Paul Paray's Complete Mercury Living Presence Recordings (1)

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  • เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ธ.ค. 2024

ความคิดเห็น • 25

  • @richardwilliams473
    @richardwilliams473 2 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    When I was a young man growing up in the 1960s, I was weened on the Detroit Symphony Orchestra recordings conducted by Paul Paray.Being a Percussion student I was always impressed with the Percussion Section of this orchestra

  • @OuterGalaxyLounge
    @OuterGalaxyLounge 2 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    I have so much of this stuff in my collection and yet I couldn't just grab them off the shelf and remember the particular characteristics of the performances from memory the way you do. I could play them again to refresh my memory and come up with impressions but that's about it. Your ability to zip through vast catalogs like this is continually impressive.

    • @DavesClassicalGuide
      @DavesClassicalGuide  2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

      Thank you. It's just a memory quirk, as I've said before. At least it's good for something!

  • @grantparsons6205
    @grantparsons6205 2 ปีที่แล้ว +6

    The more Paray the better! Without any particular conscious intention, so much of the first mercury cd release Paray of the Paray stuff is on my 'accessible regularly listened to shelf'. He's just so damn good!

  • @alfredkornfeld7284
    @alfredkornfeld7284 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Regarding Paray’s Wagner, I was fortunate to hear him conduct the overture to Tannhauser with the Detroit at Brooklyn College in the early 1960s. It was jaw dropping!

  • @psono429
    @psono429 ปีที่แล้ว

    Paul Paray a favorite! thanks for review!

  • @samlaser1975
    @samlaser1975 ปีที่แล้ว +4

    Wilma Cozart Fine was an artist in her own right.

  • @bplonutube
    @bplonutube ปีที่แล้ว +1

    I absolutely love this performance of the Frank D minor. I have to go back and listen to the stereo version which I haven’t listen to for quite a while. But the propulsive Ness of this mono recording is absolutely thrilling.

  • @scp240
    @scp240 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    I have the first big box of the Collector's Edition, which contains two Paray discs. The CD of Suppe & Auber overtures is sui generis and one of my favorites, tremendous energy and excitement! The other disc is the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique with more great overtures and other goodies. These discs date from 1958-59 so they must be part of the 2nd Paray box. Looking forward to your review of that one.

  • @alanmcginn4796
    @alanmcginn4796 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    My box just arrived in the mail! This one is going to get my attention - one disc at a time - listening to Bolero as we speak....

  • @rtisom
    @rtisom ปีที่แล้ว +1

    He also conducted an absolutely glorious Ravel G major Piano Concerto, with the great French pianist Yvonne Lefebure at the keyboard. It’s a perfect collaboration. Yvonne was quite unique, her Beethoven was amazing.

  • @renaudgautier3975
    @renaudgautier3975 2 ปีที่แล้ว +3

    Thanks much. I have been waffling over these boxes as I have all 3 of the earlier Mercury cubes. Your comments have helped, though I 'm still thinking about box 1 because of the monos. it's the short playing time of discs that keeps me holding back. It's quite a bit of money for 1) duplication and 2) short content. They are terrific temptations though.

    • @alanmcginn4796
      @alanmcginn4796 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      Renaud - I am in the same boat. I have the 3 cubes and I LOVE them. I am really thinking about the Mono box.

  • @stefanomasnaghetti1769
    @stefanomasnaghetti1769 2 ปีที่แล้ว +2

    These boxes are marvellous, despite their running times. I haven't got the Mercury Living Presence mega boxes, and the single cd of Paray are all out of print. The only other Paray's box currently available is the Membran one, which is a semi bootleg, sounds worse and is far to be completed. Australian Eloquence get it right, as always. Anyway, I'm totally agree with you, Dave, about Wagner: Paray recorded virtually every Wagner's bloody chunck (He really cared about him, evidently), and they are all terrific (the Tristan's Prelude, nonetheless the mono sound, really blew my mind; It's unbelievable!). And his Joan of Arc's Mass is simply beautiful: frankly, I don't understand why it doesn't get played like Fauré's and Durufle's Requiem. He needs to be rediscovered also as a composer.

  • @davidaiken1061
    @davidaiken1061 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    A helpful review if only because this Paray box no longer beckons. I have all of the Paray recordings previously issues in those Mercury Living Presence "cubes" and given the duplication of repertoire and stingy playing times, I don't really need this new box. However, I will say that I prefer Paray to almost every other conductor in French repertoire. He got everything, especially the orchestral balances, exactly right. And Mercury's sonics remain astonishingly vivid to this day. I saw recently that Eloquence is in the process of reissuing the Mercury Dorati recordings. Another underappreciated conductor who did some of his very best work for Mercury Living Presence.

