Started with a fairly obscure recording of Schwanengesang<\/i> by Edouard Stocker and Magda Rusy. This was followed by one of few recordings of American music in the set, some Gershwin conducted by Bernstein … a transfer to Hungaroton. The cover of this is intriguing. At first sight you see a line drawing of a nattily dressed man in 1920’s style clothes – then on closer inspection you realise he is superimposed on a female recumbent nude. Across both of them the words Café Royal<\/i> appear in mirror-writing, as if you are inside the café and the man and woman are floating outside it.<\/p>\n
Alfred Brendel plays two of Beethoven’s lesser piano works, the ‘2nd’ piano concerto and the Choral Fantasy<\/i> with different orchestras. Alan Civil plays all Mozart’s horn concertos with the RPO and Kempe (they all fit on a disc because some are fragmentary). The Smetana Quartet play the ‘Trout’ and the inevitable Quartettsatz<\/i>. I started on our many discs of Chopin (who seems to have as many as anyone in our collection) with Tamás Vásáry playing the Etudes (another Taphouse closing-down purchase). Finally, I moved on to another well-represented composer, Shostakovich, with his piano concertos played by Alexeev with the ECO and Maksymiuk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Started with a fairly obscure recording of Schwanengesang by Edouard Stocker and Magda Rusy. This was followed by one of few recordings of American music in the set, some Gershwin conducted by Bernstein … a transfer to Hungaroton. The cover … Continue reading