What are you listening to now?

[Dee Sharp]

Brahms: String Quartets 1 & 3. Quartetto Italiano. Passionate and committed performances. Recommended.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Excellent. 

I am in full agreement with you Dancing Divertimentian!

Cheers.

Well said; another disciple of Vivaldi's Sacred Music here 

Count me in as well.

+1 to all this Vivaldi Sacred Music chatter!

I think I know what I'll be listening to tonight!

[PerfectWagnerite]

This isn't a criticism of you because I know that a LOT of people do this. I've never understood why people listen to a recording of music just before they're going to see it in live performance. I do the exact opposite. I want the music to be fresh and new when I hear it live. I don't want to be comparing it in my head to the recording I just heard.

I would agree if it is a concert piece. For opera I do the same thing as King Ubu because I want to know the plot, the expected arias, and in general what happens when. Otherwise things just come and go so fast I am not sure what I am watching, experiencing, or missing. For example in The Valkyrie I am always on the lookout for whether Sieglinde screams when Siegmund draws the sword from the tree(none is written in the score), or whether Siegmund sings "so blühe denn, Wälsungen-Blut!" by holding the "Wäl" syllable (sort of become standard performance practice) even though Wagner never writes a fermata on the score. These are the things that if you know nothing of the opera you don't even know what to listen for...

[Autumn Leaves]

This morning's listening:



Piano Quartet - Emanuel Ax, Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo & Yo-Yo Ma



String Quartet #1



Piano Trio #2

[kishnevi]

Revisiting Donizetti's "L'elisir d'amore" as I'll see it on stage Friday night, with Nello Santi conducting (alas not with Pavol Breslik, hope the other guy, Juan Francisco Gatell, will be good, too; Olga Kulchynska is singing Adina, don't know her either, I'm going for Santi really). Listening to discs five and six of the big Pavarotti "First Decade" box, which is the only complete recording of the opera I have, and this is a first listen to it (I've seen it on TV, I think twice) ... the Molinari-Pradelli with Güden and di Stefano has just been ordered to have a real one in addition to this slightly artificial Sutherland version.

I hope the box includes the photos which illustrate the individual re-issues. Seeing Pavarotti as a relatively thin, svelte unbearded young man can be, depending on your mood, either shocking or hilarious. The best ones are from the 1966 Covent Garden production of Daughter of the Regiment.  If they are not in the box, a Google image search should bring up some of them.

TD
CD 13 Piano Sonatas in A, a minor, D KV 331, 310,576
[asin]B011JHC0IC[/asin]
The Amazon pricing makes me think this is now going out of print.

[Madiel]

I would agree if it is a concert piece. For opera I do the same thing as King Ubu because I want to know the plot, the expected arias, and in general what happens when. Otherwise things just come and go so fast I am not sure what I am watching, experiencing, or missing. For example in The Valkyrie I am always on the lookout for whether Sieglinde screams when Siegmund draws the sword from the tree(none is written in the score), or whether Siegmund sings "so blühe denn, Wälsungen-Blut!" by holding the "Wäl" syllable (sort of become standard performance practice) even though Wagner never writes a fermata on the score. These are the things that if you know nothing of the opera you don't even know what to listen for...

Your general point about plot, okay, but then you go on to talk about incredibly specific things about the music that don't depend on it being opera, and don't even rely on listening to a recording. They rely on reading the score. The equivalent is reading the script of a play before you go see it so you can comment on any slight variation in the wording.

Those are the sorts of things I wouldn't WANT to know to listen for. Seriously, it sounds like you're sitting there running the live performance through a mental checklist. Which is far more than what I thought King Ubu was doing.

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Pohjola's Daughter, Op. 49
Night Ride & Sunrise, Op. 55
The Dryad, Op. 45/1
Dance-Intermezzo, Op. 45/2
The Bard, Op. 64
The Oceanides, Op. 73
Tapiola, Op. 112

A stunning disc from an overall marvelous box set.

[king ubu]

Your general point about plot, okay, but then you go on to talk about incredibly specific things about the music that don't depend on it being opera, and don't even rely on listening to a recording. They rely on reading the score. The equivalent is reading the script of a play before you go see it so you can comment on any slight variation in the wording.

Those are the sorts of things I wouldn't WANT to know to listen for. Seriously, it sounds like you're sitting there running the live performance through a mental checklist. Which is far more than what I thought King Ubu was doing.

Hm, consider this: after around five to six years of classical listening (that has about two years ago gone down from 90-100% of my listening time to around 50%-60%, I think, with my beloved jazz stepping back in), I still feel like a newbie in general. There are some works I'm really familiar with (i.e. some violin and piano concertos, some violin sonatas, piano sonatas and other piano solo pieces, a few symphonies, a handful of operas), but in general, mostly I will not have listened to anything more than 2-5 times, and often just listened in the background, while reading, while doing something else besides. So depending on my mood and the specific piece(s), sometimes I do listen (in)to them in advance (but again yesterday, I was reading some stuff besides and posting here and elsewhere), sometimes I don't. In opera indeed I often try and figure out the plot beforehand, be it by reading it up quickly or by pre-listening ... but then I've been to operas totally unknown and was blown away in a manner that prevented me from listening to recordings afterwards (the Shosti Lady Macbeth for instance - had bought the Rostropovich, not found time for a listen beforehand, and haven't listened to it afterwards, though it's been more than three months now and I guess I could listen to it eventually now).

So there's no general rule ... but with this kind of opera (L'elisir d'amore, that is), I generally know what to expect anyway, so pre-listening will definitely not spoil the fun, rather it might (or might not) sharpen the ears a bit.

[NikF]

Poulenc: Aubade - Georges Pretre/Orch Ste Conc Du Conservatoire/Tacchino.

[asin]B0091JQH76[/asin]

[Que]

.[asin]B00277YJL0[/asin]
It's a pity that Olivier Baumont restricted himself to these six concertos after Vivaldi, and not the whole bunch...because he is taking it to another level.

Q

[SurprisedByBeauty]

#morninglistening to glorious #Bruckner:http://amzn.to/2kzqgnS  w/@nedpho_nko on @challenge... http://ift.tt/2kJCvcM

8th Symphony maybe among the very top performances; riveting.
6th is also very good, if perhaps not as obviously appealing as some of my very favorites.
7th is a symphony I tend not to connect as well to, for some reason.

[Tsaraslondon]

I moved on to the Karajan performance, which is of the Italian four act version Verdi made after the less than successful Paris premiere.

Personally I miss the Fontainebleau Act, and, for that reason alone would prefer the Giulini set, but there are other reasons too, chief of which is the sound. It varies from act to act, but there are several places where the orchestra is brought relentlessly into the foreground at the expense of the singers, who are recessed in the middle distance, or sometimes even further. One of the worst examples comes at the beginning of Act II. Karajan evokes beautifully the atmosphere of a hot night in the Queen's Gardens, and I had the sound (I was listening on headphones) at what I thought was a comfortable level. However, when Carreras started singing, I could hardly hear him, so I turned the sound up in order to hear the voices, only to be deafened at the next orchestral tutti. It is a serious blot on what is actually a pretty good performance.

Singer for singer, I'd find it hard to choose between Giulini and Karajan. Domingo has a better legato line than Carreras, but Carreras is better at suggesting the slightly unhinged nature of Carlo. Rodrigo is probably one of the most straightforward characters in the opera, but Milnes makes more of him than Cappuccilli, whose Rodrigo is not, I feel, on the level of his Boccanegra or Macbeth.  Ghiaurov is vocally more suited to Philip than Raimondi, but Raimondi creates the more tortured character, and Raimondi himself is a mite too light for the Inquisitor, which is sung with the right bottomless tone by Bonaldo Giaotti on the Giulini. Caballe makes more of an impression than Freni, and is more entitled vocally, though both are very good, and I find it impossible to choose between Verrett and Baltsa. Both are outstanding.

Karajan is often slower than Giulini, but conducts a vital performance, and the orchestral playing is very beautiful. I just wish it were a more comfortable listening experience. The Giulini, recorded in London about 7 years earlier, enjoys a much more natural sound picture, and still stands up very well, so it's still Giulini for me.

Next I'm on to the Abbado. Five acts again. This time in French, with appendices of music that was cut from the various editions.

One thing is for sure. I can never tire of this wonderful score, which, to my mind, flawed or not, contains some of the greatest music Verdi ever wrote.

