The relaxed LSG listening to Brahms & Beethoven

Having bought last year a Super Audio cd player that plays those discs in addition to regular cds and I have been buying a number to add to my classical cd collection that goes back to the early days of cd.

After a weekend spent out of doors exploring,  noting things  and a spot of reading too it's really time to just relax across the bed and chill

Fortunately I have a good number of dvd's and blu ray discs I can watch apart from the CBBC and CiTv channels on our television, a stash of comics stored in boxes and a fair number of books stored on shelves, some of which go back to my childhood.

One new disc I had is this three super audio cd set of Brahm's symphonies with some additional works to replace my older regular cds with recorded in 2009 and 2010 which has been compiled into mini box set.

This new set is very highly regarded for it's playing besting a recent similar set on Lso Live for the sound as well as the account of Symphony No. 2 even with both stereo and multichannel mixes being available on the sacd layer with just stereo on the regular cd player.

It's a lovely set to relax to.

I also picked up this disc of the young Swedish clarinettist Martin Frost of Brahm's Clarinet Quintet and Trio issued by the pioneering Bis label. His playing is simply beautiful.

Beethoven is a major composer and so a set on super audio cd of his symphonies was something I had been looking for.

This set is one I am familiar with as it was issued for the first time on cd in 1991 and I bought it in early 1992 during one lunch break putting it out of harms way until I got home
If you look the sticker indicates like most for Europe discs, it has a ordinary layer and the super audio cd layer on the one side so it can be played on practically any player

 There are six super audio cds in the set with two symphonies per disc on four and a bonus disc that has some thirty minutes of rehearsals for the Ninth

As you can see although this is called a box set apart from that bonus disc really all you get is a short booklet outlining the history of Herbert von Karajan's Beethoven symphonies recordings for DG is a slip case as the discs are otherwise identical to the originally released individual ones and just fit in.

There's no attempt to put them in as the 1991 mauve cd box set into space saving multi cd cases or of the use of card or paper sleeves.

The recordings date from 1961 through 1962 and were issued in early 1963 on stereo lp records and was the first stereophonic series issued by DG.

One reason I bought this is I am less taken to the combination of the use of replica original instruments  the sounds some of which I'm not keen on and of the tendency to play it faster and often less consideration than traditionally had been the case which is very much the current flavour in performed and recorded  classical music.

In general I would say these remain amongst the most consistent sets of Beethoven symphonies recorded with the Ninth being one of the finest I've ever heard for the singing of the Ode To Joy with only the Sixth, the Pastoral a little fast in playing although I feel it does hold together well even if it is different to most.

The recording quality for the period is very high and unlike a good number of modern recordings where lots of microphones are used and fed to multi-channel recorders before being mixed, this was done with simple stereo pair with just the odd 'spot mic' to aid the odd section of the orchestra which captures the scale of performance better in my opinion.

 Around the mid 1990's the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra began a project of recording a collection of central classical repertoire at low cost enabling people to build a useful self contained collection that would aid musical appreciation.

At the time they were issued in conjunction with Tring records on regular cd's a good number being well worth owning which I bought at the time but they were recorded at better than regular cd quality using the dsd technology used by super audio cd's and briefly issued on sacd in association with Membran Records.

One of the discoveries of that era was the Manchester, England born pianist Ronan O'Hora and he recorded a superb account of Beethoven's Violin Sonatas 5 "Spring" and 9 "Krutzer"  with the violinist Jonathan Carney. It sounds really smooth .

That title was one re-issued on sacd around 2005 which I recently bought  to join my increasing number of classical recordings in this format.