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Kreizberg's recording is super IMO. Szell's is somewhat variable as anyone who has any of his SACDs has noticed. Am I being too kind here?I prefer the Szell and Cleveland for the performances. Ok, they do not play exactly the same waltzes so maybe I can justify owning both. Just my two cents. BTW, I put off buying the Szell because no one had reviewed it. I doubted that Szell could do waltzes well. Reiner, I didn 't care for in some of these.
Follow Ups:
can play some of the Strauss well, usually in the old days, we said the polkas and marches but less the waltzes. I listened to an Odyssey LP recently of the Strauss material, a record I grew up with as a youth. It has good and less good performances, just as we said up above. The Reiner Vienna recording has less than good. An old 6 eye Walter NY one is very good. As are much of the HVK and VPO Boskovsky records. A recent disappointment was Krips/VPO blueback LP.
A lot of the fun is Michael Bishop's usual cool sound effects. The first LP "Ein Straussfest" goes for very big money on eBay, so I would think an SACD version would sell like crazy.
"Music is love"
Teresa
"Music is love"
Teresa
Why don't we remake "Raging Bull", only with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in the big fight scenes, and lots of anvils and clanging sounds? Don't you think "The Sound and the Fury" would be so much better with more, you know, pictures and stuff? Maybe we could add bunnies and retitle it "The Sound and the Furry"! Wouldn't that be more entertaining?I trust this recommendation is another April Fool's joke. Strauss waltzes with sound effects? Who cares if it sells for a million bucks on ebay? So does genuine Nazi war memorabilia. I find it difficult to take seriously anything you say about music. Aren't you the person who claimed Mozart wasn't all that great a composer, and then steadfastly argued the point against all comers?
What about the cannon shots in the 1812 Overture?What about the muskets and cannons in Wellington's Victory?
What about the pistols in Satie's Parade?
What about the wind machine in Gershwin's Catfish Row?
I take it you don't like any of Michael Bishop's sound effects? They do make Johann Strauss along with a lot of other music more enjoyable. I can no longer imagine "The Explosion's Polka" without an explosion or "Clear Track Polka" without a steam engine.
Sorry but I love music that is fun, it is not necessary to be serious all the time, in my humble opinion.
"Music is love"
Teresa
The engine sounds on Clear Track Polka are made with real instruments.Point I was trying to make is the non-musical sounds on both volumes blend perfectly with the musical sounds to make not only fun and enjoyable music. But they change forever the way I want to hear them.
Also Erich Kunzel conducting has that Viennese lilt so important for making the Strauss Family’s music enjoyable. The rhythm is so infectious that it makes me want to get up and dance. This is why I like Kunzel’s Strauss the best and now that I have a Universal player that plays CDs without coldness or pain I can for the first time truly enjoy these marvelous performances.
"Music is love"
Teresa
There are animal sound effects in the score of a number of pieces of music: bird calls in Cantus Arcticus by Rautavarra and Pines of Rome by Respighi, whale calls in a piece by Hovhaness, and probably lots of others. (Might be a fun list to compile!) The cannon in 1812 were included in the score, as was the pealing of actual church bells. I'm critical of adding something not originally intended by the composer, whether they titled their work provocatively or not. In my opinion, that makes the music just silly, as differentiated from fun.But then, I'm German, so, to answer your question: no, I don't like music that's FUN unless the composer intended it to be that way. But I do laugh, or at least smile, every time I hear a Turkish march in the middle of a Beethoven symphony, or any similarly goofy passage put there by the composer.
Please, enjoy Strauss or any other composer you like, with all the artificial noises you care to have added. If that music and production value suits your taste, you have every right to partake of the fun of it. I just don't think anyone should be given the impression that Strauss with explosions or steam engines or any other nonsense is the best representation of that music, unless Strauss wrote in the score: "Insert whoopee whistle here".
I just listened to Vienna Philharmonic's 1958 New Year Concert conducted by Willi Boskovsky on London Reel to Reel and the Champagne Polka has champagne corks popping and the Explosions Polka has recorded explosions.
Johann Strauss in Berlin with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Berlin Philharmonic, released early on in the DVD-A format, multichannel, is superb. Telec released it, I suspect also in CD format.
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