The previous post dedicated to Enescu was very well received, so I'll add this.
A very rare OOP CD.
Enescu - Complete Columbia Recordings (EMI/Shellman, Japan, 1995)
FLAC - Scans, tracklist & infos included
The previous post dedicated to Enescu was very well received, so I'll add this.
A very rare OOP CD.
Enescu - Complete Columbia Recordings (EMI/Shellman, Japan, 1995)
FLAC - Scans, tracklist & infos included
A long time OOP CD which contains a 1952 concert
(with extremely good sound for the period).
Kna's severe and "massive" style is perfectly recognizable even on the podium of an orchestra that is certainly not among the most famous; indeed, these are more energetic and "focused" interpretations than many others left by the german conductor. So I would recommend the listening even if this repertoire offers hundreds (if not thousands, by now) of alternatives: in particular for the powerful overhang given to the Passacaglia that closes Brahms' Fourth.
Beethoven 2 and Brahms 4
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Bremen
HANS KNAPPERTSBUSCH
Live - 12 XII 1952 - Grosser Glockensaal
FLAC
The studio recording of the Second with Giulini on the podium
of the Wiener Symphoniker is generally considered one of the best in the catalogue:
very interesting, therefore, also listening to a live version in good sound like this one.
Bruckner Symphony no. 2
Boston Symphony Orchestra
CARLO MARIA GIULINI
Live recording - Boston, 29 march 1974
FLAC
I'm really sorry, but I don't have time to restore old posts at the moment. The Toscanini series, at the time, was very popular, with many downloads. Those who were already here know this. There's also a problem with hosting sites: I don't have the slightest intention of asking you for money, but on the other hand, it's not fair that I spend it. The Blog was born to share great music with an "invisible pact", not to put money in the way. I have done and will do what I can, I hope to choose and make available in the future interesting recordings, little known and so on... many times I avoid because I see that they are already somewhere, they are on the market, or they are too recent, or my source is not better. The only thing I can tell you is that even if you see moments of "stasis", I'try to continue. Sometimes I make a mistake believing that something is unwelcome or vice versa... For this reason Your feedback is always very important!
Bach - Magnificat & Brandenburg Concerto no. 5
Wagner - Lohengrin Preludes I-III, Meistersinger Preludes I-III
Budapest Symphony Orchestra
Hungarian State Opera Orchestra
OTTO KLEMPERER
Budapest 1948-50
FLAC + Complete scans & Details
A little late (but the last few weeks have been very busy),
a small tribute on the tenth anniversary of his death (20 January 2014).
CD Hunt, of course OOP.
MAHLER
Symphony no. 6
Wiener Symphoniker
CLAUDIO ABBADO
Live - Wien. May 24, 1967
FLAC (separated tracks) + complete scans
I continue with this series of CDs, this time "escaping" from the more usual repertoire. Even Rimski-Korsakov's Third is hardly ever performed, but at least there are some versions on record. I listened to the other two works here for the first time... but I admit that for me these were not great "revelations" :)
RIMSKI-KORSAKOV
Symphony no. 3, op. 32 (revised edition 1886)
TANEYEV
Overture to "Oresteya", op. 6
ARENSKY
March in memory of Suvorov
Grand Symphony Orchestra of All-Union Radio and Television
GENNADI ROZHDESTVENSKY
recordings 1962-1973 (further details in the booklet)
FLAC + Scans
Returning to the Russia Revelations series to start this year posts,
here you can find an important DSCH 8 recorded in 1959:
plus the Festive Overture, composed only five years earlier.
SHOSTAKOVICH
Festive Overture
Symphony no. 8
Grand Symphony Orchestra of State Radio
ALEXANDER GAUK
October 7, 1959
FLAC & Scans
PROKOFIEV
Scythian Suite
BARTOK
Music for strings, percussion and celesta
Moscow Philharmonic
KIRILL KONDRASHIN
Melodiya, 1974
FLAC and scans
Among Matacić's many Brucknerian documents, I propose one of my favorites.
A recording that did not have a great circulation,
but a profoundly honest and thoughtful approach to Bruckner's symphonic last word.
