We all owe Binayak a big thank you.

Classical Court

From Perotin to Prokofiev (and beyond), performed by Caruso to Khatia, it's all here.

149.173.31.20

Hmmm, perhaps the greatest performances ever of the greatest music ever written. What else do you need?
The Busch quartet playing Beethoven's late quartets finally arrived on Friday. My wife was worried - she doesn't like old or mono, and these are the oldest recordings in my collection (some dating from 1932). I warned her what to expect, and after dinner we sat down to listen to disc 3, which begins with the op.132 (my favorite). It took her only a minute or two to get drawn into the music, and her skepticism vanished. To me, it took more time to get used to the playing style of the time (e.g. much more portamento then I'm accustomed to) than anything else. Of course, I'm used to hearing a lousy recording of a good performance of the op. 132 (I still think the Guarneri's do a good job), but other than a little surface noise and occassional thinness in the inner voices (sounds like they just placed one mic on stage), the sound was almost as good as the Guarneri, and the performance a bit better. But it was the op.135 that followed that convinced me of the magic of this performance. The Lento Assai third movement sounded completely new to me - unlike any of the other recordings of this work I own. Imagine discovering a brand new gem written by Beethoven in his late period. I was happy.
I haven't had time to listen to them all yet (I find Beethoven's late quartets to require a lot of concentration to listen to; listening to more than one or two in a sitting is too draining). But I found the op. 130 to have the same magic as the others, while the Grosse Fugue isn't quite up to the standards of the others so far (they play it as a string ensemble - in those days, many considered the GF to be unplayable by a quartet, and according to the liner notes, Busch was not in the best of health when this piece was recorded). But the op. 130, 132, and 135 are wonderful. I haven't heard the op.95, 127, or 131 yet, but I have no reason to suspect that they won't be all the Binayak promised.

Edits: 80/52/01

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Kimber Kable

Topic - We all owe Binayak a big thank you. - The Real Dave 05:27:59 05/01/00 (1)

Enjoy their music dear friend, it is not of this world(nt) - Binayak Bhattacharyya 18:12:49 05/01/00 (0)

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