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Any recommendations for your favorite recording on lp? The 13member ensemble, or the larger symphonic group. Thanks. Norm
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Only have CD versions but here are my thoughts,
Dorati: Very robust and angular. I believe he was going with the ballet premise. You can feel a Stravinsky effect. Individual instruments get accentuated. Great sound.
Bernstein: Very subtle, even elegant. It has a more "early settler" feel to it. The down side is that the DG recording is very narrow.
Oue: Beautiful Reference Recording. But it's not engaging. Extremely slow. Wide recording, but you feel like you're in the back of the theater.
Gould: Nice sound stage. Close to Bernstein in feel. My pick until they remaster the Bernstein.
Conducted by Copland, which I have on LP. Sounds very good. I also have the Reference Recordings release of the Suite on a Tape Project Tape. I need to pull that off the shelf again, soon.
I have the LP on Argo, which also has a nice version of Music For Movies. Excellent performance and sound. I also have the Bernstein/NYP LP and enjoy that too.
Not even a mention of Copland's own recording (as conductor) with the LSO on RCA. Copland worked hard to make himself into a conductor, with limited success imo. Yet imo his Appalachian Spring is one of the few first rate composer-conducted standard repertoire renditions outside of Stravinsky and Bernstein (though Morton Gould was also an excellent conductor).
And, for a true rarity: Copland's piano reduction, performed by him, on a Pearl CD. I think this was made for Martha Graham to assist in her ballet choreography rather than for public consumption. Still most interesting.
No luck.
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Too bad Pearl doesn't just make its whole catalog available as downloads. But even that CD is fairly common compared to its ultra-rare source recordings.
Thanks.
No amazon, no discogs, no Presto Classical.
Any other suggestions?
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Few things irk me more than people who mention recordings and then say -- But it's rare and you won't be able to find it, ha ha! So I looked for you. I notice amazon.com has it used for $46. If you don't mind ordering from Tower Records Online in Japan, you can do better, see the link below. I think the price there is equivalent to $21.45. Ed.: Don't know about shipping to the US, and I can't read Japanese!
Edits: 08/19/16
That was mighty nice of you to look. Thank you! Don't know how I missed the amazon listing. Yeah $46 is on the steep side.
Piano versions of the more common versions seem to reveal new aspects of the composition to me. I'm particularly enamored of piano transcriptions of Bach pieces.
Thanks again!
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
IIRC, Copland made what might have been the pioneer recording of the original version in New York with a pretty potent pick-up ensemble (the late Paul Jacobs on piano!). I had the original Columbia LP and now have the CD. Very nice. Surely this one deserves consideration by the OP!
However, I used to have the composer's own recording of his Symphony No. 3 (also with the LSO) on the Everest label, and I thought it was pretty shoddy as far as orchestral discipline was concerned. Maybe he was better on his other recordings.Don't forget what Virgil Thomson said about composers conducting their own works: the moment the composer takes up the baton, he becomes just one more interpreter of the music, with no special claims on superiority.
EDIT: I believe Copland wrote some words to the effect that he was quite dazzled by Dorati's performances of some of his music (and of course he was very favorably disposed towards Bernstein's performances too).
Edits: 08/19/16
Copland did a better job with some of his later recordings than he did with the Everest recording of the third symphony. The 13-member chamber version of Appalachian Spring is excellent.
I always find it interesting to look at the scores of his "folky" pieces--rhythmically, they are a lot more complicated than they sound.
Yes, I've sung the choruses of The Tender Land. I thought I knew them pretty well before but when you see them on the page .............!
"If people don't want to come, nothing will stop them" - Sol Hurok
Composers conducting their own music is often a disappointment. Copland made a concerted (no pun intended) effort to build a conducting career for himself, with limited success. The London Symphony did a fine job with Appalachian Spring, probably more despite Copland's conducting than because of it. Just my humble 2 cents.
I have a Columbia Modern American Music Series LP, M 32736 that I enjoy. Copland conducts an ensemble of 13, several of whom have familiar names, in the complete ballet.
And there was a very lovely chamber version on Reference Recordings on LP.
Both have terrific sound. Telarc seems to be fairly available (check ebay and discogs), but when the RR one shows up, it's usually pricey.
For the original version: Dennis Russel Davies and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. A soundstream recording with beautiful string sound. Correction: it was the 3M system, not Soundstream. See link.
Edits: 08/18/16 08/18/16
was the second digital recording I ever bought. (The first was the Fennell Telarc Holst/Handel/Bach LP; I'm sure many others could say the same.) Listening to this the first time was a revelation.
This has been reissued on CD at various times, usually by labels owned by the old Moss Music Group. No comparison to the old LP, of course, but a little bit of the magic is still hidden in the bits. I'm reasonably sure that used copies of the LP and the CD are fairly easy to come by.
For the 13 member ensemble, I like the Clark/PacificSO performance on Reference Recordings RR22.
For the full symphonic orchestration, I think it's hard to beat the Bernstein/NYP on Columbia MS 6355. I also enjoy the Dorati/LSO on Mercury SR 90246.
(LP cover)
The CD reissue was not made from the 35mm masters unfortunately. The booklet says they were "unavailable", so they used the half inch backup tapes instead.
I believe the Lane/Atlanta recording on Telarc was recorded when they were still using a minimal number of microphones. (And that's a good thing!)
Of course, these days, there are also hi-rez surround versions available, such as:
. . . which I haven't yet heard.
nt
jm
Principal guest conductor in Atlanta for many years, and a fine one at that. Back in the day there was a common opinion among us ASO supporters that you wanted Shaw for the big choral pieces and Lane for orchestral repertoire. He passed earlier this year, if memory serves.
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