Anton Bruckner - Symphony No.9
WIENER SYMPHONIKER
Lovro von Matačić
Recorded: 12 & 13 march 1983. - TT: 59'34''.
FLAC with Scans
Two live recordings (1940) released several times,
but I don't think currently available on CD.
This is the 1997 Da Capo transfer.
RACHMANINOFF
Piano Concertos 2&3
Walter Gieseking
Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam
WILLEM MENGELBERG
Live October 31, 1940 (no. 2) and March 28, 1940 (no. 3)
FLAC
Here you can find a remarkable Bruckner Fourth captured during the big CSO Europe Tour in 1981. As always is matter of taste: anyway, if you like Solti's style here you will find rush, compactness and energy but also breathing space, without that almost "brutal" and dismissive tone of some of his later Brucknerian recordings (impression I also had listening to him live in the Fourth and Eighth in the early 90s).
Bruckner
Symphony no. 4
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
SIR GEORG SOLTI
Live, 30 august 1981
Salzburg, Großes Festspielhaus
FLAC - 4 separated tracks
Another rare OOP Koussevitzky CD with an all-american program.
The narrator in "A Lincoln Portrait" is Melvyn Douglas (1901-1981).
works by Aaron Copland, Randall Thompson and John Philip Sousa
Boston Symphony Orchestra
SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY
FLAC
You may have already heard this Schwarzkopf-Szell 1968 Fourth live. Anyway, here you can also find the first part of that concert: surely no less interesting, speaking of one of Haydn's greatest interpreters and an equally renowned Straussian singer.
HAYDN - Symphony no. 93
STRAUSS - 4 Orchesterlieder
(Ruhe, meine Seele - Meinem Kinde - Morgen - Wiegenlied)
MAHLER - Symphony no. 4
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, soprano
The Cleveland Orchestra
GEORGE SZELL
July 26, 1968 - Blossom Festival
FLAC (6 files)
Unfortunately the activity of the Trio di Trieste is not as widely documented on record as it deserves (considering a repertoire that included over 80 compositions), but what remains is very important. It is hoped that sooner or later the live recordings preserved in the radio archives will resurface, like the two proposed here.
BEETHOVEN
Triple Concerto op. 56
(two recordings, 1954 and 1966)
TRIO DI TRIESTE
Dario De Rosa (1919-2013), pf
Renato Zanettovich (1921-2021), violin
Libero Lana (1921-1989), cello
In the 1966 recording the cellist is Amedeo Baldovino (1916-1998).
FLAC
Brahms
Ein Deutches Requiem, op. 45
Agnes Giebel, sp - Hermann Prey, br
Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di Milano della Rai
SERGIU CELIBIDACHE
Milano - February 19, 1960
Listening to this EDR after several years, I appreciated it again (and more than I remembered!) for the extreme concentration of all the performers, as well as for a better sound quality than the average Rai recordings of the period. I therefore recommend it to those who don't know it.
FLAC - Separated tracks
Furtwängler conducts Wagner
1) Der Fliegende Holländer, Overture
2) Siegfried-Idyll
3) Siegfrieds Rheinfahrt
Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della Rai
Live - Torino, 6 June 1952
4) Siegfrieds Trauermarsch
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma della Rai
Live - Roma, 31 May 1952
5) Tristan und Isolde, Prelude & Liebestod
Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino della Rai
Live - Torino, 11 March 1952
I "fished out" from my collection and ripped this CD which contains some of Furtwängler's lesser known Wagnerian postwar documents. Luckily it still works, so I can offer it to you. Of course the Trauermarsch is not part of the complete Ring cycle in Roma (performed in 1953): so this 1952 recording is quite rare.
I don't know if it's the same for you, but for me every new "live" discovery of Jochum is a reason for a great joy, never for disappointment. Especially from the 70s onwards... and especially if we are talking about Bruckner! I don't even try to describe. Just listen for it. So, like last summer, I greet you wishing you happy holidays with Jochum. Thanks for staying here, see you in September.
