The Planets

Paul, it would be hard to beat Adrian Boult's recording with the London Philharmonic, available in EMI's Great Recordings of the Century series. As a substantial bonus, it's coupled with Elgar's Enigma Variations with Boult conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

If it has to be digital, you could go for Simon Rattle's recent Berlin Philharmonic recording, again for EMI.

There are many, many more out there, of course.

quote:

Originally posted by graham55:
Paul, it would be hard to beat Adrian Boult's recording with the London Philharmonic, available in EMI's Great Recordings of the Century series. As a substantial bonus, it's coupled with Elgar's Enigma Variations with Boult conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

...

Which is also available on CD


Look at Amazon and others

-
aleg

The best Planets I have heard is Levine and Chicago from Arkivmusic.

Highly recommended:

Charles Dutoit, Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Decca 417 553-2

Funny - I read the thread title and thought 'someones been watching Lewis'!...

Highly recommended:

Charles Dutoit, Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, Decca 417 553-2

I've Manni's suggested recording and concur.

Graeme

One thing I've learned from the forum over the past few years is that the British do not listen to American orchestras :-)

quote:

Originally posted by mikeeschman:
One thing I've learned from the forum over the past few years is that the British do not listen to American orchestras :-)

Never really thought about it before but there might be some bias.

It's been a standard joke for years whenever Gramaphone or others have a negative review, one can often say the review can be summed up as "Not British".....on the other hand, in English at least, the critical world of classical music is dominated by U.K. publications. I'm glad we have them, for the information they offer to the listener, even if they do tend to prattle on incessently about a myriad of minor composers simply because they are part of the home team.....

I've just ordered the first three seasons of Lewis on DVD.

Unfortunately, the PBS version available in the North America cut out 10 minutes of the original Carleton production !

Why does this always happen !!! PBS has the exclusive tights to many British shows and they than do a hatchet job on the editing.

I really need to get myself a NTSC Region 2 player !!

I have and would recommend the Montreal/Dutoit disc but in the very early days of CDs, I was very impressed by "Mars", played by the Berlin PO with Karajan.

I can reassure Mike that I'm fairly sure that there is a good version by a British orchestra.

Ken

quote:

Originally posted by shoot6x7:
I've just ordered the first three seasons of Lewis on DVD.

Unfortunately, the PBS version available in the North America cut out 10 minutes of the original Carleton production !

Why does this always happen !!! PBS has the exclusive tights to many British shows and they than do a hatchet job on the editing.

I really need to get myself a NTSC Region 2 player !!

I absolutely, utterly recommend you sell them again and buy the unabused version. They cannot be hacked to death, it's obscene

A multi region player is the way to go, even a cheap one! Lewis is too good by far to butcher.

errr....rant done.

True though

The Montreal / Dutoit version is superb but so too is Andrew Davis with the BBC Symphony Orhestra recording if you are seeking something British - £4.99 on Amazon!!

Hi All.

Thank you for all the advice. Ive decided to go with the EMI Adrian Boult one because it was easist to find

Should be here by Saturday, can't wait.

Cheers, Paul.

Paul, well done, you chose the very best available!

Graham

Boult manages to bring fire and peace [and both are required!] with complete mastery.

I agree with Graham, and this is easily my favourite recorded performance, though currently [as I gave it away to a friend] I only have Boult's 1945 recording, which has equal mastery, but not quite such a fine recording.

Amazing that Boult, who gave the first airing to the music at a private concert in London during the First World War, was not only so completely at one with the music but also so extra-ordinarily consistent in making successful and great performances with orchestras all over the world over five decades, including a long since deleted recording with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, which is also known as the Vienna Philharmonic!

ATB from George

This is mine on the Black!

I listened to Boult's 'Planets' again yesterday, and was astonished by the power of the playing. 'Mars' in particular is threatening, even intimidating.

Today I had a comparative listening of two Boult recordings of Vaughan Williams' 'London Symphony' with two of Barbirolli's of the same piece. I thought that Barbirolli's more relaxed way with the music eclipsed Boult's. It also seemed to me that the recordings that each made in the 1950s were better than each put down some 15/20 years later. (I'm not sure whether Barbirolli ever recorded 'The Planets'.)

But wasn't London lucky to have two such titans, along with Beecham as the clown joker, conducting alongside Klemperer and others in the 1960s and 70s? We shan't see their like again.

Still hasn't arrived!

Might have to order it again

Hi,

the cd arrived today at last.

I have to say that this must have the largest range of any cd I own or have heard.

Certainly well worth £8, and I think it may well be played quite a lot.

Thanks all,

Regards, Paul.

Dear Paul,

This a "tour de fource" on every level, musical and as a recording.

It will be along time before "The Planets" line up so beautifully and powerfully on records again.

ATB from George

I don't expect to see any UK resident preferring an American Orchestra playing an English piece, but Levine/Chicago make a convincing case.

Dear Mike,

What is amazing is that Boult in 1979 was a nonagenarian, and still managed more emotional range, and even sonically dynamic power, than his younger and less directly connected [with the music] colleagues.

Really in this case it is like considering Monteux in The Rite Of Spring with other recorded performances. They both worked with the composers on the premieres.

And for once this great reading, set down over several months [Boult's last performence in the recording studio, and everyone was giving their best], is presented in a wonderful late analogue recording - possibly unsurpassed even to this day. There were digital machines also capturing the recording, but none [at the time] could catch the effect so well as the ultra-developed analogue recorders. Unfortunately Monteux was never allowed that level of quality in his recordings of Stravinsky.

As for myself, a UK resident, preferring a UK performance of British music - well why not? For the Viennese repertoire I tend to often prefer Austrian performances, and for US music then I might prefer US based performances! Certainly the best performances of Grieg that I have were done in Norway and the best of Berlioz were done in Paris!

Seems reasonable enough to me.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Dear Paul,

This a "tour de fource" on every level, musical and as a recording.

It will be along time before "The Planets" line up so beautifully and powerfully on records again.

ATB from George

Hi George.

You know what, I think I'm going to need a bigger room to get the full majesty of this recording.

I would dearly have loved to hear the original performance live.

Regards, Paul.

Glad to hear that you enjoyed it, Paul. I had rather forgotten how good it was until I played it again recently (see above).

Another of Boult's very last recordings for EMI was, perhaps surprisingly, Beethoven's 'Pastoral'. I didn't have it as an LP, as I was happy with Boehm's famous Vienna account, and I don't recall Boult's version making it onto CD. I'd certainly get it, if EMI were to release it.

And, of course, you can't go far wrong with Boult in the main Elgar and Vaughan Williams symphonic works. I have two different sets of him conducting each of those.