Review: DG's Magnificent Complete Ferenc Fricsay Box
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.ย. 2023
- 86 CDs plus one DVD celebrating the career of one of the 20th century's truly great conductors--get it while you can, and savor it for a lifetime. Fricsay was the real deal.
- เพลง
My introduction to Fricsay was a monophonic recording of The Magic Flute which was alive with drama and presence.
To all friends of Dave: Give a thumbs up if you like his video!!! If you go to a restaurant you have to pay at the end of the evening. At youtube you „pay“ with a thumbs up. We all love Dave‘s videos but only one out of 50 viewers (!) give a thumbs up. Are all the viewers 80+ and don’t know how you support somebody at youtube if you like his videos? The more thumbs up(and the more subscribers) someone has - the more new people will see his videos.
I was realy waiting for this review and ordered the box right after finishing it. Who else talks so humorous and with deep knowledge about more than 80 CDs? For free! Thumbs up!
Regurgitating. Truly a vivid description. Can't wait for you to review the upcoming DG Steinberg Command Complete box due in November. Hope you'll include a brief summary of all its previous partial incarnations.
Fricsay’s Beethoven symphony #9 figures throughout Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. It is fascinating. I love your enthusiastic, passionate and informative reviews. Thank you for your service
An absolutely wonderful set (I have the earlier boxes). You flitted over Fricsay's stereo set of J. Strauss, understandably. But this is one of my favorites. Fantastic performances in great sound. So enjoy seeing the kitties.
The Fidelio set was my introduction to Fricsay conducting. I fell in love with the work and his sense of style. That was when I was 15 and my opinion has never changed. It is a fine cast . Haefliger sings a fine, lyrical Florestan and the idea of a more heroic heldentenor sound in the role came about later. He may well be closer to what Beethoven envisaged for the role. Rysanek was the most wonderful artiste especially live in the theatre. At the time of this recording she was going through some vocal issues, but Fricsay still gets a good performance out of her despite some pitch worries. Her voice opens up so thrillingly at the top.
Ah, yes, the good old pre-internet days when me and my college buddies had discovered Fricsay's Beethoven 9th and mangled the conductor's name because there was no way back then to verify or correct the pronunciation. I think even the public radio people often got it wrong.
Super review and charming cat interlude!
The cover of the orchestral showpieces disc has a photo of Fricsay eerily anticipating Peter Boyle in Young FrankenstEEN.
I discovered Ferenc Fricsay with his Mozart Mass in C minor. Still a reference recording, I think. Unforgettable Maria Stader singing "Christe eleison" and "Et incarnatus est".
@@erikthenorviking8251 For the Masonic Funeral Music, I recommend you also Istvan Kertesz (Mozart Masonic Music on Decca).
Thank you, thank you! Without your presentation I might have missed this box, as I did the earlier ones. Have not listened to Fricsay since LP days. Now I have a new treasure to explore and enjoy. !
Mr.hurwitz after I saw this video I went to listen to Ferenc Fricsay's 9th on TH-cam (just a demo so I can decide to download it or not since my storage is dying) and I found your DG's advertisement and it's -hand's down- the best introduction to a cd ever
It made my day❤
Going to download it just because of your recommendation
Enjoy!
@@DavesClassicalGuidewill do!
Oh, it's Christmas. I love his performance of Haydn's Nelson Mass. The 1802 version, with the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Thanks for another helpful review, Dave.
As a collector for many decades, I'd rank Fricsay as one of the dozen greatest conductors of the 20th century (with one caveat - see below). I agree with you about DG's reissue policy. The more I see of these cumbersome jumbo-sized boxes, the less useful I find them. DG should have kept the earlier boxes available. The new box creates a dilemma for people like me who purchased the old orchestral box but not the vocal one (or vice-versa). Fortunately, I purchased some of the vocal recordings individually, when first released.
Alas, I'm out of step with many, including yourself, in thinking that he was a great Beethoven conductor in the making, not one who had actually arrived. He died before age 50 and I've seldom heard great Beethoven from any relatively young conductor. Those of us who see 'Fidelio' as a full-blown romantic opera find Fricsay's take too small-scale, rather HIP-ish (which should make it appealing for followers of that approach, of whom I am definitely not one!).
The good news is that the smaller box of orchestral music is available on streaming services, broken down into three sets.
I jumped at the original cubes when they were issued. That Fidelio is amazing...only let down by the small forces in the finale AND the unfortunate use of actors for the dialogue....and I mean wow...when they had such great operatic actors in the cast! Just why? It would be better to just omit the dialogue. But wow....the singing!!! It's just amazing....at the very top.
I loooooove those cats! Thanks for telling us that the two cubes are essentially the same as the big box.
I am not quite sure if you are aware of the fact, as you do not mention it -- but the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Berlin was the RIAS orchestra, re-branded after the American military government had withdrawn funding for the RIAS orchestra. The Americans picked Fricsay to build the band, and they had him pick the musicians, one by one, at his discretion. Today, the orchestra continues as the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin.
I remember working with the Audite crew for some of their mono radio reissues, and marvelling at particular registers of the orchestra. I very much liked the principal flutist, who, while being a bit slow sometimes, had a golden tone worth the wait. Among the strings, the violas were particularly fine, with a meaty tone and a presence I found quite unusual for the period. I remember a very peculiar Mozart No. 40 from the Titania palace with the violas coming in very, very slowly, needing about two full beats to find their pace. Fricsay had the music develop from there, gaining drama and tempo up to a very exciting finale.
I am completely with you about Fricsay as concerns the limited number of recordings I got to know. He was a conducting genius, and your video really made me want to have that piece of furniture. Thanks so much!
"Do it correctly the first time, leave it in print, and sell it."
WHAT A CONCEPT. But it makes far too much sense.
Anyhow, my gateway to Fricsay's greatness was his 1954 Mozart PC # 20 with
Clara Haskil: overshadowed by her later stereo version, but dark, mysterious and SUBTLE.
I only have the first box (orchestral) which I'm so glad I have but I wish we had insider access at Universal so we could better predict these megaboxes.
WOW! I only THOUGHT I had a lot of Fricsay. Thanks for opening my eyes.
7:36 listened to your erudite review of this massive collection. I am a classically trained musician but admit my knowledge of this conductor is lacking. Probably do some binge listening over the next few weeks. Thanks for your fine review. To answer a question you posed, all of these recordings are on Spotify, obviating the need to buy a suitcase full of discs. Nice to be able to listen while shopping or waiting for a doctors appointment.
That Flying Dutchman is vying to become my favorite recording of the opera. And it FLIES compared to most of them.
If you consider what life was like in Berlin after the war, the Mozart recordings are miraculous. And I think both enjoyable and evocative. And for 4cds very affordable from DG (for a change).
Thank you so much for this. By the way, I have an idea for a video series: a selection of concertos for every orchestral instrument (and maybe a few non orchestral ones). There are so many great violin concertos, but fewer concertos for oboe or theremin, at least that are in the popular consciousness. Thank you!
I was very lucky to get the first box used… after having downloaded it in FLAC the month before…,
and the Vocal Works when it was still available new. Total cost between three boxes was a bit more than this baby costs.
I am glad that a new edition is available, if nothing else to stick it to the price-gougers out there.
I was thinking about getting vol.1 used instead of the new boxset, can you tell me how much you paid for it (not including shipping)?
Great stuff. Thanks
All those Musica Nova "teasers" were fascinating. I particularly like the Lieberman pieces, for instance. Von Einem, Hartmann as well. How do you think FF's New World compares with Szell's??
Would be interesting to get back to Dave's discussion of best "New Worlds", I bet Szell and Fricsay both found their way into the discussion.
Geheimtipp: there is a wonderful Mozart Figaro by Fricsay from 1951 in Köln on Relief. The mouthwatering cast should make you forget its only drawback - it's sung in German. Anyway, who cares or for that matter worries, when the cast consists of luminaries like Grümmer, Güden, Schöffler, Kunz under Fricsay at his very best!
Much better than his studio set which just sits there
The BEST Les Preludes!!! My intro to him
If you already have the previously issues cubes, you're good. If not, this set is essential!!!
Like I said...
My introduction to "Le Sacre du Printemps" was through the Fricsay recording and the Bartók PIano Concerti with Geza Anda still set the standard as far as I am concerned.
Love his Cantata profana.
Thanks so much for covering this. I had one small DG Fricsay box (A life in music) and the still necessary EMI Great Conductors 2 disc set, which duplicates nothing here. But my introduction to Fricsay AND Wagner was the American Decca issue of his DG Dutchman. I'm forever grateful, I love the tempi and elan and forgive the cuts, especially the Act 3 ghost scene.
I don't mind Bluebeard sung in German but the cuts there, amounting to almost ten minutes of the piece, are really deplorable and spoil the performance for me, personally.
A very great 9th though for me F-D sounds a mite blustery in the bass solo (and omitting the appoggiaturas as all Germans did then. But that's my personal bete noire.)I'm not a fan of the 5th and 7th, the slow tempi don't really work for me. The 3rd and 8th are superb, though. I also like that Brahms 2nd Symphony, the 2nd concerto not so much, though the 3rd mvt is gorgeous.
The Rossini overtures are masterful. Great fun.
That's as far as I've gotten so I'll shut up now.
I've encountered many of the Fricsay recordings over the years. In the early 1960's my mother bought the American Decca release of Mozart's opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio" and in the late 1970's I bought a used LP, also on American Decca (Deutsche Grammophon's U.S. distributor at the time), of Rossini's "Stabat Mater" on three LP sides with Mozart's "Exsultate, Jubilate" as a fourth-side filler. Incidentally, though you claimed in your video that all Fricsay's opera and vocal recordings were in German, the "Idomeneo," "The Marriage of Figaro" and "Don Giovanni" recordings were in Italian.
Going through the CDs is more fun! Thanks
A mí me interesa una caja de esas. Desde Chile 🇨🇱.
They’ll probably do the same with Markevitch