J.A.W.

It's even easier: I decided to give it a rest

I recently got the Bernstein symphonies box. I had a bunch of these recordings on LP back in the day, but they didn't sound anything like the vibrant, dynamic and present recording quality on the remastered CDs. Likewise with the Rubinstein box. The first couple of dozen CDs in the set covering the 78 era sounds better than it ever has before... much better than the 78s themselves... I have many of them. In the past ten years, digital technology has gone a long way to correcting the noise in old recordings. It still takes a remastering engineer with a good ear and knowledge about how to properly apply the tools, but it can truly work wonders. In general, even the recent public domain box sets (like Furtwangler and Russian Piano legends on Membran) sound excellent. What used to be true isn't as true any more. Really good old recordings, like the Mercury Living Presence, Decca Sound and RCA Living Stereo boxes sound phenominal. Better than many recent recordings. I suspect EMI did a great deal of remastering in the early days of digital restoration and now they're stuck with sub par CD masters. They're the exception, not the rule. I had several Membran CDs. As a public-domain label they have no access to original sources like mastertapes and what was used before those and they use whatever they can lay their hands on. To my ears the sound on their CDs was pumped-up, harsh and heavily no-noised, to the detriment of the music. To each their own. Examples of excellent remasters are the RCA "Living Stereo" hybrid SACDs; they're wonderful. Many EMI remasters from the 1990s onwards are marred by noise reduction.

Well, that's very relative. To my ears what I would call "modern" mastering makes recordings painful to listen to, with added digital compression/limiting/reduced dynamics (up to the point that there are no dynamics at all, as happened with many rock remasters; they're just LOUD)/ noise reduction/boosted highs and what have you. On the other hand, carefully remastered recordings can sound great.

What Lon said.

Hm, finding one or two satisfactory (at least to me ) versions turns out to be far more difficult than I thought. I've listened over and over again to audio samples of the Staier (fortepiano), Hamelin and Bavouzet discs and a few others (all on piano) and none of them make me very happy. As I've said several times before I don't like fortepiano and, although Staier's instrument on his set doesn't sound bad, I can't get used to the thin tone and the lack of dynamic range and depth*. On the other hand a Steinway or Bösendorfer often seems to sound too "big" for these sonatas, at least to my ears. As for the various interpretations I've listened to, I've yet to hear a CD or set that I find convincing. I threw Schornsheim's big set out of the equation earlier on; I don't like the harpsichord in these works and the fortepiano, well, I've said enough about that. [sigh] *A case in point is Malcolm Bilson's set with John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists in Mozart's piano concertos. Bilson's fortepiano sounds thin against the orchestral background, it seems to drown as it were. Robert Levin's instrument in the later Mozart concertos with Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music doesn't sound better, it's even thinner - although the piano/orchestra mixing on some of those CDs seems to be a bit better.

Someone should grab this. Great set at a great price.

Sorry to hear this.

Maybe you should consider moving to Amsterdam; the Concertgebouw's yearly programming includes quite a bit of adventurous and newer music.

I'm not sure those people - I think you're referring to Tony ("Chaney") and John B and maybe a few more - left the board purely because hardly any interest was shown in their quest for new-ish music. Tony also had other reasons. John B last posted just over a month ago.

Something I said?

I agree. Overly sentimental and emotional. Her Elgar cello concerto version with Sir John Barbirolli is her only performance I can stand. I was referring to old RCA CDs. I've not heard the recent transfers. I had a few classical JVC XRCDs (Reiner among them) and hated them, they sounded harsh and pumped-up. The only XRCDs I like are the ones mastered by Alan Yoshida.

I think I've heard the name before, but know nothing about him. There's no shortage of good recordings of the repertoire on that box, that's for sure. FWIW, I googled and found some enthusiastic remarks on a classical music forum I don't frequent... [Added] I also found some enthusiastic comments on r.m.c.r., including sources I trust (e.g. Nicolas Hodges, Jan Winter), although there's a bit of a suggestion that Egorov's live recordings might be preferable to the studio efforts. I have a few Egorov CDs (EMI). He was a Russian pianist who spent his last years in the Netherlands. He died of AIDS-related diseases in 1988. He was only 33, way too young.

Are you saying that acquiring those 10 recordings separately would have cost you about $100 more? At least - probably $300. How many recordings does that Toscanini box have - approximately? Just trying to understand what makes this stuff so attractive. Talking about Toscanini, I've been searching for some of his stuff for ages. The individual RCA CDs I've heard have poor, manipulated/processed sound. I've never heard the Naxos remasters of Toscanini's RCA recordings, but I'm told they sound much better.

Are you saying that acquiring those 10 recordings separately would have cost you about $100 more?

Could someone please explain to me why (super)large boxes with the complete recordings an artist made for one label (EMI, for instance) are regarded so highly? There will almost always be a fair amount of so-so performances or even duds in complete compilations like that, as no one has ever been good or excellent at everything they recorded. I'm sure those boxes leave one with a fair amount of CDs by one artist that will never be played more than once, maybe twice. Or is it a collector's obsession? Besides, EMI boxes with historical recordings (not only the "complete" ones) often suffer from sometimes heavy noise reduction, which takes away quite a bit of musical information and can cause distortions (Allen Lowe can explain that much better than I). The Schnabel EMI set with his Beethoven sonatas is a case in point - listen to the Naxos remasters with the same recordings, they sound so much better.

