What are you listening to now?

[Harry]

Third rerun.
CD 1&2


http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2017/11/pejacevic-dora1885-1923-complete-piano_15.html?spref=tw

Cannot get enough of her music.

[You did it]

John Zorn - The Holy Visions (for five female voices)

[San Antone]

First listen - Ravel is sounding nice.

[Madiel]

Bridge, Suite for Strings

[asin]B0085AXSE2[/asin]
Around 1909-10, Bridge's work is still often on the 'light' side but getting more sophisticated nevertheless.

[San Antone]

First listen - Ravel is sounding nice.

The Ravel concerto was played in a straight-forward manner, but well.  In the Prokofiev, however, there is a Keith Jarrett-esque cadenza.  My mistake, I confused the first Schlime Improvisation with the end of the Prokofiev. 

[Mirror Image]

I'll yet have to figure out what I'm missing from the two new boxes, bought a pile of the individual discs last year and from the bits of it I've explored so far (plus hearing "Les Bandar-Log" at Lucerne Festival this summer, with Holliger as well) and now the Zinman "Jungle Book", I'm really enjoying it!

Great to hear!

[Florestan]

Disclaimer: l am not familiar with the recording linked below, so l cannot offer it with any sort of personal recommendation.

Having said that, l would note that even past his prime, DF-D at times had considerably more to offer than other baritones of his day. So, this might be worth consideration:

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=37947

Regards,

LKB

Thanks.

[Parsifal]

The cure for symphonic overload:



Martinu Piano Trio No 1, Duet for violin and cello. The Piano Trio was particularly engaging, a five movement suite in what strikes me as a neo-baroque style.

[Karl Henning]

The cure for symphonic overload:

Another cure:

Wuorinen
Fast Fantasy (1977)
Fred Sherry, vc
the composer, pf

[Todd]

The Borodin's Ninth.  Rather like the Beethoven's take, the Borodin play the music in simultaneously light but tense or nervous fashion, as they do in the first Adagio, which also sounds more morose to start before sort of relaxing a bit.  The Allegretto is quick and biting, with the William Tell music sounding musically sarcastic, and the Borodin bring both intensity and mordant wit to the latter portions of the movement.  The second Adagio is your run of the mill grim DSCH, done about as well it can be done.  The Allegro goes for the bright, edgy, intense opening, though the playing isn't spectacularly fast.  It sort of grinds the listener down, with the "khokhochu" music a sort of relentless idea shoved at the listener again and again.  And that's the easygoing part of the movement.  After about 3'30"-ish, the Borodin play with even more bite and intensity, which lasts all the way until the pause before the pizzacato section, which itself manages to sound more aggressive than normal.  They then start the crescendo slowly and quietly, but they build up to one of the more feverish codas.  If only it were in better sound.

[North Star]

Mompou
Música callada
Perianes
[asin]B006OW815O[/asin]

[Brian]

Things are getting awfully windy around here.

[Mirror Image]

Violin Sonata in F major, Op. 57 from this set:

[asin]B00DQF1WSU[/asin]

[North Star]

Bach
Magnificat
Maria Keohane (S), Anna Zander (S), Carlos Mena (A), Hans-Jörg Mammel (T), Stephan MacLeod (B)
Francis Jacob (organ)
Ricercar Consort
Philippe Pierlot
[asin]B002P9KAHM[/asin]

[ritter]

Some Reynaldo Hahn today. Portraits de peintres, for speaker and piano, on texts by Marcel Proust.


I knew the work in recordings sans voix, but it makes much more sense as originally conceived (as a mélodrame, that is). I am not particularly keen on how Mme. Gautier declaims the text, as she is simultaneously too vehement and does not enunciate it all that clearly, but the superimposition of spoken text on the piano line is most agreeable. Both authors (who were starting an intimate liaison at the time) were very young men in  1894, the year of the piece's composition (Proust 23 and Hahn 20 years old).

Just as Proust's text--short prose poems "portraying" Albert Cuyp, Paulus Potter, Anton Van Dyck and Antoine Watteau--does not really presage the greatness of things to come, Reynaldo's music already shows a full command of his capabilities. Actually, it's fair to say that Hahn the composer was better known than Proust the author at the time.

The first piece is the most engaging IMHO, with some very seductive modulations, and well-thought  changes in the piano line. It's also nice to hear in the last piece ("Watteau") a phrase that Reynaldo had already used in his setting of Paul Verlaine's Mandoline a year earlier (in his song Fêtes galantes); this is quite fitting, as Verlaine's poem is a Watteau-esque as it gets.   

Perfect stuff for Florestan, methinks. 

[Florestan]

Some Reynaldo Hahn today. Portraits de peintres, for speaker and piano, on texts by Marcel Proust.


I knew the work in recordings san voix, but it makes much more sense as originally conceived (as a mélodrame, that is). I am not particularly keen on how Mme. Gautier declaims the text, as she is simultaneously too vehement and does not enunciate it all that clearly, but the superimposition of spoken text on the piano line is most agreeable. Both authors (who were starting an intimate liaison at the time) were very young men in  1894, the year of the piece's composition (Proust 23 and Hahn 20 years old).

Just as Proust's text--short prose poems "portraiting" Albert Cuyp, Paulus Potter, Anton Van Dyck and Antoine Watteau--does not really presage the greatness of things to come, Reynaldo's music already shows a full command of his capabilities. Actually, it's fair to say that Hahn the composer was better known than Proust the author at the time.

The first piece is the most engaging IMHO, with some very seductive modulations, and well-thought  changes in the piano line. It's also nice to hear in the last piece ("Watteau") a phrase that Reynaldo had already used in his setting of Paul Verlaine's Mandoline a year earlier (in his song Fêtes galantes); this is quite fitting, as Verlaine's poem is a Watteau-esque as it gets.   

Perfect stuff for Florestan, methinks. 

You bet. Thanks.

[king ubu]

Second spin in a row (with a break though) - brilliant, methinks!

[cilgwyn]

On first impressions,this German recording should be not worth bothering about,when you can get it in the original French. But this is actually a very lively recording,with a nice feel for the genre. The singing is all of the high standard you might expect from emi electrola,at that time. Also,you get Anneliese Rothenberger as Eurydice. A little 'matronly' sounding,by that time;but I'm a bit of a fan,so I'm happy. One of the main reasons I bought the recording was just the pleasure of listening to her singing this role. I just love her voice! I also like the way the characters bring in brief quotations from late 19th & early,20th c,Viennese operettas. Fun! Not a first choice;but,imho,well worth adding to your collection.........particularly if you're an Anneliese Rothenberger fan! Also,let's not forget that Offenbach was born in Germany,and was pretty much responsible for the operetta craze that followed (Although,Hervé,actually,got there first!). This recording uses the original German score,without any of the 1874 additions. Nice!

[Que]

.[asin]B004WEHLDE[/asin]
Q

[Todd]