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
Another recording by Oistrakh as conductor: never available on CD, as far as I know. It goes without saying that from Koussevitzky and Szell to Celibidache, Bernstein, Jansons etcetera there are sharper, virtuoso or monumental interpretations of it, but this remains a very well shaped and authoritative reading.
To complement it I have added one of his lesser known recordings of the Violin Concerto No. 1
Prokofiev
Symphony no. 5
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
DAVID OISTRAKH
Studio recording, 1967
Prokofiev
Violin concerto n°1 op.19
DAVID OISTRAKH, vl
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra
RAFAEL KUBELIK
Prague - May 15, 1947
FLAC
GUSTAV MAHLER
Symphony no. 7
Orchestre de Paris
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Live - Paris, Palais des congrès - 13 may 1981
FLAC - Separated tracks
BRUCKNER
Symphony n. 4 in E-flat major “Romantic”
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
WOLFGANG SAWALLISCH
Live recording - Genève
December 3, 1975
FLAC - Separated tracks
BRAHMS
Ein Deutsches Requiem, op. 45
Hilde Gueden, sp
Donald Gramm, br
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
Boston Symphony Orchestra
CHARLES MUNCH
July 19, 1958
Live - Tanglewood
FLAC - Separated tracks
Hard to imagine anything more gorgeous than Jessye Norman's singing alongside Tennstedt's conducting: a great all-Strauss concert indeed.
Have a Good Year!
See you here in 2023.
STRAUSS
Der Bürger als Edelmann, Suite op. 60
5 Orchesterlieder
(Cäcilie, Zueignung, Wiegenlied,
Ruhe meine Seele, Meinem Kinde)
Salomes Tanz & Final Scene
Jessye Norman
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Klaus Tennstedt
London, Royal Festival Hall
Live - May 4, 1986
Very different from the more sober Mahler-Leinsdorf studio recordings (I like his Boston Third, but meh... not so much nn. 1, 5 & 6). This Fifth is more intense and rich of contrasts; the CSO offers great moments. Fast tempos (the total duration is 65 minutes) and an extremely exciting finale.
Mahler
Symphony no. 5
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
ERICH LEINSDORF
Orchestra Hall, Chicago
January 19, 1978
FLAC
Bernstein had already performed his Chicester Psalms in Rome with the same orchestra (1967, recording previously posted here); he also presented his work many years later, conducting the Santa Cecilia Orchestra. The curious fact is that at the opening of this 1973 concert - in the presence of Pope Paul VI - for the first time a musical page with a Hebrew text was performed in Vatican City!
BERNSTEIN
Chichester Psalms
BACH
Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243
soprano I, soprano II, elements of the children's choir
controtenore, William Zukof
tenore, Eberhard Buchner
basso, Kurt Moll
Harvard Glee Club and Newark Boys Chorus
choir masters: James Mc Carthy, F. John Adams, Gianni Lazzari
Orchestra e Coro di Roma della Rai
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Live - June 23, 1973
Sala Nervi, Città del Vaticano
FLAC
SCHUBERT
Octet in F major, D. 803 (arr. Szell)
Members of the Cleveland Orchestra
GEORGE SZELL
December 16, 1965 - Severance Hall, Cleveland
The work is performed in a "enlarged" version prepared by Szell:
Horn, clarinet, bassoon and a small string orchestra (17 players, 4-4-4-3-2).
Gluck
Iphigénie en Aulide, Overture
Rimskij-Korsakov
Sheherazade, Op. 35
(Mischa Mischakoff, violin)
NBC Symphony Orchestra
ERICH LEINSDORF
17 april 1948 - NY, studio 8H
FLAC (commentary included)
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony no. 6 in B Minor, op. 74
STRAVINSKY: Le Sacre du Printemps
Romanian National Radio Orchestra
IGOR MARKEVITCH
Mihail Jora Concert Hall
Bucharest - November 5, 1965
In very good sound quality, a concert recorded for the Romanian Radio.
FLAC
Béla Bartók
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Sz. 106
Igor Stravinsky
The Firebird, suite
NBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
ERNEST ANSERMET
New York - NBC - Studio 8H
January 8, 1949
(announcements included)
FLAC
Webern: Passacaglia op. 1
Berg: Der Wein (*)
Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande
Dorothy Dorow, soprano (*)
Wiener Philharmoniker
Karl Böhm
Wiener Konzerthaus - Live, 1 June 1969
MAHLER
Symphony no. 2
Veronica Tyler, soprano
Helen Watts, contralto
Cleveland Orchestra & Chours
Eugene Ormandy
Cleveland, 2 november 1972
FLAC (Separated files)
Arnold Schönberg: Variations for Orchestra, op.31
Béla Bartók: Piano Concerto no.2, Sz.95 (Theo Bruins, pf)
Claude Debussy: Jeux
Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam
Pierre Boulez
Amsterdam, Concertgebouw - February 5, 1967
BEETHOVEN
Egmont, overture op. 84
Piano Concerto no. 4, op. 58 (*)
Symphony no. 7, op. 92
Wilhelm Backhaus, pf (*)
Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam
Karl Böhm
Live in Montreux - 11 September 1959
FLAC
Three unpublished live recordings. In addition to the rarity of the material, the evolution of the conductor is very impressive: the London performance shows a true "possession" of the complex score, certainly not achieved in the previous two.
FLAC
Berg - Sonata op, 1
Bach - Concerto Italiano
Mozart - Fantasy In F Minor, K.594
etc.
Material published for the first time in the second half of the '80s and reprinted in the early '90.
Detailed tracklist & recording infos included
FLAC + Scans
MAHLER
Symphony No. 8
Liane Synek, soprano drammatico
Colette Herzog, soprano
Ruth Hesse, mezzosoprano
Helga Jenckel, mezzosoprano
William Blankenship, tenore
Hans Otto Kloose, baritono
Gerd Nienstedt, basso
Maîtrise de l'ORTF, Orchestre National de l'ORTF, Choeurs de l'ORTF
Georges Sébastian
November 26, 1964
First Performance in France
FLAC
BRUCKNER
Symphony no. 7
Berliner Philharmoniker
Karl Böhm
March 24, 1977
FLAC
I don't know if it's the same for you ... anyway, Böhm for me is sometimes the most boring, other times the most sensational. In particular with Mozart and Bruckner.
For example, the 4th Decca is one of my ten favorite studio symphonic recordings ever (and maybe number 1 for recording quality). At the same time, listening to his Bruckner 7&8 DG I almost fall asleep.
Let me know, if you like. :)
MOZART
Requiem KV. 626
Margareta Hallin, sopran.
Gurli Plesner, alt.
Claes-Hakan Ahnsjö, tenor.
Ulrik Cold, bass.
DR Symphony Orchestra & Concert Choir
Sergiu Celibidache
Copenhagen - Radiohusets Concert Hall, 9 novembre 1972)
MARIO CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO
Piano Concerto n.2
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, pf
Live - November 2, 1939 - World Premiere
MISCHA PORTNOFF
Piano Concerto
Nadia Reisenberg, pf
Live - February 23, 1941 - World Premiere
NYPO - John Barbirolli
FLAC
BERLIOZ
Harold en Italie, op. 16
Rudolf Barshai, vla
URSS State Sympnony Orchestra
David Oistrakh
Recording 1969
FLAC - Cover & Back
