Ray, I'd suggest that you use your newly-acquired downloading skills to acquire, at a moderate price, Sir Charles Mackerras's Brahms cycle with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It was a revelation when it came out, and it is still my go-to recording. IMNTHO less, with Brahms orchestral works, is very definitely more.

On 13/04/2024 11:56 am, Ermintrudethecat wrote:
> Ray, I'd suggest that you use your newly-acquired downloading skills to
> acquire, at a moderate price, Sir Charles Mackerras's Brahms cycle with
> the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It was a revelation when it came out,
> and it is still my go-to recording. IMNTHO less, with Brahms orchestral
> works, is very definitely more.

Brahms can't win really. Mackerras uses a small chamber orchestra, which
means Mackerras will be fleet (he usually is) whereas with a larger
orchestra the textures become too muddied. Last set I got was
Solti/Chicago and prior to that was Alsop/LPO. Alsop's set has the
Hungarian Dances (arr. Breiner) which along with Walter, are my
favourites. Solti is excellent too, (on Australian Eloquence) and not
rushed as was his usual want.

I have enough Brahms now thanks, more than enough.

Ray Hall, Taree

Ermintrudethecat wrote:

> Ray, I'd suggest that you use your
> newly-acquired downloading skills
> to acquire, at a moderate price,
> Sir Charles Mackerras's Brahms
> cycle with the Scottish Chamber
> Orchestra.

Available from YouTube at zero cost,
except for the monthly subscription:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhz_qQCN2FrqMyv2rVRo-g9s3rGLXUoIc

Herman wrote:

> "According to Hurwitz around 1960 good orchestras only existed in the USA."

> Shades of Ansermet Maniac and his belief that no one outside NYC or Chicago could play horn.

I find it interesting that the Dude's reference recordings are mostly from the time of his mother's generation.

The reference recording of "Messiah" for my mother's generation would have been sung by the Huddersfield Choral Society, the conductor would have been Sir Malcolm Sargent, the orchestration would have been that of Sir Henry Wood. Tempi would have been stately and a couple of movements would have been omitted to stop the performance reaching Bayreuthian length. But in its day it was broadcast by the BBC annually, and listened to
throughout the country with the reverence accorded elsewhere to a pontifical High Mass, of which it was the Protestant equivalent in many ways. The Huddersfield Choral Society was just that, a very large very competent group of amateurs, most of whom would have sung in their church or chapel choir. Huddersfield itself was a mill town in the unfashionable north. But everything stopped for Messiah

Then people like Mackerras came along and shocked the world by using a small choir and a chamber orchestra. Tempi were brisk, soloists ornamented, and a lot of my mother's generation were not sure that they liked it. Then we got the HIP people - there's a great example from Accents and Laurence Equilbey from Aux en Provence available on Arte at the moment.

My point is that you cannot have a single Reference Recording for this work or most others. Audiences change, performance values change, tastes change. Now while I have a great deal of respect for the Messiah of Sir Malcolm Sargent's day and that honest hard-working provincial and
very musical audience he performed it for, I couldn't sit through one of his recordings for
more than about three movements.

On Thu, 11 Apr 2024 21:46:03 +1000, Raymond Hall
<raymond.hallbear1@gmail.com> wrote:

>> And what do you plan to do when all your CDs have oxidized (bronzed)?
>> They don't last forever. Their longevity is in fact lower than LPs'.
>> Decently stored LPs do not rot by just sitting around. CDs do.

How long have you been collecting LPs? I have been doing this since
the late 50s. My experience with LPs is if you never play them they
will deteriorate in disturbing ways.

As far as CDs "bronzing," I have some which should have, from various
companies discussed in ARG and so forth, and they never have.

CDs (and DVDs too) which are scratched or scuffed have a good deal of
resistance to not playing correctly. I have purchased some discs which
looked like they were dragged on a gravel road, most of them played
OK.

