HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: s9874194@phobos.ucc.umass.edu (s9874194)
Subject: Re: Recommend Recording
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 21:39:00 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.184633.29671@news.iastate.edu>, txa86@isuvax.iastate.edu writes...
>Hi! Everybody:
> 
>     There are some recordings which is worth to introduce to you:
> 
>     "Baroque Duet"- Arias from Handel, Bach...etc.
>     Kathleen Battle, Soprano. Winton Marsalis, Trumpet.
>     Anthony Norman, Conductor. Orchestra of St.Luke
>     Sony Classical Records
> 
>     Mahler "Das Lied Von Erde"
>     Waltraud Meier, Mezzo Soprano. Siegfree Jerlusalem, Tenor
> 
>     Bruckner Symphony No.7
>     Kurt Masur, Conductor. New York Philharmonic
>     Live Recording. Teldec Records
********************************************************************
In my opinion, von Karajan' Bruckner No.7 (His LAST recording, with
Wiener, DG release) is much better than Masur's this live rocording.
********************************************************************
>
>     Bruckner Symphony No.4 "Romantic"
>     Clauddio Abbado, Conductor. Wienner Philharmoniker
>     DG Records
> 
>     Shostakovich Symphony No.8
>     Leonard Slatkin, Conductor. Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
>     RCA Records
> 
>     Bartok Violin Concerto No.1 & 2
>     Midori, Violin. Zubin Mehta, Conductor.
>     Berliner Philharmoniker
>     Sony Classical Records
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: rwh@visual.com (Rob Holzel)
Subject: Re: Recordings of S. Richter
Organization: Visual
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 92 11:14:19 GMT

Richard Korkosz asks about Richter recordings.  

1. Chopin Scherzos, Melodyia.  No longer available on CD, but I managed
   to find someone who let me tape the disc from his collection.  This
   is nothing short of stupendous.  

2. Bach WTC.  Steve Apter is right -- let nobody tell you the WTC can't
   be done on the piano. 

3. Dvorak Piano Concerto/Schubert "Wanderer" Fantasia.  The concerto is
   performed with Kleiber conducting.  You don't have to own any other
   recordings of either of these works.

4. Schubert "Wintereisse", with Scheirer, with the Sonata in C.  Already 
   discussed in another thread.  Richter in *anything* Schubert is
   magnificent.

5. Rachmaninoff Concerto #2, DG.  I agree with Ron Nadel.  This is 
   amazing.  NOBODY can do the opening like Richter does here.  And
   as long as we're talking Rachmaninoff, you should hear him do the 
   g minor Prelude.

6. Brahms Piano Concerto #2, RCA Gold Seal.  A very famous performance,
   coupled with a Beethoven "Appassionata" that will knock you out.
   This Brahms Second has never been bettered, even by Gilels.

7. Britten Piano Concerto, Decca/London.  Still the standard by which
   others are measured.  


Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: La Traviata
Keywords: Ponselle
Organization: University of Delaware
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 21:07:36 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.205302.8634@umbc3.umbc.edu> maher@umbc4.umbc.edu (Dr. Michael Maher; ACS (GUEST)) writes:

>In the discussion of ideal cast for Traviata, I  don't 
>recall a discussion of the Ponselle, Tibbett, Jagel?
>Traviata from about 1936.

Au contraire.  I mentioned this.  I agree with you -- Ponselle is
exactly my idea of a Violetta-weight voice.  (Yes, I know she 
transposed the big Act I scene down, and I don't care.)

>The Ensemble in Act 3
>is beautifully sung, though some might dislike her
>shreiks when Alfredo insults her.  

And for a while thereafter.  Everybody I know dislikes those shrieks --
they're evidence that she was starting to lose confidence in her ability
to hold the stage, and her later Carmen (her last new role before
retiring, and an artistic disaster) is even more marred by extramusical
noises.  Still, in the case of Traviata they constitute a very minor
blot on a very great performance.

>All in all, just the weight of voice and dramatic
>ability I should think people would like in the role.

Yep.  The closest we've heard to this weight lately, I guess, was the
season Anna Tomova-Sintow sang a few Violettas at the Met.  I don't
always like her voice production, but once in a while she can come
through surprisingly in Verdi.  (Anybody remember that unexpectedly
brilliant Ernani Involami she sang at the Centennial Gala?)

