Carmina Burana

[dem beats]

As this is one of the most recognized orchestral treats ever I think it would be good to list the best recordings out there. Let us know of the ones you hated and the ones you loved. I heard an SACD format that was GREAT, alas I don't have an SACD player... yet. I haven't heard anything in 2 channel CD that was great yet, in fact usualy the better recordings I have heard are just o fortuna and the first 3-4 peices...

So lets hear it from those that are fans and have heard the good bad and ugly!

 

[captain_tinker]

dem,
Well I have the Telarc version on SACD, (CD-80575):

http://www.telarc.com/gscripts/title.asp?gsku=0575&mscssid=UP9QR5XMALWU8G52M5BHDSU1R7HR1WUE

This was my very first SACD I ever bought, and at first I thought it was very good indeed! But then as I added some better speakers in, and got surround speakers set up, and also bought several other SACD's, I started to realize that this disc just wasn't really as great as I orginally thought. I mean, it is good, but it's not as astounding as some of my other classical recordings are. I have seen some other threads here about this very same topic, you may want to do a quick search and see what other versions that others have, that they would recommend.

-capT

 

[dem beats]

I actualy used the search button first on this one...

I was also thinking that maybe it would be a nice thing to have a portion of this thread called like "THE BEST RECORDING OF SUCH AND SUCH BY WHAT'S HIS NAME, OF ALL TIME IN THE UNIVERSE" or something like that.

 

[ChrisJam]

As this is one of the most recognized orchestral treats ever I think it would be good to list the best recordings out there. Let us know of the ones you hated and the ones you loved.

I have two recordings of Carmina Burana. Both are 2-channel CDs. By far, my favorite is this one:

Sony Classical #SBK 47668
Eugene Ormandy, conductor
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Rutgers University Choir
Soloists: Janice Harsanyi, Rudolf Petrak, Harve Presnell


Chris

 

[koyaan]

I second that

I thought I was just prejudiced by having purchased the LP back about 1967,
But I have also always favored the Ormandy recording. I have it in 2-channel SACD also.
James Levine did a good orchestral job with this also, but I've never found the vocales on any other recording as satiafying as those of the Rutgers Chorus on the Ormandy recording.

 

[koyaan]

more Orff

If your really a Carmina Burana fan, You might want to search out a copy of Orff's Trionfi. It consists of Carmina BUrana and the other two woks of the set Catulli Carmina anf Trionfi di Afrodite. I ran accross this set a few years ago by pure dumb luck on the discount tabel at Sam Goody's. It was done by Wergo, not a company with which I'm unfamilliar, in 1995 and is performed by Koniglich Flamisch Philharmonie, Antwerp under two seperate conductors, Muhai Tang and Wolfgang Schafer.
The sonics a really pretty good for such an obscure recording company and the music in the two lesser known pieces of the Trionfi is well worth the trouble of finding a copy.

 

[Lady Phoenix]

I have two recordings of Carmina Burana. Both are 2-channel CDs. By far, my favorite is this one:

Sony Classical #SBK 47668
Eugene Ormandy, conductor
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Rutgers University Choir
Soloists: Janice Harsanyi, Rudolf Petrak, Harve Presnell

We have the exact same CD and actually bring it with us to try out speakers. Besides being a pretty dang good recording, it's also very convenient that the tracks are separated so you can go directly to a specific song.

But in addition to that one, we also own a Telarc Digital version of it conducted by Robert Shaw and performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Nice full sound, but like the Ormandy version, it's only 2-channel.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I have 2 copies, Christian Thielemann & the Berlin Orchestra (Deutsche Grammaphon) and Leonard Slatkin w/ St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (RCA).

Slatkin has the better performance, while Thielemann's disk has better sound quality.

 

[ChrisJam]

If your really a Carmina Burana fan, You might want to search out a copy of Orff's Trionfi.

Thanks, koyaan, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Chris

 

[pbarach1]

I'd put in a vote for the low-priced CD reissue of Ozawa/Boston, which has awesome singing by the chorus, Sherrill Milnes, and Evelyn Mandac. The performance is exciting and the sound quality is excellent. (The tenor solo is strangulated, but the poor guy has only one number and it's over...)

