What are you listening to now?

[Mandryka]

Wolfgang Rübsam plays the final few pieces from WTC2. Very extended tempos, complete independence of voices, expressive playing, not imposed on the music but spring quite naturally from it. Maybe the tempos are the best thing here, or rather the tempos and articulation together, because it's revealing of the sheer plethora of meaningful ideas in the music, I mean emotionally meaningful.

One thing he does, I think, is change the microphone placement to give each piece a distinct colour. The instrument is very warm, and sounds like several lutenists playing together.  The sound is as soulful as any keyboard  instrument I've ever heard, as poetic as  Rampe's clavichord and Leonhardt's Flemish harpsichord.

This is a WTC which demands to be listened to - you can't just let it take play an anodyne rôle in the background. The most interesting WTC 2 since Leonhardt's, including from Egarr and Weiss.

(Rubsam's cantabile has something in common with Egarr's - something to explore there.)

[HIPster]

Outstanding recital of Neapolitan music here by Margret Koll, focusing on the Spanish influence. I'd noticed before in Veronique Musson-Gonneaud's CD how well Cabezon sounds on harp, better than on keyboard IMO, and that's conformed here. It's something to do with the colours and the gentleness, the refinement, of the instrument.

There are some impressive large toccatas by Mayone and Trabaci - I was more impressed by the Mayone here than on any other recital I've heard, but that could be just me - I'll revisit Chritopher Stembridge's Mayone soon.

There's a lovely piece by a composer I can't remember coming across before called Francesco Lombardo.

Thanks for posting this. 

I'll add that to the wishlist - alongside this recording:

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Are you familiar with it?

Thread duty:

Various this morning ~

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[aligreto]

Buxtehude: Jesu, meine Freude, BuxWV 60 [Purcell Quartet + LeBlanc/Kirkby/Harvey]....





Beautifully performed and sung. The music is gentle and devotional in tone [and also inventive] and the performance adequately reflects this.

[aligreto]

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Any comments to offer on this one?

[James]

Decided not to dumb things down in creating that playlist for this person who's game for a deeper musical experience, something other than pop music ... i settled on 3 complete works in truly fine performance, by the 3 titans of western music. JS Bach (Goldberg Variations, Gould 1954), Beethoven (Eroica Symphony, BPO/Cluytens 1958), Mozart (PC 21, Brendel/Marriner 1981).  The onus will be on this guy to engage or not. See how it goes, and if good .. we'll go on with future playlists. Listening & reviewing now ..

[Zeus]

I'll add that to the wishlist - alongside this recording:

I think that L'arpa Barberini is an excellent album. Strongly recommended.

[cilgwyn]

I'm listening to this now. I like Spohr. Gorgeous orchestration. He has his own very distinctive soundworld once you get to know it. He knows what he's doing. A very satisfying composer to listen to,imho! I think Howard Griffiths recordings of his symphonies are superb and make you realise just how good this music is. These are two of his best. Great Cpo artwork,as usual!

[Spineur]

Félicien David, chamber music, Quatuor Mosaïques and friends

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Beautiful although not as original as Le Désert, or Herculanum

The portrait of Félicien David @25 with the Saint-Simonian scarf, is by Gaston Bonheur and can be found in the Museum of Art and History, Saint Denis, France

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Decided not to dumb things down in creating that playlist for this person who's game for a deeper musical experience, something other than pop music ... i settled on 3 complete works in truly fine performance, by the 3 titans of western music. JS Bach (Goldberg Variations, Gould 1954), Beethoven (Eroica Symphony, BPO/Cluytens 1958), Mozart (PC 21, Brendel/Marriner 1981).  The onus will be on this guy to engage or not. See how it goes, and if good .. we'll go on with future playlists. Listening & reviewing now ..

Excellent choices. I find that's the way to go: Not to sell classical music as something other than it is, but obviously start with the ones that are most easily leading down the road of seduction.

Here's something along those lines I did a few years ago:

How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100



Includes, along your lines, LvB4 (Vanska), Bach Concerto italiaens (Tharaud), and for Mozart some symphonies (Szell).

Have been toying with the idea of/planning on the "2nd $100" for years; Gould's GVs are in the projected top-slot there.

TD: Also some chandler baroque:


#morninglistening to @LaSerenissimaUK/@AvieRec:

http://a-fwd.to/1U50Uhf
"The Italian Job... http://ift.tt/2ntbnEN

[aligreto]

Vivaldi: Salve Regina RV 618 [Negri]....





A wonderful work that is expertly executed and interpreted. The direct, assertive approach of Negri pays wonderful dividends in this performance.

[aligreto]

I'm listening to this now. I like Spohr. Gorgeous orchestration. He has his own very distinctive soundworld once you get to know it. He knows what he's doing. A very satisfying composer to listen to,imho! I think Howard Griffiths recordings of his symphonies are superb and make you realise just how good this music is. These are two of his best. Great Cpo artwork,as usual!

