LPs: batch 18 – a tasteless sleeve

Posted on May 27, 2010 by vhk10

This batch was largely orchestral music again. It started with an old LP of mine: James Galway ‘The Man with the Golden Flute’ playing assorted pieces which showcase the instrument. One track is a bit notorious: a Moto Perpetuo by Paganini which was allegedly spliced together from several takes with the flautist’s breaths in different places so that he appears not to breathe during it. I quote the sleeve note: ‘the idea of transcribing the work for solo flute would seem an impossibility. To our knowledge this work has never been played on the flute before.’ (!)

Then there were some symphonies: Brahms 1 with the Berlin Phil and Böhm, Mendelssohn’s Scottish (and ‘Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage’) with the LPO and Haitink, and a personal favourite, Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique with the Hallé and James Loughran. This last boasts the most tasteless sleeve of any LP in our collection, worthy of an Athena poster circa 1970. I can’t decently describe it but it is reproduced here.

A must-have recording for any collection is the Du Pré/ Barbirolli account of Elgar’s Cello concerto; the Sea Pictures with Janet Baker on the other side could be left alone as we already have that on CD. Moving eastwards, there’s Tchaikovsky’s Violin concerto and Capriccio italien with Ferras and the Berlin Phil again, this time with Karajan. Finally a Supraphon of the Glagolitic Mass.

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merging recordings

Posted on May 25, 2010 by vhk10

In my endeavours to put our LPs onto CD I am very much aware that while a typical LP lasts some 50-55 minutes, the CDs I’m using can hold 80 minutes of music. It should therefore be possible to fit 3 LP-sides on to one CD in many cases. How should I do it?

My principles have in general been:

  • match by composer where possible. There are relatively few composers in the collection so this isn’t too much of a constraint, though I have broken it particularly to accommodate some minor composers.
  • not to mix orchestral with solo/chamber music.
  • match some or all performers where possible. Because we both have certain favoured performers this has been practical quite a lot of the time. And of course it works for boxed sets.
  • to put on one disc works that one might want to hear in one go. Some works just don’t sit easily together.
  • conversely, not to break the integrity of certain kinds of discs, such as song recitals, by splitting them between CDs.

Some composers – I’m thinking of Tchaikovsky in particular here – irritatingly like to write pieces about 45 minutes long, so that you can’t put two on one disc. Our Shostakovich discs, on the other hand, contain works of a variety of lengths so that you can make a jigsaw puzzle out of fitting them onto CDs. Inevitably there are pieces that risk being orphaned, either because the rest of their LP has gone elsewhere, or because they are on a very short LP. My rule of thumb has been not to create a CD of less than 50 minutes if I can avoid it, but I really can’t think what I’m going to do with our short LP of Gershwin or the Glagolitic Mass.

There are of course pitfalls. Differences in recording level (though with the use of the equaliser I can usually eliminate these), sound quality and pitch (particularly noticeable on a CD of assorted Bach).

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LPs: batch 17 – carols and folk poetry

Posted on May 21, 2010 by vhk10

Half of this batch was the rest of the 9-CD Arrau/Chopin box. After the great wodge of Chopin I moved on to Stephen Bishop Kovacevich (as he then was) playing Beethoven’s third piano concerto with Colin Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. For something completely different I followed this with ‘The English Carol’, an LP of the choir of Magdalen College Oxford under John Harper singing settings of Christmas carols both ancient and modern. Finally came a 2-record set of Shostakovich with Haitink and the Concertgebouw: the 13th Symphony and two song cycles (6 poems of Tsvetaeva, From Jewish Folk Poetry).

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LPs: batch 16 – Chopin on election night

Posted on May 17, 2010 by vhk10

This batch began with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony with Rattle and the Philharmonia. It was now election night and I interspersed checking on the progress of the election results with recording the single largest item in our LP collection: a nine-LP box of Claudio Arrau playing Chopin. I got through all the works for piano and orchestra, Ballades, Fantasy and most of the Nocturnes before calling it a night, leaving three discs still to be done.

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a missed anniversary concert

Posted on May 17, 2010 by vhk10

I was prevented by illness from joining the Erleigh Cantors for their 20th anniversary concert. So I can’t write about the concert itself but I had rehearsed the programme with the other singers and at home which allows me to put something down here.

The trickiest piece was A Vision of Aeroplanes by Vaughan Williams. Someone rehearsing the same piece for another concert around now said it was the hardest piece he’d ever sung. I now won’t find out how far my hard work with the piano and a recording would have got me and whether I’d have agreed!

The rest of the programme was more straightforward. I’d never sung Moeran’s Songs of Springtime but I notice that Good Wine is on my old Reading Phoenix Choir LP so it’s been performed in the area for a while! Another piece which was new to me was Rutter’s Te Deum – I don’t think it would have caused me many problems.

Britten’s Choral Dances from Gloriana were drilled into me very thoroughly when I learnt them with the New Cambridge Singers and I remembered them perfectly. The words vary in quality; sometimes rather touching pastiche and sometimes pretty banal (‘From Norwich city you are leaving’, ‘Woven, woven, woven, woven BAS-kets!’). The programme was completed with Holst’s Nunc Dimittis and some Tudor anthems.

I’ve heard I was missed but that the concert was a success, so I can’t have done too much damage by having to withdraw.

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LPs: batch 15 – halfway with psychedelic Popp

Posted on May 10, 2010 by vhk10

Back to a mixed bag. The first two were Hungarotons of the Takacz quartet and a friend playing string quintets by Mozart. Then orchestrations of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and a further inroad into Schubert: the sonata D958 and Moments Musicaux. More Brahms: his second symphony with the Hallé and Loughran. Grieg’s Peer Gynt is conducted by Neville Marriner with St. Martin in the Fields, the Ambrosian Singers and Lucia Popp (and a rather psychedelic sleeve). Finally, a Mendelssohn disc: the 4th and 5th symphonies with Karajan and the Berlin Phil.

At this point I’ve recorded just over 100 discs and the half-way point must be approching though I don’t think I’ve reached it yet.

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LPs: batch 14 – Beethoven symphonies

Posted on May 5, 2010 by vhk10

This is a simple batch to describe as it consisted of a trawl through Beethoven’s symphonies. We have two recordings of the Eroica one of which (Sanderling and the Philharmonia) is about half as long again as the other (Karajan and the Berlin Phil). Also Karajan doing no. 4 and another recording of no. 2 (a Supraphon of Kletzki and the Czech Philharmonic). There are some recordings by Jochum and the LSO: the 9th,8th and 5th, with the Fidelio overture as a filler. I believe that the length of a CD was set so that a recording of Beethoven’s 9th would fit on a single disc, and indeed it does.

I’ll describe the set up where I record. The laptop sits next to the turntable, with the pre-amp connecting them. The LPs are ranged around in a couple of boxes, a pile, and a row lined up against the wall. The LPs I’ve recorded are all together, in approximately the order I recorded them. The sleeve of the currently playing LP is propped against the side of the pile, rather as a record shop displays ‘what’s playing now’. Other equipment includes a big drum of blank CDs, an album for the finished ones, a set of marker pens, a brush for cleaning the discs, another brush for cleaning the stylus and a small bottle of stylus cleaning fluid.

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In the stalls at the Lord Mayor’s Chapel

Posted on May 2, 2010 by vhk10

I finally achieved my ambition of sitting in these, sadly not for a service, but as part of the audience at a talk given to a meeting of the Friends of Cathedral Music in Bristol. It came after a concert (not part of our programme but I heard the tail end of it) in which the Chapel Choir were joined by deputies to form the ‘Chapel Singers’. As a long-standing dep at the Chapel, I think I should get in on this!

I’ve been an FCM member for a few years, but not been to a meeting before. (I can’t see the name written out without thinking of the ‘Friends of Italian Opera’ in Some Like it Hot!). This was a regional gathering for the South-West, and included talks about the Cathedral School and the Cathedral choir, a demonstration of the organ, an open rehearsal of the choir and evensong.

It was certainly worth going to and even though people and places were well known to me I learnt a lot. I didn’t recognise any of the other FCM members present, but managed to speak to a few of them. I should have made more effort to keep conversations on musical topics though; I don’t get much chance to talk to others who are knowledgeable in this area, and shouldn’t waste the opportunities that come my way to do so.

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Carmen at the Hippodrome

Posted on May 2, 2010 by vhk10

My daughter and I went to WNO’s Carmen at the Bristol Hippodrome – her first visit to an opera performance. The theatre was full (which caused some rather noisy air-conditioning to be turned on in the second act) and she was one of a number of young people there.

