatching up major-label recordings that have fallen into public domain by such artists as Toscanini, Heifetz, Caruso, Schnabel - even Richard Strauss, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff themselves. The remastering technicians have made these recordings sound better than ever, BUT unless you're familiar and comfortable with the sound of early, pre-tape recordings on shellac (which will usually include a degree of hiss, wobble and surface noise no matter how good the source and the engineer), I would never, ever recommend one of these as a first choice. Once you're used to them, though, they can be revelatory - for example, Naxos has issued a big-hearted Fritz Kreisler performance of a Mozart concerto from 1924 that still simply smokes just about everyone who's come along since (despite the dim sound of the orchestra, the soloist sounds vivid and present), and Schabel's Beethoven remains in a class of its own. So what should you do? Investigate. Experiment. Buy a few inexpensive CDs and find out which composers, orchestras and performers you like. (Here's a tip - NO orchestra is infallible, no matter what anyone says... but the Cleveland Orchestra is the closest thing to perfection I ever expect to hear.) Ask questions, here and at the store. When you're looking for a specific piece, flip through the Penguin Guide (almost every store has one): They'll offer descriptions of a number of different recordings of the piece, and you can choose which one sounds most to your liking. There's even a Penguin guide devoted exclusively to budget-priced recordings. You can also read through many CD reviews online at Gramophone magazine's website (www.gramophone.co.uk) and at Classics Today (www.classicstoday.com). Oh, and if you see a version of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time performed by *any* orchestra whatsoever, I'd be wary: It's a quartet. ;-) In all seriousness, the Naxos recording features violinist Scott St. John, which is a pretty fair indicator of quality; I haven't heard it, but the reviews were good. If you can find it, the best recorded performance in many, many ways is the RCA recording by Tashi (Richard Stoltzman, Ida Kavafian, Peter Serkin and Fred Sherry). Other good performances currently available are the full-price Decca recording by Joshua Bell, Michael Collins, Steven Isserlis and Olli Mustonen and the mid-price recordings led by pianists Michel Beroff (EMI) and Daniel Barenboim (Deutsche Grammophon). I'm pretty fond of the Koch recording by Christoph Eschenbach and the Houston Symphony Chamber Players - but then, they're my old home team and I'm probably nostalgic. Surprisingly, given his fine recordings of Messiaen's orchestral music, the recent Myung-Whun Chung recording on Deutsche Grammophon is to be avoided at any price. Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com
On Mon, 9 Dec 2002 15:14:31 -0500 "Steve Smith" wrote:
I'm probably nostalgic. Surprisingly, given his fine recordings of Messiaen's orchestral music, the recent Myung-Whun Chung recording on Deutsche Grammophon is to be avoided at any price.
You mean TRANSFIGURATION DE NOTRE SEIGNEUR JESUS CHRIST? Or simply his version of THE TURANGALILA SYMPHONY? Patrice (who was almost tempted to buy the 1st one this weekend). NP: EISLERMATERIAL: Heiner Goebbels (2002 - ECM)
Neither - I was only referring to Chung's recent recording of the Quartet for the End of Time, which is rife with performance problems. His Turangalila is pretty amazing and composer-approved, and I got to hear him conduct it here in New York just a few weeks ago in an overwhelming performance. Rattle, Salonen, Chailly and Wit provide stiff competition, but Chung's Turangalila also has the added benefit of being one of the few available on a single disc. His recording of Transfiguration, a piece not nearly as approachable as Turangalila, is equally powerful - I just gave it an enthusiastic recommendation in Time Out New York the week Chung was in town (I'd point you to it on the website, but it's not archived just yet). In fact, Chung's orchestral Messiaen is all first-rate, which is why it's such a mystery that his quartet performance is so lax. Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com -----Original Message----- From: Patrice L. Roussel [mailto:proussel@ichips.intel.com] Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 3:36 PM On Mon, 9 Dec 2002 15:14:31 -0500 "Steve Smith" wrote:
I'm probably nostalgic. Surprisingly, given his fine recordings of Messiaen's orchestral music, the recent Myung-Whun Chung recording on Deutsche Grammophon is to be avoided at any price.