As far as CDs which had factory defects, maybe half a dozen or less in
40 years. A while ago I got an RCA CD of Serkin doing Mozart piano
concertos, it looked like the "label" side had been stamped so
heavily, it went right through to the play side. That would *not* play
OK.

On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 18:28:00 +0000, Paul Goodman
<no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>VLC will play FLAC files on a Mac with no need for conversion.

Many DVD/Blu-Ray players will also play FLAC these days, i.e., Sony
and LG models...

On 14/04/2024 5:40 am, Mr. Mike wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Apr 2024 21:46:03 +1000, Raymond Hall
> <raymond.hallbear1@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> And what do you plan to do when all your CDs have oxidized (bronzed)?
>>> They don't last forever. Their longevity is in fact lower than LPs'.
>>> Decently stored LPs do not rot by just sitting around. CDs do.
>
> How long have you been collecting LPs? I have been doing this since
> the late 50s. My experience with LPs is if you never play them they
> will deteriorate in disturbing ways.
>
> As far as CDs "bronzing," I have some which should have, from various
> companies discussed in ARG and so forth, and they never have.
>
> CDs (and DVDs too) which are scratched or scuffed have a good deal of
> resistance to not playing correctly. I have purchased some discs which
> looked like they were dragged on a gravel road, most of them played
> OK.
>
> As far as CDs which had factory defects, maybe half a dozen or less in
> 40 years. A while ago I got an RCA CD of Serkin doing Mozart piano
> concertos, it looked like the "label" side had been stamped so
> heavily, it went right through to the play side. That would *not* play
> OK.

Are you replying to me or DK? Apart from starting collecting music with
a few LPs, just prior to the advent of CDs, my collection is 100% CDs.
Apart from a few iffy results, I can't say I've ever had a problem yet
with "bronzing" or any other issue, except where the surface has been
scratched badly or scuffed. Certainly nothing that has me worried.
Booklets yellowing is a bigger problem, but so does any paper over time.

Ray Hall, Taree

Mr. Mike wrote:
>
> As far as CDs which had factory defects,
> maybe half a dozen or less in 40 years.

Factory defects are not the main problem
for CDs. The bigger problem is oxidation.

The aluminum film that reflect light in
CDs oxidizes over time without the CD
being played, or anyone doing anything
with it.

> A while ago I got an RCA CD of Serkin
> doing Mozart piano concertos, it looked
> like the "label" side had been stamped
> so heavily, it went right through to
> the play side.

Not surprising considering who played.
Heavy handed all the way through from
conception to production.

> That would *not* play

Thank God your ears were spared torture!

Cheers!

Mr. Mike wrote:

> On Wed, 10 Apr 2024 18:28:00 +0000, Paul Goodman
> <no_email@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>>VLC will play FLAC files on a Mac with no need for conversion.

> Many DVD/Blu-Ray players will also play FLAC these days, i.e., Sony
> and LG models...

Unfortunately the Sony BluRay players I have are not gapless which means you can get irritating breaks in the wrong places, e.g. during the transitions between 'attacca' movements.

Andrew and Ermintrude Clarke
Canberra

Seems what I said was indeed quite prophetic ;) (had nothing to do with conspiracies haha)

But you (Andrew) are just deaf, dumb and blind

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68823240.amp

-- Will the Australian authorities make the connection to Islam? No... they are as stupid as you are, Andrew.

