What are you listening to now?

[Iota]

Ravel, Le Tombeau de Couperin


At first I was a little taken aback by a certain dryness of touch and what seemed close mic-ing, but soon adjusted and warmed to what I find a very sophisticated and engaging recording.

[Madiel]

First listen, via streaming to

Stravinsky: A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer

A live performance conducted by Boulez in 1963.

Hmm.

Serial Stravinsky is okay but doesn't entirely persuade me to expand my collection the way that Neoclassical Stravinsky did.

[Que]

The Ear of Christopher Columbus.

Genoa-Venice, Madrid-Seville, and Cordoba. At the court of the Catholic Kings, and Valladolid.

Huelgas Ensemble, Paul van Nevel.

I did not see any poster on GMG buying this, which, considering the many Huelgas admirers is a bit odd.

It's still on the wishlist! Greetings from the Utrecht Early Music Festival, attending three cncerts by the Huelgas Ensemble -  mind you.... 

Q

[ritter]

...
What of this recording...:



... any opinion...? I'm thinking of picking up a cheap box set on Sony which includes this work (it's entitled 20th Century Masterworks, and features a host of mostly extreme, far-out post-war avant-garde music in addition to the Boulez). I'm actually surprised how many times it has been recorded, especially by Boulez himself.

That recording you mention, vers la flamme, is from 1974, and is the third of a total of 6 "official" recordings of Le marteau... conducted by the composer (you have a list here).  It wasn't available on CD for a long time, until it was included in the white Sony set you mention, and in the mammoth Boulez "Complete Columbia Album Collection" (which is now OOP). I'd say that not only chronologically, but also "stylistically" it's middle-of-the-road: one is no longer in the early, "raw" performances, when the music was very new and represented a challenge to performers (but also a refreshing sense of discovery), but haven't reached the technically immaculate, "mature" recordings with the Ensemble Intercontemporain (for whom this music is a second nature). Yvonne Minton was a great artist (she recorded Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire under Boulez around the same time, a performance that is interesting as there's less Sprech and more Gesang in her rendition). I'd say you are very well served with the EIC recording you already have, and that the early recording with Jeanne Deroubaix that JBS mentioned would be a good complement.

You also have a listing of the commercially released recordings of Le marteau... (8 in total) not conducted by the composer here, if that's of any interest.

Concerning the white Sony set, I never bought it, as it appeared to me a bit like a hotchpotch of recordings from the Columbia and RCA catalogues, with not much continuity (and I already had most of the recordings I was interested in). Still, if you find it at an affordable price, you'd be getting that Marteau, plus some great works by George Crumb, a classic album of music conducted (or supervised) by the extraordinary Bruno Maderna (including a wonderful recording of the Boulez Sonatine for flute and piano), Stravinsky's Agon in a recording—under Leinsdorf—I don't know (but about which I seem to recall having read good reviews), plus other interesting (or really obscure) stuff.

I found the final movement particularly moving.

A big +1. "Bel Édifice et les pressentiments", double^* is for me the highlight of the whole work. The way the music slowly dissolves, with the singer resorting to humming, and it all ending in a sort of dialogue between the flute and the percussion is magical, intensely beautiful and profoundly lyrical (I urge anyone not perceiving lyricism in Boulez's music to listen attentively to this movement).

^*I've been using two verses from René Char's poem of that title in my signature line here on GMG for the last couple of weeks 

[Andy D.]

Enjoying the Barshai string orchestra arrangement of Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony 110 A.

I like this better than as a quartet...but then I greatly prefer Mitya's symphonic to chamber music.

[Biffo]

Sibelius: Tapiola, Op 112 - Lahti Symphony Orchestra conducted by Osmo Vanska

[Harry]

It's still on the wishlist! Greetings from the Utrecht Early Music Festival, attending three cncerts by the Huelgas Ensemble -  mind you.... 

Q

I am so jealous my friend, but unfortunately I have to attend to my sick wife, and furthermore organizing somehow her birthday tomorrow.
But I count on it, that you tell me how they did in Utrecht. I am a big fan of them.

[Traverso]

Berio & Xenakis

Cheerio with Berio 

[Andy D.]

Berio & Xenakis

Cheerio with Berio 

Boulez Xenakis? Thanks for the heads up on that CD!

[jwinter]

Villa-Lobos String Quartets, 1, 6, 17.  Been listening to a lot of Haydn and Mozart quartets lately, time for a change of pace.  Very nice...

[Madiel]

Reaching the end of exploring Prokofiev's works, with a couple that were finished by others after his death.

Cello Concertino, op.132



Sonata for solo cello, op.133/134 (opinions vary)

[Madiel]

And while I'm on last works, Bridge: Allegro Moderato, all that he completed of a planned symphony.



It's a fine torso though, in Bridge's far more 'modern' late style.

[Biffo]

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances - Valery Gergiev conducting the London Symphony Orchestra

[Roasted Swan]

Enjoying the Barshai string orchestra arrangement of Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony 110 A.

I like this better than as a quartet...but then I greatly prefer Mitya's symphonic to chamber music.

Further to the discussion just yesterday about Kondrashin's very "soviet" style orchestral recordings..... with the quartets do check out the early Borodin Quartet and Beethoven Quartet recordings on Melodiya (as was) of the quartets.  The sound is very up close and almost forensic but the playing has such bristling attack and power that it is stunning.  The demonic scherzi in say Quartets 3&8 are electrifying played this way.  As a tangent - the leader of the Borodin Quartet Rostislav Dubinsky wrote a great book about life as a performer in the Soviet Union after he defected....  Stormy Applause: Making Music in a Worker's State

[ChopinBroccoli]

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances - Valery Gergiev conducting the London Symphony Orchestra

Underrated piece, IMO ... I've always really enjoyed it

[Mookalafalas]

First listen.
[asin]B07H62Q4MZ[/asin]

[Traverso]

Brahms & Dvořák

[Que]

First listen.
[asin]B07H62Q4MZ[/asin]

Cool! 

Q

[kyjo]

Underrated piece, IMO ... I've always really enjoyed it

Symphonic Dances is a fantastic piece, though I'm not sure it's underrated. I see it programmed quite frequently by American orchestras and is always spoken of highly by my colleagues. As far as Rachmaninoff's orchestral works go, I'd say his 1st Symphony and The Bells are rather underrated, though they seem to be getting more frequently performed these days.

[Kontrapunctus]

Well, this new release is colossally disappointing but not surprising given the alarming deterioration of his playing and interpretations over the past 20 years or so. Ugly banging and slow tempos, not to mention sub-par sound from Sony. So sad. He was once one of my favorite pianists. His old recordings will remain cherished, though.