Suspension of this Blog

Everyone:

My blog has been targeted by someone or someone(s) within the last month. Namely, recent and previous posts are somehow being reported to Mediafire for copyright violations. This is ridiculous as many of my posts are of recordings well over 50 years old and of an interest to a small group of people, namely readers of this blog. Jealousy, spite, maliciousness...I don't know what would motivate someone to wreck my blog. I've seen other bloggers attacked like Bryan over at Shellackophile, Satyr at 78 toeren and Tin Ear at The Music Parlour and to what end. I give them all due credit for starting up again and wish them all the best and godspeed. They are terrific people and they have an incredible love for what they do!

At this point, I need a break and I hope that you all understand. What I do is an amateur endeavor and I pose no threat to professionals or big money interests. Sadly, I just don't want to do this for now  as I'm afraid that I could be targeted and sabotaged even if I post on another file sharing service. What I might do is to offer up recordings on symphonyshare, but I need to give that some more thought.

Anyway, thank you all. I have not been the best blogger since I'm a bit of a loner at heart and I apologize to those folks who have diligent with comments while my responses have been short or not at all.

Fred

Opera Overtures with Horst Stein and Edward Downes on Somerset

 

Remember those old Somerset records? You could buy 'em for $1.98 at the local Safeway, Radio Shack or Walgreens. Though meant for mass distribution, many of the performances on them were very fine indeed and here are two examples of rousing overtures. The London Philharmonic is led by Horst Stein and Edward Downes respectively and I'd place these lp's square about 1963 or 4.

Both the conductors featured here did not have especially large discographies and I'm at a loss why that is so. Everything that I have heard by Horst Stein is beautifully prepared and executed (I think his Bruckner 6 is the best out there, he really gets superlative playing from the VPO) while Edward Downes was a noted opera conductor and being so means that he knows where to extract the emotion from these overtures and preludes. His take on Ruslan and Ludmilla is riproaringly wonderful.

You'll enjoy these lps. I grabbed them out of the 3 for a buck pile. What a steal!


DOWNLOAD STEIN

DOWNLOAD DOWNES PART 1

DOWNLOAD DOWNES PART 2

Mediafire is having a problem with this download. ...sigh....and sorry!

Treasures of Byzantium

I've been reading a lot about the East Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, of late. For a good number of years, it has held a certain mystical fascination for me that I don't really know how to describe. During the middle ages, the empire evolved into a state that valued the Hellenic-Roman traditions albeit with an oriental, eastern twist. Indeed, for hundreds of years, it was the centre of culture and taste,  a place that many European principalities looked upon as a model for how a state should look and be governed.

This lp by the Byzantine Choir under Frank Desby captures the mystical, otherworldly nature of the Byzantine state and church, which we so intertwined as to be one organic substance. The chants and recitations here are breathtakingly beautiful and they carry the listener off into another state of being. No wonder visitors to Constantinople often felt that they had entered a place that was somewhere between earth and heaven.

DOWNLOAD