Sid's Music Spot

[Sid]

Saturday 30.10.10

This night, the friend & I focused on Beethoven & Gounod, as we will be seeing Beethoven's 7th & Gounod's 1st in a concert in a fortnight. But we also had time to repeat some of the Schubert played by Pollini, our featured disc for this month. We also listened to some modern works by Messiaen and Xenakis to finish up the evening.

Schubert: Piano Sonata in C minor D.958 op. posth. (Friend's collection)


Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 (Library) - The friend used to own this work & was familiar with it. We both enjoyed Dorati's performance.


Gounod: Petite Symphonie for 10 wind instruments
Members of the Halle Orch./Barbirolli (My collection)


Gounod: "Salut, demeur" from Faust
Alain Vanzo, tenor
Award CD (My collection, no image)

J. S. Bach/arr. Gounod: Ave Maria
From Daniel Benko's album "Ave Maria"
Favorit, Hungary (tape) (My collection, no image)

Messiaen: Le Merle Noir (The Blackbird) for flute and piano (Friend's collection)


Xenakis: Theraps for double bass solo
Mark Cauvin, double bass (My collection)
Interesting how my friend heard the (simulated) sound of a siren in this. I just heard motoric sounds, and felt like I was gliding in the sky on a plane. He isn't as familiar as I with the works of Varese, so his siren allusion was interesting, coming without much prior knowledge...

[Sid]

Saturday 06.11.10

Again, we listened to some Gounod (his Symphony No.1 coming up in next week's concert, but I don't have that, so we listened to one of his masses). We also listened to some Carter, as he's music is coming up in a recital the friend & I will probably go to at the end of the month. & we continued exploring the Schubert played by Pollini set. The Three Piano Pieces is my favourite work from what I've heard of this set so far. Full of dance melodies and nostalgia for the Vienna of his younger days. The Schubert/Pollini is the friend's disc, the rest are from my collection.

Schubert: Allegretto in C minor D.915; Three Piano Pieces D.946 (op. post.)


Meyerbeer: "O Paradiso" from L'Africaine
Enrico Caruso (tenor), rec. 1907

Cilea: "E la solita storia" from L'Arlesiana
Beniamino Gigli (tenor), rec. 1941

Gounod: Solemn Mass for St. Cecilia
Pilar Lorengar/Heinz Hoppe/Franz Crass/Choeurs René Duclos/Orchestre De La Société Des Concerts Du Conservatoire/Jean-Claude Hartemann


Haydn: Piano Trio in A major, Hob. XV:18


Carter: String Quartet No. 1

[DavidW]

That's funny, I just listened to Carter's String Quartet No. 4 this morning.   That cd, though that is my fav, #1 and 5 are awesome.

[knight66]

Did you draw any conclusions from listening to Caruso then to Gigli?

Mike

[Sid]

Thanks for replying guys, good to see that somebody (at least) is reading this stuff.

@ DavidW:

Yes, that disc with Carter's String Quartets 1 & 5 is my favourite also. I think that the first in particular is quite an accessible work, once one listens to it a few times. I'm also beginning to get my head around the more mercurial and flighty fifth. I've also got the other disc (Nos. 2-4), and I find them quite hard going & very complex. Actually, the fourth has been the one I've singled out for repeated listening on the second volume, because it has (some) similiarities with the first. As you probably know, the excellent first disc won a Grammy. The friend enjoyed the first quartet quite a bit, and likened it's quiet ending (how it peters off into nothingness) to the end of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. I hadn't thought of that - the beauty of listening to new things is that one makes connections with stuff that one already knows. We'll be listening to some more Carter in the next coming weeks before we go to the recital.

@ Mike ("knight") :

Well it's pretty interesting to compare Caruso & Gigli, because the former retired in about 1920 when the latter was making his debut. The friend immediately noticed the difference in recording quality (of course, the Gigli was better in that regard). But as for performance, I think that Caruso had a darker, heavier tone, whilst Gigli had a higher voice. Perhaps Caruso was a bit more restrained than Gigli, too? I chose those two arias (the Meyerbeer & the Cilea), because these exact items were sung by Domingo and Carreras respectively in the Roman three tenors concert in 1990, and my friend has still got that disc and it's one of his favourites (mine too). So we were comparing the vintage and the modern perfomances as well...

