I know there are more than a few opera and classical music fans here, which I think is TOTALLY cool on a sports board! I belong to several music clubs and order frequently online and would like to know I've got all my bases covered. I usually buy from BMG Classical, Musical Heritage Society, Daedalus Books, Tower, and sometimes directly off a record company's site if I can't otherwise find what I want at the price I want. Am I missing any? What have folks' experiences been service-wise with these companies? Any truly outstanding B&M stores? Tower's Classical Annex in SF's North Beach is one of the best I've ever found* and I'd like to know of others elsewhere.
____
*E.g., one of my prized possessions is an original 1937 RCA 78-RPM recording of Jascha Heifetz performing Prokofieff's 2nd Violin Concerto with the Boston SO under SKoussevetsky. I was chatting with the manager of the store one day, lamenting that it hadn't been remastered, cleaned up and re-released when he excuses himself and returns in a minute or two with a CD containing just that!

I've had a lot of success with interesting and good stuff at the two Virgins in NY -- I know that sounds nearly oxymoronic, but there it is -- or there they are. E.g., I just picked up Bernstein conducting the Vienna in all 9 Beethoven Symphonies this weekend, and it's wonderful. They often have good prices/sales, and their selection is pretty generous as well. Is there a Virgin in SD? Hmmm ... maybe not, but I'd go look for it anyway -- certainly worth looking for in LA: surely there are lots of Virgins there. Well ... truth be told, I'm not sure whether the Virgins are up to your standards, and mine are evidently pretty low. Still and all, I'd check them out.

[ March 14, 2005, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: jockpop ]

I have found interesting things at the Philadelphia Free Library. The LP's cannot be taken out of course (except maybe by educational professionals), but they have turntables.

I would highly recommend Naxos.com. Not only are their budget recordings of many of the most famous works in the repertoire highly regarded (esp. for these prices!), but they also have garnered much praise for beautifully rendering the works of Ives, Schoenberg, Webern, Elliott Carter and other difficult composers, and their focus on often overlooked dead and living American (David Diamond, etc.) and British (Frank Bridge, etc.) tonal composers like Ned Rorem also is a rarity. If you sign up, you can even download the Windows Media files to your desktop. Once this was free, but now they charge. Naxos.com--it's definitely worth checking out.

Speaking of Carter, etc., I WISH I were able to attend James Levine's programs at the BSO! He has actually managed to get that orchestra to play Ullmann, Hindemith, Hartman, Lutoslawski, Carter, Harbison, Carter, Wuorinen, and so on in addition to the standards Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, Strauss, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, Gershwin, and so on, all of whom (esp. Beethoven, Mahler, Stravinsky, Bartok, Ravel, and Shostakovich) I could listen to again and again. And he has included the usual "out there" composers Schoenberg and Messiaen, who do often get a hearing.

Has anyone caught these concerts? I think the only composer he's featured so far that I cannot bear, under any circumstances, is Milton Babbitt. He is, well, unlistenable. But even Wuorinen I can take. One criticism I've seen is that Levine is fixated on the modernists of the post-Schoenberg school, and has ignored the likes of Adams, Glass, Adès, etc., whom I also enjoy, so I hope he figures out a way to incorporate them, as well as forgotten Americans like Roy Harris, and contemporary composers like Ruuders, Rautavaara, Torke, Daugherty, Leon, Taaffe Zwillich, and Sculthorpe, to name a few. I have never been to a bad Levine conducting performance, though I have heard of some; when he is in his element, he is one of the very best.

BTW, who do you guys think is going to replace Daniel Barenboim at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra?

[ March 25, 2006, 05:38 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

If you are interested in life performances, kulturvideo.com has videos of concerts, ballets and operas.
Also, I haven't checked in a few weeks so I'm not sure if the listing is still there. KDFC, the local classical station, did a poll of their classical top 100. On their web site, kdfc.com, they listed not only the music but sources for each.

I 2nd fantomas' comments about Naxos. In my experience, Tower has by far the best selection in store. Don't neglect amazon.com or bestbuy.com either.

Speaking of Naxos, I'm listening to Dvorak's 8th Symphony right now. Earlier I listened to selections on their World Premieres by Alan Hovhanness, John Harbison, Ned Rorem, Tobias Picker, Lou Harrison, Andrzej Panufnik, etc. Some great stuff! It's a great way to hear music you may never get a chance to hear in the conservative concert halls (unless you live in San Francisco or Boston, it seems). Great stuff!

Not to divert the thread -- and it may be a while before this gets released on a recording --but Poul Ruders new opera "Proces Kafta" ("Kafta's Trial") had its world premiere in Copenhagen last weekend. And to rave reviews (at least from the NYTimes):

"But what makes you care and shakes you up is Ruders's stunning score. Stylistically, as usual, he is all over the place. The madcap scenes are driven by garish, frenzied music that nods to Prokofiev. Elements of spiky atonality mix with Minimalistic riffs. When characters snipe at one another, the orchestra erupts in pugnacious bouts of counterpoint. Kvetching bureaucrats are captured through whining woodwinds and sniveling strings.

But every time the ranting energy and pummeling dissonance get out of hand, the score turns momentarily pensive as Ruders captures a character's reflections through luminous, quietly sustained and weirdly beautiful music. The payoff comes in a long final scene, a poignant soliloquy for Felice ..."

I loved the Handmaid's Tale and his orchestral music is terrific.

Link to review.

btw-- I also like Tower for classical cds.

I would love to see one of Ruders' operas.

BTW, can the NY TIMES please find a new word to accompany "atonal" or "atonality"? "Spiky" is really getting tiresome.

Another "spiky" serialist whose opera supposedly was quite good was Wuorinen's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," based on the Rushdie children's book. It got quite good reviews, though Wuorinen usually provokes phlegm.

Tower's CDs are overpriced. I stopped shopping there a long time ago. Gmg, next time you're in NYC, visit Academy Music on W. 18th St.; they have an excellent selection of used classical, art and opera CDs, at very good prices.

[ March 17, 2005, 07:08 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

FT, you may want to give a listen to Babbitt's "All Set". I found a really good performance on a Nonesuch LP in the early 70's, that sounds NOTHING like Babbitt's reputation (or some of his more representative scores).

acousticsounds.com for audiophile recordings.

Thre was an interesting article in yesterday's Boston Globe about the extra rehearsals the BSO is needing for all the unfamiliar repertoire, and the toll it's taking on the players.

In LA, the Tower on Sunset Blvd. is a good source, with knowledgeable staff, but the one in the Valley--in either Encino or Sherman Oaks, I forget which exactly--is weak, shrinking the classical section to accomodate TV Series DVDs.

~Adam

Good stuff here, guys; thanks. I forgot about Naxos, many of whose CDs I have. And the consensus seems to be that Tower's Classical Annex in SF is the only one to hit.

KDFC used to be a great station, but it fell for that silly vogue of playing only parts of classical pieces, which I find a total dumbdown / copout. Way too many commercials on that station, too. WFMT in Chicago is still good, but here in SD, KPBS and its south of the border counterpart XLNC - both audible on line - have me spoiled. XLNC is good for playing lots of Mexican, Latin American and Spanish composers' works and has introduced me to some really nice things. And when I'm within range, KUSC is still as good as ever.

FT, you might be pleased to know that several years ago I won two free tix to a concert by correctly identifying Wiliam Grant Still as the composer of the old KQED's daily "mystery selection." Now that station is nothing but talk. "Words, words..." frown

The Fat Lady Dies: One of the best sources of American performances of classical music Sarah Caldwell has died.

I think the NYT's Anthony Tommasini touched on one of her greatest contributions to American music when he mentioned that she was a critical early promoter of "colorblind casting". So rare.

This is very sad news. She was a remarkable woman with extraordinary vision. Under her guidance, as Tommasini notes in his fine obituary, the Opera Company of Boston launched the US premieres of Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron," Berlioz's "Les Troyens," Mussorgsky's "Boris Gudonov," Shchedrin's "Dead Souls," and Prokofiev's "War and Peace," as well as the world premieres of operas by Gunther Schuller and Robert diDomenica. It's so unfortunate that she was unable to get adequate ongoing financing for her company, but then I remember some opera fans from the Opera Company's best years in Boston telling me that she was far ahead of her time, in more ways than one.

[ April 05, 2006, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

Anyone who brings Berlioz to Boston - or anywhere else, for that matter - is all right with me. RIP, to the strains of le Maitre's own Requiem!

About Naxos........I subscribe to their online listening service (20$ american a year) It has some 7000+ CDs and while the orchestral performances usually are not Vienna, Berlin, NY Phil or Cleveland (Etc etc) quality I can still learn the pieces through the online service. It is a little unwieldy but it works for my purposes. I am musician making my living playing in an orchestra and when I have to learn a piece I have never heard or done listening to it helps learn it. With the amount of music I have to learn I can't buy every CD or I could be broke. It also helps that the orchestras are good but not flawless on naxos because then when they hit a part that sounds "HARD" I know what to spend my time on.

Ergesteiger, they're not flawless, but they actually have done quite admirable jobs with some very difficult works. Take their recordings of Charles Ives's Washington's Birthday, or his Robert Browning Overture. Both have received great praise, and in the case of the latter, I believe there are few interpretations on CD that are considered to be vastly superior. To take another work that's considered difficult, Bartok's Second Violin Concerto, which artfully mixes folk tunes and very advanced harmonic language (it verges on 12-tone structures) Naxos's CD, which features violinist Gregory Pauk, is also esteemed. I would still rather hear James Levine conduct Stravinsky's Agon or Pierre Boulez Mahler's Ninth Symphony live, but Naxos does a very good job, and is willing to present composers like Roy Harris whose work is sadly neglected. (Harris was once considered the leading American symphonist, and I think his deeply Western American, yearning, churning harmonies, would have worked well at points in "Brokeback Mountain.")

BTW, what difficult pieces are you performing? Are you getting to do much post-1900 classical/art music? Just wondering.

Great thread! I went record shopping yesterday and went to the Tower in Pasadena. The classical section is just sad; it's all budget versions of Beethoven's 5th played by ultra-obscure performers for $4.99. However....

I went to a performance of Matthew Bourne's all-male-swans version of Tchaikovsky's glorious Swan Lake recently and I've been looking for a good CD version of the complete ballet. The Philadelphia/Sawallisch (a sadly underrated conductor) set came highly recommended and I found it at Tower, brand new, 2 CD's, for $12.99; a great deal.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic is getting a lot of press by offering downloads of the recent Minimalist Jukebox concerts. Not my cup of java at all, that minimalism--I like notes, lots of 'em, lots and lots and lots of 'em--but it's an interesting idea. I tried to get tickets on Saturday to a LA Phil concert of

Ligeti: Requiem
Beethoven: 9th symphony

but, of course, it was sold out ages ago. Damn the reduced capacity of the Disney Hall compared to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, damn it all to hell! Hopefully, this concert will end up being available for download.

What I'm *really* looking for is a BitTorrent site with pirated live opera recordings on it. I download Phish concerts all the time from etree.net and it's great: a nearly 3 hour show takes about 4 hours to download, I listen to it, save the hot versions of my favorite songs and delete the rest. I have hundreds of cassettes of live opera things, I'd love to find a digital source.

Yeah, that's sad about Sarah Caldwell; she was very brave in her repetory choices. Though, from what I've read, she was often her own worst enemy. Beverly Sills was quoted as saying something like "I loved Sarah, but she could be very difficult to work for; she was so disorganized all the time, it caused a lot of problems". Being disorganized is not a trait I'd look for in an opera administrator, especially one working on a shoestring. And the head of Lyric Opera of Chicago renowned center for young singers, Richard Pearlman died recently too. It's a tough business....

I'm excited about the future of the Los Angeles Opera; James Conlon is the new music director and he's promised to get some of my favorites -- Schreker, Korngold and Zemlinsky -- in to the repetory. He's a fantastic conductor and it was quite a coup for Los Angeles to get him, though having Placido Domingo running the company can't have hurt!

I was only half aware of the Conlon appointment. Maybe we'll finally see a production of Korngold's "Die Tote Stodt," if for no other reason than to revel in the glorious aria 'Marietta's Lied.' Whenever I hear that piece of music, I'm in awe of its beauty.

~Adam

Well the music I am carrying this month is quite diverse. 7 programs total. 1.Aida (finished already) 2.Mozart requiem (not hard but takes up time when focusing on other stuff). 3.One fun concert where I am singing for fun so no playing. 4. several church gigs for easter season.....good friday etc...5.One run out with a mixed classical/pops Beethoven 5th and Berlioz overature in first half second half is stuff like Harry Potter pops stuff. 6. Solo recital with paganini, alard, Rochberg, Bolcom, Mazas, Korngold and Borodin Quartet (Marietta's Lied just to let Adam know) 7. An audition for with lots of classical and romantic rep. Tchaik, Strauss, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Mahler, Prokofiev etc etc. So that's my month......Sleep much?.........When I survive this month I will be very happy.

I think Die Tote Stadt is a blazing masterpiece, but then I would, since it's my favorite opera. And written when Korngold was 22! Take *that* Mozart!

The Pierrot Lied (the baritone) aria in the second act is just as beautiful but it's the third act where the action is. At the beginning of the act, Marietta is alone in Paul's house. She hears a religious procession outside the window. There's this section where a children's choir sings this amazing melody--Korngold knew how to write great tunes, that's for sure--twice. When I saw the production at the City Opera, the children were up in the upper balcony, off to the side. The sound just floated down to my seat. The last five minutes of the opera is easily some of my favorite music ever.

I hope Conlon conducts a production here, but it's being done in San Francisco in 2007/08, so once again, a rare opera will get productions at one of the three big opera companies in California (SF, LA, SD) around the same time. I wish they'd freaking talk to each, so we don't have a situation where Los Angeles did Vanessa and then San Diego did it a few months later--there's a lot of people who travel between the various companies.

What I *really* want to see Conlon do is one of the great Schreker operas, either Die Gezeichneten or Der Ferne Klang. I saw a production of Die Gezeichneten in Stuttgart about 4 years ago and it was one of the best nights I've ever had in a theatre. The fact that the orgy in the third act was VERY realistic and included some nice German schwanz visible to all had nothing to do with it, I swear.

Listening to one of the worlds great recordings:

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields; Neville Mariner conducting David Pyatt, Kenneth Sillito, Robert Smissen, Stephen Orton, Stephen Tees in Mozarts Quintet for Horn and Strings in E flat

The 2002 CD Release on the 'Elatus' label.

Side one of the disk has 4 Concertos for Horn and Orchestra.

Absolutely dead on brilliant in every way possible.

Almost wish I was staying in Europe this weekend, the Academy is doing Mozart Harmoniemusik – The Abduction from the Seraglio K384 at the Philharmonie in Haarlem.


Rob

[ April 14, 2006, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: ITJock ]

Anthony Tommasini and some other critics at the New York Times make some interesting recommedations for Mozart purchases for those of us who still listen to music that was composed before yesterday. I was glad to see a recording of Die Zauberflöte which included Lucia Popp on his list since I got what I think is the same one for some anniversary or another of my own - appropriate for me because we are both alleged to have been born about the same hour. Mark that with being born the year Einstein died.

I thought I'd revive this thread, because I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the new appointments at the Met Opera (Gelb), the NYC Opera (Mortier), the LA Philharmonic (wunderkind Dudamel), the NY Philharmonic (Gilbert), and so on.

I'm very excited by a lot of this news, especially Mortier and the projected 2008-9 or 2009-10 season, which is supposed to be bringing an incredibly exciting repertoire (including "St. François d'Assise"!!!). Both LA's and the NY Philharmonic's choices were also pretty daring, and I hope the Chicago Symphony Orchestra takes note. This season its offerings are dull as scrap lead.

One imminent highlight in Chicago is the Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of John Adams's "Dr. Atomic." I almost can't believe they're doing it. I plan to catch it because who knows when it'll come through again.

Gelb is concerning me as for his "popera" casting, but he is thinking of the future and of the bottom dollar.

Dudamel excites me, I can't wait to see the growth.

I am happy that there are bold choices happening everywhere at Lincoln Center, and think the NYC opera can help lead the way. I wish I knew more about Mortier, but hope that the public will support the step outside of the box that he is creating at NYCO.


I didn't see SFs Dr. Atomic but know Beth Clayton who premiered it out there(she's lesbian and fabulous! Just got good reviews of her Carmen at NYCO in Oct.) I will ask around about her experience in the inside. Let me know how the use of headphone mikes goes over as for quality of sound and audience reaction in the house.

Looking forward to more music discussion here.

Best,

Drew

A movement from my favorite work for wind: Mozart's Oboe Concerto in a period setting. Posted on my b-day last year.

Eugene Izotov is hot in those tight pants. He could jump out of my cake any day.

Why doesn't anyone do this sort of thing anymore? Everything has to be modernized now.