[Harry]

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2017/04/pizzetti-ildebrando-1880-1968.html?spref=tw

[prémont]

.[asin]B00277YJL0[/asin]
It's a pity that Olivier Baumont restricted himself to these six concertos after Vivaldi, and not the whole bunch...because he is taking it to another level.

Q

Much agreed.

The "supplementary" concertos recorded for the Telefunken Bach 2000 box by Michele Barchi aren't that bad either.

[Madiel]

The Bells.

[asin]B0000042HY[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

The Bells.

[asin]B0000042HY[/asin]

Report when you may!

Thread Duty:

JSB
Vn Cto in a minor, BWV 1041
Rachel Podger
AAM

[asin]B0000007F0[/asin]

[mc ukrneal]

I moved on to the Karajan performance, which is of the Italian four act version Verdi made after the less than successful Paris premiere.

Personally I miss the Fontainebleau Act, and, for that reason alone would prefer the Giulini set, but there are other reasons too, chief of which is the sound. It varies from act to act, but there are several places where the orchestra is brought relentlessly into the foreground at the expense of the singers, who are recessed in the middle distance, or sometimes even further. One of the worst examples comes at the beginning of Act II. Karajan evokes beautifully the atmosphere of a hot night in the Queen's Gardens, and I had the sound (I was listening on headphones) at what I thought was a comfortable level. However, when Carreras started singing, I could hardly hear him, so I turned the sound up in order to hear the voices, only to be deafened at the next orchestral tutti. It is a serious blot on what is actually a pretty good performance.

Singer for singer, I'd find it hard to choose between Giulini and Karajan. Domingo has a better legato line than Carreras, but Carreras is better at suggesting the slightly unhinged nature of Carlo. Rodrigo is probably one of the most straightforward characters in the opera, but Milnes makes more of him than Cappuccilli, whose Rodrigo is not, I feel, on the level of his Boccanegra or Macbeth.  Ghiaurov is vocally more suited to Philip than Raimondi, but Raimondi creates the more tortured character, and Raimondi himself is a mite too light for the Inquisitor, which is sung with the right bottomless tone by Bonaldo Giaotti on the Giulini. Caballe makes more of an impression than Freni, and is more entitled vocally, though both are very good, and I find it impossible to choose between Verrett and Baltsa. Both are outstanding.

Karajan is often slower than Giulini, but conducts a vital performance, and the orchestral playing is very beautiful. I just wish it were a more comfortable listening experience. The Giulini, recorded in London about 7 years earlier, enjoys a much more natural sound picture, and still stands up very well, so it's still Giulini for me.

Next I'm on to the Abbado. Five acts again. This time in French, with appendices of music that was cut from the various editions.

One thing is for sure. I can never tire of this wonderful score, which, to my mind, flawed or not, contains some of the greatest music Verdi ever wrote.

Very nice write up and interesting read. I think I would tend to favor Domingo more, but then sometimes I can forget just how good Carreras could be. And Baltsa was always of interest.

I wonder if part of the reason for the orchestral imbalance is that it is the Berlin Philharmonic instead of one of the opera house orchestras? It's not that the BPO couldn't be great, it's just that they only played this so often and that nuance and internal feel were perhaps not as present. I hesitate mentioning it (but professionals at this level can play pretty much anything), but did they play Don Carlos much?

Anyway, very interested to hear about the Abbado now!

[Madiel]

Report when you may!

I have never been much of a fan of The Bells. It's okay, but that's about it. I find such music too overwrought for my tastes.

[Monsieur Croche]

I've never understood why people listen to a recording of music just before they're going to see it in live performance. I do the exact opposite. I want the music to be fresh and new when I hear it live. I don't want to be comparing it in my head to the recording I just heard.

Amen to that.  Listen to recordings after you've heard the live performance, if you want or must.

(Do people who feel they must listen to a recording of a work before attending a live performance simply avoid premieres, and instead wait until there is a recording, and then wait for the next scheduled performance ? ;-)

[Spineur]

Massenet Esclarmonde, act 4&5



The mixture of medieval, byzantine and epic flavors in this opera comes out very well, thanks to the exceptionnal talent of La Stupenda, the only artist with the vocal means for this exceptionnally difficult role.