New Releases

[SurprisedByBeauty]

I've never really liked his Mahler nor his Prokofiev. I find them fabricated, assembled, Ikea-style, so to speak. Maybe te Münchners will teach him the style  .

I think, no joke, that that was part of the reason for his taking the job. To really acquire an 'authentic' handle on the central European repertoire they are known for.

His Mahler in London I may not like much, but it DID get better and better. His Fifth, as originally performed, was awful and canned. They added it at the end of the cycle and it's a good performance. His 8th is creditable. His Wagner used to be atrocious http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2006/02/kirovs-parsifal-may-have-no-pulse-but.html; by the time he's recorded the last bits of the Ring (isn't he overdue for completing it?), the results are very good. As far as his London recordings are concerned, I feel tepidly towards many but his Scriabin is terrific and his La Mer is very good, too.

[André]

I have this excellent box on my shelves. 3 cds are with Gergiev (Borodine symphonies, Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible and Shostakovich's 7th symphony). It's all really excellent. In russian repertoire he is usually a master colourist. The LSO Prokofiev symphonies are good, but no more, totally eclipsed IMO by Leinsdorf Boston or Ormandy Philadelphia, for example. Gergiev is one of today's most recorded maestros, but you can't be good at everything...

[vandermolen]

I have this excellent box on my shelves. 3 cds are with Gergiev (Borodine symphonies, Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible and Shostakovich's 7th symphony). It's all really excellent. In russian repertoire he is usually a master colourist. The LSO Prokofiev symphonies are good, but no more, totally eclipsed IMO by Leinsdorf Boston or Ormandy Philadelphia, for example. Gergiev is one of today's most recorded maestros, but you can't be good at everything...

What are the Rachmaninov performances like Andre?
I'm pleased that the box contains Prokofiev's Ivan the Terrible in a fine recording. I prefer the work to Alexander Nevsky.

[André]

Gergiev only conducts the last 3 discs. The others are by previous Music Directors David Zinman and Edo de Waart. The latter is the conductor in the Rachmaninoff symphonies. They are very good, recorded in superb sound. Bear in mind that de Waart is anything but an emotional conductor.  'Tasteful, unfussy' describe his style well. Mind you, it suits my own tastes, so I enjoy these Rach symphonies all right !

All 10 CDs are devoted to russian repertoire, a strange fit for Rotterdam maybe, but better that than a disparate, chocolate box-like assortment.

[Daverz]

A new recording of Roussel's Evocations:

[asin] B07CCLPMW3[/asin]

[Marc]

Gergiev only conducts the last 3 discs. The others are by previous Music Directors David Zinman and Edo de Waart. The latter is the conductor in the Rachmaninoff symphonies. They are very good, recorded in superb sound. Bear in mind that de Waart is anything but an emotional conductor.  'Tasteful, unfussy' describe his style well. Mind you, it suits my own tastes, so I enjoy these Rach symphonies all right !

All 10 CDs are devoted to russian repertoire, a strange fit for Rotterdam maybe, but better that than a disparate, chocolate box-like assortment.

Not a strange fit for Rotterdam at all, thanks (mainly) to Gergiev, who conducts them on a regular basis since 1988. Chief conductor fom 1995 to 2008. Honorary conductor since then.
From 1996, they organize the Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival, which has become a musical/cultural 'hit'.

https://gergievfestival.nl/en-us/

[Brian]

Traveling now but here is a teaser of some July releases I'm seeing in the database, which will all get posted on my return next week...

- Sheila Arnold's new piano recital covers Debussy, Takemitsu, and Cage
- BIS has an SACD of the London Symphony playing Walter Piston's Symphony No. 6, Samuel Jones's Symphony No. 3, and Stephen Albert's Symphony No. 2
- BIS also has a release from living composer Albert Schnelzer featuring works with titles like "Brain Damage: Concerto for Orchestra", "Tales from Suburbia", and "Re-arrange Me 'til I'm Sane"
- the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet records Kalevi Aho
- Bavouzet Haydn Vol. 7
- PentaTone will have Shostakovich Symphonies 4 and 10 with the Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev
- and Igloo Records is releasing an album by the Flat Earth Society

[Todd]

Brian already mentioned this.  Most enticing.

[André]

Gerd Schaller has orchestrated the quintet in F by Bruckner. It was played earlier this month in Bad-Kissingen and a recording is forthcoming - to be issued this summer.

[Madiel]

Gerd Schaller has orchestrated the quintet in F by Bruckner.

...because what the Bruckner canon was really missing was orchestral music??

[Brian]

Good point! Now I will get started on that piano trio reduction of the Eighth...

(Gerd Schaller's recordings have been surprisingly satisfying.)

[Mirror Image]

Coming in July:

[Mahlerian]

I was at one of the concerts they used for that recording of the Fourth, and it was a great concert indeed.  It will be interesting to see how well it was captured on disc.

[Mirror Image]

I was at one of the concerts they used for that recording of the Fourth, and it was a great concert indeed.  It will be interesting to see how well it was captured on disc.

Very nice, indeed. The 4th is a difficult work to see in concert, so you're quite fortunate.

[Mandryka]

Axel Wolf Michelangelo Galilei

[Mandryka]

Sempe Fortin Brit music.

[Brian]

JULY - PART I



Press blurb: "In Berlin the composers Berthold Goldschmidt and Franz Reizenstein developed into products of the anti-romantic "new realism." However, both distanced themselves from this dry objectivity and sought more powerful means of expression while avoiding the late romantic excesses that at the time continued to predominate in Germany. The surprising fact is that neither Reizenstein nor Goldschmidt felt drawn to Schonberg's method of twelve-tone composition. In 1934 and 1935 both composers fled from Berlin to England, that is, prior to the tightening of immigration requirements. Influences from Reizenstein's teachers Paul Hindemith and Ralph Vaughan Williams are audible in the rather harsh, expressionistic character of his concerto. Raphael Wallfisch writes of this work, "Reizenstein's Cello Concerto is a tour de force for the cellist. What is involved here is an epic and heroic statement in which lyrical and dramatic elements alternate.""



Happy to see Trio 1790 back in action!

[Brian]

My connection to GMG died between the last post and this one so I'm trying on my phone...

JULY - PART II















And some advice everyone but Todd might need:



"Galina Vracheva excels in the worldwide pianist scene not only with skillfully improvised cadenzas in piano concertos from the Baroque to the Modern, but also with spontaneous compositions to wishes expressed from the audience. Her teaching is equally unique, beginning with piano and composition lessons in Munich, Kiev and Berlin and more than ten years with master classes in concert improvisation at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Haus Marteau in Oberbayern, Mahidol University in Bangkok and the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana. From this improvisation Galina Vracheva has meanwhile made her own art form. Be it that she improvises her cadenzas in piano concerts and at the moment of the orchestra entrance simply waits for what stirs her and what makes her sound. Or she asks her audience in the piano recitals to give her a theme, to sing a melody or to read a poem. For two nights Galina Vracheva composed piano fantasies for the recording of this album, all spontaneously improvised after Beethoven's symphonies."

Hmmm.

[Maestro267]

Dude...wow! How many Keyboard Sonatas did that bloke Soler write?!

[TheGSMoeller]

This one is incredibly enticing, especially after Venzago's wild & wacky Bruckner cycle, which I was on-board for most of.