What are you listening to now?

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Listening to Janacek's Violin Sonata. Brilliant work and performance.

[Todd]

First listen to the early 20-something Claude Frank and Alfred Brendel pupil, polymath, and owner of L'église Sainte-Thérèse de l'Enfant-Jésus (because, why not?) Kit Armstrong in the form of an intriguing set of Liszt pieces.  The disc opens with Two Episodes from Lenau's Faust, which includes the famous Mephisto Waltz No 1, after the much less famous Midnight Procession.  (I'd never heard it before this disc.)  There's also the Funeral March from Tasso, the Salve Polonia, and Mephisto Waltzes 2 & 3.  Armstrong's playing is on the light and bright side, tonally speaking, and he seems to have no difficulty playing any of the works.  If the first famous waltz lacks the mind-numbingly spectacular hypervirtuosity of Evgeny Kissin, the merely superb virtuosity is nonetheless very satisfying.  And if overall the young Mr Armstrong lacks the overtly romantic style of, say, Giuseppe Albanese, that's quite fine, too.  This is slightly cool, perhaps "intellectual" Liszt playing, yet that merely serves to keep excess in check.  Everything sounds excellent, and the Mephisto Waltz No 3 is quite appealing.  (I'd never heard that either.)  I'm glad I picked up Armstrong's Bach/Ligeti/Armstrong disc, too, as this young artist appears to have ideas. 

SOTA sound, though it does sound as though the pianist's fingernails may be too long.

[Artem]

Very interesting music.

[asin]B001OMT644[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

Now:





Listening to Three Fragments from 'Julietta'. Outstanding!

[Todd]

[SimonNZ]

Bach's Mass in B minor - John Eliot Gardiner, cond. (2015)

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Listening to Nights in the Gardens of Spain with the great Alicia De Larrocha on piano with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducting the London PO. Awesome work and performance.

[kishnevi]

Symphony no 8

The consensus has it that Karajan's later VPO version of the 8th is the one to have. I'm not really a Brucknerian and I haven't heard it, but I was advised by a friend(you know who you are) to go for the Berlin version, and I haven't been disappointed. I find I could eventually come round to Bruckner.

I like that set because Karajan does a superb job with Symphonies 1-3, as opposed to several other sets in which that trio of symphonies falls flat, or becomes a long succession of turgidities.   He is less outstanding in the remaing six, but that is because he has better competition there.

[ptr]

Very interesting music.

[asin]B001OMT644[/asin]

I especially liked the percussion concerto! I also recommend the other Neos disc set of Flammer's large scale organ cycle "superverso per organo"! One can only hope that there will be more releases with this composer!

/ptr

[SimonNZ]

Barry Conyngham's Waterways - Ron Ephrat, viola, Matthias Bamert, cond.

Live: July 13, 1990, Vredenburg, Utrecht

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjqtWlKlfBg

[Tsaraslondon]

Moving on to Disc 11 of this set, I'm beginning to see some sort of sense to the ordering. We move forward in time to songs by Liszt, Wolf and Mahler.

The majority of the disc is taken up by a group of 12 Liszt songs, all wonderful and one wonders why they are performed so rarely. The emotional range of the songs is wide and Baker is by turns thrillingly dramatic, dreamily wistful, gently lyrical, and everything inbetween.

These Liszt songs were recorded in 1979 and 1980 with Geoffrey Parsons, and, though the following Wolf and Mahler songs were recorded more than ten years earlier (with Gerald Moore) the voice has lost nothing of its firmness.

Wolf is not a composer Baker is particularly associated with, and these three Geistliche Lieder from Das Spanische Liederbuch are, as far as I'm aware all she recorded. Why, I have no idea, for these three songs are sung with marvellous concentration and appreciation of their sound world.

Mahler, on the other hand, did figure heavily in both her concert and recording schedules, with peerless recordings of the orchestral song cycles conducted by Barbirolli on a later disc in the box. Here she sings two of his lighter songs, Fruhlingsmorgen and Scheiden und Meiden with a lovely smile in her tone. I wish I knew exactly what she was singing about/.

And here lies the only problem I have with this set (and so many of these commemorative box sets that are being released at the moment).  The lack of texts and translations. These would have all accompanied the original releases, so surely it wouldn't be that difficult to include a CD-ROM with them, as Warner did with the Callas box. It does a terrible disservice to artists like Schwarzkopf and Baker, who are so specific in their response to text. Understanding is part of the key appreciating their art. As it is, one has to scrabble around the internet to find them. I just find it shoddy presentation. I'm sure most collectors would be willing to pay a bit more to get texts and translations.

[Henk]

NP:
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[NikF]

That's certainly a great disc, NikF. My favorite performance of the Piano Concerto without a doubt.

I'm terrible at remembering names, but thinking back now it might be that you were the poster who recommended this music to me. Or maybe it was the Schoenberg Chamber Symphony/Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic that was suggested. Or perhaps neither.  In any case, I've me never received a poor or disappointing recommendation from the forum.

Oh yeah.


In other news...

Arensky: Three Suites - Yablonsky/Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

[asin]B0000CDJK3[/asin]

Although this is only the second time of listening, I'm still far from enamoured with this. It might be that it'll take further listening or maybe a different performance.

[Madiel]

And here lies the only problem I have with this set (and so many of these commemorative box sets that are being released at the moment).  The lack of texts and translations. These would have all accompanied the original releases, so surely it wouldn't be that difficult to include a CD-ROM with them, as Warner did with the Callas box. It does a terrible disservice to artists like Schwarzkopf and Baker, who are so specific in their response to text. Understanding is part of the key appreciating their art. As it is, one has to scrabble around the internet to find them. I just find it shoddy presentation. I'm sure most collectors would be willing to pay a bit more to get texts and translations.

