What are you listening to now?

[Cato]

In recent days and weeks...

[asin]B000SOBU8Y[/asin]

I cannot praise this CD enough, especially for the performance of the great Ballade for solo piano.  Andsnes will at times make you think he is playing the work on bells, especially during Variation XIV, but there is delicacy, yearning melancholy, as well as sprightly bounding joy.

A vastly underrated work, to be sure. Have you tried Grieg's songs? Together with Mendelssohn's, they might very well be the best kept secrets of the genre. I cannot praise them highly enough. The Norwegian language has such a peculiar inner rythm and musicality that I have been able to understand the mood and feeling of any given song before reading the translated text. Amazing.

That should be a quest soon undertaken!

[HIPster]

Some Bach to start the day off:

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[Mirror Image]

A program I devised: "Four Sixths" -

Langgaard, Nielsen, Vaughan Williams, Sibelius

From the following recordings:

[Harry]

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2017/04/weingartner-felix-1863-1942-string.html?spref=tw

Weingartner is one of my favourite composers of the 20th century, but still with one leg in the 19th century.

[aligreto]

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice, Act 1 [Gardiner]....

[Mandryka]

Kare Nordstoga plays Bach trio sonatas, some really impressive slow movements. Fabulous colliding independent voices in 526/iii.

[HIPster]

I know.....Passion Tide is behind us, but I intended to listen to Alessandro Scarlatti's Stabat Mater and never got to it...
Too much seasonal music to fit into a tight  listening schedule....so, why not now? 

[asin]B000LE0TEW[/asin]
Did I mention my ever growing esteem for Alessandro Scarlatti as a composer? 

Q

PS Naïve throws, apart from full liner notes, in as a bonus my preferred performance of the Pergolesi - a "no brainer".... 

I'm right there with you. 

Inspired by your Alessandro Scarlatti esteem, now playing ~

[asin]B000059GES[/asin]

Are you familiar with this series, Que?

This is the only one I have collected (it's in the inexpensive DHM Italian Baroque Music Edition box set).  Wonderful performance and sound quality. 

[Harry]

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2017/04/schumann-georg-1866-1952-chamber-music.html?spref=tw

[Que]

I'm not a fan of Paganini's concertos, but when he plays it... 

On the same disc are the Wieniawski concertos nrs 1 & 2 - Rabin owns those pieces IMO....

Q

[king ubu]

^ big fan of Rabin's playing here ... actually I listened to Paganini's second concerto by Ivry Gitlis yesterday and thought it was mighty good (from last year's two-disc set of SWR recordings).

About to finish another excellent Charpentier disc (another new arrival/first listen), again belated Easter listening:



And then following up with a first listen to this (I've heard the Cimarosa a while back, but not the symphonies - the disc just arrived today):

[andolink]

Georges Aperghis: Situations for 23 soloists (2013)
Klangforum Wien/Emilio Pomárico



F. J. Haydn: Symphony No. 77 in B-flat Major



Aaron Cassidy: And the scream, Bacon's scream, is the operation through which the entire body escapes through the mouth (or, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion) for oboe (musette, English horn), clarinet (e-flat, bass clarinet), trumpet, trombone, harp, percussion, violin, viola, double bass (2010)

[Que]

I'm right there with you. 

Inspired by your Alessandro Scarlatti esteem, now playing ~

[asin]B000059GES[/asin]

Are you familiar with this series, Que?

This is the only one I have collected (it's in the inexpensive DHM Italian Baroque Music Edition box set).  Wonderful performance and sound quality. 

I was aware of it (when A. Scarlatti seemed more a secondary interest), but never collected it....
Though I do have volume 2:

[asin]B00000DFKP[/asin]
From what I remember it didn't hit the right spot, and might have sounded not very Italian?
I should revisit.... 

Q

[André]

Beethoven's Mass in C, op. 86. Not the Grand Masterpiece that he would eventually compose, but unmistakably beethovenian. The interpretation is very good (there are not many competitors).

[kishnevi]

Last night, I started this set with the First. Currently, I am listening to the Second.
[asin]B01ET5D54Y[/asin]
Heretofore, Karajan has been the only conductor who has produced performances in which I am interested out of B1-B3.  He now has a companion in Gielen, at least for the First and Second.

Curiously, this studio recording from 1968 was never released before. Neither was the performance of the First, although a bit less curiously there (recorded in live performances in 2009).  That fact may make this set a must buy for Cato, Andre, and other Brucknerites.

[Mister Sharpe]

I've much warmed to Arrau's slow but sure performance (his second) of the Waldstein over the years.  And the engineering has such phenomenal presence! 

[André]

Weber's "Jubelmesse" (Jubilee Mass) in G. His second Mass setting and a very joyous one.

The players are exactly the same ones as those in EMI's legendary Haydn Saint-Cecilia Mass: same soloists, children's choir, instrumental ensemble and conductor. The same group reappears in the next item on this 2-disc set, Hummel's Mass in E Flat, op. 80. They were probably locked up for a full week until all three Masses were in the can 

[Todd]

\


Revisiting one of the great Brahms Violin Concerto recordings with Christian Ferras, and a first listen to Georg Kulenkampff playing Bruch.  Kulenkampff is very good, but he ain't no Ferras.  Of course, I have an clear pro-Ferras bias, so I would naturally think that.

[aligreto]

Farrell: Perfect State [Brophy]....





A beautiful and wonderfully lyrical work that is emotionally engaging. The rhythmic diversity within the work is very appealing. The contrast between the first and second movements is stark, dramatic and wonderful and makes for interesting and engaging listening.

[André]

Max Reger, Quartet in d minor op. 74. Gorgeously melodic. A real masterpiece.

[Mandryka]

 

Veillard and Cut Circle in just the Agnus Dei of Dufay's Missa Ecce Ancilla Domini. I much prefer Veillard.