New(?) Liszt orchestral set

[eschiss1]

I have access over NML to a recently-released set of Liszt orchestral works ("The Sound of Weimar", being issued by MDT on July 13 2018). Anyone else have an opinion of this (if it's not relevant, I can delete this thread...)

[Alan Howe]

Please do discuss this set:
https://www.mdt.co.uk/liszt-the-sound-of-weimar-akademie-martin-haselbock-gramola-9cds.html
Not that I shall be buying it - it involves HIP recordings. Still, persuade me otherwise!!

[MartinH]

I picked up the disk with Les Preludes when it came out and thought it was just terrific! Wonderful playing of this warhorse. The sound is excellent. The orchestral HIP sound isn't that big of a deal. The recording had much more passion than the Haitink set, and I also already have the Hungaroton set with Arpad Joo and that's enough.

[adriano]

Sound interesting, thanks, Martin for this recommendation  :-)

[Alan Howe]

How's the string playing?

[Christopher]

They're asking £57 for it yet, as far as I can see, don't mention what is on it.  Why do some music websites keep doing that?  Argh! Is it all his orchestral works or some.  If the latter, which?!

[Gareth Vaughan]

I quite agree, Christopher. It's maddeningly stupid.

[Mark Thomas]

I imagine that the set comprises those listed by Naxos, and I echo what Martin has written about the quality and vigour of these performances. I don't think the HIP element at all intrusive, and I'm no lover of it generally. The Dante Symphony is new to me, but the others have been released over the last few years and have become my listening of choice for these works.

[Alan Howe]

I'll be sticking with the various excellent performances I've already got - Masur, Karajan (fab Les Préludes - one of his greatest recordings), umpteen versions of the Faust Symphony, etc., etc.

Contents here:
https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/products/8457904--liszt-the-sound-of-weimar

[M. Yaskovsky]

I own all previous releases on three different labels: the symphonic poems and Dante on NCA (5 discs); the Hung. Rhapsodies on cpo; Faust and Schubert-Liszt transciptions on Alpha (2 CD's). I find it spectacular, that snarling woodwind and maddening timpani! The recording is rather clsoe but not uncomfortable, it's very 'live'. Strange thing on the Gramola set is the 9th CD with the Rakoczi Marsch; 2 Légendes, S. 354; 2 Episoden aus Lenaus Faust, S. 110 and the Zweiter Mephisto-Walzer, S111 / R428 this disc has never been issued seperately 

[Jonathan]

I also have all the seperate CDs across NCA and so on, like M. Yaskovsky and I'm now very disappointed and cross to discover the final disc is only part of the boxed set as I already bought them all seperately, is very appropriate...

However, I should say that all the recordings are absolutely top notch.  IMHO, they are the very best recordings of the symphonic poems to date and I said so in my CD review of all of them for the Liszt Society when they were released.  The continuing series has proceeded in a similar vein.  The recording of "A la chapelle Sixtine" is head and shoulders above any other of the same work.  I'm not usually a period instruments fan but in these works, the playing really helps to bring out the orchestral details which can be lost in modern instrument recordings - Alan, if you have access to some method of hearing these, please do have a go!

[Alan Howe]

The cost, unfortunately, is just too high. Probably. Perhaps.

[adriano]

57 Pounds for 9 CDs (65 EUR) is still fair, I think, considering that Amazon is selling the single CDs at about 10 Punds each and that volumes 1-5 in a box (Symphonic Poems onlly) costs 42 Euro. Gramola is a small company (and an almost impossible tiny shop) with a higly interesting own production catalogue. They sell items from this special cataloge at almost 18 Euro per piece.

https://www.gramola.at/de/shop

The look left at "Gramola"

[Alan Howe]

Oh, I agree. It's a good price overall. But do I want all of the music again? Hmmm. After all, I have it all already in some really fine performances.

[adriano]

Yes, Alan. I have both the Haitink and the Joo sets - and the Golovanov, who made a tense, as usual rather crazy pioneering recording of the tone poems (except "Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, unfortunately)... But I am intrigued of Haselbock's "historical" or "period" approach.