What are you listening to now?

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Yes maybe you live longer, but you also miss a lot of fun in enjoying what is after all as long on the world as humans are

True, that.  And I will be pissed (though not in the British sense of the word!  ) if abstention does not have the desired effect!

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

These are great performances and I love being at the Concertgebouw. Tastefully if rather conservatively filmed.  Nelsons is an energetic conductor (some exaggeration is apparent for the camera's sake!).  Of all the musicians and concertgoers seen that evening, he is the worst-dressed (as they say on Red Dwarf) he wore "his least smeggy things.")

[asin]B00O1Y5F6K[/asin]

[Florestan]

By the way, I wanted to tell you that I love your avatar. Enescu is a great composer, but I'm a bit confused by his music. I really ought to revisit his music at some juncture. My Enescu collection got larger as of last year. Works that I do love are his three (finished) symphonies and the Orchestral Suite No. 3 "Villageoise". Great stuff.

Yes, the opus-numbered symphonies are great and so are his orchestral suites. I like his chamber music, too, if you are into that check it out, everything is high quality, especially the violin sonatas and violin and piano suites.

The Romanian Rhapsodies are great stuff, too, much mlore so since, being Romanian myself, I know the folklore songs which they are based on and I am amazed at what he could with them. 

And since we are at it, I´d like to direct your attention to the work of another Romanian composer, Ciprian Porumbescu (who incidentally or not was born in the same region as Enescu).

https://www.youtube.com/v/5m_P6bomGYE

I am genuinely interested in what yout think about it, whether you like it or not.

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Listening to The Walk to the Paradise Garden (Intermezzo from the opera "A Village Romeo & Juliet"). Ravishing.

[Mirror Image]

Yes, the opus-numbered symphonies are great and so are his orchestral suites. I like his chamber music, too, if you are into that check it out, everything is high quality, especially the violin sonatas and violin and piano suites.

The Romanian Rhapsodies are great stuff, too, much mlore so since, being Romanian myself, I know the folklore songs which they are based on and I am amazed at what he could with them. 

And since we are at it, I´d like to direct your attention to the work of another Romanian composer, Ciprian Porumbescu (who incidentally or not was born in the same region as Enescu).

https://www.youtube.com/v/5m_P6bomGYE

I am genuinely interested in what yout think about it, whether you like it or not.

Thanks for your feedback, Andrei. I do own a fair amount of Enescu's chamber works (all of the violin/piano and cello/piano works --- but need to explore more). I have a lot of homework to do with Enescu.

I have not heard of Porumbescu, but I will check this YT video out as soon as I'm done with some listening I have happening right now. Thanks!

[Brian]

After the discussion in the Dave Hurwitz thread suddenly turned to the subject of Max Reger, I am giving some Reger a try.



Reger called his piano concerto "a pendant to the Brahms First Concerto." So far (17 minutes in right now), he certainly was accurate in that self-assessment. Though I might call it "an inferior imitation of the Brahms First Concerto."

At least it has an interesting desire to avoid flash/virtuosity. But maybe one of the next two movements will be memorable.

I am keen, also, to hear "Suite im alten Stil," which is a prelude, largo, and fugue.

[not edward]

This cheap download-only collection of live Carter performances (I see it available on Amazon and on Google Play, amongst other places):



Contents are: Mad Regales, Reflexions, Sound Fields, Syringa. All but Reflexions are available elsewhere, but alternative performances are good to have.

I can't help but love that when I first heard Sound Fields, a 99-year-old composer pulled the rug out from under my ears by having me fail to notice that it ends on a major triad.

[aligreto]

Benedetto Marcello: Concertos Op. 1 Nos. 1-6....

[Karl Henning]

I can't help but love that when I first heard Sound Fields, a 99-year-old composer pulled the rug out from under my ears by having me fail to notice that it ends on a major triad.

Creating a musical context in which a consonance sounds funny.

[Tsaraslondon]

CD1.
Oboe concerto
Tuba concerto
Sinfonia antartica

The lovely Oboe concerto has Barbirolli's wife, Evelyn Rothwell as soloist, and the tuba concerto Philip Catelinet.

Limited mono sound, but excellent performances, especially the Sinfonia antartica, which is one of the most viscerally thrilling in the catalogue.

[Todd]

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

Now:





A scintillating performance.

Sinopoli's treatment of the music for the wind rushing up the face of the summit is positively 'MON-U-MEN-TAL.'

