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That must have been with Yoel Levi? I love the cd he made there. It IS a terrific reading - but such a shame it's cut.

I'm not amazed by the popularity of this thread: Ilya Murometz is one of the most loved sonic spectaculars ever composed, and yet how many people have ever heard it performed live? It's really rather astonishing how many recordings there are, cut or not. But it's frustrating as can be that after all this time there still isn't a recording where the sound is fully up to the demands of the score. I keep hoping some young whippersnapper, like Jurowski, who really loves and understands the Russian repertoire will take it up and put it on Blu Ray in 5.1 surround sound with no cuts, no alterations in the scoring or other interventions. Maybe Gergiev doesn't like it: I was praying he'd do it in London, but no. Neeme Jarvi could still turn in a performance, although he seems to be getting more glib as time goes on. What is totally unneeded are any more stereo red book CD versions. Still one of my favorite symphonies, good to escape the many problems of the world.

One of my absolute favorite chamber works from anybody. I've often thought that some enterprising pianist and record company should make a nice project of recording all of the Wittgenstein commissions. It'd also be interesting to hear all the entries in the competition for which Schmidt's 3rd symphony won first place in the Austrian division. We know the Atterberg 6th, but I'd sure like to hear the rest of the competition.

[Le Bal]

During this pandemic, like many people I've been staying home and listening to a great deal of music I haven't heard in some time. The Rubinstein collection among them. Then this week I received something new: Le Bal with pianist Warren Lee on Naxos. This is wonderful music. And really well played. Orchestral writing wasn't Rubinstein's strong point, but his piano music is just great. And this disk at nearly 88 minutes could be the longest yet - the Marantz played it without a hitch!

Not as far as I'm concerned. The Naxos set contains ALL of Schmidt's orchestral music. The playing is fine throughout - the Malmo group doesn't sound one bit inferior to the Frankfurt band. I still think the DG recorded sound isn't that great - maybe it's just my age, ears...But it reminds me of that early Supraphony recording of the 3rd - performance excellent, sound not excellent. The Fourth is always the capstone - it can and should be a gut wrenching affair. What you get here is very professional, but Mehta, Sieghart, Kreizberg all probe deeper. An off-air recording I have with Hans Swarowsky is quite powerful, too. But I could be wrong. Won't be the first time I disagree with the critics. After all, I still think Bernard Herrmann's recording of Raff's Lenore is the best!

Well....I've had the new Paavo Jarvi set a week now. Listened to it three times, with and without scores. Norman Lebrecht may have been right - did we need this particular set? No.

Up front, the playing is excellent (save for one irritating gaff in the horns shortly after the 5 minute mark of the third movement of the First.) The packaging is convenient - I do like these paper cartons more than big, crack-prone jewel boxes.

Now for the bad. The conducting: overall good, but I get the feeling that at the end of certain movements Jarvi needs a bigger statement. Part of the problem is Schmidt's; he liked abrupt endings. But some conductors make more the ends and it's more satisfying. Most annoying was the end of the first and last movements of the Third, the end of the first of the Second. Tempos in general are upbeat  - like his father's. But that ruins the second of the Third. Adagio this is not! At his tempos, the poco piu mossos (a bit more motion) are too fast. Other conductors go a real adagio and I like it so much better.

Then there's the sound. Now, DG has never been known as a high-fidelity showstopping sound company. And they're certainly not here. Woodwind details are buried in a wall of string sound. The nice interplay of the brass at the close of the Third is completely missing. The percussion makes no impact. The dynamic range isn't anything exceptional. It's too bad that the DG engineers haven't taken up SACD and give a listen to the extraordinary clarity that Chandos and Bis have achieved in that format.

When the set was announced with only three disks I was irritated because I assumed, dumb me, that they would split either the Second or Third over two disks. But no...the put nos. 3 and 4 on the same! That's an 85-minute disk! My high-end Marantz player had no problem fortunately. But playing it on a older Bose system...no such luck. Couldn't track it at all. Is using four disks that much more expensive? I imagine that there will be some people who won't be able to play that disk. I could be wrong.

