Help me, I'm tempted to spend again!!

[barryguerrero]

Please talk me out of pursuing the BR Klassik Mahler box set that will be coming out! Much will depend on if the Colin Davis M8 sounds better than it does on the original RCA one. If somebody picks this up, please report on the C. Davis M8. Also, we'll need a report on the Haitink/BRSO M4. I see that he has Juliane Banse (not my favorite).

I really like the Colin Davis M8. It might, in fact, be my personal favorite. But the balances are truly messed up through the 'Penitant Women' passage in Part II. I'm wondering if this could be from a different set of microphones (or different mixing board).

Hopefully, some site will put up samples from this box set.

Barry

[Roland Flessner]

OK, I'll take a whack at it: Don't stop spending, just spend on music you might not already know. Try the 4-disk set of orchestral works by Kaija Saariaho, or violin sonatas or string quartets by Mieczyslaw Weinberg. If you're not familiar with Hindemith's Symphony in E Flat, check it out.

I'll always be susceptible to buying new Mahler recordings, but I do get burned. I bought the download of Vänskä's M5. I've listened to it twice, and may never bother again.

[barryguerrero]

Weinberg is a solid composer and, yes, I do have the Hindemith symphony in Eb. Thank you for these suggestions. I don't know much by Saariaho, but what little I have heard doesn't appeal to me. Perhaps I need to give her works more serious consideration. However, my favorite living composer is also a woman: Jennifer Higdon. I'm waiting for her tuba concerto to get premiered with Pittsburgh (Craig Knox).

[waderice]

However, my favorite living composer is also a woman: Jennifer Higdon.

A lot of Higdon's works get performed here in Philadelphia.  I think I downloaded her Mississippi Concerto from one of the WRTI Sunday afternoon concerts, as well as hearing it live.  Also, I've heard another one or two of her works at concerts.

Wade

[barryguerrero]

"Reflections on the Mississippi" as played by Carol Jantsch?   .    .    .   that's actually Michael Daugherty. She has a gorgeous tone on her Yamaha 822 F tuba.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPnurVsbQwU

[waderice]

Yes, that's it.

In recent concerts when we went to hear the Philly, they acquitted themselves nicely with monumental performances of the Shostakovitch Leningrad Symphony and the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony, both conducted by Nezet-Seguin.

As for me, I got back into the groove yesterday for performing choral works of significance, namely the Berlioz Requiem.  Second time I've done it, last time was 44 years ago.  If you don't have that on your bucket list to perform, you need to add it.

Wade

[barryguerrero]

Thanks for that thought, but non-professional groups seldom if ever tackle the Berlioz. They'll take on the Brahms Requiem, Verdi Requiem or Dvorak's "Stabat Mater", but steer wide and clear of those bigger Berlioz works. At least, that's the situation here on the left coast.