 
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
|
|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
217.57.131.194
This is a DGG/Universal 5 CD album including Eroica, New World, Schumann 2nd, Brahms 4th and Tchaikovsky 6th, plus the spoken introductions by LB.I picked it up yesterday and had just a cursory sample. All I can say is that the Eroica here is one of the very best renditions on record I am aware of. The 1953 sound is a little bit on the reedy side, but otherwise more than acceptable.
L.
Follow Ups:
a
These are prime performances. Where did you find this set, it's not at Tower.
I have only heard the Schumann 2 and the Pathetique from these 1953 sessions with the "Stadium Symphony of New York" (NYPO on summer vacation, playing at Lewison in Central Park). The Schumann was a Brunswick LP (long out of print) and the Pathetique turned up in supermarket music appreciation albums sold during the 1950's, which is how I came by my copy.These are towering, near definitive performances by a conductor of fabulous talent.
The LB set and the other new ones look very tempting...Russell
I am posting from Italy and this set (plus two other sets devoted to Stefan Ashkenase, the pianist and Wolfgang Schneiderhan, the violinist) has been in current distribution for some days by now.I would not be surprised by learning of a leopard-like distribution throughout the world as this is now a current habit of most "majors". This also applies in a striking manner within the EU itself. Just to mention one example, the Bartok Quartets by the Juillard (the early '60s recording originally on Epic) and many other landmark recordings from the Columbia catalogue have been currently distributed by Sony in certain EU countries and not in others. This totally irrespective of the sizes of the respective markets. We are living strange times, indeed: companies complain about decreasing sales, but quite often fail to properly supply certain markets.
L.
Thanks for the info, but it's a hard sell since he began re-recording the same repertoire a few years later in stereo for Columbia/CBS.
The good thing in masters such as LB is that they generally re-recorded the same repertoire at some distance in time, so that renditions of the same works may be different over time, and each version may have its own merits.Take, e.g. the two recordings of West Side Story. I used to think that the earlier on Columbia was much better than the later DG, and probably it is on the whole (Kanawa and Carreras are definitely too "schmaltzy"). But the orchestration (the percussions!) in the DG is superb, expecially in the SA-CD version.
What I much liked in the 1953 LB Eroica is the care of details and how tempos are controlled. For instance, the Funeral March (I have made no checks in terms of overall timing) appears to be very slow-paced, but there is an intrinsic tension that I fould only rarely matched in other versions.
L.
I agree that there are lots of differences between his CBS and DG recordings, but that is because of the long year gap between the two, as well as big changes in his life, such as his declining health in the 70s.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
