Beethoven's 9th?

[TLS Guy]

Today I got the new CD of Betthoven's 9th by Osmo Vanska & the Minnesota Orchestra. Actually it is a hybrid SACD, but I didn't notice that until I got today. The CD layer works fine on my DVD player.

It sounds spectacular, dynamic, electrifying, thrilling, and breathtaking. I've run out of adjectives, but I think you get the point .

I want to thank TLS Guy again for recommending this. The recording quality and sound engineering makes this heads and shoulders better sounding than my old vinyl record.

Buying from ArkivMusic.com is a pleasure. Although there is nothing wrong with Amazon, ArkivMusic specializes in classical music and they are worth supporting.

Tonight I get to hear some live music at Strathmore Music Center, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is performing:

RAVEL Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) Suite
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10​

I'm really glad you are happy with it. The CD track is excellent, but the 5.0 SACD track really pushes out the walls here with fantastic sense of space.

Have a good time at the concert tonight!

 

[Alex2507]

Today I got the new CD of Betthoven's 9th by Osmo Vanska & the Minnesota Orchestra. Actually it is a hybrid SACD

This one?

 

[TLS Guy]

This one?

Yes, that one Alex! I know its from Minnesota, but yes it's fabulous. The Nordic company Bis chose Minnesota to record their Beethoven cycle. Osmo Vanska's Nordic blood is in sync with this region. He is doing fabulous things with the Minnesota orchestra. The Minnesota Orchestra was the only American Orchestra invited to the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall this last season. Not only that, they were asked to do two concerts!

The other thing is that this is choral country, were even high school choirs can turn out fabulous concerts. In that number 9 I have never heard a chorus sing so beautifully on any version ever.

Come pay us a visit.

 

[Alex2507]

Oh boy ... I've got that on a wish list now. So the Minnesota Chorale is really something, huh? The reason I honed in on the vocal part of that symphony is because as a beginner with classical music I have a hard time focusing on the instrumental work. There's so much going on that I get lost and am not able to compare one rendition to another that well. However the vocal work is easier to remember. After all ... I've had people yellingat me since the beginning.

I had to look up the term 'cycle'.

Swerd, I see that your B&K AVR 507 has the line level inputs ...
... just sayin'.

Mark, my g/f wants me to fly out to Minnesota to buy your car. I had to point out to her that I couldn't afford the airfare or the car not to mention that the two old vehicles I do own don't need an adopted sibling. If this world ever gets right again I will gladly pay you a visit but I don't think either of us should be holding our breath.

 

[Swerd]

Yes, I'm impressed with Vanska, he did the 2nd movement right. I'm more of an instrumental guy than a vocal - chorale type, but the 4th movement (with all the singing) was enough to make me forget that and sit up, take notice, and enjoy.

Last night at the symphony was disappointing, maybe because I spoiled myself with the Beethoven.

RAVEL Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose) Suite - forgettable and thankfully forgotten!

PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 - Very strange and difficult music to listen to. If I get a chance, I'll keep my ears open for Prokofiev's 2nd, but I didn't like the 1st. The young Chinese woman soloist played well but appeared to be working very hard. Enough to be a distraction.

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 10 - Also disappointing for me. I spent most of the time thinking how much Shostakovich suffered under the Soviets, and how by the time he wrote the 10th (soon after Stalin died) he was either rusty or past his prime.

I was actually glad it was over, a rare feeling for me because I usually enjoy almost anything live - except Mahler!

Swerd, I see that your B&K AVR 507 has the line level inputs ...
... just sayin'.

When I realized that I got a hybrid SACD, I actually felt a little guilty because I avoided buying your Behrenbom recording, a hybrid DVD-A disc. Both can work on my rig. I felt kinda stupid. I quickly forgot all that when I started listening.

But, yes your point is well taken. I can use a universal disc player (Blue Ray, DVD, SACD, DVD-A, etc.) with the inputs available on my receiver. I haven't shopped for any of those, but $500 for an Oppo seems a bit much. Any ideas?

 

[Alex2507]

I haven't shopped for any of those, but $500 for an Oppo seems a bit much. Any ideas?

Yeah, let Seth know that you want one. He runs into that stuff all the time but has maybe stayed away from dead format players because ... well ... nobody wants 'em. Jeff the mod has an extra Denon DVD 2200 that he might sell to you. Just keep your eyes open for a Denon 1930 or 1940 but even then I don't know if I would do it. I'd much rather put money towards a Panny Blu-ray player.

There's a lot of ways to skin this cat and all but your current method take money.

 

[Swerd]

Yeah, let Seth know that you want one. He runs into that stuff all the time but has maybe stayed away from dead format players because ... well ... nobody wants 'em. Jeff the mod has an extra Denon DVD 2200 that he might sell to you. Just keep your eyes open for a Denon 1930 or 1940 but even then I don't know if I would do it. I'd much rather put money towards a Panny Blu-ray player.

There's a lot of ways to skin this cat and all but your current method take money.

You're too kind.

Maybe when the new Oppo model comes out, there'll be people falling all over themselves to dump their older ones.

Why the Panasonic Blu Ray?

I'll make a point to drop a note to Seth about this.

 

[TLS Guy]

You're too kind.

Maybe when the new Oppo model comes out, there'll be people falling all over themselves to dump their older ones.

Why the Panasonic Blu Ray?

I'll make a point to drop a note to Seth about this.

I would buy and older DVD/SACD player. There are quite a few to choose from on eBay.

 

[jostenmeat]

Swerd, thanks for the review, and sorry that the concert sucked. Shostakovich did have failing health by the time he wrote the 10th, but I don't know if most of his music suffered for it. It appears there were strange political things going in his personal life at that time as well. I checked on a couple of works that I really enjoy of his, and they do appear to have been written well before the 10th. I think of the Piano Quintet for example, the Borodin Quartet + Richter being a seriously great performance, hair raising, though I'm not sure how many people here would like it.

The Prokofiev, I don't think it's all that strange, well, maybe because there is so much stranger out there. Supposedly this work was not well received because it was in fact too Romantic nature and tone back in 1923.

 

[Alex2507]

Why the Panasonic Blu Ray?

Price and performance is pretty good on these. Jostenmeat is way better versed on the particulars but I think in your situation the DMP-BD85 is the way to go over the DMP-BD65 because of the 6 channel analog outs.

Regarding the universal players I like this one because of it's 80Hz crossover but you can only feed one set of 6 channel analog ins to your B&K. I would still choose the Panny BR for that honor ... unless of course you been a good boy and can count on Santa to come through for ya (Oppo). I been a complete scum bag so I'm on Santa's sh!t list.

 

[jostenmeat]

Maybe when the new Oppo model comes out, there'll be people falling all over themselves to dump their older ones.

Why the Panasonic Blu Ray?

Because it's a good value. Not much in the way of streaming features. Very good FW support, and this should not be a surprise because Pana owns the majority of bluray patents. I'm quite sure even Oppo has had significantly more FW issues than Pana.

However, people love their Oppos. j garcia is a good person to ask as he has both, likes them both, and probably would tell you the Oppo sounds better, but that the Pana is a better value.

I don't use analog outs, don't care about upconversion, don't use the bdp ever for stereo, so it's pretty easy for me.

The 85 will perform better with upconversion over the 65, even with the same VP, AFAIK, because it deinterlaces before doing the chroma upsampling. You very well may not care about this like I wouldn't, but it's FYI.

That universal that Alex linked looks a tremendous bargain if it sells anywhere close to that price. However, like he was hinting at, having BD capability is very cool. I remember TLS ranting and raving over blurays from the sewers of Hollywood, and so I was pleasantly surprised that he went for it still, and I'm pretty sure he would tell you that you've got to check out some classical concerts on BD.

Netflix fee for 2 BDs a month is only $5.99 per month. What's great about using this particularly for concerts is that many of the concerts are the pricier discs at say $25 and on up, even up to $30, if not even past that.

 

[Pyrrho]

Looks like I'm too late to this party, but I wanted to put my two cents in for the George Szell/Cleveland Symphony recordings from the 60s-they were the first I had heard ad are still among my favorites (I own many of the others referenced here). I have the original vinyl box set, which comes out for special occasions and holidays, but most or all of them are also available on CD. The CD of Zubin Mehta and the New York Phil is also very good-as others have said, there is no lack of high quality recordings of this classical benchmark.

However, my number one favorite is the 9th as performed by the Cincinnati Symphony under Thomas Schippers in December 1973-it never made it to a release, but I was one of the tenors in the chorale.

It is too bad that that was not released. I have heard very little from Schippers, but what I have heard is superb.

 

[jostenmeat]

Looks like I'm too late to this party, but I wanted to put my two cents in for the George Szell/Cleveland Symphony recordings from the 60s-they were the first I had heard ad are still among my favorites (I own many of the others referenced here). I have the original vinyl box set, which comes out for special occasions and holidays, but most or all of them are also available on CD. The CD of Zubin Mehta and the New York Phil is also very good-as others have said, there is no lack of high quality recordings of this classical benchmark.

However, my number one favorite is the 9th as performed by the Cincinnati Symphony under Thomas Schippers in December 1973-it never made it to a release, but I was one of the tenors in the chorale.

I totally missed this post. My older retired friend got his doctoral in conducting at Cinn, decades ago. Next time I see him, I will ask what years he was there. He is related to a known composer (died in '91), but neither of us like his music, and he didn't like him as a person, lol. Great guy. I helped him choose his system, including Ascend speakers, an Outlaw integrated, and I made TLS Guy choose the turntable for him. He likes the turntable the most out of all of the recent acquisitions.

 

[3db]

Any Sibelius fans out there?

 

[TLS Guy]

Any Sibelius fans out there?

Yes, if you live in a cold climate you have to be.

 

[jostenmeat]

Any Sibelius fans out there?

Yes. I enjoy his 2nd Symphony, but I love the Violin Concerto. I think I have other works, can't remember what. IIRC (maybe I'm just making this up), he was considered as a conservative composer, and he got sick of all the "new crap", and just upped and quit! Ok, I don't think I was making that up, if I am correct in my googling that his last work was written in 1929 (5 Esquisses), which is just about three decades before his death!

 

[Swerd]

Any Sibelius fans out there?

I also like the Sibelius violin concerto. After I first heard it performed, I soon had to go buy a CD of it.

I was hoping I would like the Prokofiev 1st Violin concerto, but didn't. I never close the door to something after only listening once. It is certainly possible that it was me the other night and not the music, because I didn't like anything I heard that night.

 

[3db]

I also like the Sibelius violin concerto. After I first heard it performed, I soon had to go buy a CD of it.

I was hoping I would like the Prokofiev 1st Violin concerto, but didn't. I never close the door to something after only listening once. It is certainly possible that it was me the other night and not the music, because I didn't like anything I heard that night.

PMS (pre music stress) perhaps??

 

[jostenmeat]

Looks like I'm too late to this party, but I wanted to put my two cents in for the George Szell/Cleveland Symphony recordings from the 60s-they were the first I had heard ad are still among my favorites (I own many of the others referenced here). I have the original vinyl box set, which comes out for special occasions and holidays, but most or all of them are also available on CD. The CD of Zubin Mehta and the New York Phil is also very good-as others have said, there is no lack of high quality recordings of this classical benchmark.

However, my number one favorite is the 9th as performed by the Cincinnati Symphony under Thomas Schippers in December 1973-it never made it to a release, but I was one of the tenors in the chorale.

I totally missed this post. My older retired friend got his doctoral in conducting at Cinn, decades ago. Next time I see him, I will ask what years he was there. He is related to a known composer (died in '91), but neither of us like his music, and he didn't like him as a person, lol. Great guy. I helped him choose his system, including Ascend speakers, an Outlaw integrated, and I made TLS Guy choose the turntable for him. He likes the turntable the most out of all of the recent acquisitions.

I caught up with my friend the other day, and I kept forgetting to catch up here. He finished all of his doctoral studies in '78, left, and returned in '81 to pass all of the final oral exams, or whatever. While he admits that orchestral music is his first love, he said that his day-to-work was with choral stuff, and he says that he will surely know who you are! LOL. He seems to be a very sharp (and very kind) man, so I believe him . . . but . . .

He's interested in finding out more about you, and catching up. Sending PM.