Brilliant Classics Complete Beethoven -- Any Good ?

Which version of the symphonies do you have, because if you're looking for another, the recently released Mackerras cycle from last year's Edinburgh festival will take a lot of beating.

regards, Tam

The names look promising! Mazur's Beethoven [in the Symphonies] should be very fine indeed. I used to have him leading the orchestra in the Violin Concerto and the orchestral part was splendid, if not the soloist on that occasion!

Some of the performances are top notch. Not the least are the Violin Sonata recordings with Grumiaux and Haskil.

In the lesser known works such names as Cummings, Chillingirian, Parkhouse and so on suggest to me a good deal of discretion has gone into choosing recordings from great [if more known on the BBC Radio Three than gramophone records] but not nowadays such well know artists who I would think will produce at least sterling recordings and readings - if not a stella sort of list of artists to compare with the likes of Mutter or the Amadeus Quartet, or whoever. I often think the gems are found among such rarities, from less famous artists!!

Go for it, as I cannot see anything likely to disappoint! Only got halfway down the list, but soon realised what was shown was fine...

ATB from George.

Thanks Tam and Fredrick [sorry George !!] ...

I have the Karajan symphonies and love them {Also have a few other versions but like the Karajan, probably because they were the ones I grew up with]. Like the idea of the Irish songs for piano + voice which I have never heard and suspect I would only listen to once !!

James H.

P.S. Note at the end Klemperer in Eroica. Heard him on record years ago [a friend had the box set of LP's about 197x] and thought he was way too slow so a cheap way of getting to hear him again and see if I still agree with my[earlier]self.

Really -- at Euro per CD -- probably well worth getting. Going into town tomorrow !!

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Dear James, on Klemperer it really depends which recordings of the symphonies you get.

My Klemperer "New Issues" Thread will cover the whole issue in complete depth before the end of the year, but buying the individual issues is rather expensive. I would guess that they are discussing the 1954 mono recording, which is now out of copyright, and is a fire-filled and phenomenal achievement, the equal of any, even though to choose between Erich Kleiber and Otto Klemperer is beyond me in their early fifties recordings of Beethoven. They are both great, as are a small number of others at this exalted level.

The Mazur will make the perfect contrast to Karajan. He led the Gewandhaus Orchestra for almost as long as Karajan led the BPO, and I prefer the East German orchestra to their great Western counterparts in every way except their horns! I am sure that pleasure will come from almost all of it, and fascination from the rest!

ATB from George [Fredrik]. Still the same old fart!

Thanks George !!

The last 15 CD's on the list are historical recordings [I assume 78's] but they should be interesting .. Snabel, Klemperer etc ...

I tend to like good quality sound and I hate audience noise [I am a great fan of 'Pictures at an Exhibition' but I can't listen to the Richter live recording -- anyway I really like Berman and am happy with that].

Really see the box-set as 'filling in the gaps' like the BBC 24-hours of Beethoven last year.

You have convinced me -- I will buy it [a lot cheaper than some of the cables used with other brands ...]

James H.

P.S. Enjoy POland .. I was in Kracow a few years ago and really liked it. Went to the opera [Puccini] and also an orchestral concert [Shuman symphonies ?] and really enjoyed them. The people are lovely. I got a lot of help when asking directions in English -- I don't speak Polish so why should they speak English !!.

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The Klemperer I heard was a friend who had a box set [I heard it about 1976] and it had a big picture of Klemperer on the cover. I hated how slow he was.

Hi George (just about used to the name change now!). As James has raised the topic of Brilliant boxed sets, I wonder if you had any thoughts on their complete Bach edition, available for an insanely cheap £60 here:

Bach - Complete Works

The following review is, on balance, highly complimentary, and names some of the artists involved:

Musicweb Review

I've been toying with the idea of buying this for a couple of months, and am coming round to the view that I'd be crazy not to!

Dear James,

I had that set; twice actually as I wore out the original individual issues on full priced stereo HMV LPs! From that you will gather that I found the tempi no object to discovering the music, but the set contains a number of sub-optimal Klemperer recordings [possibly 3,5 and 7, while the Pastoral is more controversial than some people like - I love it though I know of a better one], done too late for reasons of modern stereo recording techniques, which in some cases are nothing like the great achievements of the concerts and recordings done earlier, and sometimes only in mono.

May I recomend that Klemperer Thread to you as a good read! There is a lot of good stuff in it already, and I shall finsih the job when I can spare the money! I don't agree with everything written, but I agree that the points are fairly made in the best traditions of the Music Room! Link.

ATB from George

Dear Droo!

