Current Listening Projects

[Brian]

Alas, working in an office where online streaming is banned for 40 hours a week means I rely on a small handful of CDs to get me through each day - usually old favorites and mainstays. Very few new adventures in my listening these days, and it makes me very sad.

That said, I am in a massive Albert Roussel kick right now. 24 listens to Roussel so far in 2012 - that's twice every week!

or his symphonic Mass.... 

(I had to look him up and listen to samples - had never heard of him....  0:))

Start with Symphony No 5, truly a marvelous piece and very, very easy to love. I shall never forget listening to Lloyd's Fifth Symphony at 4 in the morning while a Category 2 hurricane pounded the walls of my shelter...

[coffee]

I always have to have a project...

Right now I'm just trying to get everything in my iTunes to a play count of at least 1. I have 42 days to go.

[Superhorn]

  I've been taking advantage of the nifty interloan system of the Westchester county ,NY public libraries where you can reserve anything online and have it delivered to your library to pick up in order to hear lots of recordings I always wanted to hear but never got around to, particularly complete opera recordingfs and DVDs.
    Among the opera CDs I've heard recently are Colin Davis conducting Don Giovanni,Lohengrin,Tosca, Hansel&Gretel,Idomeneo and La Clemenza di Tito the Marek Janowski Ring ,
Solti doing Orfeo &Euridice, Don Giovanni, Hansel &Gretel, Lohengrin , Fidelio , Barenboim doing Tannhauser.Parsifal,
Tristan,Meistersinger , Walkure and Siegfreid, as well as Comarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto,Levine doing Tosca,
Fliegende Hollander, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Cosi , Muti in Don Giovanni, Un Ballo in Maschera, Forza del Destrino, Rigoletto,Attila,
Nagano in L'Amour de Loin by Saariaho, Gardiner doing Weber's Oberon, Beethoven's Leonore (th eealry form of Fidelio,) Rake's Progress, Gluck's Iphigenie en Aulide , Dohnanyi in Hollander,Fidelio, Rheingold and Salome,
Haitink in Gotterdammerung, Peter Grimes, Rattle in Fidelio and Cunning Little Vixen , Sinopoli in Hollander,
Madama Butterfly, Cavalleria R, Karajan in Siegfried, Fidelio ,  Tosca with Price , Turandot ,
Maazel in Otello, Trittico, Fanciulla ,  Pappano in Tristan and Trovatore , Mackerras doing  Makropoulos Case,
Jenufa, Zauberflote ,  Gergiev in The nose, Love for 3 Oranges, Pique Dame and Prince Igor,etc.

   Other repertoire : Schnabel in the complete Beethoven piano sonatas ,  Abbado, Barenboim, Boulez, Blomstedt, Chailly, Eschenach, Gergiev, Inbal, Neeme Jarvi, Gilbert Kaplan, Rattle, Sinopoli, Tennstedt , and Zinman in various Mahler symphonies, Reiner's Das Lied von der Erde,
Barenboim, Boulez, Dohananyi, Davis, Harnoncourt, Knappertsbusch, Luisi,Nagano, Rattle, Solti, and Zander in various Bruckner symphonies , Vanska's complete Sibelius symphonies on BIS ,  Zinman and Mackerras in the nine Beethoven syms,  Alexander Rahbari , Steinberg,Norrignton, Jarvi, Gardiner, Ozawa, in Brahms syms, Chailly and Barenboim with the Schumann syms, Abbado in the Menedelssohn syms,  and much more .

DVDs :  The Amsterdam Ring conducted by Hartmut Haenchen,  Tristan from the Liceu in Barcelons, Meistersinger from Sydeny opera with Mackerras conducting, the  Syberberg Parsifal with Armin Jordan conducting ,
Guglielmo Tell from La Scala with Muti,  Attila, Vespri Siciliani ,  Pergolesi's Frate Nammorato , Rossini's La Donna Del lago also with Muti/La Scala,  Manon from Barcelona with Dessay,  Werther from Vienna State opera,
Thais from Venice, Hollander from  Savonlinna in Finland,  Carlos Kleiber in Rosenkavalier from Vienna, Khovanshchina from Vienna State oper awith Abbado, Janacek's From house of Dead with Boulez conducting ,  Busoni's Doktor Faust from Zurich opera, Schubert's Fierrabras also from Zurich ,  Handel's Giulio Cesare and Rodelinda from Glyndebourne with Christie, and more .

