What are you listening to now?

[Mirror Image]

Berg
Violin Concerto
Anne-Sophie Mutter
James Levine
Chicago Symphony Orchestra

[Que]

Tchaikovsky Symphony No.1 "Winter Dreams, Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw




Sarge

I always found the performances of the early symphonies the best in Haitink's cycle.

Q

[Que]

Morning listening - just in (finally found it for a decent price):



Q

[HIPster]

Morning listening - just in (finally found it for a decent price):



Q

A great way to greet the day!

Hope you enjoy this one as much as I do my friend. 

[Que]

A great way to greet the day!

Hope you enjoy this one as much as I do my friend. 

Hat tip to you, my friend. Thanks for pointing this recording out to me! 

Q

[amw]

Roscoe Beethoven Op.7 and 49

Museum quality playing & also museum levels of engagement

[Mookalafalas]

That sure looks sweet.

And red.  Very red.

   I was (am) superimpressed with this. I've always loved Vivaldi, and it's easy to get swept up in a good 4 Seasons. But this is different, I think. More depth and darkness than you usually find in Baroque.  Lots of timbre and angst in the strings, and truly SOTA sound.  Pity it's OOP.

TD
[asin]B076JXCD6S[/asin]

[North Star]

   I was (am) superimpressed with this. I've always loved Vivaldi, and it's easy to get swept up in a good 4 Seasons. But this is different, I think. More depth and darkness than you usually find in Baroque.  Lots of timbre and angst in the strings, and truly SOTA sound.  Pity it's OOP.

Why do you say it's OOP? The reissue is quite readily available
[asin]B011MICHL8[/asin]



Thread-duty
Gesualdo
Responsoria et alia ad Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae spectantia: Feria Sexta (Good Friday, Disc 2)
La Compagnia del Madrigale
[asin]B00I102C7U[/asin]

[prémont]

Roscoe Beethoven Op.7 and 49

Museum quality playing & also museum levels of engagement

Which degree of informed playing does this imply?

[Mookalafalas]

Why do you say it's OOP? The reissue is quite readily available
[asin]B011MICHL8[/asin]

  so it is! My mistake. When i searched Amazon to put up my image, all I came up with was the $39 import.
      Anyway, recommended.

[RebLem]

On Tuseday, 13 MAR 2018, I listened to 3 CDs.


1)  CD 23 of the 23 CD + 1 DVD set of pianist Clifford Curzon's recordings for DECCA.  The entire CD is divided into two large sections, both centering around conversations with interviewers.  The first section, called "Desert Island discs," is with Roy Plomley, a critic, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 17 JUN 1978 pprovided by the BBC and EMI.  That conversation can be found @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBTshRYyeUs  and lasts 30'44.  The other is a conversation with Alan Blyth recorded 18 SEP 1972, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 12 FEB 1973.  It lasts 38'19.  I could not find the whole conversation on YouTube, but 17'34 of it can be found @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqUki9GQuQQ   This is the part of the conversation in which he talks about his two most important teachers, Wanda Landowska and Artur Schnabel.  One of the interesting things about it was that Schnabel was a Communist sympathizer for a long time, and he often had to endure a political rant that lasted as long as 2 hours before his they started talking about piano.  On one occasion, Schnabel's wife came in the room and looked down her nose at Schnabel and reminded him the Clifford had come for a piano lesson.  He was, however, later disillussioned after two tours of the Soviet Union.  Another interesting thing was that Landowska had a visceral dislike for Schnabel, and Schnabel had a more nuanced, but still critical, view of Landowska.  Its a very interesting conversation.  I recommend it.


2) Louis Pelosi (b. 1947):  |Tr. 1-4, String Quartet 1 (1997-2000) (33'43)  |Tr. 5, Prayer Suite (2005-6) (11'03)  |Tr. 6, I Weave You A Shroud for a capella sextet to a text by T. P. Perrin  (2005) (14'15)  |Tr. 7, String Quartet 2 (18'33)--Piotr Tarcholik, violin I (Tr. 1-5 & 7), Kinga Tomaszewska, Violin II (Tr. 1-4 & 7), Darinsz Korcz, viola (Tr. 1-4), Beata Raszewska, viola (Tr. 7), Zdzislaw Lipinski, cello (Tr. 1-4 & 7), Monika Willinska-Tarcholik, piano (Tr. 5), and, in Tr. 6 only, the following musicians: New York Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, cond., Elena Williamson, soprano, Nancy Wertsch, mezzo-soprano, Mary Marathe, alto, Michael Steinberger, tenor, Frank Barr, baritone, Hayes Biggs, bass.  Piotr Tarcholik, violin, and the members of his quartet are all members of the National Polish RSO.  Tr. 6 rec. in the Pelosi home in NYC 12 NOV 2006.  All other tracks rec. in Poland, venue(s) not listed.  Rec. 27-29 OCT 2008 (Tr. 1-4), Tr. 5 rec. 12 NOV 2008, Tr. 7 rec. 12-13 SEP 2009.  A KASP Records CD.

