 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Curinfinwe
Date: 2009-09-12 02:02
Hi! I got an iPod for my birthday a few days ago, and I'm wondering about some really good recordings of all the standard concertos and sonatas, etc, that I can put on it. I've nver much really listened to music before, excpet when I'm studying that paticular piece. I'm most interested in the Weber clarinet works, I guess. What are some really good recordings that I might be able to find at the library? Also, anyhting else that anyone thinks is good.
And, I'm having difficulties with itunes. Maybe someone on here can help me with this. My ipod is one of the ones that when you turn it sideways, the album covers all come up. However, I'd really rather be able to scrol thourhg composers that quickly. Is there any way that anyone might know of to change the albums to composers? I tried just calling each album by the composer's name instead of the album name, but that didn't work- I now have several different Tchaikovsky albums, because they are by different artists. Any ideas, people who might be tech -savvy?
Chances are nobody knows what I'm talking about, anyway.
Thanks!
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Author: weberfan
Date: 2009-09-12 03:45
iTunes doesnt have a vast selection, especially for classical music. You'd do well to check arkivmusic.com, which has a huge inventory of classical CD's. Running through their listings may help give you some guidance....or it may make you crazy. Then, hope the library has them available on loan.
You'll get lots of great recommendations from the Bboard, I'm sure, but here are some of my opinionated suggestions. Beware: I'm writing from my office, so I'm relying on memory:
Mozart: Where to start? Try the Vienna Philharmonic, or Berlin. Colin Davis has conducted some wonderful stuff (symphonic) with the London Symphony and also with the Staatskapelle Dresden. Consider No.'s 28 through 41.
The nine Beethoven symphonies with Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, or Von Karajan and Berlin or Beinstein and the New York Philharmonic.
Brahms, with New York or Cleveland or Berlin. The clarinet sonatas with Drucker or Wright or Manasse, to name a few.
Do listen, also, to Antony Pay, a bulletin board member, and Sabine Meyer, for Weber, Mozart and others. Meyer and Julian Bliss do a nice Krommer duet.
Don't stint on non-clarinet works. Try the Amadeus quartet for Haydn.
Try to fine Jascha Heifitz's Mendelssohn violin concerto. Barring that, try for Joshua Bell or Isaac Stern, for example. Also listen to the concertos by Tchaikovsky and Brahms.
The woodwind nonet and octet by Spohr, with the Gaudier or Nash ensemble. Michael Collins has recorded Spohr's clarinet concertos.
Search out Mozart's gran partita from the Marlboro Music festival ensemble under Marcel Moyse or by the Berliners under Zubin Mehta. Schubert's woodwind octet, with the Vienna players, recorded in the mid-Fifties is superb.
Mendelssohn's Incidental Music to a Midsummer Night's Dream, with Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra.
I'm a Harold Wright fan; listen to anything he's played. His relatively few recordings are on Boston Records, for the most part.
Do try to get Robert Marcellus on the Mozart clarinet concerto, with Cleveland.
There's so much more, like Gounod's Petite Symphonie, or Max Bruch's pieces for piano, viola and clarinet. If you'd like to explore modern work, try the Nielsen wind pieces, or Poulenc's, or those by Saint-Saens, for starters.
See if your library has the NPR (national public radio) Guide to Building a Classical Music Collection, by Ted Libbey. It's out of print but available in paperback at Amazon.com. No one will agree with all his choices, but they will give you some guidance, food for thought.
As for the iPod, I'm not sure what you're trying to get it to do, but mine, an old one, collates music by artist, genre and composer automatically. Click on the menu and search by category. But perhaps I've misunderstood you're question.
In any event, good hunting, and listening.
Post Edited (2009-09-12 12:37)
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Author: weberfan
Date: 2009-09-12 14:56
david,
true, but variety isnt always there. and she clearly doesnt want to pay the money for the downloads.
chuck
Post Edited (2009-09-12 14:57)
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Author: Curinfinwe
Date: 2009-09-12 14:59
Well, if there's something I can't find at the library, then I'll pay, but I'd really rather exhaust all other options before I buy anything.