I will hunt the list tomorrow, but going on the Brilliants I have encountered so far, you can safely go for it!

I will post here if that is alright with James!

ATB from George

George .. of course you can post here about Bach !!

I am always interested in your views [I like Glann Gould but was really interested in your fact that he plays one Goldberg variation at a slow speed impossible on the harpsichord ,,, you are a professional musician ; I am a listener].

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Dear Jamres, "blush!" George

Dear Droo,

I looked through the artists' list and because of doubts, then the review. The review is a hagiography in my view. There will be lovely things but not so certainly as in the Beethoven set.

The price will mean that the issue should come if you can afford it, but much more then within the Beethoven set will be a play once experince I am sure...

ATB from George

Thanks George, interesting comment. I think I will buy this set once my bank balance has recovered from the recent attack of upgraditis (curse you, Naim!). Even if only 10% of the contents are any good, the low price justifies the purchase. It could also be a good way to explore Bach's lesser known works, even if it leads to the purchase of superior alternatives to the performances in the box. Out of curiosity, what makes you think that review is hagiographic? It came across as a fair attempt to give a warts and all description of the product, in my view.

I'll let you know what I think of the box set when I get it (in a month or two's time, I guess).

Dear Droo,

There are a number of artists in there for whom I think their HIP credentials are stronger than their purely musical ones. Unlike the Beethoven set where the artists selected are fine if not digmatic choices [in terms of HIP] the Bach set seemed to concentrate on HIP while leaving out the most obviously musically more significant. Beethoven could be, but has not been, subject to the HIP over the musical phenomanon. The Brilliant set ref;ects that, whereas in the Bach set the braver option would would have been to select performances that were fine if not necessarily famous, from grand less mainstream artists - HIP style or not. It is only opinion, but some of the HIP artists in the Bach set, tend to make my heart sink, not the least of whom is Emma Kirby!

Perhaps Iam wrong, but now I have seen the list I would be significantly more interested to get the Beethoven set than the Bach, though Bach is more important to me as music than Beethoven!

Sometimes I think that HIP counts for more with critics than quality HIP, or even quality performance by any other means! I am tempted to the view that too much critical praise was heaped on artists, whom I personally do not care for very much. That's all...

But at the price it can go on the shelf as a reference for the pieces where the music is not obtainable in any other way...

ATB from george

Hi George

I guessed that your comment was informed by your attitude to the HIP debate, so thanks for clearing that up. For what it's worth, I agree with what you say about HIP. Whenever the topic comes up , I tend to think approvingly of Duke Ellington's remark that there are only two types of music - good and bad. Also, my Buddhist tendencies steer me away from strongly dogmatic views on either side of most debates, and it seems that the HIP movement has more than its fair share of zealots. How could I say otherwise, when I enjoy Glenn Gould's Goldbergs?

Further OT, I recently bought Walcha's AoF, on the recommendation of you and Tam. I've only listened to it once so far, as I'm in jazz mode right now, but I like what I hear - definitely an air of "rightness" about the approach. I suspect I will delve more deeply into it as the nights draw in (it feels like music for dark nights), and post my thoughts here - if I have any!

Glad you're enjoying the Walcha.

Art of Fugue was on Building a Library on Radio 3's CD Review yesterday, and I was rather annoyed that the recording didn't merit a mention.


As far as HIP goes, I find myself rather ambivalent. As I've said several times before, there are many HIP performances I adore (Mackerras's Beethoven for example). But that's a particularly fine example because while he closely follows Beethoven's tempi, he isn't absolutely rigid to them, some of his own ideas and choices are in there too - and this is typical of the best informed performances. The trouble is, in my view, that a number of less good artists rely on HIP as a crutch to compensate for a lack of their own ideas. It can lead to what I like to term the HIPer than thou brigade (typified by Norrington's calls for minimum speed limits in the Beethoven symphonies, for example) and sometimes an implication that there is one right way for something to be performed (something I find rather depressing).

We get a lot of "[composer x] wouldn't have liked that", when the truth is we very often don't know. I know prior to performing the Haydn's Creation with the SCO last year Mackerras discussed who there were two performances the composer gave in his life, once with a small orchestra, the other with a larger one. Which is right, which should be used? The most likely explanation seems that that was what was available at the time and there is therefore a danger in reading too much into things.