On Thu, 11 Apr 2024, Raymond Hall wrote:

> On 10/04/2024 11:43 pm, ermintrudethecat wrote:
>> I should add that I do not have WinZip installed on my desktop. I suppose
>> there must be some kind of unzip program built into Windows 10/11.
>>
>> A&E
>
> Thanks to all. I bought the Temirkanov/Tchaikovsky set (flac) download, and
> was surprised at how easy it was. I used the Presto app. which allowed me to
> nominate a folder into which the files went, and after hitting a few buttons,
> the downloads proceeded.
> When I looked inside the folder all the music was there, all separate by
> movement. And yes, I am using VLC which allows me to use the flac files
> directly.
>
> I have to say, that as a first, having been a CD collector for 40 years that
> this could be addictive. Sans the physical experience might give me a few
> twitches, but I will survive.
>
> Ray Hall, Taree

THe Presto app has made for the easiest and smoothest download procedure
I've encountered - way better than past experiences with Amazon et al.
Presto really seems to know how to do things right. True, not cheap. But
a next step (not yet taken by this CD addict) is to really bite the bullet
and subscribe to their streaming service.
--
Al Eisner

In article <413e4a3f-0e4b-0943-385a-67fa3eefe3a4@slac.stanford.edu>,
Al Eisner <eisner@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>But a next step (not yet taken by this CD addict) is to really
>bite the bullet and subscribe to their streaming service.

I tried Presto's streaming service for about six months, and went
back to Qobuz: The latter has more selection (by far, counting
non-classical), a more flexible/informative player (although still
not gapless...), and then the part I thought I was really getting
from Presto was disappointing: Although their CD search is probably
the best among retailers at the moment, the streaming search *isn't*
that and is (typical) trash! True, you can go find the streaming
link from the CD side....

It's been a few months. I suppose they might have improved these
points. Since I'm interested in various EU & world/improv music
etc. releases though, Qobuz has WAY more available.... (If on
Presto, they are only offering physical copy, no download, then
it's not on their streaming side either. True of more items than
I realized.)

Raymond Hall wrote:

> On 12/04/2024 8:58 pm, Ermintrudethecat wrote:
>> Right composer, right conductor, wrong label ... I was referring to Adam
>> Fischer's ongoing series of recordings of the late symphonies for Naxos.
>> I'm surprised that Nimbus or their successors hasn't been onto Naxos re
>> what is a clear breach of copyright.

> This is a new Haydn symphony series with the Danish Chamber Orchestra,
> being recorded for Naxos. The same conductor, Adam Fischer, recorded the
> previous set of Haydn symphonies for Nimbus with the Austro-Hungarian
> Haydn Orchestra.

> I don't know why Adam Fischer has decided to record them all again, as
> apart from not some not so good reviews about the late London
> symphonies, the Nimbus recordings and performances were pretty good,
> especially the middle symphonies.

> Ray Hall, Taree

These Naxos recordings are of the "Late Symphonies" only, although someone suggested that this may extend back to the Parisers.
And no, the Dude doesn't like them.

Andrew and Ermintrude Clarke
Canberra

On Wed, 17 Apr 2024, Todd M. McComb wrote:

> In article <413e4a3f-0e4b-0943-385a-67fa3eefe3a4@slac.stanford.edu>,
> Al Eisner <eisner@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> But a next step (not yet taken by this CD addict) is to really
>> bite the bullet and subscribe to their streaming service.
>
> I tried Presto's streaming service for about six months, and went
> back to Qobuz: The latter has more selection (by far, counting
> non-classical), a more flexible/informative player (although still
> not gapless...), and then the part I thought I was really getting
> from Presto was disappointing: Although their CD search is probably
> the best among retailers at the moment, the streaming search *isn't*
> that and is (typical) trash! True, you can go find the streaming
> link from the CD side....
>
> It's been a few months. I suppose they might have improved these
> points. Since I'm interested in various EU & world/improv music
> etc. releases though, Qobuz has WAY more available.... (If on
> Presto, they are only offering physical copy, no download, then
> it's not on their streaming side either. True of more items than
> I realized.)
>

I have no experience with the streaming nservices, so I take your word
for it. It's frankly not bad to have to go from a search of items sold
for downloading (which works well) to stream, if I wanted to. I'm sure
my tastes are more conventioanl than yours.

Perhaps the only thing I can add is that I know how to pronounce "Presto".
--
Al Eisner