OK. I have a substantial record collection, nothing compared to my oldest friend, but, still, 7,000 or so LPs, bought erratically over the years, but usually with certain performers in mind, and mostly classical, although one of my first posts will be of Dave Van Ronk's "Songs for Ageing children". I can't promise anything systematic about how or when things will go up, or what will be posted, for that matter. As I have time I'll try to post LPs that I am very fond of that seem not to have made it to CD, things that are hard to find. Thus today I'm posting the Bloch 1st Piano Quintet in the Fine Arts Quartet recording with Frank Glazer on Concert-Disc. This excellent recording has been unavailable for a long time, and if present offerings match it, as I understand the Kocian Quartet recording does (I haven't yet heard it), it's nonetheless hard for me to imagine that this Fine Arts/Glazer performance has been surpassed.
After recording to my hard-drive with DartPro, I did light filtering to clean up clicks and obvious noise. I'm not a professional sound engineer, but I listen closely and think the renovated file sounds pretty good. WinRAR and FLAC Frontend are programs you'll find helpful if you decide to avail yourself of these renovated sound files in the FLAC format and uploaded in .rar archives. Let me know what you think.
Flac files have been rezipped and newly posted, as it seems the archive was corrupt.
I once owned this record, but it was badly damaged by water. I'm delighted to be able to listen to it again. You are right - this is a performance that stands comparison with anyone else's.
ReplyDeleteIt's always been one of my favorite chamber music recordings. And, of course, the piece is amazing!
ReplyDeleteThe FLAC file for the first movement does not play or unpack to WAV --- I get a "file corrupted" message. Can you please repost this? Thanks, TWS
ReplyDeleteHi. Thanks for letting me know about the corrupt file. I re-posted the FLAC files in a .zip rather than .rar achive. All of them decoded to WAV for me using FLAC Frontend, so I think everything will be fine. Let me know if there is still a problem.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for the reposting, which unzipped to FLAC and WAV perfectly. And what a fine work this quintet is! TWS
ReplyDeleteGlad it worked, and thanks for letting me know. Yes, it's an amazing work, and the performance is simply wonderful. All the more reason I was glad to learn of problems in the files, so I could correct them.
ReplyDeleteI've downloaded many of your rare offerings. Thank you very much for all your time in capturing them, cleaning them up and posting them with your learned and insightful comments.
ReplyDelete-Dan in West Michigan
Dan
ReplyDeleteThanks much for your encouraging words. It's always good to hear that someone likes the blog and is finding the downloads enjoyable.
And --hey! I'm only human -- having my comments characterized as learned and insightful makes my day!
Looking forward to this....Frank Glazer was one of my teachers as an undergrad!
ReplyDeleteLucky you! I think he is a very fine artist. I love his pianism on this recording. The playing is as passionate and exhilarating as the music. I simply love this recording, and have for many, many years.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the excellent transfer and for sharing this performance.
ReplyDeleteI am not a Bloch specialist but I have an older recording with Pro Arte and Casella - it is not as vivid and passionate as this one.
Sturla: I'm no Bloch specialist either, but I like a lot his work, especially the chamber music. As I have said above, this is one of my favorite chamber music recordings.
ReplyDelete