Nanut is the guy in my Avatar!

rgds, Jerry

A good new Mahler 6? You should not tell me any longer. Is it the recording from “Zyx Records”?

http://www.amazon.com/Mahler-Symphony-No-6-Tragical/dp/B000025Y52/

Yep, the small budget labels can be a pain in ass but they also can care some really treasures. I have seen it so many times. The Nanut’s Mahler is in order.

I got the CD least night. Wow! The obscure Slovakian orchestra and THAT play of Mahler 6th?! Jerry, how did you even find it!!!

It was truly wonderful, I was listening it and was wondering when they “slip” but they did not. Playing Mahler 6th orchestras frequently are loosing them in the pay, diving into overly-staged drama or into overly-dancing presentation or into overly-expressive bombasticism. The Nanut’s orchestra did it all during different episodes but in a very moderate and in a perfectly balanced way. That gives very-very pleasant feeling from their play – it was very intelligently balanced all together with all necessary quanta of the Mahleria….

The Nanut’s Mahler Six  perhaps does not have that stunning “textured” tone of Karajan with Berlin, it has no “contemporary” bold touch of the Sanderling with Leningrad Philharmonic, it has no classicism glory of Horenstein with Stockholm Philharmonic and it certainly it has no psychedelic hypnosis of my beloved Barbirolli and Philharmonia. The Nanut’s Mahler rather has all those little bits of greatness as glitter spared all across the symphony - very interesting feeling indeed.

I did not listen the Nanut with Ljubliana performance on my “big” playback (it will show off much more) but the initial play of the recording on my table radios was EXTREMELY pleasant.

Below is the text from Slovens Website that presumably knows Anton Nanut. According to them Mr. Nanut did record the Beethoven Nineth. Interesting is that Nanut also record Dvorak’s last symphonies, Jerry, are they interesting in Slovenian rendering?

From: http://www.proartes.si/en/node/40

The musical gift of one of the most renowned Slovenian conductors became apparent early in his childhood when his father had been taken by the enemy to a concentration camp and the son replaced him as choirmaster and organist at age eleven. His status as one of the world’s top conductors has been confirmed by numerous awards and frequent collaborations with exceptional solo artists, such as: Mstislav Rostropovič, Nikita Magaloff, Henryk Szeryng, Svjatoslav Richter, Dubravka Tomšič, Aldo Ciccolini, David Ojstrah, Leonid Kogan, Natalija Gutman. From 1975-80 he worked as the leading conductor of Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, from 1981-88 as chief conductor and artistic director of RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. He took both central Slovenian orchestras on many concert tours of Belgium, Poland, Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union, several times to the USA with widely praised concerts at the prestigious Carnegie Hall. His lasting career includes performances and recordings of the better part of symphonic opus by Slovenian composers and the entire opera Črne maske by Marij Kogoj with the Ensemble of SNG Opera in Ljubljana. 250 albums of classical repertoire are the result of his years long collaboration with RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, receiving high appraisal by professional critics. Special appreciation is shown for Nanut0s recordings of Mahler’s, Beethoven’s, Berlioz’s and Šoštakovič’s work. For eighteen seasons straight he put together the programme for RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra’s concert cycle with great inspiration and musical taste. A number of important scores performed with an orchestra premiered in Slovenia under his conduct. In addition, he conducted many executions of great works of musical art, giving each and every one a seal of his great personal energy and musical creativity. His collaboration with the orchestra continued even after retirement. In 2002 he accepted the position of honorary conductor. Anton Nanut is the most recognizable Slovenian conductor outside its borders. He conducted over 200 foreign orchestras, among them the distinguished St. Petersburg Philharmonics, Staatskapelle Orchestra from Dresden, Suisse Romande Orchestra from Geneva, the Warsaw Philharmonics, the Prague Philharmonics, the West German Radio Orchestra, South German Radio Orchestra, the Monterrey Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Budapest Philharmonics, the Valon Radio Orchestra, the Colon Theatre Orchestra from Buenos Aires. He conducted every symphony orchestra in Italy. He is the artistic director of Philharmonic Orchestra Udine and a regular guest conductor of German Chamber Orchestra from Frankfurt. As a distinguished interpreter of works by Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Bruckner, his latest occupation includes regular collaborations with the newly founded Orchestra sinfonica di Roma and Orchestra Brasileira in Rio de Janeiro. In the town of Kanal, he founded and for 25 years lead Kogoj’s days, one of the more cosmopolitan musical shows in Slovenia. He was also artistic director of Slovenian Octet in its most successful period. As professor of musical conduct at the Music Academy in Ljubljana he has educated a number of excellent young conductors, successful in Slovenia and abroad. Important acknowledgments: Prešeren Foundation Award, Bevk, Župančič and Bettetto awards. He received Milka Trnina award for his work in Croatia, the award of the city of Dubrovnik, Svobodna Dalmacija award (for execution of Mozart’s Requiem), the high national medal of the Republic of Croatia and Yugoslavian award Lira. He received Carnegie Hall medal for his concerts and the gold medal by Milan audience in 1998. Smetana medal was awarded to both him and Milan Horvat for execution of Czech music. In 2004 he received the Papandopoulos award for a performance of Rossini’s Turk in Italy. He shares the Order of the Republic with Gold Wreath with Slovenian Octet and was presented the Order of the Republic with Silver Wreath for his work as a conductor.