No Spotify here. Would that be Hob.XVI/50 or No.50 in the Landon numbering (= Hob.XVI/37)? [edit] Found the disc on AMG - it's No.50 in the Landon numbering. Listened to the audio samples and I'm sorry, but it's not my cup of tea; the playing is somehow very quirky, with strange tempo changes.

I agree with you regarding Bavouzet's playing in Haydn, and it's what stopped me from getting his four Haydn CDs. I think he is better, more convincing in the Romantic and Post-Romantic French idiom, Debussy for instance. I slightly prefer Bavouzet to Hamelin's Haydn, though, that's why I said I'm inclined towards Bavouzet - as far as piano versions are concerned. As for Jandó, as I said earlier his playing leaves me "uninvolved", on the outside. Hm, I've been listening to various versions of these keyboard sonatas for hours these last few days; maybe I should take a rest and try again in a few days or even weeks or so... At the risk of offending a lot of people I must admit I've always found Gould a hoot. I never liked anything he did.

I've heard some of Jenö Jandó's Haydn sonatas and while I admit that he's a good pianist, his playing doesn't "involve" me, so to speak, to my ears it remains on the surface. I think he may have recorded too much - is there anything he hasn't done yet? Haven't heard the Rangell. Thanks for the recommendations, Larry. At the moment I'm inclined towards Staier on fortepiano and Bavouzet on piano, though I'm not entirely convinced yet. I'm usually not a Hamelin fan, but his Haydn CDs sounded better to me than much of his other stuff. I'm not so sure the appreciation would last, though; there's something in his playing I don't like, but I can't put my finger on it. Schornsheim is definitely out; her playing sounded too cluttered and uneven to me, maybe due to the many different instruments she used. Still searchin'... Any other opinions and impressions would be more than welcome.

Just listened to audio samples of the Staier set again and I must admit that his fortepiano playing is excellent and the sound of the instrument(s) is better than what I'm used to. I like it a lot better than what I've heard of Brautigam's big Haydn keyboard sonatas set.

Weekend bump

I am looking for CDs or a CD-set with Haydn's keyboard sonatas, but so far I haven't found any that are totally satisfactory. I have the Alfred Brendel set, but I'd like to expand my collection. I've listened to audio samples of the big Christine Schornsheim box with various "period" instruments (it bored me to death, which surprised me as I like her version of Das wohltemperierte Clavier - at least most of it), Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Marc-André Hamelin and Leif Ove Andsnes, all on piano, and I've heard a few snippets of Andreas Staier and Ronald Brautigam, both on fortepiano, an instrument I'm not really fond of; to my ears it is limited in its expressiveness and dynamic range, and this seems to hamper Brautigam's set. Any comments on those interpretations and/or any recommendations?

Just heard from Frog owner Paul Swinton that the upcoming Ellington and Rare and Hot Black Bands CDs were mastered by Nick Dellow; the transfers were done by Joel O’Sickey, Charlie Crump, John Wilby, Nick Dellow and Harry Coster.

This need not be so if you use the IBAN et BIC (SWIFT) codes of the recipient's bank account for bank transfers inside the EU, and the banks aren't even ALLOWED to charge the customer (at either end) any fees for such intra-EU bank transfers using these codes (for once EU regulations are in the interest of the individual citizen on a practical level). Yet some banks still do (including those in France when you send money FROM France). All that probably helps in the short run is to raise heck directly with the banks (i.e. the bank tellers) each time they want to deduct fees for such transactions. I was told that only euro → euro bank transfers within the European Union are or should be free of charge; transfers involving other currencies are charged with exchange rate fees. Indeed I am not 100% sure about that but the intra-EU bank transfers from Germay to Sweden that I have made, for example (i.e. euros into Swedish Crowns), have always been exempt of fees on BOTH sides. Anyway, I cannot see why "fees" (and certainly not exorbitant fees) should apply to exchange rates. You just credit the recipient's account with the amount at the exchange rate applicable at the time the money is transferred. Banks in my country used to charge fees for exchanging euro amounts into foreign currency amounts before the money was transferred, even though the BIC/Swift and IBAN codes/numbers were used. It's been a few years since my last euro → foreign currency bank transfer within the EU, though, so things may have changed.

This need not be so if you use the IBAN et BIC (SWIFT) codes of the recipient's bank account for bank transfers inside the EU, and the banks aren't even ALLOWED to charge the customer (at either end) any fees for such intra-EU bank transfers using these codes (for once EU regulations are in the interest of the individual citizen on a practical level). Yet some banks still do (including those in France when you send money FROM France). All that probably helps in the short run is to raise heck directly with the banks (i.e. the bank tellers) each time they want to deduct fees for such transactions. I was told that only euro → euro bank transfers within the European Union are or should be free of charge; transfers involving other currencies are charged with exchange rate fees.

Thanks Brownie, but you have to wait for me to learn how to pay you MG Not to worry... there are several ways to have money cross the Channel! Good luck with that if you want to avoid extra cost. I usually use my PayPal account and swallow the fee myself by using the "private" PayPal payment method when sending payment to private persons. One of my U.K. contacts told me sterling → euro bank transfers are hideously expensive.