New Releases

[Wakefield]

The Music of Habsburg Empire - The Austrian Sound of the Baroque Era
Ars Antiqua Austria
Gunar Letzbor
10 CDs

[Gurn Blanston]

The Music of Habsburg Empire - The Austrian Sound of the Baroque Era
Ars Antiqua Austria
Gunar Letzbor
10 CDs

Man, that has a lot of appeal...   Wonder when it will show up on Amazon US.  Not this week, I hope.

[Que]

The Music of Habsburg Empire - The Austrian Sound of the Baroque Era
Ars Antiqua Austria
Gunar Letzbor
10 CDs

Has come up before.

Some of the recordings seem to me possibly a reissue of the series Letzbor and his ensemble did on the Italian label Symphonia, called " The Sound of the Cultures: A Musical Journey Through Baroque Europe".

Pan Classics has reissued recordings on Symphonia before.

Q

[Madiel]

This certainly looks interesting. I love Frost's playing.

DELAYED HOLMBOE SIGHTING! DELAYED HOLMBOE SIGHTING!

It's okay, I'll take my medication shortly, it's just been over a year since the last new disc I've seen.

EDIT: And it appears it's still over a year. On further investigation, the Holmboe Clarinet Concerto, at least, is not a new recording, but simply a rerelease of Frost's contribution to the CD of Holmboe's piano, clarinet and oboe concertos that was originally issued a full decade ago.

[Madiel]

Hunky clarinettist alert!  That is one sexy V-neck, but, really, a more plunging neckline would be even better:

(another delayed reaction, sorry)

He appeared on Tori Amos' "classical" album, Night of Hunters. Believe me, there was a heck of a lot of notice from fans. None of the other musicians involved got anything like the same attention. One photo and it was all about Andreas.

[Madiel]

Would definitely like people's thoughts on this. My father had the Chopin polonaise op.44 on vinyl and it was outstanding (and no, I never really listened to the concerto with which it was paired, I had a concerto-aversion at the time). But that's just one work. I'm interested in opinions from people with a wider range of exposure to these recordings.

[betterthanfine]

(another delayed reaction, sorry)

He appeared on Tori Amos' "classical" album, Night of Hunters. Believe me, there was a heck of a lot of notice from fans. None of the other musicians involved got anything like the same attention. One photo and it was all about Andreas.

Haha, I have to admit that's how I first heard of him! Are you the same orfeo as the one on Unforumzed?

[Madiel]

Haha, I have to admit that's how I first heard of him! Are you the same orfeo as the one on Unforumzed?

You mean the one kicked off of Unforumzed for not kowtowing to certain vested interests? Yes.

[Todd]

I'm interested in opinions from people with a wider range of exposure to these recordings.

I'm not interested in the box, but I already own all the discs.  Pogorelich's playing in almost all repertoire is idiosyncratic in the extreme.  He distends Haydn slow movements, stretches out the Chopin Preludes to around 45 minutes, and makes Brahms late works sound like no other.  His tone is usually magnificent, his technical command awesome.  I generally love his playing, with the understanding that it is hyper-indulgent.  His best recordings, to my taste, are his Chopin Scherzi (his last studio recording so far), his Mussorgsky and Ravel, and of course his Gaspard and Prokofiev 7 combo disc. 

[betterthanfine]

You mean the one kicked off of Unforumzed for not kowtowing to certain vested interests? Yes.

Whut? Really? Well, it's always been rather clique-y, however much folks on there try to deny it. I'm not a very active poster anymore. Nice to run into you here anyway!

[Madiel]

I'm not interested in the box, but I already own all the discs.  Pogorelich's playing in almost all repertoire is idiosyncratic in the extreme.  He distends Haydn slow movements, stretches out the Chopin Preludes to around 45 minutes, and makes Brahms late works sound like no other.  His tone is usually magnificent, his technical command awesome.  I generally love his playing, with the understanding that it is hyper-indulgent.  His best recordings, to my taste, are his Chopin Scherzi (his last studio recording so far), his Mussorgsky and Ravel, and of course his Gaspard and Prokofiev 7 combo disc.

