# First Impressions



## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

As a teen I bought a budget reissue of Haydn's 'Mercury' Symphony No 43 by the Chamber Orchestra of the Danish State Radio, conducted by Morgens Woldike. A terrible pressing, but I loved that recording, especially the irresistable pomposo swagger of the minuet. I've since purchased a dozen other versions of the 'Mercury' but none for me have approached the Woldike. Am I alone in having different readings of a work spoiled for me by too favourable a first impression?


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Not at all. I (and others) call them imprint versions.

My early classical music purchases (circa 1970s) tended to be budget LPs. These included a number of recordings by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. To this date his Mozart and his Beethoven piano concertos with Leon Fleisher remain my standards.

A stranger story is the my experience with Schubert's String Quintet. My imprint version was the Heifetz/Piatigorsky recording. For years every other version I listened to seemed inexcusably slow. It took a long time for me to realize that the Heifetz version was the anomaly that failed to fully express the beauty of the piece. Now I have a range of recordings, my two favorites being the Alban Berg Quartet and the Casals recording from the early 1950s. But I do own the Heifetz on CD and play it every so often.


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

jegreenwood said:


> Not at all. I (and others) call them imprint versions.
> 
> My early classical music purchases (circa 1970s) tended to be budget LPs. These included a number of recordings by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. To this date his Mozart and his Beethoven piano concertos with Leon Fleisher remain my standards.
> 
> A stranger story is the my experience with Schubert's String Quintet. My imprint version was the Heifetz/Piatigorsky recording. For years every other version I listened to seemed inexcusably slow. It took a long time for me to realize that the Heifetz version was the anomaly that failed to fully express the beauty of the piece. Now I have a range of recordings, my two favorites being the Alban Berg Quartet and the Casals recording from the early 1950s. But I do own the Heifetz on CD and play it every so often.


Similarly, for years, I used to favor Heifetz's Brahms' Violin Concerto with Reiner and the Chicago Symphony. However, as I grew older, I gravitated more toward the warmer, and to me, more musically sympathetic interpretation offered by Szeryng and Monteux with the London Symphony. Notwithstanding, I have never been less than fully satisfied with Heifetz and Piatigorsky's interpretation of the Brahms Double Concerto. As I commented in a review several years ago, "Heifetz's urgency and intensity seem to perfectly complement Piatigorsky's open, warmly expressive style. Together, both soloists display a wonderfully engaging instrumental interplay replete with moments of sweep, reflectiveness and autumnal glow."


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