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Subject: Re: so-so opera / great recording?
In-reply-to: jdooley@maemaster.eng.uci.edu's message of 28 Aug 92 16:42:05 GMT
Organization: pubs
Date: 28 Aug 92 16:44:25 CDT

John R. Dooley writes:

   I've only seen (or heard) one recording of Dvorak's "Rusalka". ...
   The story is kind of a Bohemian version of "The Little Mermaid".
   The music is charming and the performances are beautiful, so I nominate
   this as a "fringe" opera recording worth finding.  (And I can definitely
   say it's a fringe opera in So. California, because I've never seen where
   anyone performed it.)

Amazingly enough, this has been performed in Minnesota, and it was good.
There's a video version of it, but (perversely enough for the only taping
of something) it's one of those "concept" productions.  The concept must
have been inspired by Chereau's Wagner, because it's set in the 19th
century with various other alterations.  (If the medium is the message,
the message I get from these productions is "We didn't really like this
work in the first place.")

I can't remember all the complex criteria flying around here for
operatic lists, but I'd like to put in a word for Janacek's operas,
particularly Cunning Little Vixen, which is in a gray area between
standard and neglected.  The City Opera version on PBS was excellent (it
motivated the hasty purchase of my first VCR many years ago).  The
tie-in book of the original story is also nice--typical central-European
ambivalence on most of life's big issues, which is probably the best
attitude.

Chris Brewster
cb@cray.com
From: dgolber@aero.org (Dave Golber)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: clarinet arcana and transposition
Date: 1 Sep 1992 21:20:53 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation
NNTP-Posting-Host: midnight.aero.org




Dave Golber wishes to point out that he did NOT write the
following "misleading cognate".  It was someone else, and it
has been mis-picked up and blathered around with MY NAME attached
and I feel attacked and insulted and I'll .. this and ... that 
and I'll have you all beaten to within an inch of your miserable
lives with a conductor's baton!!

So don't do it again!

Sigh ... that feels better.

Dave Golber  

(Are :-)s really necessary here?)

>>
>>>Dave Golber writes:
>>>
>>>   Stravinsky's _The History of a Soldier_ ...
>>>
>>>Beware the misleading cognate.  The standard translation of the title
>>>"L'Histoire du Soldat" is "The Soldier's Tale" and that's correct.  "Le
>>>Conte du Soldat" might have prevented confusion, though with perhaps the
>>>wrong shading.  Also, I've heard "Pavane pour une Infante Defeunte"
>>>translated as "Pavane for a Dead Infant", though fortunately it has
>>>become known, correctly, as Pavane for a Dead Princess.

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: stefan@sinus.stgt.sub.org (Stefan Bechtold)
Subject: Re: John Cage is Dead
Organization: Sinus Stuttgart, Germany
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 23:32:12 GMT

steyn@cs.rochester.edu (Gavin Steyn) writes:

>>Here's an interesting exercise:  Do you think that music is a kind of art?
Yes.
>>If so, what would you say al of the various kinds of art have in common?

Nothing. Why should they have? Art is so wide-spreaded that there isn't
anything what *all* (none exceptions at all!) kinds of art have in
common. I think it's impossible to do such an definition of art.
There are always exceptions...

Let's take the contemporary music of the 20th century. What does all
that music have in common ? Nothing I would say.
Or the music in general. What does it have in common ?
And the whole art? Nothing at all...

But perhaps someone else has a totally different opinion...

Stefan Bechtold


-- 
+ Stefan Bechtold # stefanb@delos.stgt.sub.org # Voice +49 711 813240 +
++++++++sed nemo potuit tangere: merda fuit ! (Martial III 17)+++++++++
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: 4' 33" of what?
Date: 4 Sep 92 18:50:43 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Distribution: rec.music.classical
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

elkies@ramanujan.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies) wrote:
> mgresham@dscatl.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes:
>>  [John Cage said] 4'33" could be pronounced "four minutes, thirty-three
>> seconds" or could be "four feet, thirty-three inches."  (I doubt he ever
>> suggested 4'33" of arc, though he might have liked that.)
> [Heard at a choral rehearsal: "you're an hour flat!" --or was it "you're an
> octave late!"?  I don't remember.]  Well, there *is* a canonical way to
> convert distance to time: divide by the speed of light.  I suppose I'd like
> 4'33" a bit more (or rather dislike it a bit less) under this interpretation.
> ;-)  I don't think there's a natural way to convert a dimensionless quantity
> like 4.55 minutes of arc to a length of time, though.

Try the time it takes the earth to rotate that far (about 20 seconds) or
the time it takes the earth to sweep out that arc round the sun (the
extended disco remix) or the time it takes an electron to spin that far (in
which case we get countless performances all the time in the still moments
between when air molecules hit our eardrums).

The most interesting unit is temperature, though.  As someone pointed out
here a while ago, 4' 33" is 273 seconds, and -273 degrees K is absolute zero.
Which makes performances unattainable, by Nernst's law.

In fact, if you apply information-theoretic notions of entropy, can't you
convert the Chaitin-Kolmogorov complexity of a musical score to a
temperature?  - I suspect that everything ever written would be down in the
extreme cryonic range, though.  And if you use Hawking's ideas you could
convert *that* to the area of an appropriate black hole, in which case 4' 33"
becomes a piece of infinite size...

The latest issue of New Scientist shows the idea of "Atlas Eclipticalis"
(or perhaps more closely, Charles Dodge's "Earth's Magnetic Field") turned
to practical use; the output of a spectroscope converted to sound for use
by a blind chemist.  The article even compares the result to Cage.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: diarmuid@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Diarmuid Pigott)
Subject: Re: John Cage is Dead
Organization: University of Western Australia
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 05:29:03 GMT

smoliar@argon.iss.nus.sg (stephen smoliar) writes:
: to talk about dispositional mental states which are induced by a musical
: experience.  I certainly do not believe that such states are, in any way,
: universal across all listeners; 

Surely across a micro-culture like "clasical music audiences" they can
be assumed to be normally distributed - hence perhaps the consensus
about the "canon" of musical masterpieces...
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: maher@umbc4.umbc.edu (Dr. Michael Maher; ACS (GUEST))
Subject: La Traviata
Keywords: Ponselle
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 20:53:02 GMT


In the discussion of ideal cast for Traviata, I  don't 
recall a discussion of the Ponselle, Tibbett, Jagel?
Traviata from about 1936.

The sound is somewhat strained and distant at times,
but I thought it a wonderful performance.  Ponselle
was generally nervous in performances, and at the 
outset is perhaps a little sharp.  But her sempre
libre is brilliant coloratura.  The highlight I 
suppose, is Ditte al giovani with Tibbett, whose 
breath line is legendary.  I would like to have a
recording of she and Thomas - he debuted with her
at the Met in this opera.  The Ensemble in Act 3
is beautifully sung, though some might dislike her
shreiks when Alfredo insults her.  The death scene
is very touching.

All in all, just the weight of voice and dramatic
ability I should think people would like in the role.
I must say, however, I am perfectly content with a
voice like Jepson's in the role.
From: delatizk@bbn.com (Jonathan Delatizky)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Chapuis' Bach recordings
Date: 25 Aug 1992 17:52:34 GMT
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

Following up on the brief discussion last week as to whether Chapuis' current
set on Astree/Valois/Auvidis is a new recording, or the same as the one
formerly available on Telefunken:

I looked at a couple of the CDs at Tower (I don't own any of this series) and
they specified a (P) date of 1968.  This appears to increase the likelihood
that it is a rerelease of the Telefunken set.  It certainly is not a
brand-new recording.


--
Jonathan Delatizky  *  Bolt Beranek & Newman  * If you mention Rimbaud in Bel
delatizky@bbn.com   *    10 Moulton Street    *  Air it is assumed you're
{...}!bbn!delatizky *   Cambridge MA 02138    *  talking about Sylvester
+1 617 873 3366     *  FAX: +1 617 873 2205   *  Stallone  -  Peter Mayle
From: elkies@ramanujan.harvard.edu (Noam Elkies)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Music (and flamage) of the Junk Age, cont'd..
Date: 2 Sep 92 19:37:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Sep2.153709.15319
Distribution: rec.music.classical
Organization: Harvard Math Department

In article <46919@dscatl.UUCP> mgresham@dscatl.UUCP (Mark Gresham) writes:
>4'33" could be pronounced "four minutes, thirty-three seconds" or
>could be "four feet, thirty-three inches."  (I doubt he ever
>suggested 4'33" of arc, though he might have liked that.)

Hm.  A piece of music lasting six feet and nine inches?
[Heard at a choral rehearsal: "you're an hour flat!" --or was it
"you're an octave late!"?  I don't remember.]  Well, there *is*
a canonical way to convert distance to time: divide by the speed
of light.  I suppose I'd like 4'33" a bit more (or rather dislike
it a bit less) under this interpretation. ;-)  I don't think there's
a natural way to convert a dimensionless quantity like 4.55 minutes
of arc to a length of time, though.

...then again, maybe it means that it's to be performed on a
6'9" grand piano (or a suitably-sized string bass).