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

CD1.
Oboe concerto
Tuba concerto
Sinfonia antartica

The lovely Oboe concerto has Barbirolli's wife, Evelyn Rothwell as soloist, and the tuba concerto Philip Catelinet.

Limited mono sound, but excellent performances, especially the Sinfonia antartica, which is one of the most viscerally thrilling in the catalogue.

Absolutely.

Barbirolli's first and third movements of the Sinfonia Antarctica are terrifyingly and atmospherically awesome.

- Talk about someone who should have scored the Revenant. 

[Karl Henning]

Kernis
Musica celestis
Truls Mørk, vc
Minnesota Orchestra
Eiji Oue

[asin]B00D7D3OIM[/asin]

[Tsaraslondon]

Performances from the archives.

Schwarzkopf gets the lion's share of the DVD, and also makes the greatest impression, with a couple of songs with piano (Gerald Moore) and five more with orchestra (Berislav Klobucar). This is followed by a fully staged final scene from Der Rosenkavalier, from the Marschallin's solo through the duet with Octavian to the end of the act. Hertha Topper, the Octavian, is fine enough, but nowhere near Schwarzkopf's exalted level, and her intonation is occasionally suspect, contrasting with Schwarzkopf's precision. Both in terms of acting and singing, I never expect to see a more perfect Marschallin than Schwarzkopf. You feel she understands every fleeting emotion, every nuance. This is truly great interpretation, and I found it impossible not to shed a tear.

For the rest, Rita Streich gives us a charming rendition of Schlechtes Wetter and Irmgard Seefried sings five songs with orchestra. Two of them (Morgen and Zueignung) are also sung by Schwarzkopf, and one notices immediately something more specific in Schwarzkopf's art. Seefried's Morgen doesn't quite have that sense of inner rapture we hear in the Schwarzkopf performance. However there is something refreshingly direct about her singing, and she ends with a lovely, radiant performance of Standchen.

Aside from the two Schwarzkopf songs with piano, taped in 1970, these are all in black and white, and picture quality and sound are as one would expect for their period (the 1960s). This should not put anyone off seeing this historic document.

[North Star]

Test-drive Tuesday
Kernis
Musica celestis
Ensemble Symphonique Neuchâtel
Alexander Mayer
https://www.youtube.com/v/iS1d7s4YoAQ

[71 dB]

Louis-Nicolas Clérambault. Such an underrated composer.

[asin]B000009CJI[/asin]

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

Kernis
Musica celestis
Truls Mørk, vc
Minnesota Orchestra
Eiji Oue

[asin]B00D7D3OIM[/asin]

I really like (one of) Mørk's Haydn Cello Concertos on Virgin- I forget if its the first or the second. Delightful first movement of whichever one it was.

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

Performances from the archives.

Schwarzkopf gets the lion's share of the DVD, and also makes the greatest impression, with a couple of songs with piano (Gerald Moore) and five more with orchestra (Berislav Klobucar). This is followed by a fully staged final scene from Der Rosenkavalier, from the Marschallin's solo through the duet with Octavian to the end of the act. Hertha Topper, the Octavian, is fine enough, but nowhere near Schwarzkopf's exalted level, and her intonation is occasionally suspect, contrasting with Schwarzkopf's precision. Both in terms of acting and singing, I never expect to see a more perfect Marschallin than Schwarzkopf. You feel she understands every fleeting emotion, every nuance. This is truly great interpretation, and I found it impossible not to shed a tear.

For the rest, Rita Streich gives us a charming rendition of Schlechtes Wetter and Irmgard Seefried sings five songs with orchestra. Two of them (Morgen and Zueignung) are also sung by Schwarzkopf, and one notices immediately something more specific in Schwarzkopf's art. Seefried's Morgen doesn't quite have that sense of inner rapture we hear in the Schwarzkopf performance. However there is something refreshingly direct about her singing, and she ends with a lovely, radiant performance of Standchen.

Aside from the two Schwarzkopf songs with piano, taped in 1970, these are all in black and white, and picture quality and sound are as one would expect for their period (the 1960s). This should not put anyone off seeing this historic document.

Beautiful breakdown, Greg. I'm definitely getting this.

Schwarzkopfiana and Marschalliana for-EV-a!

[Tsaraslondon]

Beautiful breakdown, Greg. I'm definitely getting this.

Schwarzkopfiana and Marschalliana for-EV-a!

I'm surprised you don't have it already.