 

[Pyrrho]

My favorite recording of Carmina Burana is conducted by Muti:

http://www.amazon.com/Orff-Carmina-Burana-Jonathan-Summers/dp/B00001ZSXC/

People who do not like much dynamic range hate this recording. (Crudely put, dynamic range is the difference between the loud and the soft.) It is such that it must be played in a quiet room, with the soft portions very soft (barely audible), and the loud portions will then be very loud.

Some people imagine that music should all be compressed so you can hear it all above road noise while driving on a highway. But that is not how music is done in a concert hall, where people are expected to be quiet, and the musicians can play very soft and then go very loud. Since most people only listen to recorded music, they have no conception of what is done in concert halls, and tend to think nothing should be like this.

This disc is not suitable as background music. But the music was not written to be played as background music. It is supposed to be extremely dynamic, and that is exactly what one gets with this recording.

The performance is magnificent, with Augér being the standout. Her voice is amazing, and the Dulcissime (track 23) is proof that she was one of the greatest sopranos of all time.

 

[Tod]

Thanks, koyaan, I'll keep an eye out for it.

Chris

There's a good recording of it on EMI also with Franz Welser-Most conducting.

Anyway, here's my take on the recordings I've known. I own the Shaw version, and wouldn't be surprised if the other Telarc disc with Runnicles mentioned above suffers the same - despite being one of the best recording companies out there, almost anything Telarc records in Atlanta (which means much of Shaw's stuff) suffers from the super-warm, blurry-sounding hall. No detail in the choral parts especially.

I also have a rather different version from the BIS label with Lena Alin conducting. Orff, as an educator, created a version with 2 pianos plus all the same percussion so that smaller performing groups could still play it. I got to perform that version once. Slightly different sound, but it almost makes the percussion stand out even more.

My personal favorite, both for sound and performance, is the Blomstedt version from London/Decca. It did win a Grammy as well. Really good sound, great chorus and orchestra.

 

[pbarach1]

despite being one of the best recording companies out there, almost anything Telarc records in Atlanta (which means much of Shaw's stuff) suffers from the super-warm, blurry-sounding hall. No detail in the choral parts especially.

I generally agree re the Atlanta sound. However, I happened to listen to their first Atlanta recording (Firebird Suite, Polovetsian Dances, etc.) from 1978 earlier today, as it happened, and the imaging is much more precise and detailed than any of their more recent recordings in the same venue. They used to do it right!

 

[jostenmeat]

I generally agree re the Atlanta sound. However, I happened to listen to their first Atlanta recording (Firebird Suite, Polovetsian Dances, etc.) from 1978 earlier today, as it happened, and the imaging is much more precise and detailed than any of their more recent recordings in the same venue. They used to do it right!

More classical buffs, sah-weet. I have one recording of Shaw+Atlanta, which I bought out of curiousity about Szymanowski's works. It has his Stabat Mater as well as Poulenc's. I wasn't crazy about it on a single listening, but I am very curious to relisten to it. btw, my favorite rendition of a Stabat Mater Dolorosa is by Josquin, one of only 5 surviving sequences, for whatever that is worth!

 

[jliedeka]

I have the Thielemann DVD-A on DG. It's a great recoding but I'd like a better performance, preferably on SACD.

Jim

 

[Tod]

I generally agree re the Atlanta sound. However, I happened to listen to their first Atlanta recording (Firebird Suite, Polovetsian Dances, etc.) from 1978 earlier today, as it happened, and the imaging is much more precise and detailed than any of their more recent recordings in the same venue. They used to do it right!

Yeah, I'm listening to a 1982 Copland recording with Levi/Atlanta right now that I hadn't listened to for a while, and it sounds quite clear and bright. But things like Shaw's recording of Mendelssohn's Elijah, while I'm sure are conducted quite well, sound like they were recorded in a tin warehouse and you have cotton stuffed in your ears.