Repertoire

- J.S. Bach: 4 suites, St. Mathew passion, The Brandenburg concertos
- J. Haydn : 25 symphonies
- W.A. Mozart: symphonies 1 - 41, Requiem, masses…
- L. van Beethoven: symphonies 1- 9, Mass in C major (Missa solemnis), Fidellio (opera)
- J. Brahms: symphonies 1 – 4, German requiem, 2 serenades
- P. I. Čajkovski: symphonies 4, 5 and 6, Overture Manfred, the overture to Romeo and Juliet
- A. Dvorak: symphonies 8 and 9
- G. Mahler: symfonies 1 - 10, The song of the earth
- A. Bruckner: symphonies 1 - 9
- B. Bartok: Concerto for orchestra, Blue-Beard (opera), The Miraculous Mandarin (opera)
- V. Lutoslavski: symphonies 1 – 4
- I. Stravinski: The rite of Spring, Symphony in C major, Pulcinella, The Firebird…

Discography

Maestro’s discography includes over 350 albums/cd’s, which have been published at record labels such as: ZKP RTV Slovenia, Helidon, EdDSS, Stradivari Classics, Paganini Classics, Mediaphone, Metropolitan, Phoenix and many others.

His interpretation of Mahler’s and Beethoven’s symphonies, the 5th Symphony of Tchaikovsky, the last symphonies of Dvorak, and Berlioz’s Phantastic Symphony have met with excellent response from experts in the field of classical music recordings.

Yes, Jerry, thanks,

I would like to pick some Anton Nanut CDs, not everything from you list but juts some of them. What I would be interesting if the Japanese folks ever pressed Nanut CD/LPs. In SOME cases the Japanese CD mastering is much more interesting than western. Yoshi, if you read this then could you please check out your Japanese sources if Anton Nanut CD are available by domestic Japanese labels, in particularly:

JANDL100 wrote:

Romy - A couple of years ago I was in contact with a guy in Slovenia who bought some CDs from me on eBay.  We kept in contact for a while and discussed Anton Nanut.  I had to send him copies of many of my Nanut CDs because they were NOT obtainable in Slovenia!!   .... I could always send you a copy of the Bruckner 8 if you let me know your address.

Anyhow I would greatly appreciate if you can share with me the Nanut’s Brukner 8. I would like do not have in on CD but in a shape of row WAV file extracted by EAC. It will not be killed by WAV-PCM conversion and by the following CD formatting.  Can you put it in some kind of web servers that I might download it from there? Surely, if it continent to you then you might mail it to me on CD but in this case do not burn the AUDIO CD, instead juts burn a DATA CD and copy the  extracted WAV file to the disk. If it is more suitable for you to mail it then let me know and I will send you my address.

As the talking of appreciation I would like to offer you in exchange something “interesting” from my selves, not available commonly. Tell me a composer/s or a period that your are interested in and I will pick something for you.

Jerry,

I got your Nanut CDs, thank you very much.  I did not send to you anything yet – I will. Too much going on my plate now… Not to mention that I recently change my recording software and I need to see how this time I will be converting my 88/24 into the CD former - that has been always problem for me as I do not do it regularly….

You were absolutely corrects the Anton Nanut is a wonderful conductor and his orchestra was a first class-band.  I am listening now the Beethoven’s Third – it is remarkably good. I kind of have difficult time to equate Nanut with other “reference” conductors. Nanut has own very delicate touch, delicate up to the point the make music fragile and toy-like. However, Nanut cares his fragile toy with accuracy with which we care a grandma’s vase - never break it and protect it at all cost.  The Nanut’s orchestra certainly is no German orchestra – it is too overly-articulation in macro details but it also has no dissecting characteristics of Mravinsky band… - very interesting indeed

Listening the Beethoven’s Third now I am amassed how easy they play this work.  The Eroica in different hands might sound as whatever you wish - It might be tragic or celebratory or whatever…  In the hands of the Nanut’s orchestra it sound like the Nanut is leading his Slovenian orchestra and they record soundtrack for Walt Disney’s Cartoons. It has that feeling of ease and smile with no visible efforts in any kind… Very interesting… It is not necessarily how I see this work  and I personally would play it differently (if I could play) but I very much applaud to what the Nanut’s orchestra did as it is very noble implemented own vision.

The only one problem I have with that performance of the Third is that is a studio recording. The studio recordings are home-cooking and they have none of that “raw dangerous” that live music. Perhaps I am too spoiled with my FM broadcast but with “live”, none-studio play the time is compress itself in a different manner and sounds become as parts of Realty instead of the part of Contrived Reality …. I will make sure that the music that I will send you will be “live”, non-studio performances…

BTW, I bought recently a box-set a Anton Nanut doing 10 Mahler Symphonies… did not listen them yet… I paid $2.99 for the entire box… it is kind of shame….

Anyhow, I really appreciate that you pushed me toward to “your” Nanut. Can I push you toward to “my” Golovanov?

Hi Romy

I'm glad the discs have arrived OK.  The Nanut Eroica is good - the Bruckner 8 is GREAT.  You must listen to it soon!

I also look forward to your thoughts about the Mahler 5 with Wyn Morris conducting ....

Golovanov?  I have never heard of him!  Push away.  I look forward to being converted.

Yes, you are very lucky having so many live recordings - there is often something a little 'earthbound' about studio recordings.

Re: the Mahler "Nanut set" - I think you might find that symphonies 2, 3, 7, 8 & 9 are not by Nanut after all.   But please let me know if I am wrong about that!

Rgds, Jerry

mats wrote:

I agree about the fragility but perhaps less so about "toy like". I am just now hearing for the first time Beethoven's 7th by Nanut and the second movement is very lovely, beautiful, mesmerizing and as the Eroica seemingly well understood by the performers…