RE: Extra Noises in the 'Bergs

[Thayer A <A.Thayer@rhbnc.ac.uk>]

Great idea! Much as I admire Ashkenazy's early Chopin Studies (probably the
best I have heard as an overall set) I find most of his recordings to be
unbelievably bland and uninteresting. I wonder how much of this is due to
the horribly false piano sound on nearly all Decca recordings. I'd be
interested to hear what others think about both Ashkenazy and the Decca
style of sound (do some people actually like it!?). Did GG ever comment on
Ashkenazy? I remeber Horowitz once said that he used to be good but he's not
any more, and also referred to GG as an 'ass' (I think this is the actual
word he used!) because of his unusual tempos. He cited the 'Siegfried Idyll'
as one recording which he considered to have a ridiculously slow tempo.
Anyone who hasn't read this before can find it in the H. Schonberg biography
of Horowitz.

PS If I remeber rightly the birdsong is most prominent in the slow C minor
etude op.33. It's very clear through headphones.

> I'm going to contact some local recording enginners and see if they can
> filter
> out the piano so we can hear only the bird song...
> 
> Thayer A wrote:
> 
> >         Just thought I'd add that in Ashkenazy's recording of
> Rachmaninov's
> > op. 33 etudes-tableaux (from Kingsway Hall, I think) there are some very
> > clear sounds of birdsong in the background. Personally I think it livens
> up
> > the recording as I find Ashkenazy rather dull to listen to. This has
> nothing
> > to do with GG but, hell, who cares?
> >
> >         Andrew
> 
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