Anyone read this   http://radiotoday.co.uk/2015/08/noel-edmonds-close-irrelevant-bbc-radio-3/ ? Anyone hear Mozart’s sublime C minor Mass under Sir John Eliot Gardiner at 11 this morning on ‘Essential Classics’? And will you be listening to Gardiner’s Monteverdi Prom tonight? Trawl through the Radio Times and pick on any day to check out the riches on offer on Radio 3. Irrelevant? What, the very hub of our national culture? OK, I may be a R3 presenter but  …. what utter tripe! Please react

Rob.

I was very saddened to hear of Bill’s death (some time in June, apparently). I fondly recall meeting him for the first times at EMI’s headquarters in Manchester Square when, as a 21-year-old, I excitedly negotiated issuing a Bronislaw Huberman LP on my own Melos label (which ran to just that single release – 99 copies to avoid purchase tax!). He took me to see David Bicknell and listened attentively to the home-made transfer that I had prepared on my Ferrograph tape recorder. I seem to remember he was rather impressed, quite an accolade coming from one of the best transfer technicians around at the time. While at EMI Bill had dealt with my beloved Mercury label (this was before Philips got involved) and later on at Boosey & Hawkes, where he was Sales Manager while I looked after advertisements, he would kindly bring in rare LPs on a daily basis so that I could hear them, an act of generosity that I shall never be able to repay. Well, not quite true … when Bill fell ill and his then-partner Gill was holding the fort I joined forces with a group of mates to move his collection from a basement flat to his home in Edgware. I recall, with some amusement, loading armfuls of discs from the flat to the lorry and someone stopping me to ask if this was ‘Candid Camera’! Halfway up Highgate Hill the vehicle started to labour under the weight of its sizeable cargo and when we finally opened the door to check everything was OK it was as if someone had randomly thrown a thousand packs of cards into a limited space and they had toppled uncontrollably. Fortunately only two 78s were broken … but the real eye-opener was when I borrowed a couple of LPs (by the cellist Piatigorsky) and he knew exactly what I’d taken. Now that’s what I call knowing your collection. A real character and a critic with a view was Bill, which is what we need. May he rest in peace.

So Ted is gone. Died a few days ago. I can hardly believe it. Two things have happened this week that recalled musical epiphanies. One was reading a review in the November 1962 Gramophone about the first ‘Heifetz-Piatigorsky’ concerts box – Denis Stevens was the critic and I was moved to the core by his wise words and the power of his enthusiasm – and the other was Ted’s death. Years ago I’d wait impatiently for the special monthly editions of the Third Programme’s Music Magazine (on a Sunday morning, as I recall), introduced by John Lade, when Ted’s voice would have me glued to the speaker, the sheer relish with which he expressed everything he said, his sentences warm, engaging, vocally inimitable, rather like the records he was reviewing. Already a fan of ‘the Third’, I was soon an avid Gramophone reader and enjoyed Ted on the page just as much as listening to him. Later on, when I edged into the reviewing business myself, he was always very supportive and I was never shy about telling him how much of an influence he’d been over the years. I’m glad I did at least that.

Regarding that Heifetz set by the way, Duncan Druce and I are exchanging views about it in a forthcoming issue of Gramophone.

But regarding Ted .. when did you first read him and how did you react?

Stunning Beethoven symphonies (Nos. 1-8) from Rudolf Barshai, Russian Melodiya recordings from the 1970s. Measured tempos, ‘dovetailed’ phrasing, strong though never brutal emphases, all first movement exposition repeats observed, fairly good stereo sound. And such STRONG interpretations! I’d recommend them to anyone

A whole range of fascinating Melo Classic CDs, none of the material previously released on CD, probably not in any form. The pianist Marian Filar, whose life story is virtually as tragic as Szpilman’s (of ‘The Pianist’ fame). Eloquent Chopin with no excessive rubato (a sequence of Op. 28 Preludes is especially good). Exhaustive booklet notes. Friedrich Wuhrer and Elly Ney (both Nazis), Wuhrer worth hearing for a magnificent Hammerklavier, Ney for a fairly sensitive Schumann Quintet (with the Hoffman Quartet, the second movement being incredibly slow). Plenty more in the catalogue – do check out their website.

I’d never heard of the violinist Patrice Fontanarosa but a 12-cd set on French Decca has, in some respects, proved a revelation. A superb Schumann Fantasy plus the Violin Concerto, the Schubert trios with his brother and sister, Ravel and Fauré too.

What have you heard?

naughty and tongue-in-cheek, but maybe the start of a strand (thank you Sue Black):

There was a composer called glass

Whose themes were exceptionally sparse

So we launched a petition

To allow repetition

Which earned him a sack full of brass!

Contributor Trevor Harley reminded me of Glenn Gray’s ingeniously jazzed version of César Franck’s Symphony (prompted by my programming the [original] piece in Monteux’s magnificent Chicago recording on today’s Radio 3 ‘Sunday Morning’). Any other ‘faves’ when it comes to jazzing the classics (to put it very simply) – ie, arrangements by Kenton (specifically Wagner), Herbie Hancock, Uri Caine, etc?

… not necessarily that became your favourite versions thereafter, but that posited themselves in your musical memory banks as valid but radically different interpretative options …

ie just for starters (for me at least), Reinhard Goebel in the Brandenburgs

Thomas Dausgaaard in Schubert 8 (ie, ‘Unfinished’)

Samiil Feinberg in Bach ’48’

Celibidache in Sibelius 5

Hans Rosbaud in Mahler 6

Toscanini/BBC SO/1935 in Brahms 4

… please bring your own list

Wonderful things here … some for the first time on CD … Mennin’s 7th and Martinon’s 4th. Also love Varèse Arcana, Martin Concerto, Nielsen 4 … a combination of powerful projection, precise execution and an intuitive understanding of each work. Comments – and on Martinon generally?

For me, one of ‘top three’ in the twentieth century … the other’s being Bartók and Stravinsky. But as ever I’m open to negotiation!

As to favoured recordings of the symphonies, I’ll get things rolling principally in the realms of analogue tape:

Symphony 1 – de Sabata (NYPO) or Stokowski and his SO

No. 2 – Beecham, BBC SO … also Toscanini (1940)

No. 3 – Bernstein NYPO; Collins, LSO; Barbirolli

No. 4 – Hannikaïnen, USSR SO, Schneevoigt, Toscanini (fast but immensely gripping)

No. 5 – Celibidache, Swedish Radio SO, Koussevitzky/Boston

No. 6 – Sixten Ehrling maybe Karajan/BPO too … and Beecham/RPO

No. 7 – Koussevitzky BBC SO, Ormandy/Philadelphia/Concertgebouw, Mravinsky/Leningrad PO

Kullervo – Berglund (Bournemouth)

and ‘cycles’? – Rohzdestvensky, Davis (Boston SO, later LSO ‘live’)

Lemminkaïnen Legends – Hannikaïnen, Segerstam (digital)

mine … Thomas Jensen conducting the complete Sibelius symphonies (truth or myth?), Fernando Valenti’s complete Scarlatti recordings on Westminster, Jörg Demus’s complete Bach recordings for Westminster, Josef Keilberth’s last Bayreuth Ring (I heard it broadcast ‘live’ in the early sixties), Sony’s original Craft Schoenberg edition …

… please carry on from here: 🙂