What are you listening to now?

[North Star]

About chamber music I know the impressive string quartets, the violin sonata, Pohadka, the Concertino for piano and Mladi. All of them are great stuff. Recently I've listened to On an overgrown path. Janácek seemed to be very sad when wrote this set of pieces for piano. I felt a merciless melancholy that really touched me.

Yes, the pieces were written between 1900-12, and Janáček's daughter Olga died in 1903. This work is particularly influenced by her loss.


Thread duty
Bloch
Piano Quintets*
Night, Paysages, Two Pieces
Piers Lane*
Goldner String Quartet
[asin]B000WE5G6W[/asin]

[André]

This April 1964 performance has been around for a long time under different guises. It's a radio broadcast that derives from a concert and the sound shows both its age and provenance. Certainly, the sound of the orchestra calls for much tolerance, but the voices are well caught, immediate, ringing and reasonably well-defined. The interpretation here is what matters and, boy ! What a night at the Symphony this must have been ! Keilberth conducts passionately, coaxing his bambergers to feats of expressive playing. Wunderlich threw all caution to the winds. He sounds like a true heldentenor, not a Lohengrin understudy, the voice at its hedonistic best, unbridled and ringing defiantly. The baritone part was of course a DFD chestnut, recorded here weeks after the loss of his wife. He alternately croons and emotes - which I like - but he doesn't bark or shout.

I think it's both performers' best performance of Das lied. Ten weeks later the two singers would reprise the work in Vienna under Krips (reissued on DG), and each would go on to sing it in the studio with different partners. So, despite the poor orchestral sound, this is pretty much unmissable for the devoted mahlerian. Clips can be sampled on the net. You can then decide if the technical quality proves to be an insurmountable obstacle.

[Christo]

A real find, starting like a French answer to The Lark Ascending, and then turning into a real violin concerto with three very imaginative movements, depectinig three stages in the life of a village fiddler, or Le Ménétrier:

[Mirror Image]

Santa Claus conducting the 5th:

[aligreto]

Charpentier: Messe pour plusieurs instruments au lieu des orgues [Goebel]....





A buoyant, triumphant work with wonderful instrumental textures on show.

[aligreto]

That's great and I'm glad you're enjoying this much so much. Makes this old boy proud. On an overgrown path is a gorgeous piece of music. I must revisit it.

+1 

[André]

Symphony no 7, Zdenek Kosler with the Slovak Philharmonic. A juggernaut of a performance, starting slowly, with incisive phrasing, each movement building steam inexorably until the passionate finale, played like there's no tomorrow.

[Mandryka]

Yes, it is a CD well worth investigating for those who do not know it or indeed know Dunstable's wonderful music and palette.

What they've helped me to see is that the music from this period which was influenced by the English style, Contenance Angloise, is not designed to be performed in a way which  minimises dissonance, you're supposed to exploit and maybe even create dissonances based on thirds.

On the other hand, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so I'd better shut up.

[André]

Santa Claus conducting the [Sibelius] 5th:

Segerstam looks quite tidy and well groomed in this picture, almost presentable in fact. He's usually more disheveled:

[Monsieur Croche]

Lucas Foss ~ Concerto for Piano, Left-hand & Orchestra (1993)
The performance is from a live broadcast with Leon Fleisher, piano (for whom the piece was written), Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honeck.
https://www.youtube.com/v/-GUWX8lLCrI

[aligreto]

What they've helped me to see is that the music from this period which was influenced by the English style, Contenance Angloise, is not designed to be performed in a way which  minimises dissonance, you're supposed to exploit and maybe even create dissonances based on thirds.

On the other hand, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, so I'd better shut up.

No. I would not do that as your posts are always interesting to read 

[Mirror Image]

Segerstam looks quite tidy and well groomed in this picture, almost presentable in fact. He's usually more disheveled:

Indeed. Paintings do wonders for people or at least in Segerstam's case.

[aligreto]

Segerstam looks quite tidy and well groomed in this picture, almost presentable in fact. He's usually more disheveled:

Medusa....

[aligreto]

Lassus: Missa Bell' Amfitrit' altera [Summerly]....





There is, of course, wonderful singing here. Musically, there is some very appealing harmonies in the polyphony with the odd dissonance thrown in for interest.

[Kontrapunctus]

I received this iconic LP yesterday, but it has far too many loud ticks and pops despite 2 thorough cleanings. I'm returning it and will search for another copy that is truly "near mint." Has anyone heard the DG reissue? Does the derivation from a digital copy hurt the sound?

[aligreto]

Vivaldi: Laudate pueri [King]....

[Mirror Image]

The Leningrad:

[aligreto]

I received this iconic LP yesterday, but it has far too many loud ticks and pops despite 2 thorough cleanings. I'm returning it and will search for another copy that is truly "near mint." Has anyone heard the DG reissue? Does the derivation from a digital copy hurt the sound?

I have that on both LP and CD but I think that my vinyl is not a reissue. I will check and if it is I will comment.

[Dee Sharp]

Saint-Saens: Piano Trios 1 and 2.  Excellent performance by the Florestan Trio, lively and committed.

[Parsifal]

Saint-Saens: Piano Trios 1 and 2.  Excellent performance by the Florestan Trio, lively and committed.

The Florestan is my absolute favorite Piano Trio. I can't think of a recording that they have made which isn't brilliant. (Yesterday I listened to their recording of the Ravel Piano Trio.)