Re: GG: Bach You Can't Live Without / & Stern & Casals

[Bradley Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

> > If the question was "which 8 minutes of Bach must go to the desert
> > island?", I think a candidate would have to be the slow movement of the
> > violin/oboe concerto, with Stern and Marcel Tabuteau conducted by Casals,
> 1950.
>
> I've never heard the recording, but I picked up Oscar Shumsky and Robin
> Miller's recording with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.  Does it even come
> close?

Depends.  Do Shumsky & Miller make the hair stand up on your neck and arms,
and make you weep?  If not, then no.

Here's a GG topic that I don't remember seeing before: which GG recordings
have that magical combination of intensity, poise, and directness that can
cause tears?

I'll suggest a few to start the list: some of the Brahms intermezzi, the
E-flat minor prelude and fugue of WTC 1, the slow movement of the Beethoven
4th concerto, some of the Berg sonata, and var. 25 of the 1955
Goldbergs.  Maybe also some of the Strauss Op. 3....

Bradley Lehman
Dayton VA
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl