RECORDING OF THE MONTH


RECORDING OF THE MONTH

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
A London Symphony
Oboe Concerto
£11 post free World-wide



RACHMANINOV Elegy, Preludes, Piano concerto 3
£12 post free World-wide

CHAUSSON, DEBUSSY
RACHMANINOV
TRios
2CDs £16 post free World-wide

Search
What's New
Classical CD Reviews
Live Reviews
Jazz CD Reviews
Composers
Resources
Contact Us

Every Day we post 10 new Classical CD and DVD reviews. A free weekly summary is available by e-mail. MusicWeb is not a subscription site and it is our advertisers that pay for it. Please visit their sites regularly to see if anything might interest you. Purchasing from them keeps MusicWeb free.
  Classical Editor: Rob Barnett  
Founder Len Mullenger   
 


 

CD REVIEW

 

EXPLORE
Musicweb - CLICK

------------------
Message Board
Announcements
Twitter @MusicWebINt
------------------


Schubert complete symphonies
Bamberger Symphoniker
Jonathan Nott


Only complete set on the Market
35CDs £67

 


 

RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Momentous!

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

Italian Cello Concertos and Sonatas
3CDS £10.95


Brahms Symphonies Zinman
£26.85

 

RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Beethoven Symphonies
Thielmann


Magic Moments of Opera
10 Operas Arthaus £95


Brilliant Classics 40CDs


Brilliant Classics 60CDs


9 Symphonies Chailly
£31.90


9 Symphonies C Davis
£18.70

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

Absolutely marvellous!
£5.99 post free


Bruch VC1 Gluzman
Quite the finest performance of the Bruch concerto I have ever heard.


The best opera DVD of the year so far [ST]


Mahler Song Cycles
Katarina Karnéus

Available again

The Raga Guide
4CDs + 196 page book
£33 post-free world-wide
15,000 copies sold

 

 

Would you like a hyperlinked weekly summary of the CDs we have reviewed?

Click for further details

Sample: See what you will get

Editorial Board
Classical Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Seen & Heard
Editor Emeritus
   Bill Kenny
Editor in Chief
   Stan Metzger
MusicWeb Webmaster
   Len Mullenger
Assistant Webmaster
   David Barker

 

 

 

 

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Symphony No.3 in E flat major, Op. 55 Eroica (1803) [50:59]
Symphony No.5 in C minor (1805) [31:28]
Symphony No.6 in F major Op. 68 Pastoral (1808) [40:18]
Symphony No.8 in F major Op.93  (1812) [24:53]
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Victor de Sabata (No.3)
New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Victor de Sabata (Nos.5 and 8)
Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia di Roma/Victor de Sabata (No.6)
rec. 1946 (No.3); 1947 (No.6); 1950 (No.5); 1951 (No.8). ADD
ANDROMEDA ANDRCD 5071 [76:12 + 71:51]


These are advertised as de Sabata’s complete Beethoven recordings – or “His Complete Beethovenian Recordings” as Andromeda puts it, with rather more gravitas. This amounts to two well-filled discs’ worth containing four symphonies. We can but hope that, even after this long time, more performances might emerge from archives and from private collections.

None of this of course is new. You may have caught, with pleasure or displeasure, transfers of the commercial Eroica in various forms – maybe Grammophono or Iron Needle. The Fifth was on Nuovo Era’s de Sabata edition as was the Eighth (013.616 and 013.6338). The Pastoral was on an Italian EMI CD 081 483475-2. This is the first time, to the best of my knowledge, that all four have been collated in this way. For that at least de Sabata’s many admirers will be grateful, though I’ve not been able to audition any of the rival transfers for the purposes of A/B comparisons.

The Eroica was recorded in London in 1946. It and the Pastoral are the two commercial sets; Nos.5 and 8 are derived from live performances in New York. In many ways the Eroica is the least impressive of the quartet. Whether conditions were gruelling or whether he and the orchestra didn’t really get on the result is a curiously underpowered affair – curiously un-de Sabata-like. The first two movements have plenty of sophisticated music-making but fail to ignite. The slow movement is unusually expansive and tends to suffer, as does the first, from an incremental lessening of symphonic tension. Might this have been a response to insensitive side breaks? Probably not – nothing of the same happened the following year in Rome, though here he was, it’s true, on home ground. I would add that the Eroica has plenty of good things – balance, phrasing and the like – but it’s not one of the conductor’s more elevated documents.

The Fifth was recorded live during one of his concerts with the New York Philharmonic. He gave around twenty concerts with the orchestra between 1949 and 1951. This is an intensely powerful and dramatic performance but is quite unlike, say, Toscanini’s driven drama of around the same time. De Sabata’s means were entirely different. He conducts with a controlled intensity and quasi-operatic sweep that compel total concentration. He characterises paragraphs with the highest acuity bringing new perspectives to bear, enlivening every bar though without drawing undue attention to himself. He thinks in long paragraphs, never forces tempi and generates the highest excitement through sheerly musical means. The Eighth is not an exercise in lightness; it has its strenuous and powerful moments. De Sabata is not one to indulge an effete Allegretto and indeed does not. He brings a balanced command of texture and colour.

The Pastoral was a Rome set recorded in January and February 1947. Here one can feel the full force of a particular kind of bel canto lyricism. Its not one that seeks to impose obviously anachronistic precepts – rather it joyfully explores the humanity and warmth of the music with sculpted and flowing, glowing lines. The musical paragraphs, aided by acute rubati, flow inexorably onwards; the scene by the brook for instance is affectionate, unfolds naturally and with beauty. It’s a deeply satisfying performance, one that gets close to the heart of things.

There are a few clicks in the Pastoral and also one mangled side-break at 4:49 in the finale. Hum and surface crackle harry the Eroica – though the constricted sound is a bigger worry. Of course one can imagine these things being better done. I trust they will be. It’s only as a stopgap that I recommend this but the interpretations themselves leave me with the greatest admiration.

Jonathan Woolf




 

Advertising Rates
Visitor stats
MusicWeb International
has over 40,000 Classical CD reviews on offer

Discs received

Having a problem Donating?



Gerard Hoffnung Concerts &
The Bricklayer Story

MusicWeb can now offer you discs from the following catalogues:
Prices include postage

There will be NO VAT Rises

[Acte Préalable £13.50]
[Arcodiva £12.00]
[Avie from £6.25]
[British Music Society £12.00]
[CDACCORD from £13.50 ]
[ClassicO £12.50]
[Hallé from £11]
[Heritage £10]
[Hortus £14.99 ]

[Lyrita ONLY £11.75 ]
[Nimbus Special prices]
[Northern Flowers £13.50]

[REDCLIFFE £11 ]
[Sheva £11]
[Tactus £11.50 ]
[Talent from £12.00 ]
[Toccata Classics £10.50 ]

Musicweb
Special Offers

Monthly Best Buys

 

Naxos Classical


New Releases

Hyperion


New Releases


 





MusicWeb sells the Polish
catalogue CDAccord
£10.50 post free W-W


MusicWeb sells the
Arcodiva catalogue
£12.00 post free W-W


£11.75
post-free
world- wide

 

 

Google Ads - for information about privacy matters, click here
Amazon Musicweb International is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Pat and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.