On Sunday, February 24, 2008 at 5:21:08 PM UTC, Matthew B. Tepper wrote:
> EM <emmemmme...@gnail.com> appears to have caused the following letters
> to be typed in news:47c1925a$0$24395$5fc... news.tiscali.nl:
> > francis <sower...@aol.com> - Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:47:57 -0800 (PST):
> >
> >> My own preference among available commercial recordings is Maazel's; but
> >> my overall favorite is the vastly underrated Louis Lane's Cleveland
> >> Orchestra performance with the estimable Chinese basso Yi-Kwei Sze.
> >
> > Well, I have: The bells, Op.35a. Spring, Op. 20. a Elena Ustinova (sop);
> > a Kurt Westi (ten); Jorma Hynninen (bar); Danish National Radio Choir and
> > Symphony Orchestra / Dmitri Kitaienko. Chandos.
> >
> > Who wants to convince me that it's not good enough? ;-)
> I'm not familiar with the soprano, but Jorma Hynninen is a superb baritone,
> and I enjoyed hearing the late Danish tenor Westi in the role of David in a
> concert performance of Carl Nielsen's "Saul og David" about 25 years ago,
> which amazingly was claimed to be its U.S. premiere (and may have been).
> --
> Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
> My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
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> To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
> War is Peace. ** Freedom is Slavery. ** It's all Napster's fault!

It was Rachmaninoff's 149th Birthday on Friday last (1st April) so it was a suitable day for the belated BBC Proms Premiere of "The Bells" to pop up on YouTube. Andre Previn conducted and the soloists were Robert Tear, John Shirley-Quirk and Sheila Armstrong, at nearly 80 years of age the only survivor of the three singers. Incidentally, I wonder why the composer couldn't have found a place for a contralto in the 3rd movement ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzf_ekrC9xc&t=275s