  • @petekohn
    @petekohn 2 ปีที่แล้ว +8

    Best España ever

    • @stefanomasnaghetti1769
      @stefanomasnaghetti1769 2 ปีที่แล้ว

      No one did Chabrier better than Paray. He was one of his specialty.

  • @nicolasbrochet2147
    @nicolasbrochet2147 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    When I bought the boxes I was well aware that I already had most of the second one somewhere in the Mercury Living Presence boxes and for once I think it is a nice idea from the editor to publish it in two separate boxes and let the collector decide by himself if he want or not to buy a duplicate. To often we get a new issue stating it is more complete then the complete first we already bought full price few years before .

  • @GastonBulbous
    @GastonBulbous 2 ปีที่แล้ว +1

    A follow-up question, Dave: since a number of great French conductors (Cluytens, Martinon, and that honorary Frenchman Ansermet), as well as some less great (Armin Jordan, Plasson, Dutoit), have recorded this same material, frequently with finer ensembles than Paray’s Detroiters, what is that certain je ne sais quoi (besides speed) that Paray brings to this material over these others that makes these new boxes essential? If Eloquence weren’t asking $90 or more a box for these two sets, I wouldn’t be enough of a Philistine to even ask this. I like drawing fine comparisons between conductors and am a great fan of the French repertoire (and Schumann!). So if these were closer to $40 or $50 a box, I’d likely have snapped them up already. But at this buy-in, I suddenly feel like this repertoire is already well represented in my collection. It doesn’t help that the two Paray Mercury’s I already own - the Chabrier/Roussel set and the Suppe - are easily bettered by the others.
    In short, I guess what I am trying to ask is: how would you compare the specific qualities and styles of Paray to other French greats like Cluytens and Martinon? How does he stack up?

    • @DavesClassicalGuide
      @DavesClassicalGuide  2 ปีที่แล้ว

      I never said they were essential. I said they were wonderful. So, as you note, are many others. I have described the special qualities of these performances of French repertoire pretty comprehensively, I think. After that, it's your call.

  • @raphaelfournier8273
    @raphaelfournier8273 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    So much agree on Paray in general and in particular about this box which I have just finished to listen to. Works wonders in Russian (non-pareil in Rimski except perhaps fpr Markévitch, and manages to get throught the Rach sympgonony #2 without having having me sleeping), Austro-German classics and early romantics (Schumann's 4rd is stunning, one of my favorites, have we actually ever heard the counterpoint of the slow movement so beautifully delineated and at the same time phrased and paced so as to move ?). Minor disappointment : Beethoven's 7th : 1st movement. Btw, as to Tristan prelude to act 3 : also recorded by weirdoe conductor Artur Rodzinski for Columbia in the 40s. Extremely fine. Love it.

  • @1984robert
    @1984robert ปีที่แล้ว

    I wasn't so impressed by the first 2 CDs. Beethoven 7th on the 3rd is great indeed. Rimsky-Korsakov CD5 is great.
    Mono Schumann 4th is rushed in my opinion, except at the very end where he slows down in order to the horn could play its motif. What a great solution! I liked it very much. But that Les Preludes! That is exceptional. That was the point where I was totally convinced by Mr. Paray. That is the way Les Preludes should played! Great bass lines, transparency, it has character (as Mr. Hurwitz would say)! He feels this music in his bones. What a pity that he didn't record much more Liszt tone poems. :-(
    I liked mono Wagner CD9 much more than CD2. Today I will continue the box with mono Beethoven 6th.

  • @DavidJohnson-of3vh
    @DavidJohnson-of3vh 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    As a teen, I listened to tons of Paray recordings. I still enjoy them. His Sorcerer's Apprentice and Faure's Pavane are great. I went to grad school with an oboist from Detroit who met the symphony guys when they recorded background for some Motown records.

  • @richardsandmeyer4431
    @richardsandmeyer4431 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    It would be nice if Eloquence would put out a box of just the Paray recordings that were not already included in the 3 large MLP boxes. I suppose that would not be economical for them to do, but then it's not economical for me to buy the current box with such a high percentage of duplicates. The 2nd Paray box even less so.
    BTW, there are also 3 CDs in the 2nd Paray box that were not included in the earlier MLP boxes: Beethoven Symphonies 1 and 2, the "Naked Carmen", and Ravel Piano Concerti (with Monique Haas -- originally on DG, not Mercury. I guess it was included to make these boxes into the Paray Complete Universal Recordings collection, not just the complete Paray MLP.)