Hmm. Thank you for that. I think I will have to do some sampling of the recordings in the box. Really, at the moment the pull is purely my memory of being blown away by the power of his Chopin polonaise. But one piece does not (for me, anyway) justify the purchase of a 14-disc box.

[JCBuckley]

Pogorelich's playing in almost all repertoire is idiosyncratic in the extreme.  He distends Haydn slow movements, stretches out the Chopin Preludes to around 45 minutes, and makes Brahms late works sound like no other.  His tone is usually magnificent, his technical command awesome.  I generally love his playing, with the understanding that it is hyper-indulgent.  His best recordings, to my taste, are his Chopin Scherzi (his last studio recording so far), his Mussorgsky and Ravel, and of course his Gaspard and Prokofiev 7 combo disc.

His recordings of the second and third English Suites are very special too, I think.

[Mandryka]

I'm not interested in the box, but I already own all the discs.  Pogorelich's playing in almost all repertoire is idiosyncratic in the extreme.  He distends Haydn slow movements, stretches out the Chopin Preludes to around 45 minutes, and makes Brahms late works sound like no other.  His tone is usually magnificent, his technical command awesome.  I generally love his playing, with the understanding that it is hyper-indulgent.  His best recordings, to my taste, are his Chopin Scherzi (his last studio recording so far), his Mussorgsky and Ravel, and of course his Gaspard and Prokofiev 7 combo disc.

I think this is pretty accurate and I even agree I think about the list of favoured recordings. I should add that I'm very very fond of the way he plays Haydn sonata 19, and that there are some things I just cannot bear to hear played by him (Mozart, for example.) I'm not interested in Mussorgsky or Rachmanonov so I can't really comment there.

To me Pogorelich is really somebody I am truly very humble about. Not in a blind worship vein, he isn't"perfect" by any means, the antithesis of a Lipatti or a Michelangeli rather, but I simply respect his"wholeness" more the way I respect a creator, rather than a mere performer. I don't necessarily like everything he's recorded, but I am most interested to hear everything he's recorded, at least by composers I value. It makes me think, feel, judge differently. It always elicits a reaction above the gut. Not Gould-like, insofar I never have the impression he's fooling around with the musical material trying to be interesting.

He is interesting. He believes in what he's doing. His quasi-orchestrating imagination + ability on piano has no superior among living pianists and few equals among dead pianists. There is something extremely authentic about him. Pogorelich doesn't lie. When he fails to convince, he does so spectacularly. He is more about the questions than about the answer. A philosopher who is not dry, a thinking person who is not pretentious, a soul even greater than the outstanding intellect nourishing it. In him there's a combination of something "provincial" in the most positive possible meaning (as in being highly "identifiable" rather than generic) and the vast culture of an extremely culture-hungry, paradoxically cosmopolitan figure who is never happy with being a mere, narrower-than-life professional.

[JCBuckley]

There is something extremely authentic about him. Pogorelich doesn't lie. When he fails to convince, he does so spectacularly.

I completely agree - he never tries to elicit applause. And I find many of his 'failures' fascinating.

[Madiel]

I just discovered, from my notes, that in the Gaspard blind listening test I loved Pogorelich's Ondine (it was my favourite one out of those I heard), but was not as fond of Le Gibet, at least in isolation.  And never heard his famous Scarbo because his scores on Le Gibet weren't sufficient to get him through to the final round.

But yes, the Ondine was truly marvellous.

[André]

I just discovered, from my notes, that in the Gaspard blind listening test I loved Pogorelich's Ondine (it was my favourite one out of those I heard), but was not as fond of Le Gibet, at least in isolation.  And never heard his famous Scarbo because his scores on Le Gibet weren't sufficient to get him through to the final round.

But yes, the Ondine was truly marvellous.

That's the whole problem with these popular, dead end results 'blind test' surveys...

[Madiel]

That's the whole problem with these popular, dead end results 'blind test' surveys...

Depends very much on what you think the purpose of them is or what conclusions you draw from the data.