--Noam D. Elkies (elkies@zariski.harvard.edu)
  Dept. of Mathematics, Harvard University
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: dl@indetech.com (David Lieberman)
Subject: Re: Supertitling
Organization: Independence Technologies, Inc. Fremont, CA
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 14:56:11 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.215817.13690@fid.morgan.com> steve@fid.morgan.com (Steve Apter) writes:
>In article <Btnuzo.K2M@news.udel.edu> conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes:
>[...]
>>
>>In other words, reading will *not* be allowed.
>>
>>I agree with this idea, by the way.  How often I've cut myself off from
>>really participating in a spellbinding performance by dutifully
>>following along my printed text, and in the process missing what was
>>really going on.
>>
>
>One of the reasons I enjoy NY City Opera is their use of supertitles.
>Sorry, my Italian** is just not good enough to follow the story line
>of an unfamiliar opera.  Any opinions on the use of this technology?
>How widespread is its use?

Every major opera company in the U.S. and Canada with the one exception of 
the Met uses supertitles.  Increasingly they are being used in Europe, too.
Even small community based companies are using them.

>
>>Jon Alan Conrad
>
>**German, French, Urdu, &c.
>
>


-- 
____*_  David Lieberman             dl@indetech.com
\  / /  Independence Technologies   {sun,uunet,pacbell}!indetech!dl
 \/ /   42705 Lawrence Place        FAX: 510 438-2034
  \/    Fremont, CA 94538           Voice: 510 438-2030
From: schissel@mace.Princeton.EDU (Eric Schissel)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Reger's Song of the Hermit
Date: 26 Aug 92 22:08:22 GMT
Organization: Cornell University

I've heard Jarvi's recording of the Bocklin Pictures of Reger,
(or is it Bocklin Poems) but compared to Reger's wonderful
chamber music - the last two string quartets and the last
two violin sonatas are especial treats, but so are the
string trios (a minor and d minor) and piano trios (b minor
and e minor)- the Reger Toteninsel from the Bocklin poems
is uncharacterful.  Will someone please record his piano
quartets and quintets, and the rest of the violin sonatas
(the second, third through fifth, and last two (8th and 9th)
have been recorded)?  Thanks.

schissel@math.cornell.edu
schissel@mace.princeton.edu (machine on which the post was posted)
 
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: jwa@vipunen.hut.fi (Jyrki J Wahlstedt)
Subject: Re: Bach undervalued? (was: Beethoven - overvalued?)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
	<1992Sep2.134524.26910@odin.diku.dk>
	<1992Sep2.164438.26889@Princeton.EDU>
Date: 3 Sep 92 01:38:09

In article <1992Sep2.164438.26889@Princeton.EDU> roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>[..deleted]
>Is this the 4th Brandenburg?  That has 2 flutes, but it's a violin
>concerto.
  Or a concerto grosso where the concertino group consists of two
  flutes (actually recorders) and a violin. At least I can hardly
  think it as a violin concerto, the recorders are so prominent.
>[..deleted]
>Ah.  I see.  You don't *know* Beethoven, therefore you know he isn't
>any good.  Funny, I heard people saying things like that about John
>Cage around here.
  It is as with people: if you really know, you love (this requires that
  the other is knowable, someone might "refuse connection" and that may
  lead to hate).

  I've been listening to Bach's cantatas quite actively. They are (at least
  to me) a treasury. The latest gems came from # 81. It is full of really
  magnificent, powerful and lovely music. It's worth listening to!
--
!
!	Jyrki Wahlstedt
!		Jyrki.Wahlstedt@hut.fi
!
!  Our life is no dream, but it should and will perhaps become one.
!
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: sse@breeze.bellcore.com (Samuel S Epstein)
Subject: Re: Funeral music?
Reply-To: sse@breeze.UUCP (Samuel S Epstein)
Organization: Bellcore, Morristown, NJ
Distribution: rec.music.classical
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 18:38:59 GMT

In article <JWA.92Aug31194822@vipunen.hut.fi> jwa@vipunen.hut.fi (Jyrki J Wahlstedt) writes:
>  I hope this doesn't sound morbid, but:
>
>  There have been many requests for wedding music. It just came to my
>  mind, that on listening to one piece of music sometimes ago, I
>  caught myself thinking: "This is music I would like them play in
>  my funeral."
>
>  Has anyone else had thoughts of same kind? Please email me your
>  favourites and I post a summary later on. I could use nearly all of
>  Bach, particularly his cantatas, works for solo string (violin, cello),
>  for organ. Some works from other composers also.
>
>  PS. The piece I was listening, if someone wants to know, was the
>      last movement of Mahler's 9th symphony.
>--
>!
>!	Jyrki Wahlstedt
>!		Jyrki.Wahlstedt@hut.fi
>!
>!  Our life is no dream, but it should and will perhaps become one.
>!


4' 33", by John Cage :-).

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
From: James B. Wilkinson <wilkins@cs.cofc.edu>
Subject: More Re: Oboe sizes        was           Re: clarinet arcana and transposition
X-Xxdate: Mon, 31 Aug 92 21:34:41 GMT
Organization: The College of Charleston
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 92 01:33:33 GMT

In article <1992Sep1.001129.7083@usceast.cs.scarolina.edu> James B.
Wilkinson, wilkins@cs.cofc.edu writes:
>Is there also a bass oboe that Richard Strauss used maybe?
Hah!  Found it.  From the catalog of Forrest Music, Berkeley:  Bass Oboe,
Key of C.
Pitched one octave below the oboe, this instrument is also sometimes
referred to as a baryton oboe.  Only in recent years, has it been reborn
as a modern instrument and it may be used interchangeably with the
Heckelphone.  A number of 20th century composers ranging from Holst to
Tippett have written for this instrument, as it is becoming reestablished
in the orchestra.  Standard conservatory system to low-B ...


>Oboe d'amore is pretty common.
This is in A between oboe (in C) and English horn (in F).
Xref: sparky rec.music.classical:11859 rec.music.cd:6121
From: barrett@scooby.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical,rec.music.cd
Subject: Re: Summary: Ordering CDs from overseas
Date: 26 Aug 92 17:00:53 GMT
Reply-To: barrett@scooby.cs.umass.edu (Daniel Barrett)
Followup-To: rec.music.cd
Organization: BLAZEMONGER INCORPORATED

In article <1992Aug24.180933.8477@vax.oxford.ac.uk> ams@vax.oxford.ac.uk writes:
>These are a few US-based CD suppliers, who (according to the people who 
>sent me the addresses) will sell CDs by mail order.
>...
>Bose Express Music
>Noteworthy Music Inc.

	For anybody interested, Bose Express Music has TERRIBLE prices if
you want to buy non-classical music.  In many cases, their discs are
literally TWICE as expensive as Noteworthy's ($15.99 vs. $7.99), and always
at least 4 dollars more expensive ($15.99 vs. $11.98 for new releases).  In
addition, I have heard several reports that Bose can take a long time
(weeks, months) to fill an order.  On the other hand, Noteworthy gets me my
discs within 12-24 hours every time.  (48 hours when I lived in Baltimore,
MD.)

	Just my opinion....

                                                        Dan

 //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
| Dan Barrett -- Dept of Computer Science, Lederle Graduate Research Center |
| University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA  01003  --  barrett@cs.umass.edu |
 \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////////////////////////////////////
From: mgresham@dscatl.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Cardew and "people's music"
Date: 31 Aug 92 23:47:35 GMT
Reply-To: mgresham@dscatl.UUCP (Mark Gresham)
Organization: Digital Systems Co,  Atlanta, Ga

In article <1992Aug31.013038.21881@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> bobs@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Bob Sutton) writes:
>A new recording of Bernard Herrmann's "1st Symphony" was played in the
>Los Angeles area about 2 months ago.  Granted it isn't played that much
>although interest in his non-movie-related music has been greatly 
>increased over the last couple years.  If you can find it, buy it.  He
>was a very capable and clever composer.  

Yes.  I call Herrmann 'special case' because the programming may
well be made on the basis of the relationship of the music to a
particular set of films rather than purely on his capabilities as
a composer; Sir Arthur Sullivan and Richard Rogers are other
examples of composers who suffered from this kind of 'special
case-ness'.  I'm sure one can think of many others.  That says
nothing negative about Herrmann's music, but speaks of how
programming decisions are sometimes made.

>[...stuff about dictatorial administrative types...]
>According to my information, Ernest Fleischmann isn't very well liked by the 
>orchestra because he is a dictator.  But he is a capable administrator.

And how much impact does that dictatorial but capable manager
have on the programming decisions?  (Note that the Musical America
1990 Directory listed no Music Director...is there one at L.A.
Phil. yet, and compare that fact with the Manager's impact on
programming.)


Cheers,

--Mark Gresham

dscatl!mgresham@gatech.edu

==========================
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical