Shostakovich, Oistrakh, Sádlo play E minor Trio, Op. 67

Having just posted the Ravel Trio in an exemplary performance by Menuhin, Kenter, and Cassado, the logical next step was to post what many consider the other of the two great trios of the twentieth century. Those who so rate the Shostakovich and Ravel will get no argument from me, just a plea not to forget the Ives when listing the rest of the great works in this genre.

This recording with the composer at piano, from 1946, may suffer noticeable sonic deficits from the recording technology of the era, and, undoubtedly, from my attempts to digitize an LP of it with lots of wear and scratches. One would be hard pressed to challenge its musical authority, though, given the players involved.

In contrast to the somber and sardonic musings of Shostakovich, the Prokofiev quartet is notably uncomplicated. It is played here convincingly by the sometimes underrated Fine Arts Quartet. It has been suggested to me that its early association with a broadcast company (ABC) may account for the Fine Arts being rated less highly than it merits. With the virtually beatified Toscanini leading the NBC Orchestra, though, it seems unlikely that a broadcast association would cause significant difficulty to a reputation. In any event, they were never anything less than first rate.

Link to all files

Bloch Piano Quintet, Fine Arts Quartet, and Frank Glazer

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.

Link to all Files