[knight66]

Thanks. When I started collecting almost 50 years ago, that comparison was one that was often made, with the experts usually preferring Caruso. I preferred the tone of Gigolo and the openness of his approach, which some deemed vulgar. Now, we would be happy to have him around, even if he did sob somewhat.

How did they stack up against the near departing generation of tenors?

After hearing Gigli's famous recording of La Bo heme, an aged aunt of mine said, without conscious irony, that she wanted 'Your Tiny Hand is Frozen' to be sung at her funeral.

Mike

[mc ukrneal]

Thanks for replying guys, good to see that somebody (at least) is reading this stuff.

Lurking here too. Just don't have most of the discs you listened to. I do have Gonoud's symphonies with Marriner conducting, but that looks like it's OOP. You might try Naxos here if you want to get something (if you decide you want it).

I like both Gigli and Caruso, so a fun comparison that always leaves me wanting more of both!

[Sid]

Saturday 13.11.10

We were to go to a concert this night, but due to financial reasons we pulled out. Next week, however, we'll definitely go to a contemporary classical concert at Sydney Conservatorium, so I decided to introduce one of the seminal works of the C20th to my friend, Schoenberg's Violin Concerto. To start, we listened to the first disc of Handel's Messiah (we will be listening to this set in the next few weeks, leading up to a live performance of the work in December). I really like Handel and I enjoyed this recording (we've listened to it previously, a few years back). We also paid tribute to two figures of the classical music world who passed away recently, Rudolf Barshai and Henryk Gorecki.

Handel: The Messiah (Part One, cd 1)
Soloists/Monteverdi Ch./English Baroque Soloists/Gardiner
(Friend's cd)


Vivaldi: Two concertos from L'Estro Armonico (in B minor for 4 violins & cello op. 3 No. 10; in D major for 4 violins op. 3 No. 1)
Moscow Chamber Orch./Barshai
(My cd)


Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs' (2nd movement)
(My cd)


Schoenberg: Violin Concerto
(My cd)

[Sid]

Saturday 20.11.10

This week we continued listening to the Handel Messiah recording conducted by John Elliot Gardiner. & we listened again to the Schubert recording with pianist Maurizio Pollini. Then we had some Sarah Vaughan for light relief & got right into two of the most significant American composers - Ives and Carter. If you guys want to talk about the composers or performers here (or other performances, even), not necessarily these exact recordings, that would be welcome.

Handel: Messiah (Part Two, Disc 2)
Soloists/Monteverdi Ch./English Baroque Soloists/Gardiner
(Friend's cd)


Schubert: Allegretto in C minor D.915; Three Piano Pieces D.946 (op. post.)
Maruizio Pollini, piano
(Friend's cd)


Sarah Vaughan sings
"Lullaby of Birdland" with band incl. Clifford Brown (trumpet); Paul Quinichette (tenor sax)
Rec. 1954, New York
"Take the "A" Train" arr. J. J. Johnson, with his big band
Rec. 1967, New York
Mercury 830 699-2 (Compact Disc)
(My cd)

Ives:
"The Cage" (song) - Marni Nixon, sop./John McCabe, pno.
Set for Theatre or Chamber Orchestra - Ensemble Modern/Metzmacher
(My cd)


Ives: Piano Sonata No. 1
Peter Lawson, pno.
(My cd)


Carter: String Quartet No. 5
Pacifica Quartet
(My cd)

[Sid]

Saturday 27.11.10

This week we rounded off our listening of Handel's Messiah (Part 3, disc 3 of the Gardiner set above). The friend & I are looking forward to seeing this work at the end of December. Then we got into Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in two interpretations, as we'll be seeing this done by a local orchestra next weekend. We felt that Serkin was more poetic and lighter, whereas Foldes was more bold and vigorous. The Lutoslawski's charming and jazzy Paganini Variations as a sorbet before we finished up with Schubert's Piano Sonata in B flat major D. 960 (op. post.) of the Pollini set above. I liked the rumbling bass bit in the first movement, the rather disturbing (at times) slow movement, and the last two movements which were both based on dance music, but were totally different from eachother (kind of reminding me of the String Quintet). Here are the details of the Beethoven & Lutoslawski, the Handel & Schubert images being in earlier posts.