    I've struck a goldmine !  Now I have i tunes, and have been downloading some of the CDs on to my computer .

   

[Sergeant Rock]

I'm reevaluating the symphonies of Arnold Bax, a composer I've never quite gotten--although I think I should. On paper, it seems to be my kind of music. I plan to listen to each version I own at least twice and compare it to the competition. I have, or will have soon, two to four versions of each symphony. So far I've done 2 & 6. Will do 4 next. Awaiting the arrival of Downes 3 and Leppard 5 before embarking on those symphonies.

Sarge

[DavidW]

No projects, I just listen to wherever my mood takes me.

[Bulldog]

No projects, I just listen to wherever my mood takes me.

Same here.  I never know what's coming next.

[Karl Henning]

. . . I should. On paper, it seems to be my kind of music. I plan to listen to each version I own at least twice and compare it to the competition. I have, or will have soon, two to four versions of each [Bax] symphony.

That's real application to symphonies you've not "gotten," Sarge!

[nigeld]

Well I have just got hold of 128 Decca: The Originals albums thanks to the Spotify Premium service and a playlist created by ulyssestone.

Way too much to listen through systematically of course but I do feel a bit like a kid who's been locked in a sweet shop overnight right now!

Long live Spotify!!

[Brian]

That said, I am in a massive Albert Roussel kick right now. 24 listens to Roussel so far in 2012 - that's twice every week!

Now up to 29 Roussel listens so far in 2012. So... I guess it's a project? 

[Lisztianwagner]

I've been piling up several recordings:

Martinu: Piano Concertos/Leichner-Belohlavek (almost finished though)
Debussy: Complete works for Piano/Aldo Ciccolini
Mahler: excerpts from the 6th Symphony, for the Blind Comparison
Schumann: The Works for solo Piano/Vladimir Ashkenazy

I was also sent, from Youtube, some recordings of Villa-Lobos' symphonies No.3, 4, 6, 11 and 12, plus Choros No.11; rather excited to listen to them.

[madaboutmahler]

Mahler: excerpts from the 6th Symphony, for the Blind Comparison

Really interested to see your vote, Ilaria!

I was also sent, from Youtube, some recordings of Villa-Lobos' symphonies No.3, 4, 6, 11 and 12, plus Choros No.11; rather excited to listen to them.

hmmm...  I wonder who that was...   

[Lisztianwagner]

Really interested to see your vote, Ilaria! hmmm...  I wonder who that was...   

Thanks Daniel, I'll provably post my comments and vote next Tuesday; such a great fun to listen to so many different versions of Mahler No.6, while I'm looking at the score.

Haha, yeah, that's not difficult to guess.

[Sammy]

Not exactly a project, but I am starting to get re-acquainted with lieder/songs.  I've bought a few within the past couple of weeks and will continue in a moderate fashion.  I no longer engage in "nut-job" buying patterns and am proud of that.  A few years ago I bought every Mendelssohn string quartet disc/set on the market, and I don't even like his music all that much.

[coffee]

I always have to have a project...

Right now I'm just trying to get everything in my iTunes to a play count of at least 1. I have 42 days to go.

37 days remaining on that, but now I'm also working on getting the best 1s up to 2s.

[Mirror Image]

I deleted everything on one of my 16 GB Nano iPods, so now I'm about to seriously embark on a huge Mahler journey from the symphonies to the song cycles. My Dad has a 12-14 Mahler symphony box sets loaded on his hard drive from where he ripped the CDs to Mp3 for iPod. I don't know if these are all he has on the hard drive or not, but I'm going to load up maybe around 6 or 7 box sets and some single releases as well. Here are what I'm going to add:

Abbado - DG set w/ various orchestras
Rattle - EMI set w/ various orchestras
Bertini - EMI set w/ Cologne Radio Symphony
Haitink - Philips set w/ Royal Concertgebouw
Chailly - Decca set w/ Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Radio Symphony
Tennstedt - EMI set w/ London Philharmonic
Solti - Decca set w/ Chicago Symphony
Boulez - DG recordings w/ various orchestras

I'm not going to put any Mahler Bernstein on this iPod for the simple reason that I've heard every one of his Mahler recordings from Sony and DG. I want to see how well of each of these acclaimed cycles hold up against his but mainly I want to hear the music in a fresher, new light and I think these sets will help me achieve this. Hopefully, I'll put these on tomorrow and start listening very soon.

