What are you listening to now?

[Chris]

Very interesting!

And yet this 100% authentic LvB work is not listed in this site's List of Works...

It doesn't have its own Op. or WoO number. It might have a Hess; I'm not sure...

[Michael]

No. Oddly enough, it is just listed as Opus 36, the same as the symphony. Not even a 36a.
Interesting work though, as PDG hinted.

[PDG]

It doesn't have its own Op. or WoO number. It might have a Hess; I'm not sure...

Yes, Chris, as Michael says, it shares the grand Opus number of 36 with its counterpart symphony.

On this site's list of LvB Musical Genres, this brilliant trio (Beethoven's own arrangement) is absent from the Trios section. On the other hand, the slightly lesser Op.38 (the Clarinet Trio after the Septet, Op.20) is included. Can you please amend?

And is the Opus list of works going to be put back soon? I'd imagine for most people, this would be the list of most interest...

Thanks.

[Peter]

Yes, Chris, as Michael says, it shares the grand Opus number of 36 with its counterpart symphony.

On this site's list of LvB Musical Genres, this brilliant trio (Beethoven's own arrangement) is absent from the Trios section. On the other hand, the slightly lesser Op.38 (the Clarinet Trio after the Septet, Op.20) is included. Can you please amend?

And is the Opus list of works going to be put back soon? I'd imagine for most people, this would be the list of most interest...

Thanks.

Amended - the opus page will be added in time as will other pages such as the Quartets and choral music.

[Roehre]

It is a pity that one hardly can listen to the Beethoven Trio opus 36 without consciously or unconsciously comparing it with the symphony.
The more as the trio version is much nearer to the sketches, especially the continuity draft which served the composer as framework for the orchestration of the piece (and it is a shame that the autograph score has disappeared, after Beethoven presented the work to his pupil Ries - as the bottom line of the score may well have showed the pencil dottings from the continuity draft.)

Seen as a separate work, not as the reduction of a symphony, it is a great piece of music anyway.

Some of the differences between the orchestral score and the trio score show, that Beethoven most likely returned to his original sketches to rethink the piece (though he hardly did recompose it in the way as shown by comparing the octet opus 103 with the quintet opus 4, or the piano sonata opus 14/1 with the string quartet after that work.)

Btw: the score IS published as opus 36, like the trio after opus 20 is punlished as opus 38.

[Bonn1827]

Michael, I note your antipathy towards 78rpm records, particularly those very early recordings. But have you heard the Mercury recordings of the 1950's with, say, Toscanni and the NBC Symphony orchestra? These are incandescent performances and very worthy of hearing!

[Michael]

Michael, I note your antipathy towards 78rpm records, particularly those very early recordings. But have you heard the Mercury recordings of the 1950's with, say, Toscanni and the NBC Symphony orchestra? These are incandescent performances and very worthy of hearing!

I don't actually hate them but I am inclined to overlook them in favour of more modern recordings. But my favourite Fidelio was recorded in the early fifties (Furtwangler) and is, of course, in mono.
I have one extremely good Toscanini recording, 1953 with the NBC orchestra, and it's a bit of an oddity. It's the conductor's own arrangement of the Beethoven septet. Toscanini claimed that in the original work, the "right balance" between winds and strings was never attained so, to secure that balance, he used 12 violins, 10 violas, eight cellos and five double basses.
It actually sounds very good indeed. He appears to have had a thing about the Septet (which is more than Beethoven did).
I have another Toscanini, the Fifth Symphony, recorded in 1939 and not so good soundwise. I don't know if it's one of the notorious Studio 8-H jobs or not. Some gramophone critic once described a Studio 8-H recording of the opening of the Eroica as sounding like two pistol shots fired into an empty petrol can.
I have a copy (on CD of course) of the first recording ever of the Fifth Symphony - Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic, recorded on 10th November 1913 and originally issued on four double-sided 78s. I can't really evaluate the performance because of the recording which is pretty .... well, awful. I think they had to use tubas and trombones instead of cellos and basses because the latter wouldn't record, and the size of the band could be no more than about 30 or 40 and they all had to crush together in front of a big recording horn.
However, after a few minutes of listening to that 1913 job, a Toscanini recording from 1939 begins to sound like Super Audio CD.

[Roehre]

I have one extremely good Toscanini recording, 1953 with the NBC orchestra, and it's a bit of an oddity. It's the conductor's own arrangement of the Beethoven septet. Toscanini claimed that in the original work, the "right balance" between winds and strings was never attained so, to secure that balance, he used 12 violins, 10 violas, eight cellos and five double basses.

An admirable recording indeed. It's a pity that there aren't many people copying this idea. I know of only one "modern" recording on a former Eterna, now a Berlin Classics CD.

I have a copy (on CD of course) of the first recording ever of the Fifth Symphony - Arthur Nikisch and the Berlin Philharmonic, recorded on 10th November 1913 and originally issued on four double-sided 78s. I can't really evaluate the performance because of the recording which is pretty .... well, awful. I think they had to use tubas and trombones instead of cellos and basses because the latter wouldn't record, and the size of the band could be no more than about 30 or 40 and they all had to crush together in front of a big recording horn..

I find this recording, which was the very first symphony anyway to be recorded acoustically completely, very enjoyable - provided you've got the score in front of you. The CD I've got is one of the historical recordings which were included in volume 20 of the 1997 DGG Complete Beethoven Edition .

[Michael]

I find this recording, which was the very first symphony anyway to be recorded acoustically completely, very enjoyable - provided you've got the score in front of you. The CD I've got is one of the historical recordings which were included in volume 20 of the 1997 DGG Complete Beethoven Edition .

Yes, that's the one I have. I have a theory (probably wrong) that musicians or people who can read a score are generally more tolerant of poor recording quality. Their minds (or their scores) can compensate whereas my chief acquaintance with the music is from a record, tape or CD and I can't get beyond that.
I had a musician friend who used to listen to his recordings on a God-awful tape machine, but he never seemed to notice the wow or the flutter and I envied him. He also tended to have a score in hand while listening, and I envied him even more.

[Bonn1827]

Yes, I prefer a score in front of me whenever possible - but there's a limit to how many of these I have. I have the G Henle Verlag Complete Piano Sonatas of Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert and will get Haydn some time soon. It's a joy to listen to the recordings and read along, just to know how extraordinary those artists are in negotiating some of those notes!! I also have symphonic scores by Mozart and Piano Concertos 1 and 4 by LvB. At the moment my biggest problem is storage as we're downsizing and I'm coming to live in Europe for 12 months.

But poor sound quality can be a barrier to real enjoyment as one is always aware that it is a recording (if that makes sense).

[Chris]

Listening to Beethoven's Lieder today.

[Michael]

Just listened to Janacek's second string quartet on radio, played by the Emerson Quartet. Very impressive. I must dig out the Glagolitic Mass and have a listen.

[Michael]

At the moment my biggest problem is storage as we're downsizing and I'm coming to live in Europe for 12 months.

You could invest in a hard drive but prepare to have backups. It saves space but I prefer to own an actual CD. I don't like putting all my musical eggs in even two baskets.

[Michael]

Listening to Beethoven's Lieder today.

Amplify.

[Bonn1827]

Schumann Lieder: "Dichterliebe" and "Liederkreis" with Olaf Bar and Geoffrey Parsons. What has happened to Olaf Bar these days?