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor"
Rudolf Serkin, piano
Boston Symphony/Seiji Ozawa
(same telarc recording as below, but different cover) (Friend's coll.)


Beethoven: "Emperor" Concerto & Piano Sonata No. 25 in G major, Op. 79
Andor Foldes, piano
Berlin PO/Ferdinand Leitner
Polyphon LP 2542 014
(My coll.)

Lutoslawski: Paganini Variations for piano & orchestra
Bernd Glemser, piano
Polish NRSO/Antoni Wit
(My coll.)

[Sid]

Saturday 04.12.10

This week we focused on Beethoven and Sibelius, and also listened to a radio broadcast of a concert that we attended a few weeks ago. It was interesting hearing the Hindson piece again. When I saw it on the night, I didn't realise those rhythms from pop music in the first part, as well as the Arvo Part-like melodic minimalism of the ending...

Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
LSO/Davis
(LSO Live)
(Library recording)


Beethoven: Coriolan Overture
LSO/Wyn Morris
(MCA Classics) MCAD-25237
(Same recording as below)
(My disc)



Sibelius: Tapiola
Helsinki PO/Berglund
(EMI)
(My disc)



Radio broadcast on ABC Classic FM
Australia Ensemble concert at Sir John Clancy Auditorium, University of New South Wales (recording of earlier concert)

Ligeti - Six Bagatelles for Wind Quintet
Mozart - Eine kliene Nachtmusik (quintet version - 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass)
Matthew Hindson - Light is both a particle and a wave (world premiere) - piano, clarinet, flute, string quartet
Saint-Saens - The Carnival of the Animals, Zoological Fantasy (chamber version)

[Sid]

Saturday 18.12.10

This week we again listened to Schubert's Piano Sonata D. 960 played by Maurizio Pollini. Then we listened to highlights from Handel's The Messiah on the Naxos disc below. My friend & I were to go to a live performance of the work the next day, but unfortunately he was unable to make it due to not feeling well. I wasn't feeling too crash hot either, but I was able to go. To finish up, we heard Beethoven's String Quartet No. 10 ("Razumovsky No. 3") played by the Hungarian String Quartet on an old Columbia LP.



Schubert: friend's collection
Handel & Beethoven: my collection

[Sid]

Saturday 08.01.11

To kick off the new year, we decided we'd delve into Liszt on our music nights this month. So it was Brendel & Horowitz playing the seminal Sonata in B minor & other works to get us started. Then we discussed & read poems from Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, and listened to that to finish up. We will see this work in April here in Sydney at an Australia Ensemble concert at the University of New South Wales. It's been more than 10 years since I last heard this work (I've never owned it on disc before) & probably the first time my friend heard it. He tapped in to the darkness & grotesquerie of the work straight away.

Liszt:
Sonata in B minor
Legends I & II
La Lugubre Gondola I & II
Alfred Brendel, piano
Philips
(Friend's disc)



Liszt:
Sonata in B minor
Funerailles
Vladimir Horowitz, piano (recorded 1930's)
EMI
(My disc)



Schoenberg:
Pierrot lunaire, melodrama for voice & chamber ensemble, Op. 21
Herzgewächse (Heart's Foliage), song for soprano, celesta, harp & harmonium, Op. 20
Christine Schafer, voice/soprano
Members of the Ensemble InterContemporain
Pierre Boulez, direction
DGG
(My disc)

[Sid]

Saturday 15.01.11

This week we continued our exploration of Liszt with some of his works for piano & orchestra, played by Bolet, Cziffra & Richter. Then, following on from the Schoenberg of last week, a work by his teacher Zemlinsky (& like Pierrot Lunaire, in his Lyric Symphony Zemlinsky also employed speech-song, but to somewhat a lesser degree). The friend had not heard the music of Zemlinsky before, and he said he could hear a bit of influence of Wagner especially.

