What are you listening to now?

[Ken B]

The Feast of Love
Virgil Thomson
Patrick Mason, Odense Phil, Mann

[Mookalafalas]

After the first 3 tracks this is all solo piano (MIcrocosmos excerpts). I was really impressed with the playing and then found it was Bela himself.  Sound is a bit murky (1940), but so is the music, so goes well together.  A pleasant surprise.



From

[asin]B00KIA1AY2[/asin]

[listener]

MYASKOVSKY:
Serenada in E^b op. 32/1,  Sinfonietta in b op. 32/2
USSR S.O./ USSR Academic S.O.    Vladimir Verbitzky. cond.3
Symphony no.19 in E  op. 46  (for band)
USSR Ministry of Defence O.,   Nikolai Mikailov, cond.
not what I would expect would repulse an invader.

[North Star]

I await (patiently, naturally) your report! 

Enjoyed it very much indeed! More detailed report in a couple of months I think.

[aligreto]

Two Vivaldi Cantatas, Amor, Hai vinto RV683 & Cessate, omai cessate RV684 from this ....

[Camphy]

Symphony 93

[Que]

Morning listening:

[asin]B00187AG9E[/asin]

These guys should make more recordings! Their fame on this forum would match that of Cinquecento, I think.

But they are in good hands with Aeolus, which produces high quality recordings. Just step it up a bit...

The St Emmeran Codex is a hotchpotch in itself, named after a monastery but actually a private music collection compiled between 1439 and 1443, but here it is combined with organ interludes with music from another collection, the Buxheim Organ Book. But by using from the Buxheim Book organ adaptations of vocal music that are also present in the Codex, a link between the collections is established.

This mixing concept sounds dizzying,  but it works wonderfully wel here. And the attractions of hearing the super ensemble Stimmwerck singing and Leon Berben playing are plenty.

Q

[Camphy]

Holmboe, Chamber Music

Sonata for Violoncello Solo
Quartetto Medico (piano, flute, oboe and clarinet)
Sextet (violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet and bassoon)

[Que]

.[asin]B0002SZVW2[/asin]

I forgot I had this!
Am I getting old or is my collection becoming too large?

Q

[Camphy]

String Quartet 3

[Madiel]

Holmboe, Chamber Music

Sonata for Violoncello Solo
Quartetto Medico (piano, flute, oboe and clarinet)
Sextet (violin, viola, cello, flute, clarinet and bassoon)

I'm gonna pound the table for the Sextet. Love that one.

[San Antone]

Alice Sara Ott's 2008 recording of Franz Liszt's 12 Transcendental Etudes may be the right prescription for jaded listeners who are sure they've heard all they need of this composer. To the extent that any pianist can make Liszt's music sound fresh, innovative, and interesting again, after years of mistreatment at the hands of sentimentalists and show-offs, Ott succeeds brilliantly on all three points. (AllMusic Review by Blair Sanderson)

Her technique is ­dazzling, her tone ­wonderfully varied, from ­crystalline purity to powerfully raw, and the energy propelling her playing seems ­unstoppable. These are ferocious, ­swaggeringly confident accounts of the Liszt ­studies, but they seem at a loss in the ­moments when the music turns reflective or ­requires something poetic. (Andrew Clements, The Guardian)

22-year old Alice Sara Ott is of German-Japanese parents and studied with the reputed Mozarteum pedagogue Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. With her first two CDs (featuring the Grandes Etudes de Paganini and in her first disc for the famous yellow label the Etudes d'exécution transcendante – Deutsche Grammophon 477836-2) she demonstrated a natural affinity with the music of Liszt, getting really under the skin of even the most note-saturated passages with a sure sense of their significance. When I heard her in a concert in the Kölner Philharmonie, playing Liszt's 1st Piano concerto and Totentanz with the Vienna Symphony under Adam Fischer, I was even more convinced by her approach.

Undeniably a thoughtful artist, tempering youthful fire with a sense of control, Ott invested the concerto with an agreeable Apollonian harmony. The virile, heroic statements came aptly balanced by tender lyricism and a cantilena quality that reminded us what a superb melodist Liszt was. In the mere 20 minutes of the concerto she uncovered a variety of moods, drawing by the clarity of her articulation our attention especially to the range of colors in Liszt's palette. The opening of the quasi adagio had an almost nocturnal quality in her hands, flowing dreamlike in a finely judged tempo. She can conjure up astounding power and speed when required, always firmly grounded on a strong left hand, yet in the end the hushed moments linger on as much as the martellato passagework. (Marc Haegeman, ClassicalNet)

[Camphy]

I'm gonna pound the table for the Sextet. Love that one.

Perhaps it would be wise for me to acquire a sturdy table myself. 

[San Antone]

Morning listening:

[asin]B00187AG9E[/asin]

These guys should make more recordings! Their fame on this forum would match that of Cinquecento, I think.

But they are in good hands with Aeolus, which produces high quality recordings. Just step it up a bit...

The St Emmeran Codex is a hotchpotch in itself, named after a monastery but actually a private music collection compiled between 1439 and 1443, but here it is combined with organ interludes with music from another collection, the Buxheim Organ Book. But by using from the Buxheim Book organ adaptations of vocal music that are also present in the Codex, a link between the collections is established.

This mixing concept sounds dizzying,  but it works wonderfully wel here. And the attractions of hearing the super ensemble Stimmwerck singing and Leon Berben playing are plenty.

Q

This one might have been my first taste of Stimmwerck.  I should revisit it since I've been listening more to other recordings I've acquired by them.

[Camphy]

Sonatas 7, 21 'Waldstein' & 27

[Madiel]

I've decided the next composer I'm giving myself an education on is Szymanowski.

So of course I'm starting (online) with opus 1.

[asin]B000BK53CY[/asin]

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Der wunderschöne Wunderlich :

[asin]B000001GXG[/asin]

[ritter]

More from the Karl Böhm / late recosrings box:

[asin]B00UW6AFXO[/asin]

It's now the turn of Symphony No. 35 in D major KV 385 and the Masonic funeral music KV 477...

[Camphy]

String Quartets 3 & 5, played by the Keller Quartet

[Todd]

Her technique is ­dazzling, her tone ­wonderfully varied, from ­crystalline purity to powerfully raw, and the energy propelling her playing seems ­unstoppable. These are ferocious, ­swaggeringly confident accounts of the Liszt ­studies, but they seem at a loss in the ­moments when the music turns reflective or ­requires something poetic. (Andrew Clements, The Guardian)

Alice Sara Ott's Liszt ferocious?  Nah.