Absolutely. I find it amazing that so many record companies believe that the text is dispensable.

Thread duty: in the very early stages of a first listen...

[asin]B00BX8TZM2[/asin]

[Florestan]

Last night, two splendid Early Baroque CDs.



This is something of a curiosity: the re-creation (musically only, for obvious reasons) of a dancing and singing masquerade (festa a ballo) that was performed in Naples, March 1, 1620. Let me quote the full original title of the printed edition, to give you an idea about the whole thing, together with its political (sic!) implications.

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF
THE
ENTERTAINMENT WITH DANCES
Performed in Naples to celebrate the return to
health of His Catholic Majesty
PHILIP III OF AUSTRIA
King of the Spains
in the presence of His Illustrious and Most
Serene Highness the Duke of Osuna, Viceroy
of the Kingdom, in the Great Hall of the Palace
on the 1st of March, 1620

To cut a long story short, don Pedro Giron, Duke of Osuna, Viceroy of Naples, mounted this magnificent and ostentatious performance in order to ingratiate himself with the King, who was not very happy about the Duke´s military actions against Venice (probably in alliance with the Turks) and his instigating a conspiracy in Venice itself. Not out of love for the bitterly complaining Venetians, of course, but out of fear that the Duke´s growing power, influence and priivate army might have tempted him to independence. The result of the lavishing hosanna was not as expected, for in June 1620 Cardinal Borgia arrived from Rome to replace him as Viceroy. Pedro Giron returned to Madrid to plead his innocence but was soon thrown in jail where he died 4 years later.

(Now, this political cabal so typical of its time might in itself have been the subject of an opera.)

Surprisingly, most of the music for the numbers performed survived in the form of a print edition, making thus possible a musical reconstruction of the masquerade.

The music (which is the work of several composers, the most famous being Giovanni Maria Trabacci) is superb: danceful and tuneful instrumental numbers, with infectious and often irregular rythms, alternate with melodious and highly cantabile vocal sequences, making for an extremely pleasurable listening.

The performance is as magnificent as the original must have been. The forces employed are impressive, spanning the whole range of Rennaissance instruments, from violins & viols to shawms & crumhorns to tambourines & sidedrums and everything in between, as well as a vocal ensemble consisting of 2S, 1A, 2T, 1B. The sound is crystal clear, bright and luminous.

The result is one of the most beautifully interpreted and recorded CDs I ever heard.

Then I played this one:



The title is taken from the first piece on the disc: a Capriccio stravagante by Carlo Farina which is indeed extravagant and then some. In terms of quirkiness and moodiness he could have taught CPE Bach a thing or two and there is a brief sequence which, if taken out of context, could have been written by Xenakis no less. The end is surprisingly quiet and subdued, marking one of the strangest but most interesting and enjoyable Baroque pieces I ever listened to.

The mood is thus set for the whole disc (volume one of two, actually): Italian instrumental music from about 1620 (coincidentally contemporaneous with the festa a ballo I have just commented upon) with a clear and present sense of extravagance and virtuosity. Needless to say, the most daring such works on this CD are by Biaggio Marini and Dario Castello, who were a sort of avant-garde of their time. An unknown (for me) Giovanni Picchi delivers a really strange Canzon decima nona a doi chori which juxtaposes in the Gabrieli manner strings and winds, creating a vivid tension between the two groups, as if they are competing for supremacy (an allusion to the then ongoing battle between the old style and the nascent Baroque, perhaps?). Pieces by Frescobaldi, Michelangelo Rossi, Buonamente, Turini, Vitali and Merula, though none as extremely and wildly extravagant as those I mentioned, complete this most charming CD. Excellent performance from The Purcell Quartet and His Majesty´s Sackbutts and Cornets, recorded in very good sonics.

(I can hardly wait for the coming night to listen to the second volume.)

Two winners I heartily recommend to any Early Baroque afficionado.

EDIT: Very informative liner notes on both, with full Italian texts and English translations in the first case.

[Florestan]

Absolutely. I find it amazing that so many record companies believe that the text is dispensable.

They are probably editorially advised by Mr. Croche and James... 

[Florestan]

Delicious.

Note to Sarge: nice violin(ist), ain´t it? 

[EigenUser]

I'm terrible at remembering names, but thinking back now it might be that you were the poster who recommended this music to me. Or maybe it was the Schoenberg Chamber Symphony/Rattle with the Berlin Philharmonic that was suggested. Or perhaps neither.  In any case, I've me never received a poor or disappointing recommendation from the forum.

I was the one who recommended the Schoenberg/Rattle/Berlin . That's a favorite of mine. I actually strongly prefer that "full orchestra" version to the original one for 15 players. The full strings balance the winds much more.

(And don't think I haven't noticed your gym/fitness-related sayings under your profile picture!)

Currently, some of Debussy's Preludes, orchestrated by Colin Matthews:
[asin]B006O51CSY[/asin]

[(poco) Sforzando]

I actually strongly prefer that "full orchestra" version to the original one for 15 players. The full strings balance the winds much more.

Remember though that to balance the orchestral strings, Schoenberg added more winds including trumpets and trombones. I myself have no problem with the balance in the original version, and this is one of those chamber ensemble works, like the Siegfried Idyll and Appalachian Spring, that is often played by a larger orchestra but which I prefer in the original versions for smaller forces.

[Harry]

A fantastic CD filled with beautiful Organ music, a bit hampered by the fact that the booklet is only in French or Portuguese.
The CD is a winner though, and this for only 2,99€

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2016/02/lorgue-au-nouveau-monde-andahuaylillas.html?spref=tw