David Ayers

OK I of all people should know it is not the RED Army any more which is why I didn't find it on youtube - I posted a link to the whole thing in the What Are you Listening To thread

Bev and Trotsky were wrong to oppose art-for-art's sake - or maybe not. What could be more socially useful than art you can dish out with the tea and coffee after the sunday morning service....

Behind a paywall so not sure if you can see it - I love this song so molto molto off topic - and only ten seconds here (can't find the whole thing)... Russian Red Army choir doing Skyfall! http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/europe/article3850987.ece

You're lucky probably to have that LP. The original LP is pretty terrible. Subsequent CD versions I have heard are to harsh for my tastes. You can go the streaming services to hear the compete version, if you want to know what material you are missing.

Not sure if we need a thread for box sets as such, but not every box set is a bargain and vice versa. Anyone have the time/stomach for the complete JEG Bach Cantatas, about to be released? Not me I don't think but you never know... http://www.mdt.co.uk/bach-cantatas-complete-john-eliot-gardiner-soli-deo-gloria-56cds.html

A compilation CD will appear in Album View as a compilation as long as "Part of a Compilation?" is checked in that album's info. The artist name that appears is "Various Artists." If this field is not checked, then every artist on that compilation will appear separately. OK thanks - still means it all has to be reset manually, what a bore. In fact I just did it by setting Album Artist to 'various artists' - where Album Artist is not set - which did not happen with many of the CDs we loaded, the stuff is all over the place.

I hardly use itunes but maintain it for someone else. It really is bonkers. I think what I hate most is that the so-called 'Album View' has a separate image for every artist on the compilation CDs which we have loaded. Did I say every? Not sure it's that systematic. Just some. Don't they know what an 'album' is?

If you never sampled Norrington's Bruckner, it is interesting. Playlist on spotters: Norrington Bruckner

Although - re. sex, Bruckner is somewhat influenced by Wagner so we'd have to say that Wagnerian eroticism is somehow sublimated in there. The over-use of brass gets in the way for me, or at least what comes across as over-use as played by modern orchestras - especially the plushest and noisiest ones.

I'm asking about this set because I have some store credit in a store that has this in stock and the credit would just about cover it. That said I could also get a lot of single disks for that sort of £££...

I was comparing it to to Mahler's others on why it's not played much....and I am not limiting it to the UK. But isn't it played much? That's what I wonder - I think the Proms stat looks like an aberration.

Tell you what, while we all p*ss and moan here about reissues drying up, legality and quality of PD, etc. etc., there are quite a few euro-labels just creating a torrent of new releases - Not Two, No Business, Trost, Smalltown Supersound, Jazzwerkstatt, Clean Feed... Hell, there's no END to it... I love it that some of these are so fugitive as well - buy it when you see it, otherwise...

This label just keeps pumping the stuff out, as does KV, for better or worse. Has anybody sampled this release? The Wels concert KV refers to in the notes is not part of the set and is to be released shortly on Trost. http://www.nottwo.com/PelnaPlyta.php?Id=442&W

They don't always use the same one. I did a quick survey of more recent sets and found different types in each of three sets. Only one had the hook-over design. What I *did* notice - and these are all open and played disks - is that far from being stiff all three kinds actually work very well. It's just that first heave...

Isn't the technique to push down on the centre rather than tug on the edges of the disk? Trying to remember how I do it. Carefully...

Those are great links by the way.

Here's part of another review of that book http://www.lrb.co.uk/v03/n19/hans-keller/national-institutions

Well, doesn't it get played much? I'm not sure. I've heard Boulez and Gergiev do it. LSO and LPO are both doing it next season in London. Philharmonia and BBCSO not. (a propos of Hans' remarks and of the thread topic, RCO are here doing Bruckner 4, 7 and 9 with Jansons...juicy prospect), So two Mahler 6s in London in the same season, that I found - that's twice as many as in the entire history of the Proms!

Re. the performance stats for Mahler, I am surprised that his 6th falls so far behind the others - that is surely a Proms quirk... isn't it? That's once in 110 years.

Simpson, as we mentioned him, was an enemy of Glock whose rule at the proms he regarded as 'evil'. This archive tool is interesting in terms of the myth/reality of promotion/exclusion of individual composers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/archive

Oh I wasn't really quite right on 1 - here are the stats from the Proms archive... String Quintet in F major featured in 1 event/s Symphony No. 1 in C minor featured in 1 event/s Symphony No. 2 in C minor featured in 2 event/s Symphony No. 3 in D minor featured in 11 event/s Symphony No. 4 in E flat major 'Romantic' featured in 12 event/s Symphony No. 5 in B flat major featured in 11 event/s Symphony No. 6 in A major featured in 6 event/s Symphony No. 7 in E major featured in 23 event/s Symphony No. 8 in C minor (1890 version, ed. Nowak) featured in 19 event/s Symphony No. 9 in D minor featured in 17 event/s Here's your Mahler syms, by way of comparison... Symphony No. 1 in D major featured in 25 event/s Symphony No. 1 in D major 'Titan' (with 'Blumine' movement) featured in 1 event/s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, 'Resurrection' featured in 17 event/s Symphony No. 3 in D minor featured in 12 event/s Symphony No. 3 in D minor (arr. Benjamin Britten) featured in 3 event/s Symphony No. 4 in G major featured in 25 event/s Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor featured in 27 event/s Symphony No. 6 in A minor featured in 1 event/s Symphony No. 7 featured in 12 event/s Symphony No. 8 in E flat major 'Symphony of a Thousand' featured in 8 event/s Symphony No. 9 featured in 14 event/s Symphony No. 10 in F sharp minor featured in 6 event/s Symphony No. 10 in F sharp minor (performing version by Deryck Cooke)featured in 6 event/s Symphony No. 10 – Adagio featured in 1 event/s

Bruckner is pretty different to Mahler - I think it may be Knussen or Colin Matthews who said when he was young he was all for Mahler - events in every bar - but now it is Bruckner, all about shape and build. Discussion of Bruckner conducting is all about managing to graduate the climaxes. Simpson's books on the symphony are a must, although his symphonies are not a must - IMO, YMMV. The usual suspects, Bruckner-wise, are 4,7,8,9 with occasional outings for 1.

Blunt, but true.

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 3. Takes a while to click.