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80 minutes is quite a lot to swallow. I suppose a pair of scissors could have been helpful to old Furtwängler, but what can one say... he was a victim of the Romantic age. 😂 LOL!!! Anyway, I kind of view it as 3 piano quintets rolled up in one. What a deal!! :ROFLMAO:

Sounds like it could put ME into a Zen~like State along with my esteemed pussycat, Brett.

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FURTWANGLED INTO SUBMISSION?
 
I find this recording particularly enchanting -- name sounds Italian, but it has more in common with English music. . . .

It's more decidely Russian, halbroome like Stravinsky's controversial Rite of Spring which caused riots upon its premiere at the newly opened Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in 1913.


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It's been a while since I've bought any classical music - too much music already and not enough time to listen - but a couple of weeks ago I saw the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Shostakovich's 5th Symphony as well as Barber's Adagio For Strings and Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. The Mahler and Barber pieces were quite enjoyable but as you can probably imagine, I was there for the main event: Shostakovich 5. And in a nutshell, it was amazing. Easily the best classical music concert I've ever been to without exception. Okay, there were a couple of fo moments when someone wasn't playing to the nanosecond along with everybody else. But it was fantastic from start to finish all the same. The finale, I hear you ask? Nailed it!

(As a side note, the audience was on good form as well: not too much coughing etc, and the length of time between each piece ending and applause beginning was more than adequate. A good 10-15 seconds for the Adagio and instantaneous for Shostakovich 5, such was the energy in the room when the conductor slammed on the brakes and the symphony came to a sudden stop with a final timpani strike!)
 
It's been a while since I've bought any classical music - too much music already and not enough time to listen - but a couple of weeks ago I saw the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performing Shostakovich's 5th Symphony as well as Barber's Adagio For Strings and Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. The Mahler and Barber pieces were quite enjoyable but as you can probably imagine, I was there for the main event: Shostakovich 5. And in a nutshell, it was amazing. Easily the best classical music concert I've ever been to without exception. Okay, there were a couple of fo moments when someone wasn't playing to the nanosecond along with everybody else. But it was fantastic from start to finish all the same. The finale, I hear you ask? Nailed it!

(As a side note, the audience was on good form as well: not too much coughing etc, and the length of time between each piece ending and applause beginning was more than adequate. A good 10-15 seconds for the Adagio and instantaneous for Shostakovich 5, such was the energy in the room when the conductor slammed on the brakes and the symphony came to a sudden stop with a final timpani strike!)

Derek, as a Shostakovich fan myself, lately I've been playing this magnificent LIVE performance by Valery Gergiev of Symphony No. 7 in C major, op.60 "Leningrad." It is superbly played and wonderfully recorded on the Philips Label [Philips/mch SACD]

51USASc4UkL.jpg


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shostakovi...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00008UAFX
 
I can't find a hi-res multi-channel version of Liszt's Les Preludes (Orchestral Version). One of my early classical favorites. HRAudio. Net is no help. Anybody know of one? Thanks.

Double checked hraudio.net, myself, Mike and could only come up with this well recorded Stereo BD~A, reasonably priced. As you know, 99% of all Classical mch SACDs contain ambient rears so if you apply DSP you'll probably get a similar ambient effect.

https://www.hraudio.net/showmusic.php?title=9445
 
Double checked hraudio.net, myself, Mike and could only come up with this well recorded Stereo BD~A, reasonably priced. As you know, 99% of all Classical mch SACDs contain ambient rears so if you apply DSP you'll probably get a similar ambient effect.

https://www.hraudio.net/showmusic.php?title=9445
Thank you. I already have that disc and it sounds great. Can't believe that piece has never been released in surround, though.
 
Thank you. I already have that disc and it sounds great. Can't believe that piece has never been released in surround, though.
That actually is pretty crazy - it's a wonderful piece - total bombast in the best way possible. It's one of those pieces I actually heard live (NYP with Masur) and then went back to the recordings to listen more.

I'll go further - there really isn't a good multichannel version for many of Liszt's orchestral works, and this seems like a bizarre oversight. We do have a few versions of the piano concertos, which you'd expect, and the Dante Symphony (which is really one of his lesser works, although I do appreciate its availability), but we don't have one of his Faust Symphony or the Hungarian Rhapsodies, which were long staples of the repertoire. And while I appreciate the older stereo recordings being reissued on BD-A and SACD (including most famously the below), there's a difference in what you get with a modern high-res multichannel recording.

51gmENKiTqL.jpg


Of course, if Dutton or DG itself reissued Bernstein's recording of A Faust Symphony from Boston, which I understand is a Thomas Mowrey active quad mix, never heard by the public, I wouldn't complain.
 
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