Dave Wolf's announcement that he celebrates Beethoven's birthday
appropriately was good news: I was beginning to wonder whether I was one
of a very few who do likewise.  As a friend said to me recently after
he'd spent a weekend listening to some new CDs and felt overloaded, "I
needed to listen to something I knew."  In that situation, I'd probably
play something by Beethoven.

During my days of manically collecting LPs - as distinct from my days
of even more manically collecting CDs - I bought a lot of Supraphon
because they were cheap and I liked most of the performances.  I heard
three (all nla) on the 16th: Janos Ferencsik's Consecration of the House
Overture with the Czech Philharmonic - I like the opening slowish tempo
especially; the Prague Quartet playing the String Quartet #10, whose
magnificent first movement in particular does it for me every time; and
the Eroica by the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Lovro von Matacic, who
made far too few records.  I also heard Richter and Rostropovich in the
third cello sonata, Beecham and the RPO with chorus in the Ruins of
Athens music and Rudolf Buchbinder in the Piano Sonata #31.  I had
planned to finish with the Mass in C but other things intervened.

Of course, there are other composers whose birthdays we could celebrate
and you need look no further than Dave's list of composers' birthdays
at Classical Net.

Richard Pennycuick