I very much like this work. I’ll see if I can find those two recordings.
EDIT: this is a very popular composition. Primephonic has those and when I searched for it they had a measly 448 recordings to look through! Luckily they were near the top.
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I just ordered the Harmonia Mundi disc you referenced above plus the companion “Harold in Italy” by the same group and label. Original instruments with natural gut strings, interesting.
The Janowski was listed as only 1 remaining on Amazon, “more on the way”. I listened to both back to back on my SR1a + Jot R this morning, very interesting comparison (I do that a lot). The Janowski recording was exceptional, great hall ambience, string textures, great bass, bells, and a better depth of the sound field than most and very transparent sound.
The Norrington acoustic is dryer, but it’s a live recording with a full audience probably absorbing a lot of what would be reflections / reverb. He uses a modified European seating arrangement as was used by most orchestras prior to 1900 and gets the strings to play without vibrato which is a very subtle effect. He really gets some nice string glissando’s in the first movement and the wood winds and brass are picked up very nicely in this recording where the string textures seem to get more attention in the Janowski.
Janowski’s seating is also the typical current arrangement of the various instruments (That came into vogue around 1910-I think) and that came about because of early recordings. Prior to that time first and second violins were divided left and right to emphasize any part of the score where the first and seconds were playing against each other in contrast to clarify the sound. Double basses were sometimes far left instead of right, cellos in front of them but behind the first violins, Violas and 2nd violins on the right. It helped to balance out the volume of string sound whereas to day the string sections are typically arranged higher strings to the left and increasing deeper strings rolling around to the right. In the early 1900’s unison playing, coupled with the growing size of the number of musicians in orchestras in general, was easier if the groups were homogeneous and could hear each other when recording. But with the caliber of musicianship in this day and age it makes no difference, today’s musicians could play note perfect all piled into a school bus.
The first time I listened to the Norrington I was like, “WTH”, instruments thrown all around the stage randomly? But there is a photo of the recording session in the booklet and all was made clear. I’m so used to modern seating from attending live concerts over the decades that my brain stumbled. At the Kimmel there is seating above and behind the orchestra, sat there once. The reversed orchestra had me looking to the wrong area for instrument entries on works I’ve been listening to for over 60 years and my brain just couldn’t adapt, LOL.
I have several recordings using the European style seating arrangements. Klemperer was a divided violins believer and some his Mahler recordings present that way. Michael Tilson Thomas’s Mahler cycle with SFO used European seating as well. I think Rattle likes it to, not sure about his recordings but I attended a Mahler 9 he conducted years ago in Philly years ago with divided strings. Fun stuff!
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I love this response.
The detail you reference down to the seating arrangements is something I never considered but now seems obvious. That could have a tremendous effect on the perceptions of various recordings. I must research this more.
You’ve got me really looking forward to warming up the tubes and listening to the Janowski.
There is so much about this genre I don’t know. It’s fascinating. I wish it opened up to me about 10 years earlier.
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Thanks, I’ll have to check both of those Symphonie Fantastiques out.
My favorite for now is Paul Paray, recorded in 1959, but sounds like it was recorded today. It goes against all my illogical biases against older recordings, but the orchestra does sound thrilling, so it does fit my biases for music played in an exciting way.
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Finally got a chance to listen to the Janowski - your description is spot on. Texture, clarity, detail are all remarkable. Impressive recording.
Good. I just got notice from Amazon that my Les Siecles / Roth “Fantastique” and “Harold” shipped today. Probably won’t get here until, Monday or Tuesday.
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I think you will like the Roth Fantastique. I find it a more forward and thus seemingly more aggressive approach to the piece.
I like the Roth a lot but slightly prefer the Paray because it sounds a little less aggressive. I couldn’t figure out why one seemed more aggressive than the other when they both use fast tempos, and both sound exciting, but I think you hit the nail on the head.
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I should give the Paray a listen if I can find it.
I ordered a used copy off Amazon.
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Our little orchestra has recorded works by several of these composers. Here’re a couple of my favorites:
L-E Larsson, Serenad, Sycamore Strings Orchestra, 2018, Strängnäs, Sweden:
What do you think of the natural reverb at around 3:22? That cathedral was great to record in. Before the concert we were given a tour of some of the treasures they have there, including crown jewels. A couple of weeks after we had played there there was a heist and the jewels (solid gold!) were stolen. The thieves escaped in a speedboat (Strängnäs is on a lake). The jewels were eventually recovered many months later.
Kurt Atterberg, Svit nr 3 op 19 för violin och viola
(I hope you don’t mind me posting links to my own recordings. I have turned off monetization on Youtube and there will never be ads playing with these recordings.)
Cheers,
Henrik
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Wow, both of those pieces are wonderful. I have to admit I’d never heard of either composer, so I need to hear more by both now. I also need to hear more performances by your “little orchestra”.
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The orchestra is Sycamore Strings Orchestra lead by Göran Berg who is Swedish. In addition to Atterberg and Larsson they have played more Swedish music: Wirén, Grieg and this, Öst, Alfvén, and, of course one of my favorites Lille-Bror Söderlundh. Göran is fantastic and have taught my kids strings instruments for 12 years now! At least 4 of his students ended up playing in the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra. I’m just a parent who record their concerts. Though I also got to travel with them on their Sweden tour where most of these performances where performed, and I also got to travel with the SFSYO on their European tour last year. They performed Mahler’s first symphony and it will always hold a special place in my heart. The venues included Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Berlin Philharmonie, and the Musikverein in Vienna. I was helping out backstage and such (and of course I took loads of photos).
Christian Reich
Nicola Benedetti
Elbphilharmonie
ps. I know Grieg was Norwegian, but I love his music so I included him as a Scandinavian 
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Thanks for sharing this. Wonderfully recorded and wonderful acoustics. I saw the post a while ago but have only just gotten around to listening to it, such is life.
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There is a lot to like about this release. Mostly contemporary. Just a wonderful listen. Have been mainly captivated by the title composition, Azul and the releases lead track of Ascending Birds
On Tidal and Primephonic.
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I’ve been listening to Blues on Bach by the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Wikipedia has a nice article about this album. But I don’t know if it’s Classical, Jazz, or Blues. Whatever it is, it’s delightful.
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I was listening to different tracks of Azul in random order on Youtube, just to get a feel for whether I’d like it. I started with “Silencio”, which is a little new agey for me, and almost put me off from listening to other tracks - no offence to people who like new age, just not my thing. Anyway, I next listened to “Ascending Bird” and “Yrushalem” and they both blew me away. I’ve ordered it from my library so that I can listen to the whole thing in the right order! Thanks for the recommendation.
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Here’s another contemporary piece that doesn’t seem to fit in any particular genre. I first discovered it when I was was listening to Alanis Morissette’s greatest hits album, to see if there was anything after Jagged Little Pill that I might like and when “Mercy”, a weird semi-classical/world music track, started playing, I initially dismissed it, but then went back and listened to it again.
After some research, I found out that she had been one of the vocalists in “The Prayer Cycle” by Jonathan Elias. The whole cycle is very good, and to my somewhat uncultured ears, quite unique, since I haven’t come across anything else like it before.
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This was my Halloween week album of choice:
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