What are you listening to now?

[bhodges]

Verdi: Falstaff, Act III (Sir Colin Davis/LSO) - Quite a recording!

[asin]B00061GYNK[/asin]

--Bruce

[North Star]

G'day, Karlo! Excellent!  Which Marienleben, BTW?

Good day, Karl! The Isokoski/Viitasalo, of course.   

More firsts from the mailbox

Hindemith
Das Marienleben (1948 version)
Isokoski & Viitasalo
[asin]B002JP9I5M[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

So much for "words of wisdom"...

[Mirror Image]

To quote Procol Harum:

I know if I'd been wiser this would never have occurred
But I wallowed in my blindness so it's plain that I deserve
For the sin of self-indulgence when the truth was writ quite clear
I must spend my life amongst the dead who spend their lives in fear
Of a death that they're not sure of, of a life they can't control
It's all so simple really if you just look to your soul

(from Look to your soul)

Yes, those guys knew CDCDCD.

[Opus106]

Have you tried the Konzertmusik Op.49 for piano, brass & two harps, or the Konzertmusik Op.50 for strings & brass?

Enjoying the Op. 50 quite a bit, Karl.

http://www.youtube.com/v/JD3FJBJbzvw

Israel PO | Bernstein

[Opus106]

What am I doing listening to a radio broadcast from 1949?

http://www.youtube.com/v/KYgrBHSPbpM

Gieseking rocking the Hammerklavier!

[Karl Henning]

Considering this, no surprise:

JSB

Cantata BWV 25, « Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe »
Concentus musicus Wien
Harnoncourt

[listener]

DELIUS: Hassan
Martyn Hill, Brian Rayner Cook
Bournemouth Sinfonietta Orch. & Chorus
ELGAR: The Starlight Express
Valerie Masterson, Derek Hammond-Stroud 
London Philharmonic Orch.       Vernon Handley, cond.
The Delius comes across a bit better in these two sets of stage music because it does not have the intelligible twee libretto.

[Todd]

[Lisztianwagner]

Verdi: Falstaff, Act III (Sir Colin Davis/LSO) - Quite a recording!

[asin]B00061GYNK[/asin]

--Bruce

Verdi quoted Klingsor's motif at the beginning of this act.

[North Star]

Hindemith
Das Marienleben (1948 version)
Isokoski & Viitasalo
[asin]B002JP9I5M[/asin]

Prokofiev
Le Pas d'Acier
Jurowski & WDR Köln
[asin]B0000DB4YG[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Listening to Concerto Grosso No. 6 and then will listen to Symphony No. 8. This recording is marvelous.

[TheGSMoeller]

A great joy of being a lover of John Dowland's music is the various arrangements of his songs and Lachrimae available on disc. One that I had early reservations with but has recently become a top choice is the album In Darkness by The Dowland Project, with tenor John Potter along with Stephen Stubbs, John Surman, Maya Hombur. The instrumentation features Potter's voice with violin, double bass, lute, saxophone and bass clarinet. This combination paints a dark and mysterious landscape for Dowland's songs of melancholy. But also allowing the brighter and lyrical moments to shine, such as in Now, O Now I Needs Must Part. There are many traditional sounding moments, such as the lute/voice duo that open Come Again, but only to be answered by a semi-jazzy saxophone/double bass riff. Same structure can be heard in The Lowest Trees Have Tops, but this time it's the violin and bass clarinet that share time. Similar to many of the Dowland recordings I own, this one is about exploring the inner voice of the composer's language, and I (now) find it to be highly successful.


[asin]B00002DEH6[/asin]

[Todd]

[kyjo]

Now: Robert Simpson's Flute Concerto on YouTube, of which there exists no commercial recording. I'm still trying to get my head around Simpson's intricate yet imposing music.

Next:



I'll be listening to The Birds tonight.

[Mirror Image]

Love the Enescu avatar, Kyle. What are some of your favorite works by him?

[listener]

Derek BOURGEOIS: Blitz, op. 65   Eric BALL: Journey intro Freedom
Denis WRIGHT: Tam O'Shanter's Ride    HOWELLS: Pageantry suite
Black Dyke Mills Band     Major Peter Parkes, cond.
SIBELIUS:  Canzonetta op. 62/1    The Oceanides op. 73
Symphony no.4 op. 64
Gothenburg Symphony Orch., / Neeme Järvi, cond.

[kyjo]

Love the Enescu avatar, Kyle. What are some of your favorite works by him?

