[AuroraProject]

I currently have this copy of Barbers Adagio for Strings:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...ce&s=classical

I find the quality of the recording to be disappointing. Can anyone recommend a high quality recording of this piece? I've heard the Telarc name mentioned but I only find a collection called American Adagios under the Telarc name.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Doc Sarvis]

I'm a Barber fan.

The version you list is the old NYP recording - Lenny did a new take with the LA Philharmonic that is much better IMO. You may want to try that.

I've long wanted to try out the original string quartet version - with its accompanying movements - but I can't find it.

 

[Bill Ward]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc Sarvis I'm a Barber fan. The version you list is the old NYP recording - Lenny did a new take with the LA Philharmonic that is much better IMO. You may want to try that. I've long wanted to try out the original string quartet version - with its accompanying movements - but I can't find it.

String Quartet, Op. 11 is included on this. Nice sound.

BW

 

[Genetic]

Surprisingly good recording here:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...599028-5786311

Amicalement

 

[Mark from HFR]

The Bernstein/Los Angeles Philharmonic recording on DG is the most intense that I've heard. The Telarc recording with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony is recorded better, but it doesn't pack quite as much emotional punch. Also worth mentioning, although I didn't check to see if it is still available, is the recording by the late Andrew Schenck and the New Zealand Symphony. It pops up periodically on budget labels, and holds it own against the best recordings both in terms of intensity and recorded sound.

Mark

 

[Doc Sarvis]

I have the Schenck on an extra CD that I don't need anymore. If someone wants it, please e-mail me (no charge).

 

[AuroraProject]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc Sarvis I have the Schenck on an extra CD that I don't need anymore. If someone wants it, please e-mail me (no charge).

I'd love to email you, but your profile states you have selected to not receive emails, and you have private messages turned off?

 

[Doc Sarvis]

Oops - I'll e-mail you!!! PRIVATE MESSAGE SENT

 

[mikeg]

Any top notch recently recorded performances available in SACD?

 

[Nightfall]

Thanks for all of the opinions and info, guys, this is perhaps my favorite classical piece ever.
As for your question about SACD, mikeg

I recently read a reviewer in a prominent publication (either Stereophile or The Absolute Sound) who used the following SACD recording of Barbers Adagio For Strings as a standard reviewing tool:

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
SAMUEL BARBER
VARIOUS
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; Fantasia on Greensleeves
Serenade for Strings
Adagio for Strings
Works by Pachelbel, Grainger, Fauré Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra
Leonard Slatkin
Telarc SACD 60641 SACD

I have no personal idea how it might measure up though.


JC

 

[Nightfall]

Further research indicates that it gets a relatively poor/average rating for performance and recording quality in the following Barber on CD rating link:

http://www.classicstoday.com/digest/...p?perfidx=1532


This might be very helpful in locating the best available recordings of the Adagio though.


JC

 

[cannedheat]

Here is the Barber CD I return to time and time again. It has most of the key Barber works for orchesta:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...487950-4697566

Good luck...

 

[jshaevitz]

Thomas Schippers (1930-1977), who died a month after I was born, graduated from high school at 13, went to Curtis and Julliard, and starting conducting in NY at age 21 with the NYC Opera. He conducted the premiere of several Barber works and continued as the authority on Barber for decades. His 1965 recording of the Adagio for Strings with the NY Phil is perhaps *the reference recording* of this popular work. It can be found on a wonderful album combining recordings of Schippers conducting NY and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra from 1960-1965. The Essay for Orchestra no 2, Op. 17 is particularly exciting. I find Schippers's interpretations of Barber far superior to that of Berstein which is a bit slow and pompous.

(For those who enjoy the Adagio for Strings arranged for string orchestra, you may want to listen to the String Quartet Op 11 which contains the adagio as it's middle movement and which was the original composition. Emerson String Quartet has an excellent recording on DG.)