So while I'm glad that Schmidt is getting more exposure, I was hoping for more. There's so much other music I want to have modern recordings of, and if this is the last Schmidt cycle, that's ok. We have the Naxos set with Sinaisky which is overall the best - great playing, conducting, sound. The Luisi is darn good, too and the Neeme Jarvi has superb playing and great sound. The Rajter we can ignore at this point. But I can dream: based on his performance of the Fourth in Dallas, I'd like Andrew Litton teamed with the London Symphony Orchestra on a wonderful Chandos SACD set - just don't record in the Barbican!

The first disk is of no interest; everything on it is pretty well known and been recorded dozens of times. The Halasz disk, though, has some interesting and unusual repertoire and might be worth hearing. Nice to see Maestro Halasz is still alive and active!

Great - this will go nicely with the earlier Naxos released of the suites.

I'm such a sexist pig - I saw the thread title and thought, "another forgotten woman composer". Nope! I just assumed "Joan" was a woman's name. I'm not woke enough, I guess. But I've already ordered it! Maybe not masterpieces, but what the heck. Got to support these companies and hope they keep grinding out more unplayed music. (Just get to the Grimm symphony!)

Cassette was awful - I remember being able to buy some RCA tapes for "4 for $10" and even then it wasn't a bargain. But they worked well enough for the truck. Even worse were 8-track tapes, a path I never took.

in my area there are several large stores that buy/sell/trade used media. The largest, which deals mostly with LPs, has no interest in classical at all. And I agree with Ilja - there's nothing like browsing through a record store. I used to look forward to trips to Los Angeles and New York to browse the shelves, read the liner notes at Tower Records and HMV. There were some store that had floor copies of records you could take into a booth and listen to, and then in back the unopened copies for sale. I really miss those days!

Very much so and the people that pay these prices also tend use extremely high-end turntables. They can afford it.

There are indeed new classical LPs being made. Reference Recordings has quite a few, including a terrific Saint-Saens Organ Symphony and the Elgar Enigma Variations.

https://referencerecordings.com/format/lp

I, too, have kept too many LPs and other than transfer some to CD haven't listened to them in over 30 years. During this Covid lockdown I have made attempts at unloading quite a few. I imagine that someday they'll all wind up in the landfill. Same with CDs - that era is over, too, it's just that us classical types are the last holdouts. But now that concerts have all gone quiet, I never knew just how much I appreciated my collection.

I've had the new CPO disk around for a few weeks and it's wonderful. Well played, recorded, conducted. Why his music is so little known is a mystery. But them most people don't listen to much Russian music outside of the Five and Tchaikovsky. Well worth getting IMO.

That is an interesting list. Of course in the USA we have no radio orchestras or public funded orchestras to do something similar. One of my blind spots has been Respighi opera - I guess it's about time to get some of those DVDs. 

I didn't realize that Respighi was in the public domain; given the steep rental rates for some of the music we've played in the past, this could be a  new opportunity.

The new Chandos is very welcome because it's in SACD format, for those few of us who care. Put the disk in, crank up the volume and it's utterly thrilling. The end of Pines packs a punch. Your hair stands on end. The only previous SACD of the trilogy I have is the extremely fine BIS recording from Sao Paulo. Same effect. No matter how good the sonics or the musicality, no mono or stereo only recording can compare. There's no comparison. Multi channel SACD or Blu Ray is astonishingly life like. I sure hope Chandos and Bis keep putting out SACDs for a long time and cover more of the repertoire. People who live in apartments in large cities may not be able to experience surround sound to its full potential, which is unfortunate.

Respighi in my opinion is one of those close-to-being-unsung composers. He sure wrote a lot of unsung music. As a player in orchestras for 45 years the only works I have ever played: the Roman Trilogy, Ancient Airs and Dances and the arrangement he did of those Rossini tunes. There is vast amount of his music known only to record collectors I'm afraid. I'd love to play Church Windows but probably never will.

Even before the pandemic audiences were getting older and smaller. Orchestras are always trying to find ways to market the classics to younger people with little success. Conductors haven't woken up yet and realized that they need to play musical blockbusters: the movies have it figured out, so has television. Big, noisy, exciting, colorful! For a long time the symphonies of Mahler did the trick, but I sense people have tired of them. Bring out the big exciting scores of Respighi and composers in his generation. Give audiences a sonic thrill and stop boring them with endless repeats of the standard repertoire. I'll never try to convince anyone that Respighi's Sinfonia Drammatica is a masterwork, but it sure is fun to listen to!