Liszt:
Totentanz
Malediction (I especially enjoyed this one, a rarely heard work)
Hungarian Fantasy
Jorge Bolet, piano
LSO
Ivan Fischer, conductor
Decca (Friend's disc)



Liszt:
Hungarian Fantasy
Georges Cziffra, piano
Orchestra de Paris
Gyorgy Cziffra Jnr., conductor
EMI
(My disc)



Liszt:
Piano Concertos 1 & 2
Sviatoslav Richter, piano
LSO
Kyril Kondrashin, conductor
Philips LP GLS64 (My record)

Zemlinsky:
Lyric Symphony for soprano, baritone & orchestra
Soile Isokoski, soprano
Bo Skovhus, baritone
Gurzenich-Orchester Koln
James Conlon, conductor
EMI (My disc)

[Sid]

Saturday 22.01.11

This night, we went to an open air concert which I reviewed in the concerts thread:

Symphony in the Domain (open air concert as part of the Sydney Festival)
An evening with Shakespeare

John Bell, compere/narrator
Sydney Philharmonia Choirs
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
Brett Weymark, conductor

Nicolai - The Merry Wives of Windsor, overture
Walton - Henry V, a Shakespeare Scenario, highlights
(interval)
Mendelssohn - A Midsummer Night's Dream, overture
Prokofiev - Three pieces from Romeo & Juliet
Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture - with cannons & fireworks!

A freind & I went to this concert under the stars. The weather was great & we took some wine & soft drink to have while we heard the beautiful music. We really enjoyed John Bell's narration of Henry V. He used his natural voice, and was quite understated and to the point without being dry. The St. Crispin's Day speech is such a rousing piece of rhetoric, one of the greatest political speeches of all time ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..."). It was also great to be able to chat and air-conduct during the pieces without breaking protocol - this was an open air concert after all. The audience was in their thousands, we were sitting at the back, but we got a glimpse of the large screens and the sound from the speakers was excellent. To end, the traditional "encore," Tchaikovsky's stirring 1812, complete with all the effects. A very enjoyable evening all round, and my first open air concert in nearly 20 years (my friend had never been to one of these ever)...

[Sid]

Saturday 29.01.11

This week, we continued exploring Liszt. I really liked my friend's recording of the Transcendental Studies, a work which I had not heard before. These etudes influenced basically everything else that was written in this genre after. Composers as wide & varied as Scriabin, Debussy, Bartok, Messiaen & Ligeti all learnt from Liszt's set of 12 pieces, and I could clearly hear this. To finish off, we went into some lighter territory, with Boccherini & Stockhausen.

Liszt
Transcendental Studies, S.139
Jorge Bolet, piano
Decca
(Friend's CD)



Liszt
Mass in Four-part for male chorus & organ "Szekszard Mass"
Four Sacred Male Choruses
- Mihi autem adhaerere
- Ave maris stella
- Anima Christi, sanctifica me II
- Ossa arida (this last one is amazing, it has organ four hands, & is only 2 minutes, but there are strange harmonies & dissonances which sound very c20th)

Jozsef Reti, tenor
Sandor Palcso, tenor
Gyorgy Melis, baritone
Jozsef Gregor, bass
Gabor Lehotka & Imre Kiss, organ
Male Chorus of the Hungarian People's Army (Bela Podor, chorus master)
Istvan Kis, conductor
Hungaroton LP LPX 11447
(My LP)

Boccherini
2 string quintets from Op. 39 (with double bass)
String Quintet in F, G. 338
String Quintet in D, G.339 (2nd movement - Pastorale: Amoroso ma non lento)
La Magnifica Communita
Brilliant Classics
(My CD)



Stockhausen
Spiral I
Harold Boje, electronium & short wave radio
EMI
(My CD)