The production was traditional and adequate but what is it at the moment with monochrome stagings of opera? This is the third one in a row that I’ve been to. And I felt that they hadn’t quite worked out how to deal with the chorus. Much of the time they behaved quite naturalistically but at the beginning of Act III they ‘trod water’ on the spot to indicate that they were on the move and it looked most odd. At other times there was more movement than necessary. The narration of Carmen’s fight in Act I was accompanied by two chorus members acting out fighting, when there was no real reason for them to do so. The surtitles and previous knowledge of the opera give the information to those who can’t understand what is being sung about.

My daughter was a little disappointed in Don José but it turned out she’s been listening to a recording of José Carreras in the role so no wonder. We agreed that Escamillo was our favourite of the principals. Carmen was played by a true mezzo (sopranos don’t seem to be welcome in this role these days) and she was rather wary of her few high notes but well up to the dramatic requirements of the role. We liked Michaela (a rather thankless role, I’ve always felt) too.

Not sure what my next opera will be but it had better not end with a woman being stabbed to death as this has happened in the last four I’ve been to.

There’s a review of the production here.

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LPs: batch 13 – Dvořák is too loud

Posted on April 28, 2010 by vhk10

There was a problem disc in this batch: Kertesz and the LSO playing Dvořák’s 8th symphony, which was recorded at a high level and registered as too loud when I played it in. Will need to re-do at a lower level. Looking at the label, it’s clear that it’s an old disc, possibly even from the 1960’s.

Also in the batch was the only disc of organ music: Marie-Claire Alain playing assorted Bach on assorted organs (and labelled only in Dutch). On a light note we had Offenbach’s Gaité Parisienne (and Gounod’s ballet music from Faust) played by Dutoit and Montreal. Our other Mahler disc: Wunderhorn songs with Popp/Weikl/Tennstedt and the LPO. Chamber music was represented by Yuri Egorov playing some Schumann (Carnaval/Papillons/Toccata) and two Mozart quartets played by the Bartok Quartet. Finally, I started on a trawl through Beethoven symphonies with 1 and 2 played by the Munich Philharmonic under Kempe.

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the heaviest peal of eight

Posted on April 26, 2010 by vhk10

I’m told these are the bells at Sherborne Abbey*, which may explain why all the weekends on offer for the visit of the Cathedral Chamber Choir also had a visiting team of ringers doing a lengthy peal on the Saturday. Since my previous visit the organ has been rebuilt and a new west window installed, but otherwise it was much as I remembered.

We brought some relatively unusual repertoire, which I gather was appreciated by the congregation. Grayston Ives’ Missa Brevis was written for New College Oxford and proved to have its tricky moments with some exposed entries. I’d never come across it before. Our motets were Byrd’s Ave Verum corpus (no. 4000 on my spreadsheet of things I’ve sung) and Scio enim by Lassus, the latter also new to me and with some startling harmonic shifts and another exposed entry (sopranos come in at the beginning on a top G). In fact I’ve sung surprisingly little Lassus.

Our evensong partnered music by William Lloyd Webber and Leighton, with the former’s Sing the Life and Most glorious Lord of Life and the lattter’s Second Service and responses. I think I prefer the Second Service to the First, but I get asked to sing it less often.

We sang just the two Sunday services, but the Abbey encouraged us to include a generous amount of music, with both Kyrie and Gloria at the Eucharist, two motets, and an introit at Evensong.

There’s a video here.

* It’s the heaviest set of 8 bells usable for change-ringing worldwide, and 9th heaviest overall. See here.

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LPs: batch 12 – the latest and longest?

Posted on April 22, 2010 by vhk10

I topped and tailed this with some Shostakovich. Firstly, a favourite of mine, a little out of favour at the moment: the Leningrad Symphony, here performed by the Czech Philharmonic under Neumann and paired with the 9th Symphony. At the end of the batch came the Symphony no. 12 and Overture on Russian and Kirghiz folk themes with the Concertgebouw and Haitink.

I continued the trawl through Chopin with the first piano concerto played by Pollini with the Philharmonia and Kletzki. A Decca recording of the Threepenny Opera, made as late as September 1988, must surely be the most recent in our collection. Also one of the longest at little short of the 80 minutes that can be fitted on one of our CDs. Was it practical in the final days of LPs to make really long ones, or were they squeezing on as much as possible so that LPs could be issued parallel to CDs? A Hungaroton recording of Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and Divertimento for Strings, played by the Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra. Finally, the Hagen Quartet play D804 and D87 with the inevitable Quartettsatz. The sleeve shows the four players casually strolling across an Alpine meadow, instrument cases in hand, in a rather Sound of Music kind of way.

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