You mean TRANSFIGURATION DE NOTRE SEIGNEUR JESUS CHRIST? Or simply his version of THE TURANGALILA SYMPHONY?
Steve wrote to zorn: SS> To cut to the chase, low price is normally NOT an indicator of SS> performance quality anymore, not since a label called Naxos came in SS> and revolutionized (some say "killed") the industry The Naxos strategy isn't that new, actually -- one of the pleasures of growing up in the 60s was the Vox Turnabout series, which was, like Naxos, good recordings at about half the price of what the majors were charging at the time. Some of those records were first-rate; I still prefer Brendel's recordings of Mozart from that era to his later, pricier renditions. A question on the reissue issue ... has anyone re-released Barenboim's recording of the Hammerklavier Sonata? I've gone thru half a dozen other interpretations and while some of them are interesting (esp. the Horszowski from the early 50s) none of 'em's really moved me as much as that crackly old Command lp from my teen years, which could really use the upgrade. -- Jim Flannery newgrange@talmanassociates.com When you can't give anything, you can also receive nothing. Through giving, you also receive. You can never stop giving. When you have nothing more to give, you're dead. -- Mustafa Tettey Addy np: Bruckner, _Symp. #8_ (NSOI/Tintner; yes, on Naxos) nr: George P. Pelecanos, _Right as Rain_
You're right about Vox, of course, and lots of those performances (Brendel, Horenstein, Skrowczewski, even Slatkin) still hold up. But what I'm interested in knowing is, was the rest of the recording industry in as much of a panic then as they are now about Naxos? I'm genuinely curious about that: I've been pondering the differences between the two scenarios. Barenboim's early EMI recording is only available in a complete box set. Deutsche Grammophon issued Barenboim's 1985 remake in the 3D Classics series, but I think that's out of print. It doesn't appear that the particular one you mentioned is currently in print. Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com -----Original Message----- From: zorn-list-admin@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:zorn-list-admin@mailman.xmission.com]On Behalf Of Jim Flannery Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 5:58 PM To: zorn-list@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re[2]: classical orchestras (typical long-winded reply) The Naxos strategy isn't that new, actually -- one of the pleasures of growing up in the 60s was the Vox Turnabout series, which was, like Naxos, good recordings at about half the price of what the majors were charging at the time. Some of those records were first-rate; I still prefer Brendel's recordings of Mozart from that era to his later, pricier renditions. A question on the reissue issue ... has anyone re-released Barenboim's recording of the Hammerklavier Sonata? I've gone thru half a dozen other interpretations and while some of them are interesting (esp. the Horszowski from the early 50s) none of 'em's really moved me as much as that crackly old Command lp from my teen years, which could really use the upgrade.
On Mon, 9 Dec 2002 19:15:47 -0500 "Steve Smith" wrote:
You're right about Vox, of course, and lots of those performances (Brendel, Horenstein, Skrowczewski, even Slatkin) still hold up. But what I'm interested in knowing is, was the rest of the recording industry in as much of a panic then as they are now about Naxos? I'm genuinely curious about that: I've been pondering the differences between the two scenarios.
I think that Naxos succeeded completely whereas the other labels only had some limited success. Naxos is all over the place! At Tower Records, for the past 5-6 years, there has been a Naxos special section that is getting almost as big as one third of the classical section... What I find hard to believe with Naxos is what motivated them to attack obscure/modern composers the way most high-brow labels barely touch (which makes me wonder how squeamish they are). The net result for me being that I bought plenty of Naxos records not because they were cheap, but simply because they were only available on that label (and I would have been willing to pay more for them!). Thanks to that, Naxos acquired a reputation which put it completely apart from other bargain price label. On the other side, what happened with their jazz label? Does anybody know if the second duo Ehrlich/Nock finally came out? Patrice.