[Sid]

Saturday 5.2.11

This week, we finished our exploration of Liszt. We listened to Brendel playing La Lugubre Gondola I & II again, as well as Bolet playing Malediction. We also heard the tone poem Les Preludes. We had planned to listen to Liszt's A Faust Symphony, but with forty degree heat outside, and quite uncomfortable inside, we opted for some shorter works. The friend & I will be going to a concert of the Beethoven Op. 132 in May, so we listened to that as well as the Op.135 string quartet. Then for something lighter, Milhaud's jazzy Genesis, which reminded my friend of Gershwin, so I played the Concerto in F, which he hadn't heard before. It kind of suited the sultry and humid evening we were experiencing. To wrap it up, we listened to some popular light classics.

Liszt:
- La Lugubre Gondola I & II - Alfred Brendel, piano (Philips)
- Malediction for piano & orchestra - Jorge Bolet, piano/LSO/Ivan Fischer (Decca)
- Les Preludes - Philharmonia Hungarica/Zoltan Rozsnyai (RealTime Records CD) RT-2201 Digital Masterpiece Series Disc One
(Above 3 from friend's collection)

Beethoven
String Quartets Opp. 132 & 135
LaSalle Quartet
Brilliant Classics
(My disc)

[asin]B003HO0RV8[/asin]

Milhaud
La Creation du Monde (Genesis)
Orchestra National de France/Bernstein
EMI
(My disc)

[asin]B000EF5MMW[/asin]

Gershwin
Concerto in F (2nd movt. - Andante con moto - Adagio)
Kathryn Selby, piano/Slovak RSO/Richard Hayman
Naxos 8.570870 "The Best of Gershwin"

Popular Classics from RealTime disc above
Philharmonia Hungarica/Zoltan Rozsnyai

Bizet - Carmen Prelude
Chabrier - Espana
Dvorak - Slavonic Dance Op. 46 No. 8
Berlioz - Rakoczi March
Brahms - Hungarian Dance No. 5

[Sid]

Saturday 12.2.11

This week, we listened to music of the Classical Era. I particularly liked my friend's recording of Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata played by Emil Gilels. I don't think that I had heard this pianist before. The piano in Gilel's hands sounded as rich as an orchestra. I agree with my friend who said this was a very "deep reading" of the work. Then we continued to explore Beethoven's late quartets. I love the intensity and no holds barred attitude of the LaSalle Quartet on these recordings. Then we went back in time a bit, to listen to two of Mozart's most famous string quartets. To me, the opening of the Dissonance quartet sounds like Schoenberg, but my friend said it reminded him of the opening of Winter from Vivaldi's Four Seasons & I could hear why. He said he had heard the first movement of the Hunt and the second movement of the Dissonance on radio before, but he's never owned these on disc. All in all, it was a good music session as usual.

Beethoven
Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106
Emil Gilels, piano
DGG CD 416 527-2
(Friend's disc)



Beethoven
String Quartets Opp. 130 & 133 "Grosse Fuge"
LaSalle Quartet
Brilliant Classics
(Image above - my disc)

Mozart
String Quartets 17 & 19 - "Hunt" & "Dissonance"
Chilingirian Quartet
Regis
(My disc)

[asin]B00069PCTY[/asin]

[Sid]

Saturday 19.2.11

In the following week's music listening sessions, my friend & I will focus on Beethoven & Debussy, as we'll be going to a performance of their piano trios by "Trioz" here in Sydney in early March.

We had heard my friend's Ravel & Debussy chamber music disc before, but being a chamber music fan, how could I object to him bringing it along for a second listen? I'm not sure if this disc is still in print, but it's a great collection of some of their chamber works. I particularly liked Ravel's Sonata for violin & cello, which had quite a bit of dissonance & even aggro for that composer; & Debussy's sensual Chansons de Bilitis, narrated by the great French actress Catherine Deneuve. I like how Debussy just lets tonality hang around in his music, there doesn't need to be a strong resolution or anything like that. I was interested to learn that the Chansons were written more than 10 years before Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire which is also for voice and chamber ensemble. Perhaps due to Debussy's more understated style, Schoenberg's work eventually made more of an impact.

