Another 10 Random Albums

Warning: this is a boring bunch.

Mozart Concerto in B Flat Major for bassoon and orchestra, Concerto in A Major for clarinet and orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham

Someone gave me this one. It’s from 1960 and it’s Mozart. And it’s mono. Mozart wrote a concerto for everything. Bassoon. How many bassoon concertos are there?

(9?)

Mozart Clarinet Trio, Oboe Quartet, Horn Quintet. W. Triebskorn – clarinet, A. Sous - Oboe, S. Huber – horn, Endres Quartet.

Did I say that Mozart wrote a concerto for everything? Don’t even start on his chamber music. This is a Turnabout record. I don’t remember where I got it. Probably that little shop on Vaughan, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra one. Turnabout records were from Vox Productions, “…the creators of the Vox Box.” In case you were wondering.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, Quartet for Oboe and Strings, Gervase de Peyer - Clarinet, Lothar Koch – Oboe, Amadeus-Quartet.

The inconsistency in labelling is simply attributable to the fact that I copy what’s on the record cover. This is the same oboe quartet that’s on the Turnabout recording, but this is a DG recording, which is always classy. The cover is a masterpiece. And, possibly, if you’re going to own only one classical recording, the Mozart clarinet quintet is the one to have.

Brahms: Violin Concerto, Itzhak Perlman, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carlo Maria Guilini

Brahms doesn’t move me very far. Perhaps that is evidence of the fact that I am nothing but an ignorant philistine. But it’s true. He sounds a bit academic to me, which may be why he wrote the Academic Festival Overture.

J. S. Bach: Four Flute Sonatas, Elaine Shaffer (flute), George Malcolm (harpsichord) Ambrose Gauntlett (viola da gamba)

An Angel recording – Angel was the classical division of Capital / EMI

The liner notes of this record state that 3 of the 4 works on it are probably not by Bach. They used to be by Bach, but they are not anymore. It seems that authorship (composership?) can change. But really. I wrote it, but I don't have written it anymore. Or something.
I am not allowed to dispose of this record. That’s because one of us plays flute. Not me. I don’t play flute. But the one of us who does has indicated a preference for keeping this, notwithstanding our inability to hear it. Remind you of someone? This, by the way, was a library record, which I probably bought at one of their we-are-getting-rid-of-our-stuff sales.

Dinu Lipatti Chopin, Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58, Barcarolle in F-Sharp Major, Op. 60, Nocture No. 8 in D-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 2, Mazurka No. 32 in C-Sharp Minor, Ip. 50, No 3

Chopin. I remember a Peanuts cartoon with Schroeder playing piano and Snoopy melting. "Chopin" he think-says. I was a kid and had never heard of Chopin. Chopin what thought I. Onions?

The Best Of Liona Boyd

Classical guitar, I guess. The music is fairly esoteric, Sagreras, Tàrrega, Payet. But then there is Bach, Vivaldi, Satie. Liona Boyd was blond and nubile, and this record was made in 1982, and now it is 25 years later. That’s all.

Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 4, Weiner Philharmoniker, Carlos Kleiber

.
What I said about Brahms? Forget it. This is majestic stuff. The 4th symphony is in a class by itelf. I first heard it in a recording by Adrian Boult, and I remember listening to it as I washed the floor of my apartment, and that was the only time I ever washed that floor. The third movement is the one that Rick Wakeman does (“Cans And Brahms”) on Fragile, by Yes. And Kleiber, who died a few years ago, was a bit of an eccentric, and his father, Erich Kleiber, a German, was a hero; he was known for having refused to play under the Nazis, unlike, say, Karajan or Furtwangler or Boehm. And his version of Beethoven's 5th is considered unmatched

Rimksy-Korsakov, Scheherazade, op. 35, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy.

Another one that my parents had, this music, not this recording. This recording is ancient. There’s no year on it but it’s mono and it doesn’t even say mono. It says “Long Playing” (is that like long suffering?) and on the cover it says “A Magnificent Adventure in Hi-Fidelity Sound.” So there.

Pictures At An Exhibition, Night On the Bare Mountain, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, Colin Davis

I’m done here. Look this one up yourself…