[Lisztianwagner]

I'm very pleased you're going to dive into Mahler's music, John! (and I think Daniel will be even much happier than me ) Those cycles you chose are absolutely excellent, I hope you will enjoy them!

[Mirror Image]

I'm very pleased you're going to dive into Mahler's music, John! (and I think Daniel will be even much happier than me ) Those cycles you chose are absolutely excellent, I hope you will enjoy them!

Thanks, Ilaria. I'm hoping to start diving into Mahler later today or tomorrow.

[madaboutmahler]

I deleted everything on one of my 16 GB Nano iPods, so now I'm about to seriously embark on a huge Mahler journey from the symphonies to the song cycles. My Dad has a 12-14 Mahler symphony box sets loaded on his hard drive from where he ripped the CDs to Mp3 for iPod. I don't know if these are all he has on the hard drive or not, but I'm going to load up maybe around 6 or 7 box sets and some single releases as well. Here are what I'm going to add:

Abbado - DG set w/ various orchestras
Rattle - EMI set w/ various orchestras
Bertini - EMI set w/ Cologne Radio Symphony
Haitink - Philips set w/ Royal Concertgebouw
Chailly - Decca set w/ Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Radio Symphony
Tennstedt - EMI set w/ London Philharmonic
Solti - Decca set w/ Chicago Symphony
Boulez - DG recordings w/ various orchestras

I'm not going to put any Mahler Bernstein on this iPod for the simple reason that I've heard every one of his Mahler recordings from Sony and DG. I want to see how well of each of these acclaimed cycles hold up against his but mainly I want to hear the music in a fresher, new light and I think these sets will help me achieve this. Hopefully, I'll put these on tomorrow and start listening very soon.

Really glad to hear this, John! Ilaria was right, very very happy indeed that you are going on a Mahlerian journey!

I'm sure you'll be pleased with this news too:

After just finishing my last listening project, the Wagner Ring Cycle, which took just under 2 months, I shall now start an exploration into the music of Tippett. I hope to start that this week, probably listening to the 'Concerto for Double String Orchestra' and 'The Rose Lake' first.
Also, I'll probably start the Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras soon too.

So, does this new Mahler journey mean you may be interested in rejoining the Mahler comparisons I am/will be running, John?

[Mirror Image]

Really glad to hear this, John! Ilaria was right, very very happy indeed that you are going on a Mahlerian journey!

I'm sure you'll be pleased with this news too:

After just finishing my last listening project, the Wagner Ring Cycle, which took just under 2 months, I shall now start an exploration into the music of Tippett. I hope to start that this week, probably listening to the 'Concerto for Double String Orchestra' and 'The Rose Lake' first.
Also, I'll probably start the Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras soon too.

So, does this new Mahler journey mean you may be interested in rejoining the Mahler comparisons I am/will be running, John?

This is good news, Daniel. I'm actually listening to Mahler's 7th right now with Simon Rattle and the CBSO. Really good performance, but I've always admired it. I'm afraid I won't be joining you in the Mahler comparison thread. I'm just now starting to get back into Mahler and I want to take my time with the music. I'll just be too busy listening to his music to participate. I'm sure you understand.

[North Star]

I shall now start an exploration into the music of Tippett. I hope to start that this week, probably listening to the 'Concerto for Double String Orchestra' and 'The Rose Lake' first.
Also, I'll probably start the Villa Lobos Bachianas Brasileiras soon too.

So, does this new Mahler journey mean you may be interested in rejoining the Mahler comparisons I am/will be running, John?

Are you familiar with the Fantasia concertante on a theme of Corelli by Tippett, Daniel? Beautiful music that one. I should check the pieces you mention, too (well, I've heard the concerto once)
I still haven't gotten to Mahler's 8th or 10th 
And the Third I ought to listen again.
Then there's the Boulez Bartók box - Wooden Prince unheard, among others...