# Recordings that are ludicrous for the wrong reasons.



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Recently I was pawing through a used record bin and bought an old LP that I had had a perverse experience with in my youth. It was Brahms' Second, performed by the NY Phil under Bernstein from the early 1960s. It was maybe the second or third Brahms Second I had ever heard. Its claim to fame was that it was the first recording made in the then new Philharmonic (now Avery Fischer) Hall. The cover was an architect's rendering of the hall, and the liner notes were 20% Brahms, 80% New York's new concert hall. The performance was (is) actually quite good. The perverseness came from the all too audible realization (even to my fourteen-year old ears) that the hall was terrible. The first three movements sounded dry but serviceable; the finale was absolutely DOA -- the sound was completely lifeless. I've always had a soft spot for that experience, and it was fun to relive it.

george


----------



## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

What are the right reasons for a recording to be ludicrous?

Here's a guess:


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

True. The Philharmonic Hall of the 1960's was a disaster. I had a subscription to the NY Philharmonic back in the day and the sound was like dead!! Not exactly Symphony Hall in Boston.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

It's pretty ludicrous for symphony orchestras to try to rock out. They just don't have credible timing. But I have have a soft spot for the cringe-worthy efforts anyway.






As a footnote, the above was not 100% sanctioned by the band if I recall, and Anderson has since done some very nice work with orchestras, though he claims he has to work with them to get 11/8 time and so forth to groove correctly. They want to count it rather than feel it.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I hate crossover albums period whether it's from classical artists or pop musicians.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Thousands of people gushing over this guy leading a full orchestra playing My Way.
But I guess a lot of folks prefer Velveeta.


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I also remember a recording from the early 1960s issued by the Telemann Society of Handel's Water music played on eighteenth century instruments from a Boston antique instrument collection, by otherwise accomplished musicians who had no experience with old instruments. This was recorded as an "experiment" before the original instrument movement hit its stride and the results were marvelously entertaining in terms of intonation and splatted notes.


----------



## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

ahammel said:


> What are the right reasons for a recording to be ludicrous?
> 
> Here's a guess:


hahaha!

It really exists!

I've listened this several times on iTunes, one of the internet radio stations ("Mozartiana" or something similar), I always thought it was a joke!


----------



## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

GioCar said:


> hahaha!
> 
> It really exists!
> 
> I've listened this several times on iTunes, one of the internet radio stations ("Mozartiana" or something similar), I always thought it was a joke!


As far as anybody can tell, she was dead serious. She attributed criticism of her singing (viz: that she couldn't do it) to "professional jealousy".

She is supposed to have quipped that "People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."


----------



## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

This humorously over-the-top recording, and this recording graciously fusing two minds completely alike- Boulez and Lang Lang.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Cheyenne said:


> and this recording graciously fusing two minds completely alike- Boulez and Lang Lang.


He's pulverizing that thing....how on earth did they convince Boulez to work with him???


----------



## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

"Rhapsody to Make You Feel Better about Your Own Talent" by Richard Nanes. The definitive performance featuring Lang Lang and Andre Rieu, vocals by Florence Foster Jenkins. 
(With apologies to Saint Cecelia.)


----------



## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> He's pulverizing that thing....how on earth did they convince Boulez to work with him???


Perhaps he ran up and replaced Zimmerman at the piano at the last instant.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Wagner / Hindemith ~ Overture to _The Flying Dutchman
_"...as Played at Sight by a Second-Rate Spa Orchestra at the Village Well at 7 O'Clock in the Morning"





Tchaikovsky / Xenakis ~ Dance of the Sugar Plum Faeries (for children's ensemble)


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ahammel said:


> Perhaps he ran up and replaced Zimmerman at the piano at the last instant.


Zimmerman had just pulled yet another one of his diva hissy fits and stomped out... and guess who just happened to be available!


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Some of the scrapings and janglings of avant-garde music. It is quite ludicrous that anyone should want to play it in the first place, that anyone should want to record it, and that anyone should actually want to listen to it!


----------



## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Some of the scrapings and janglings of avant-garde music. It is quite ludicrous that anyone should want to play it in the first place, that anyone should want to record it, and that anyone should actually want to listen to it!


And to think, people actually spend money on this stuff? And enjoy it? Boy, the joke is on them, eh Dave?


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

DavidA said:


> Some of the scrapings and janglings of avant-garde music. It is quite ludicrous that anyone should want to play it in the first place, that anyone should want to record it, and that anyone should actually want to listen to it!


Clearly, there are many who drank and are now drinking from a different well than you -- (is that well or trough? 

Anyway, I think its kinda cute that so many here had that one semester humanities general survey course in their undergraduate university years, don't you?


----------



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Some of the scrapings and janglings of avant-garde music. It is quite ludicrous that anyone should want to play it in the first place, that anyone should want to record it, and that *anyone should actually want to listen to it*!


Shhh! Don't tell. I'm only pretending...

Didn't the pianist on the F. F-J Mozart recording want _his_ name recorded for posterity too, then?


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

DavidA said:


> Some of the scrapings and janglings of avant-garde music. It is quite ludicrous that anyone should want to play it in the first place, that anyone should want to record it, and that anyone should actually want to listen to it!


Burn! Burn! Nasty vile scraping and jangling avant-garde music, Burn!

Nope, didn't work. I guess this continued slo-motion onslaught to convince all of just how awful this music is needs a Girolamo Savonarola as its champion... uh, wait a minute, as I recall, there was a little problem involving a bit of fire at the end of that story.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

*Nominating...*

Nominating the recording of West Side Story w/ Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic, and its all-star cast of opera singers.

Ludicrous... Patently Absurd, Painfully Absurd, etc.


----------



## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

DavidA said:


> Some of the scrapings and janglings of avant-garde music. It is quite ludicrous that anyone should want to play it in the first place, that anyone should want to record it, and that anyone should actually want to listen to it!


Ugh. That's, like, SO two weeks ago


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

petrb said:


> burn! burn! nasty vile scraping and jangling avant-garde music, burn!
> 
> nope, didn't work. I guess this continued slo-motion onslaught to convince all of just how awful this music is needs a girolamo savonarola as its champion... Uh, wait a minute, as i recall, there was a little problem involving a bit of fire at the end of that story.


Burn baby, burn!!!! :devil:


----------



## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

I'll see your Florence Foster Jenkins....and raise you a Mari Lyn.
You'll be pleased to know that there's many more than just this one.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I remember I was listening to the beginning of the following album with a friend late last year. We barely made it past the first fifteen minutes of the noise/sound effect of the album (borrowed discs from library). We were very dismayed by what the recorded sounds were, though technically define as music, but we doubted if average listeners would realise it as such. Frankly, I would not have even if I was exposed to it without knowing that a "recording was played". We had a discussion with a senior student about this and agreed that we were entering a realm of "musical perception of sounds". Yes, Mozart's glorious music is sound but we were talking about musical sounds which would be ordinarily perceived/recognised as noise/sound even by musically trained folks, without first being made aware of what they are listening to.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


>


Xenakis! _"Different strokes for different folks."_


----------



## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

Not sure if this joker is for real or not, but nevertheless... I lol'd


----------



## ShropshireMoose (Sep 2, 2013)

Winterreisender said:


> Not sure if this joker is for real or not, but nevertheless... I lol'd


Oh my god, it's awful. I think it's tongue in cheek............I hope it's tongue in cheek!


----------



## ShropshireMoose (Sep 2, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Xenakis! _"Different strokes for different folks."_


This reminds me of the story I heard about Edward German. He fitted a second loudspeaker to his wireless so that his housekeeper could enjoy listening in as well in her room (this would be in the 1920s). One evening she rushed into German's sitting room and informed him that the wireless had gone horribly wrong as it was making the most awful sounds. German was most amused to discover that she had been listening to "The Rite of Spring"!


----------



## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

ShropshireMoose said:


> Oh my god, it's awful. I think it's tongue in cheek............I hope it's tongue in cheek!


I hope so too. Victor Borge would have been proud of that rendetion.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Winterreisender said:


> Not sure if this joker is for real or not, but nevertheless... I lol'd


Yes, it's a joke. This guy is a stage hand who also happens to have studied piano rather unsuccessfully in his youth. After hours, he and a friend made this on a lark. The best part is the twitching and simulated inability to sit still.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

And how about _for the right reasons?_

Mauricio Kagel ~ _Ludvig van_ (1970)
Love it or 'other' (I love it, it does "its job."





Enjoy.


----------



## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

Couac Addict said:


> I'll see your Florence Foster Jenkins....and raise you a Mari Lyn.
> You'll be *pleased* to know that there's many more than just this one.


Holy carp! 
Awesome! 
Pleased to know? _Pleased to know?_ I'm thrilled! A new treasure trove to explore. 
*doffs hat* You've made my day.


----------



## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

I was listening to the Koch recording of Shostakovich's "Execution of Stepan Razin" the other day on Spotify and I can't believe just how awful this performance and recording is. It is just so ludicrous - the bass sounds more like a crooner, and the orchestra is so bad, at the end it gets lost altogether: for some odd reason it stops for a ding of the bell only to start again completely out of synch and totally lost It doesn't get much more ludicrous than that.


----------



## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

Couac Addict said:


> I'll see your Florence Foster Jenkins....and raise you a Mari Lyn.
> You'll be pleased to know that there's many more than just this one.


Wow. The 2:16 mark. Voice of an angel!


----------



## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Winterreisender said:


> Not sure if this joker is for real or not, but nevertheless... I lol'd


Honestly, reminds me a little of this:


----------



## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, it's a joke. This guy is a stage hand who also happens to have studied piano rather unsuccessfully in his youth. After hours, he and a friend made this on a lark. The best part is the twitching and simulated inability to sit still.