However, it's a difficult thing, as a lot of very positive things (great recordings and greater understanding of music) have come from the HIP movement. I just think that in some regards it has swung too far one one, but in the last few years I have noticed the pendulum swinging back the other way.


regards, Tam

Dear Tam,

I reckon the HIP movement has been populated by a minority of fairly unimaginative performers, and unfortunately these are generally promoted above non-HIP style performance [which may in fact be very HIP in actual style, but played on more modern instruments and therefore do not seem to count as HIP], but there are some wonderful musicians whose efforts are purely HIP in style and choice of instruments, and you mention MacKerras as one, which I totally agree with! He started out attempting an HIP style with modern instruments in the 1950s and gradually moved towards using proper instruments of the time, with grand results.

Where I come unstuck with it is the scratchy weedy efforts of some, who seem to think a thin squeezed sound is part of the effect of gut strings for example, when the truth is that gut strings when played with splendid technique, get a more gloriously full and clear sound than steel can ever hope for! I always used gut strings and people were frequently surprised to see the strings on the bass even after I had played! Thery found the sound enbtirely not what they had grown accostomed to from the early efforts of the HIP players! The Baroque Violin playing of Racheal Podger is another example of imaginitive, stylish and full blooded HIP playing. Her Bach is the best in my view. Her concerts are always worth going to! Her recordings are sadly very expensive, however.

To really find what gut strings can do ensemble in the HIP style then the HM LInde Consort in the Brandemburgs is one heck of a nice example! Unfortunately this set has been languishing under the deleter's axe for far too long. EMI/Virgin recording from about 1981.

ATB from George

quote:

Art of Fugue was on Building a Library on Radio 3's CD Review yesterday, and I was rather annoyed that the recording didn't merit a mention.

Thanks for the tip, Tam - listening to this now on my PC.

I bought the Beethoven box-set in Tower Records in Dublin for Euro 99.99. I am quite happy with it and will describe it later in this post.

Note that there are 2 versions of the box set -- i.e. with and without the 15 CD's of historical performances. I have seen the set on the internet for Euro 80 + postage so I think Euro 100 is a good price.

The set comes in a cardboard box and each of the 101 CD's is in a cardboard envelope. The first 85 are the complete works, the next 15 historic performances and then a CD of texts. The texts and commentaries are in PDF format and are not searchable. In fact to find a particular work it is best to search the on-line catalogue.

Here is a list of some of the CD's to give some idea of quality ..

symphonies Masur/Gewandhaus 1974
piano concertos Gulda/Vienna Philharmonic 1970
string quartets Guarneri 1987
piano sonata Gulda 1967
other piano Brendal 1964

so generally the recordings are fairly modern -- at least I consider anything past 1960 as modern !!

I have only listenned to a few pieces and I was quite happy with what I heard.

I would recommend the set to someone who did not have a lot of Beethoven's works but who was a fan.

Hope this is helpful

James H.

P.S. The Klemperer eroica is from 1955, the OIstrak violin concerto is a live recording from 1962 with noticable audience noise.

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Well, I have ordered the LvB box, and hope to recieve it within a fortnight.

The Bach Brilliant box may seem overwhelming, but it is indeed cheap and contains a lot of first-class recordings.

The organ works played by Hans Fagius upon restored Swedish baroque organs. A scholary and stylish but still expessive interpretation.

The solo harpsichord works are divided between a number of players.
Pieter-Jan Belder (Clavierübung I,II and IV) as well as the Inventions and some single works) and Menno van Delft (Art of Fugue and Toccatas manualiter) impress both by their thoughtfulness and subtle introvert expression and Bob van Asperens English Suites are suitably elegant. Unfortunately Leon Berbens WTC is very bad, hard driven and full of wrong notes in abundance especially in the P&F´s with many sharps and flats.

The Brandenburgs and Multiple harpsichord concertos with Musica Amphion / Belder and the Ouvertures with Andrew Mantze and the Solo harpsichord concertos with Christina Schornsheim are as good as you get it to day, as are the Flute sonatas by Stephen Preston / Trevor Pinnock and the Violoncello suites by Jaap ter Linden and the viola da gamba sonatas by John Dornenburg / Malcolm Proud.

Leusinks Church Cantatas make up a substantial part of the set. And I have to say, that listening to this part has given me great pleasure. I appreciate the deliberate unmannered approach, which is miles from the mannered over-expressive operatic singing of earlier ages.

So as the result of positive considerations I find the box most recommedable.

Thanks for your thoughts pe-zulu. Your comment about the cantatas is interesting, as these seem to have received a mixed reception. For my part, I like the thought of an un mannered approach, even if it may not be the last word technically, so long as the soul of the music is preserved. Shame about the WTC, but I already have four versions of that work, including Gould (rarely played) Van Asperen, and Hewitt. Only a matter of time before I buy this box...