Then we listened to a bit of Beethoven, the magnificient, mighty and noble "Archduke" piano trio & also some of his string quartet Op. 135 & an arrangement of it for 23 solo strings. The recording does not specify who made this arrangement, but the notes do mention Leonard Bernstein, so it might be him. Whoever it was, they toned down some of the dissonances in the original quartet, probably because they didn't want the arrangement to sound too much twentieth century-ish. My friend & I both agreed that it was a good arrangment. & the "Archduke" trio is a work full of innovation, my favourite bit is then second "theme" or phrase in the 2nd movement, which wouldn't be out of place in the music of Ligeti or Xenakis. Check it out.

Finally, more Debussy, the so-called Piano Trio No. 1 (although it had not successor). Written for Tchaikovksy's benefactress, the railway widow Nadezhda von Meck, it is a work from his student days, more reminiscent I think of salon music and Gabriel Faure's lighter chamber music. It's definitely not a "great" work, but a delightful work to hear nonetheless. My friend & I look forward to hearing it & the "Archduke" live on March 6th...

Ravel
- Introduction & Allegro (harp, SQ, flute, cl.)
- Pavane for a Dead Princess (flute, harp, SQ)
- Sonata for Violin & Cello
Debussy
- Syrinx (flute)
- Sonata for flute, viola & harp
- Chansons de Bilitis (narrator, 2 flutes, 2 harps, celesta)

Catherine Deneuve, narrator
Ensemble Wien-Berlin (DGG)
(Friend's disc)



Beethoven
String Quartet Op. 135
- Final movement played by Lasalle Quartet (Brilliant Classics) (My disc, image above)
- Whole work arr. 23 solo strings - Amsterdam Sinfonietta/Candida Thompson (Channel Classics) (Library disc)



Debussy
Piano Trio No. 1
Joachim Trio (Naxos) (My disc)



Beethoven
Piano Trio No. 7 "Archduke"
Chung Piano Trio (EMI) (My disc)

[Sid]

26.02.11

This week we again listened to the Debussy & Beethoven "Archduke" piano trios, in preparation for the concert next week. My friend also bought along a disc of Debussy's piano music. I had not heard of the pianist Jacques Rouvier before, but I think that he had a very colourful but direct style.

Since we've been getting into Beethoven's late quartets, we also listened to an ancient 1943 recording of an arrangement for string orchestra of the Grosse Fuge. I assume that the arranger was the composer, the LP does not say. My friend & I agreed that this was more dissonant than the arrangement of Op. 135 that we heard last week.

To finish, Ives' crazy Three Page Sonata. There's a jumbled quotation of Beethoven's 5th symphony opening at the beginning, then the trademark hymn tunes slowed down to the nth degree, then a fugue were the pianist hammers out the musical notation of the letters B-A-C-H. Compared to this, Liszt's fugue on the same theme sounds rather tame.

All in all, this was a good evening & next week we'll also get into some Copland, whose short work for piano trio Vitebsk, will also be played at the concert...

Debussy
Children's Corner
Reverie
...D'un cahier D'Esquisses
Berceuse Heroique
Danse
Mazurka
Nocturne
The Little Negro (Le petit Negre)
Morceau de concours
La Plus Que Lente

Jacques Rouvier (Steinway)
DENON
(Friend's disc)



Debussy - Piano Trio No. 1
Schmitt - Tres Lent for piano trio
Joachim Trio
Naxos (Image above, my disc)

Beethoven - Grosse Fuge in B flat major, Op. 133
Dresden Staatskapelle/Karl Elmendorff (rec. 1943)
Melodiya Mono LP (coupled with Schubert 4th symphony "Tragic")
MIO 46 117 007
(My LP)

Beethoven - Piano Trio No. 7 "Archduke"
Chung Trio
EMI (Image above, my disc)

Ives - Three Page Sonata (Ed. Cowell)
Peter Lawson, piano
EMI (My disc)