There's one more thing I should mention: Naxos has begun to issue truly legendary recordings from the dawn of recording to the '40s on their Naxos Historical label, snatching up major-label recordings that have fallen into public domain by such artists as Toscanini, Heifetz, Caruso, Schnabel - even
Naxos released a CD called Gershwin Plays Gershwin same as Nonesuch's album that even has the same cover photo. I'm guessing that it's not actually the same recordings since these are piano rolls (right?) and thought that Nonesuch realized their own so does anybody have any comparisons to make. Much as I love Gershwin I suspect that this may be more marginal interest and would rather have the less expensive Naxos than the pricier Nonesuch. Lang
On Mon, 9 Dec 2002 15:14:31 -0500 "Steve Smith" <ssmith36@sprynet.com> wrote:
Actually, your question isn't such a small one; in fact, I'd say the overwhelming glut of choice is probably one thing that keeps more people from buying classical recordings, especially since not everyone has access to a store that has a courteous, knowledgeable and quick-thinking clerk like Joseph Zitt behind the counter.
And not everyone knows a versatile, erudite, and lucid commentator like Steve Smith to crib from :-) That said, I strongly agree with Steve's recommendations of Naxos and the budget reissue series from the other labels. I keep seeing customers go into sticker shock looking at the newly recorded CDs on the non-budget lines, and usually end up recommending that they go for the less expensive versions. The corporate gurus would probably be peeved on an immediate-income level, but I've already had a few customers come back to tell me that the inexpensive discs were wonderful and to ask for more, so it adds up, evens out, and all that. I'm also finding a customer-base that I hadn't expected: lots of younger musicians who are about to perform pieces in schools or in lesser-known groups (the Bay Area is awash with orchestras, chamber societies, and the like), and who want to get a performance of something just to get a sort of template in their heads of "how the piece goes". They're often quite pleased to find good inexpensive recordings. Almost all the people who are looking for particular artists are either tourists looking for performers from their countries or people insisting on the Big brand Names (Boccelli, Galway, Church, Three Tenors, and the like). There are a few connoisseurs who are looking for very specific performances -- I usually try to strike up conversations with them to plumb them for info and opinions, though I do so with a grain of salt. (I'm starting to suspect, for many of the regulars, that the usefulness of their info is directly proportional to the distance from which I can smell them. Ah, city life.) n.p. An MP3 I just downloaded of a recent jam, where I sang with three laptop-players and bass guitar. http://www.undertheradar.net/mp3/SET1.MP3 -- | jzitt@josephzitt.com http://www.josephzitt.com/ | | GPG: A4224EFA http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt/ | | == New book: Surprise Me with Beauty: the Music of Human Systems == | | Comma / Gray Code / VoiceWAVE Silence: the John Cage Discussion List |
Needless to say, the diffrences are huge. When I was getting into orchestras, my polcy was to buy Pierre Boulez renditions, and also, as Iwas modtly buying Stravinsky, his own recordings. It's a policy I'm still happy with, although Abbado, Ozawa, Sinopoli, Bernstein, Gardener and others have also delighted me. I think you should think more in terms of conductor then orchestras. As for chamber pieces, I do not have that much experience. My girlfriend has a recording of the Messiaen I like very much - I forgot who playes on it, it's some french ensemble, the disc is on Erato. It's very joyful and abstract, and I like it very much. Marcin ----- Original Message ----- From: Kris Visser To: zorn-list@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Monday, December 09, 2002 7:51 PM Subject: classical orchestras Again a question from me. but really, it's just a small one. I was thinking of buying some classical music, but as I don't buy classical music frequently, I realize that there are a lot of different renditions of the same piece by different orchestras. For example: I saw Messiaen's Quartet pour le fin de temps for really cheap. I was thinking that maybe the reason why it's cheap is because it's a performance by a bad orchestra (2nd hand instruments maybe?). To the people on this list who do listen to classical music frequently: does it matter which rendition I choose? Maybe it's different for each person. Or should I buy the earliest recorded performance of a piece? Or maybe there is an orchestra that you recommend, or disrecommend? Is there an orchestra that I can always trust on? Or should I just buy the cheapest cd? What should I do? Any help is appriciated. Kris
participants (7)
-
Jim Flannery -
Joseph Zitt -
Kris Visser -
Lang Thompson -
Marcin Gokieli -
Patrice L. Roussel -
Steve Smith