I thought you would. It's a shame that the popularity of his Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 has largely overshadowed the rest of his magnificent output. My favorite Enescu works? Hmmmm.....all three symphonies, Suite no. 3 Villageois for orchestra, Symphonie Concertante for cello and orchestra, Poeme roumain for male chorus and orchestra, Vox Maris for tenor, chorus and orchestra, and Violin Sonata no. 3 perhaps. It's difficult to single out just a few. Nothing in Enescu's output, however, prepares one for what is the undoubted masterpiece that is Symphony no. 3. This piece alone catapults Enescu into my top 30 composers. From the dark, gloomy first movement to the fiery, demonic second to the gloriously uplifting third, this piece charts a spiritual journey that is rivaled only by some of Mahler's and Bruckner's symphonies. The voluptuously chromatic harmonic language of this piece reminds me a little of Scriabin, but Enescu is definitely speaking in his own voice here. What do you think of this amazing work, John?

I don't mean to bombard you with questions, but do you own this disc, and, if you do, what are your impressions of it?



Apparently it is the start of a cycle.

[Mirror Image]

I thought you would. It's a shame that the popularity of his Romanian Rhapsody no. 1 has largely overshadowed the rest of his magnificent output. My favorite Enescu works? Hmmmm.....all three symphonies, Suite no. 3 Villageois for orchestra, Symphonie Concertante for cello and orchestra, Poeme roumain for male chorus and orchestra, Vox Maris for tenor, chorus and orchestra, and Violin Sonata no. 3 perhaps. It's difficult to single out just a few. Nothing in Enescu's output, however, prepares one for what is the undoubted masterpiece that is Symphony no. 3. This piece alone catapults Enescu into my top 30 composers. From the dark, gloomy first movement to the fiery, demonic second to the gloriously uplifting third, this piece charts a spiritual journey that is rivaled only by some of Mahler's and Bruckner's symphonies. The voluptuously chromatic harmonic language of this piece reminds me a little of Scriabin, but Enescu is definitely speaking his own language here. What do you think of this amazing work, John?

I don't mean to bombard you with questions, but do you own this disc, and, if you do, what are your impressions of it?



Apparently it is the start of a cycle.

I love all the works you mentioned except Violin Sonata No. 3, but I had heard a performance of it on YouTube and it could very well be the performance itself. I'll try to track down a recording of it and some of his other chamber music while I'm at it. Anyway, I own two symphony cycles: Mandeal and Rozhdestvensky. I prefer Rozhdestvensky by a larger margin. I do agree that his Romanian Rhapsodies tend to have overshadowed his other works and that's a shame because I don't really enjoy them as much as a work like Orchestral Suite No. 3 'Villageoise' for example (the first movement alone of this work is a masterpiece). I like all of his symphonies to be honest. All of three of them are strong and not a dud amongst them. The last movement of Symphony No. 1 is particularly powerful, especially towards the very end when that climax comes crashing down like a tidal wave. Extremely gorgeous.

I do not own that Ondine recording but have been considering since it's release.

[kyjo]

I love all the works you mentioned except Violin Sonata No. 3, but I had heard a performance of it on YouTube and it could very well be the performance itself. I'll try to track down a recording of it and some of his other chamber music while I'm at it. Anyway, I own two symphony cycles: Mandeal and Rozhdestvensky. I prefer Rozhdestvensky by a larger margin. I do agree that his Romanian Rhapsodies tend to have overshadowed his other works and that's a shame because I don't really enjoy them as much as a work like Orchestral Suite No. 3 'Villageoise' for example (the first movement alone of this work is a masterpiece). I like all of his symphonies to be honest. All of three of them are strong and not a dud amongst them. The last movement of Symphony No. 1 is particularly powerful, especially towards the very end when that climax comes crashing down like a tidal wave. Extremely gorgeous.

I do not own that Ondine recording but have been considering since it's release.

Yes, Enescu wrote some great chamber music as well. The Octet for strings, Dectet for winds, and violin and cello sonatas are all great works. The piano quartets, quintets and string quartets give me a bit more trouble due to their comparative complexity and inwardness. Don't let me keep you from investigating them, though!

I agree with your preference for Rozhdestvensky over Mandeal. Lawrence Foster's recordings of the symphonies have been reissued on EMI. I wonder how they are?



As I've often stated, I'm not much for opera, but I've been eyeing up Enescu's much-praised and only work in the forum, Oedipe: