David Ayers

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.

I suppose that air-guitarists were the first to grasp this reality.

Well, at least they did it. The streaming versions are enough for me. The LP of Black Messiah is findable enough, I think, but...I don't think I need it....

I checked on amazon uk as I had seen them on Spotify. So the quality will be amazon mp3 VBR probably. However I took a look at amzon.com just now and they are NOT there - whether they are on itunes or elsewhere I don't know. I was surprised to see that EMI had done these transfers without there being any CD release - it makes me wonder if there are other BN/Capitol titles that have been given this treatment (as opposed to the endless dodgy PD mp3s that clutter up amazon and Spotify). FWIW the amazon uk versions are priced as single albums.

These exist as legal downloads - for those who care to pay - but I guess we are unlikely to see CD release, not even yet in Japan...

Although Bruckner is apparently regarded as box-office poison his symphonies always dot the orchestral calendars. I don't ever remember a complete Bruckner series though in these parts, and I can only remember going to hear a Bruckner symphony once - the beautiful and happily incomplete 9th. Yet like most folks I am familiar with his symphonies from numerous recordings, and there seem to always be cycles in progress, often on SACD for some reason, as well as several box-set series from the distant or recent past (was Jochum the first?). So is Bruckner successful in recordings but much less so in concert? Is anyone following recent Bruckner recordings? Does anyone go to hear Bruckner in concert much or ever? Is Bruckner performed more often in Germany and Austria? Just trying to get the measure of 'Bruckner today'.

I have never bought even one of this style of 'here: buy the lot' boxes. That's not only because my priority is to support current activity by buying new and recent releases by artists I care about and see in concert. I can't imagine myself 'in' on these sets because I generally have the 6 or 10 titles I would most like to hear, and the rest I have passed on for years so can't feel in a hurry to hear them now. Plus the repertoire selections are unhelpful - I want excerpts from Barenboim's Tristan or two of Harnoncourt's Beethoven cycle why? There are or maybe good reasons for wanting Harnoncourt, Barenboim, Christie, Vengerov, or perhaps lesser-known things like the very good Andrew Davis recordings of English music for Teldec, but most people who want those things (me) will have hoovered them up already. That leaves a lot of no-doubt worthy odds and ends. Good value for bargain hunters but who has the time? Better to buy six or ten things that you know you want than a pot-luck box which you will probably never get through (oh good, some random Richter Bach cantatas). That's what spotify is for. Compare and contrast the FMP box - now that is how to celebrate a label... So i'm with you Flurin and thanks for posting the contents.

Thanks for posting. Some of these are already listed on uk amazon - benefit of naxos distribution!