This batch started with another Karajan disc, a stately recording of Mozart’s Requiem which I must have played many times, to judge by the crackles. I followed this with King’s College Choir singing Britten (Ceremony of Carols/Hymn to St Cecilia/Missa Brevis), which I bought because the first of these works was a set piece for me at school.
One of my old compilation LPs is a disc of Reading Phoenix Choir singing assorted short choral pieces. These include a commission by Bryan Kelly setting a poem about one Linda, who worked in a local factory and was stood up at Caversham Bridge (‘Promises break like biscuits….’). Another is Decca’s ‘Birds in Music’, which precedes bird-inspired music (in good recordings!) with actual birdsong.
Tchaikovsky’s 5th symphony, with the Soviet Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rozhdestvensky, shows off fine unreconstructed Eastern European brass. It’s a Hungaroton transfer from Melodiya, which meant I had to deduce the conductor’s name from a transcription into Hungarian, the only language on the sleeve.
The only Mahler symphony in our LP collection is the first, with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Mehta. The sound here is a problem – even allowing for the volume Mahler can reach, it seems over-recorded and I’m not whether that the usual recording settings aren’t causing distortion.
The batch finished with a Hungaraton recording of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra and Dance Suite (Ferencsik and the Hungarian State Orchestra). It comes with a generously long sleeve note, in several languages.
Why so much Hungaroton? In the dying days of the communist regime we both independently visited Hungary and stocked up on cheap LPs, that being an obvious thing to buy there.