[ritter]

A note-complete Guillaume Tell live from Bad Wilbad is announce on Naxos fos March:

[asin]B00SCJILQG[/asin]

The press blurb mentions this:

Performed for the first time in its original uncut version, this four-plus hour-long production of Guillaume Tell was the jewel in the crown of the 25-year history of the 'Rossini in Wildbad' opera festival. Rossini's final, great, operatic masterpiece, based upon the libretto by Victor Joseph Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Louis Florent Bis after Friedrich Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and Claris de Florian's Guillaume Tell, is a story of liberation, the oppressed Swiss attaining their ideal of emancipation by hounding the tyrannical Habsburgs out of their country. Although it was composed for the complex demands of the Paris Opera, numerous dances, choruses and arias were dropped for reasons of practicality. These are restored in the present recording which also includes the stunning finale of the shorter 1831 version of the opera, to be found on Disc Four. Recorded live at the Trinkhalle, Bad Wildbad, Germany over the course of four days in July, 2013 by the combined forces of the Camerata Bach Choir, Poznan and the Virtuosi Brunensis, conducted by Antonino Fogliani. Soloists include baritone Andrew Foster-Williams as Tell, tenor Michael Spyres as Arnold Melcthal and soprano Judith Howarth as Mathilde.

[Brian]

and also



BIS presents a violin concerto and other orchestral works by Sebastian Fagerlund, and begins a series of J.H. Roman's recorder sonatas; Chandos wraps up their Walton series and starts a new Ives one; Julian Lloyd Webber makes his conducting debut on disc:

Elgar, Edward (1857–1934)
Introduction and Allegro for Strings, Op. 47 • Sospiri • Serenade for Strings • Chanson de nuit (arr. W.H. Reed) • Chanson de matin (arr. W.H. Reed)
Lloyd Webber, William (1914–1982)
The Moon†
Goodall, Howard (b. 1958)
And the Bridge is Love†*
Vaughan Williams, Ralph (1872–1958)
The Charterhouse Suite: No. 1 Prelude
Delius, Frederick (1862–1934)
Two Aquarelles (arr. E. Fenby)
Walton, William (1902–1983)
Two Pieces for Strings from Henry V
Ireland, John (1879–1962)
A Downland Suite: No. 3 Minuet
†World Première Recording
*JLW's final recording as a cellist



Jean-Luc Tingaud was a conducting student of Manuel Rosenthal.

A note-complete Guillaume Tell live from Bad Wilbad is announce on Naxos fos March:

[asin]B00SCJILQG[/asin]

The press blurb mentions this:

Performed for the first time in its original uncut version, this four-plus hour-long production of Guillaume Tell was the jewel in the crown of the 25-year history of the 'Rossini in Wildbad' opera festival. Rossini's final, great, operatic masterpiece, based upon the libretto by Victor Joseph Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Louis Florent Bis after Friedrich Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and Claris de Florian's Guillaume Tell, is a story of liberation, the oppressed Swiss attaining their ideal of emancipation by hounding the tyrannical Habsburgs out of their country. Although it was composed for the complex demands of the Paris Opera, numerous dances, choruses and arias were dropped for reasons of practicality. These are restored in the present recording which also includes the stunning finale of the shorter 1831 version of the opera, to be found on Disc Four. Recorded live at the Trinkhalle, Bad Wildbad, Germany over the course of four days in July, 2013 by the combined forces of the Camerata Bach Choir, Poznan and the Virtuosi Brunensis, conducted by Antonino Fogliani. Soloists include baritone Andrew Foster-Williams as Tell, tenor Michael Spyres as Arnold Melcthal and soprano Judith Howarth as Mathilde.

Carrying this over to a new page so people will see it. What is the longest single opera? I can't imagine listening to a four-hour opera!

[North Star]

What are Pekka Kuusisto (vn) & Hannu Lintu playing on that one?

Carrying this over to a new page so people will see it. What is the longest single opera? I can't imagine listening to a four-hour opera!

Oh please, even Les Troyens is four hours, as is Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. Meistersinger is over five hours..