I have his Clarinet Concertos and some chamber music in my collection but none of his symphonies.....

[Mandryka]

Thanks for posting this. 

I'll add that to the wishlist - alongside this recording:

[asin]B019HVPAFW[/asin]

Are you familiar with it?

Not yet.

[Florestan]

Vivaldi: Salve Regina RV 618 [Negri]....





A wonderful work that is expertly executed and interpreted. The direct, assertive approach of Negri pays wonderful dividends in this performance.

Funny coincidence! Last night I've been listening to



and had it not been for the less-than-perfect Latin diction (read: incomprehensible most of the time if one didn't know the texts by heart), it would have been perfect. 

A comparison with Robert King is in order one of these days.

[Mirror Image]

Listening to Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story" from this excellent box set:

[Drasko]

^ I've been wondering about that performance since I read about it in last month's Gramophone. How's the sound?

Very good for 70s broadcast, obviously not studio quality but doesn't detract from enjoying the performance in any way.



Act III

Ending on this sweeping magnificent 15 minute Passacaglia in d minor, for two sopranos, choir and orchestra, feels like a fitting conclusion to Lully's entire oeuvre, as this will prove to be his final completed piece.   

[Todd]

Anderszewski playing some Mozart and Schumann.  The over decade old recording of Mozart on offer is the K475 Fantasie followed by the K457 sonata, and Schumann's Fantaisie and Geistervariationen.  The Mozart Fantaise and first movement of the sonata have Andreszewski's micromanaged tonal inflections and outsize dynamic shifts married together in a perhaps precious but definitely compelling way.  His ability to play multiple dynamic levels simultaneously is quite arresting.  The Adagio is slow and almost self-consciously beautiful and intimate.  Again, Andreszewski plays so fantastically well, that it works splendidly.  The liberally ornamented Molto allegro combines all elements together for a fine closer.

The more recent Schumann Fantasie has a first movement that is quite often small scaled and very intimate, which is all to the good.  To be sure, Anderszewski plays louder passages with heft, and his fine dynamic gradation is wondrous.  The second movement march starts off with rounded playing, and the rhythmic pulse is forward moving but a bit slack, to great introspective effect.  He builds up the volume to a strong climax before bringing it back down again and undulating back and forth, only really playing with a notable amount of energy near the end.  The third movement sees a return to slow, beautiful, intimate playing.  Again, he builds up to a powerful climax, but then he fades back into gentle, delicate and slow playing of a, well, of a fantastical sort, and then repeats the process again before ending the work on a suitable gentle note.  Breathing and vocalizing pepper the recording, though they do not distract from the music making in any way.  The disc ends with the Geistervariationen, and Anderszeski keeps things as intimate and beautiful and somewhat somber as one could hope for.  It evokes memories of how he plays the Gesänge der Frühe, and compares well with any of the few other (non-cycle) versions I've heard (eg, Schiff, Endres, Ugorskaja).  This work is lucky in that most artists pick the work on purpose and play very well.

Sound is superb, offering detail, clarity, warmth, and dynamic range in near perfect mix.  This is one of Anderszewski's best discs to date.  A great disc, and a sure-fire purchase of the year.

I skipped the accompanying DVD.  Maybe I watch it, maybe I don't.

[GioCar]

Gesualdo: Quinto libro di madrigali (1611)



La Venexiana

[Ken B]

Schubert
Stuff for piano
Alfred Brendel

[James]

Excellent choices. I find that's the way to go: Not to sell classical music as something other than it is, but obviously start with the ones that are most easily leading down the road of seduction.

Here's something along those lines I did a few years ago:

How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100



Includes, along your lines, LvB4 (Vanska), Bach Concerto italiaens (Tharaud), and for Mozart some symphonies (Szell).

Have been toying with the idea of/planning on the "2nd $100" for years; Gould's GVs are in the projected top-slot there.

TD: Also some chandler baroque:


#morninglistening to @LaSerenissimaUK/@AvieRec:

http://a-fwd.to/1U50Uhf
"The Italian Job... http://ift.tt/2ntbnEN

Thx ..

[Mahlerian]

Stravinsky: Pulcinella; Le Chant du rossignol
Ann Murray, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson, Simon Estes, Ensemble InterContemporain; Orchestra National de France


After the mixed reception it got here, I approached this Pulcinella with some measure of trepidation, but I found it quite interesting, even if it would never be my first choice for the work.  It does lack some of the verve of the Stravinsky Columbia version I know so well, but Boulez brings out a lot of colors that I've never heard in the piece, and the crescendo to the final peroration is handled with wonderful subtlety.

The Song of the Nightingale here is fantastic.  The piece's opening bars burst out of the speakers in surging waves of sound, and the work is plays to Boulez's strengths in conducting early modern repertoire with its kaleidoscopic mixtures of timbre and rhythmic dislocations.