In which case it is a joke that has gone on a long time. The guy has a whole load of videos where he butchers Mozart and Bach as well. And he's got a pretty professional looking website, which describes his style as "based in the perfection and individuality of each sound, thus creating a flowing philosophy-of-sound world, with phrases, harmonies and counterpoints" (whatever that means).


----------



## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

This is not about a recording, but this reminds me of when I heard a performance of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in New York state. The concert hall is large and open to the outdoors. As a result, the strings in the all-pizzicato third movement were practically inaudible. Everyone reading this probably knows that it is difficult to play strings pizzicato very loudly. The choice of this symphony for the program seems like a really bad idea.



GGluek said:


> Recently I was pawing through a used record bin and bought an old LP that I had had a perverse experience with in my youth. It was Brahms' Second, performed by the NY Phil under Bernstein from the early 1960s. It was maybe the second or third Brahms Second I had ever heard. Its claim to fame was that it was the first recording made in the then new Philharmonic (now Avery Fischer) Hall. The cover was an architect's rendering of the hall, and the liner notes were 20% Brahms, 80% New York's new concert hall. The performance was (is) actually quite good. The perverseness came from the all too audible realization (even to my fourteen-year old ears) that the hall was terrible. The first three movements sounded dry but serviceable; the finale was absolutely DOA -- the sound was completely lifeless. I've always had a soft spot for that experience, and it was fun to relive it.
> 
> george


----------



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Couac Addict said:


> I'll see your Florence Foster Jenkins....*and raise you a Mari Lyn*.


Genius - she seems entirely sincere. And she is having so much fun! I actually enjoyed this, in a kind of Victor Borge way.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

John Browming; Boston Symphony, Erich Leinsdorf ~ Prokofiev piano concerto No.3 in C major

This recorded and released on LP long before digital engineering and Protools editing, the piece is in something between C major and C# major. Done in the era of taping then going to a master disc for pressing, this was not a matter of a few cents difference between A440 and A442 or 444, but a slower 'safe' recorded take, the tape then sped up for that final pressing.

...............


----------



## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Done in the era of taping then going to a master disc for pressing, this was not a matter of a few cents difference between A440 and A442 or 444, but a slower 'safe' recorded take, the tape then sped up for that final pressing.


No! Not really? That's awful :lol:


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ahammel said:


> No! Not really? That's awful :lol:


Now there are free programs to speed up or slow down music without changing the pitch. I occasionally use Audacity to correct poor tempo choices in performances that are good otherwise, making them iPod-worthy. :devil:


----------



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

That's fascinating, because I really like the Browning/Leinsdorf Prokofiev Secord, but never cottoned to their Third, without knowing why.



PetrB said:


> John Browming; Boston Symphony, Erich Leinsdorf ~ Prokofiev piano concerto No.3 in C major
> 
> This recorded and released on LP long before digital engineering and Protools editing, the piece is in something between C major and C# major. Done in the era of taping then going to a master disc for pressing, this was not a matter of a few cents difference between A440 and A442 or 444, but a slower 'safe' recorded take, the tape then sped up for that final pressing.
> 
> ...............


----------



## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

I really meant it, *Couac Addict*.
I'm loving discovering her.
Stay with it to the end - the very end - it's so worth it.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCmDplXU0bM#t=12[/yt]

Assuming she was married, I can only hope, in all charity, that her spouse was sight-and-hearing-impaired!


----------



## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)




----------



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

:lol::lol::lol:


----------



## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

PetrB said:


> John Browming; Boston Symphony, Erich Leinsdorf ~ Prokofiev piano concerto No.3 in C major
> 
> This recorded and released on LP long before digital engineering and Protools editing, the piece is in something between C major and C# major. Done in the era of taping then going to a master disc for pressing, this was not a matter of a few cents difference between A440 and A442 or 444, but a slower 'safe' recorded take, the tape then sped up for that final pressing.
> 
> ...............


Where did you get this information ?


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

moody said:


> Where did you get this information ?


By checking the recording with an in-tune piano, and several fellow students who had perfect pitch who had noticed the same thing.

The _only_ way that piece could end up on a recording made first to tape and then transferred to a master for pressing the vinyl in that technological era was by speeding up the tape. It was not 'just a few cents sharp' -- which could have been a slightly higher A, which also would have been far more than unusual for an all American orchestra.

P.s. if these were remastered in a later era of digital editing, it is almost certain a re-adjustment was made.


----------



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

> Mari Lyn sings Gershwin's 'Summertime'


Priceless. Is she going to hit the high notes...No! How self aware, I wonder? Does she know and just think 'What the hell!'


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

TurnaboutVox said:


> Priceless. Is she going to hit the high notes...No!


The coloratura work, filled with approximations and glissandi, is fantastic!


----------