ANTON BRUCKNER
Symphony No. 5 in B Flat Major (1878 Version Ed. Leopold Nowak)
Berliner Philharmoniker
EUGEN JOCHUM
Live - October 6, 1982 - Berlin, Philharmonie
FLAC - 4 separated tracks
Still no Wagner-Giulini, at the moment... :) Anyway, another "almost-avoided" great composer: during his entire activity, Giulini conducted only these two works by Richard Strauss (the Vier Letzte Lieder several times). Here they are gathered. An opportunity to meet again two other beloved artists. Lucia Popp - in the same period of the famous Emi recording with Tennstedt - and the great konzertmeister (or better "Concertgebouw-meister") Hermann Krebbers.
STRAUSS
Violin Concerto
Hermann Krebbers, violin
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam
Carlo Maria Giulini
Live in Amsterdam - August 27, 1982
Vier Letzte Lieder
Lucia Popp
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra
Carlo Maria Giulini
Live in Los Angeles - November 6, 1981
FLAC - 7 separated tracks
Also available on YT, but this is the complete concert in a better source
(very good for a live recording of the late 40s).
Beethoven's Concerto, performed with extreme freedom and intensity,
not only highlights the musicality but also the humanity and even the fragility
of an immense musician perhaps still underestimated as a composer.
Maybe it helps us understand why Menuhin, despite his relationships
with Elgar, Bartók (!), Furtwängler - and many others - considered Enescu
to be the greatest musician he ever met.
BACH Violin concerto n. 2, BWV 1042
BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto op.61 (cadenzas by Joseph Joachim)
BACH Fugue from Violin Sonata n. 1 BWV 1001
George Enescu, violin
University of Illinois Orchestra
John Kuypers
Live - Smith Music Hall, University of Illinois
February 16, 1949
FLAC - 7 Separated tracks
I've always appreciated this particular restoration
of the famous Mengelberg 1928 recording:
undoubtedly one of the best and most important of that period.
I've been listening to it again these days
and since this Pearl CD is now very difficut to find...
Well, here it is.
FLAC with complete scans & details
As in the previous Szell post, two works (Webern and Mahler, of course) absent from the conductor's "official" discography.
Anton Webern - Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 10
Gustav Mahler - Adagio from Symphony no. 10
Johannes Brahms - Symphony no. 4, op.98
Royal Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam
CARLO MARIA GIULINI
Live, 9 June 1979 - Amsterdam, Concertgebouw
FLAC - 6 separated files
A complete concert in great sound,
with the best performance of this Martinu's Concerto that I have heard so far.
Bohuslav Martinu
Concerto for piano, timpani and string orchestra, H.271
Hölzl, Hans (timpani), Kahl, Gernot (piano)
Leos Janácek
Taras Bulba
Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 1, Op. 68 in C minor
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
RAFAEL KUBELIK
Live recording - October 24, 1970
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
FLAC
A concert of great interest to all admirers of Szell, as he has left us no studio recordings of Prokofiev's First and Franck's Symphony.
PROKOFIEV
Symphony no. 1 "Classical"
MOZART
Piano Concerto n. 27, KV. 595
Robert Casadesus, pf
FRANCK
Symphony in D minor
Blossom Summer Music Festival
August 14, 1969
FLAC
Béla Bartók
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114
The Miraculous Mandarin
Orchestre National de France
ANTAL DORATI
(Live, Paris - Salle Pleyel, 29 november 1980)
About The Miraculous Mandarin, I don't remember who said that listening to the suite one misses the excluded parts, listening to the complete work one misses the incandescent closure of the suite.
Well, here The Mandarin is presented in a version (prepared by Dorati himself?) that I have never heard before. A sort of hybrid between the complete score and the suite, with the presence of the choir but the closure of the suite. All in very good sound.
The Dutch premiere of Britten’s War Requiem in 1964,
with the composer himself conducting the additional chamber orchestra
and the three singers for whom this great work was conceived.
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
War Requiem, Op. 66
Galina Vishnevskaya, Soprano
Peter Pears, Tenor
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Baritone
Groot Omroepkoor
Jongenskoor van de St. Willibrorduskerk buiten de Veste
NCRV Vocaal Ensemble
Chamber Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Britten
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Bernard Haitink, conductor
Holland Festival 1964 - Friday, 3 July 1964
Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal - Amsterdam
FLAC - separated files