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2009-09-12 15:02
Yup, you have to search for specific titles, and performers as their charts are almost useless.
Update - ITunes 9 (new version) if you type Clarinet into the search you will be presented with many, many pages of Clarinet Albums. That didn't used to be the case at all as the chart was limited to a number (200??).
Now they show many, many more albums in the search.
Albums aren't nearly as hidden as they were before.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2009-09-12 15:42)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2009-09-13 14:41
Amazon's mp3 offerings are good and you can listen to snippets of each without having to buy
Bob Draznik
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Author: Sean.Perrin
Date: 2009-09-13 20:12
The problem with the classical music on iTunes is the bit rate... 128kbps is a complete and utter waste of money, and even 256kbps is barely acceptable for classical music.
I would recommend hitting up Amazon and ordering a bunch of albums. The price is usually much cheaper than in the stores, and you have a real CD copy, which you can import into iTunes using lossless encoding.
Founder and host of the Clarineat Podcast: http://www.clarineat.com
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-14 02:40
DavidBlumberg wrote:
> If that was the case I'd agree about 128k, but iTunes isn't 128
> k anymore - it's 192.
>
> As for 256, your equipment would probably be more limiting.
On an iPod with earbuds (especially with ambient noise), I seriously doubt most people can tell the difference--especially between 192 and 256.
You can compare 128k and 256k on the following website:
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/003993.html
I can hear a difference in a quiet room with earbuds on my laptop, but it's not really all that dramatic. Portable equipment (like my laptop) just doesn't produce the same kind of high-fidelity sound to make 256k worthwhile. 192k seems a reasonable compromise.
I'd also add that AAC (what iTunes uses) and MP3 use different codecs, so a 128k AAC file from the iTunes store is generally of better quality than a 128k MP3, for instance.
Post Edited (2009-09-14 02:51)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-14 15:38
I made an "iMix" a couple of years ago on iTunes with some recordings I had in my collection at the time. You might find some recordings you like there. Click here to go there in iTunes.
Edit - I just made a new iMix with more clarinet music on iTunes. It will probably be available from the iTunes Store in a day or so, I imagine.
Post Edited (2009-09-14 16:06)
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Author: BobD
Date: 2009-09-14 18:48
Wow, Michael, that's great. I wasn't even aware of this iTunes feature. I've avoided the iTunes store since it seems to be "kid" oriented.
Sean: CDs are great, I've got almost 2,000 but with the mp3 option you can purchase indiividual compositions. And many of us have taken the "hearing test" here with revealing results.
Bob Draznik
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-14 20:30
Another little helpful hint about iTunes. When you browse selections at the iTunes Store (or in your own music collection), you can add or delete columns from the listing of tracks (you can also make them narrower or wider). To add a column, you simply right click one of the headings in the table, and it gives you a menu where you can select which columns you want. Adding the "Composer" column is a huge help when it comes to browsing classical recordings on iTunes (including my own iMixes, where some of the tracks have unhelpful names like "Clarinet Concerto mvt. 1").
On my second iMix (which I have now confirmed is up at the iTunes Store), I have included the Sabine Meyer/Dresden Staatskapelle recordings of the Weber Concertos and Concertino, which are REALLY good. I thought I'd mention this, since the original poster was specifically looking for Weber.
Here's a link to the new iMix I made.
Post Edited (2009-09-14 20:49)
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Author: Curinfinwe
Date: 2009-09-14 21:33
Thanks everyone! I'll probably end up buying some albums.
mrn- I tried to open your iMixes, but it tells me they're not available in the Canadian store.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2009-09-15 02:52
DavidBlumberg wrote:
> Yes, the imixes aren't international at all.
That's a bummer. I realize they carry different "stock" in different countries' iTunes Stores, but it still seems like it wouldn't be too hard to just leave off the tracks that aren't available in the Canadian store.
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