Home Music Lane

It's all about the music, dude! Sit down, relax and listen to some tunes.

"are you still buying new recordings of standard works?" Me, no. I've learned my lesson.

I'm still catching up with the old recordings!

The only reason I see to bless CD is that it has allowed (?) further issuance of recordings from radio archives. These would be live performances, and live is best. With one exception: In the good old days of 78s, the pressure to play it right was the same as if an audience were there, so most of those older recordings work musically.

And they have greater "tone". The fault with most recent digital recordings is that they *are* "crisp", which is a cognate of "edgy", besides being over-miked and played in the faceless "international style". Feh!

I have to tell you, though, that the work I hear at the BSO these last three years so far surpasses what passes for good performance on new CDs, makes me hope and pray that some day these will find legal circulation. Nor does James Levine neglect modern music! And why do the audiences not disappear? Because he somehow is able to interpret it to make sense.

Still, when he does Mahler, Schumann etc. the results are so frequently luminiscent I wouldn't yield a moment of my time with them. Just as whenever I listen to the '20s and '30s recordings of the Capet, Calvet, Pro Arte and Lener Quartets -- now available for cheap at Berkshire Record Outlet. Almost nothing one hears these days on recordings, except from the Borromeo (live, as well), is comparable.

clark


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