This album is entitled, "A Triptych Memorial to My Rosemarie, Part I."  Pelosi's notes say, "Aside from my music, the central events of my life are two: meeting my future wife...and losing her to cancer.  In every possible sense of the word, she filled my world: in her creative vitality and brilliance, her discipline in the service of an absolutley uncompromising spirtual focus and integrity, and her love of nature and humanity--her love for me.  What remains after her death is my music, and the tortuous passage of time.  Hence this album."  His wife, Rosemarie Koczy, died 12 DEC 2007 of cancer.

Louis Pelosi has his own website, and at that site he includes some reviews, including interviews with reviewers from Fanfare Magazine, to which I subscribe--a magazine that does 6 issues a year and makes a serious attempt to review nearly every classical CD issued in the USA.  Pelosi has reprinted some of this material at his website and you can read it @ http://louis-pelosi-composer.com/critical-commentary/  It reviews this CD, and others of his work.


3)  Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959): Symphony No. 10, Sumé pater patrium: Sinfonia ameríndia com coros (Oratorio) (1952-3) (73'30)--Carl St. Clair, cond., RSO Stuttgart des SWR, Members of the Staatsopernchor Stuttgart, SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart, Lothar Odinius, tenor, Henryk Bohm, baritone, Jurgen Linn, bass-baritone.  Rec. Stadthalle Singelfingen, 29 NOV--10 DEC 1999.  A cpo CD, CD 7 of a 7 CD cpo set of the complete symphonies of Villa-Lobos.

As you can see by the headnote, the whole CD, unlike all the others in the series, consists entirely of one work which is, by far, Villa Lobos's longest symphony.  It is really a symphony-oratorio, as the headnote indicates.  It should also be noted that this performance is, at 73'30, somewhat more expansive than the world premiere radio broadcast of the work, conducted by Villa-Lobos, was just over 67 minutes long.  He wrote it to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the city of Sao Paolo.  But he finished work on it in NYC, and the world premiere performance, under his baton, was in Paris on 4 APR 1957.  It is scored for tenor, baritone, and bass soloists, mixed choir, and an orchestra consisting of 2 piccolos, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, tam-tam, cymbals, chocalho, coconut hulls, lion's roar, bells, gong, sleigh bells, small frame drum, bass drum, xylophone, marimba, celesta, 2 harps, piano, organ, and strings.
Per Wikipedia, "The first movement is for the orchestra alone, and serves as an overture to the four remaining movements, which feature the vocal soloists and choirs. The movement is in sectional form, dominated by a principal melodic motif consisting of an upper-neighbour note figure followed by an upward leap. This motif is found in all five of the main sections of the movement, which are differentiated by tempo, key area (C, B♭, E, C, and C), instrumentation, rhythms, harmonies, and specific transformations of the main motif. The second theme of the first of these sections is the only one not derived from the core motif. Quasi-tonal quartal harmonies are especially evident, but alternate with polychords in dense ostinato textures and more thinly orchestrated tonal passages. The fourth section, which is developmental, begins with an abrupt change of tempo and a short tonal fugato in the strings (Enyart 1984, 330, 332–33, 337, 340–41)."
I can tell you that this symphony is overwhelming in its emotional impact.  It is to Villa Lobos's ouvre what the Ninth Symphony and the Missa Solemnis are to Beethoven, what the Resurrection symphony is to Mahler.

[amw]

Which degree of informed playing does this imply?

As I interpret it? (Not my expression.) That the playing is of the highest quality, like an artwork of genius exhibited in a museum; and also that there is a layer of glass separating that artwork from the museum-goer.

[Madiel]

Breakfast music. Concerto No.10

[asin]B006XOBFB0[/asin]
Though interrupted when my 26-year-old CD player started having the wobbles. 

Listening to this again, and this time my CD player has behaved. Highly enjoyable music.

[Madiel]

Frank Bridge, circa 1912-13.

3 Pieces for piano (Columbine, Minuet, Romance) (performed by Mark Bebbington)
Strew No More Red Roses (performed by Felicity Lott, Graham Johnson)
The Bee (performed by Tenebrae)
Dance Poem (performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales)

All miniatures except for the Dance Poem, which (as well as being the only of these I own on CD thus far) I think is an important step in the transition of Bridge's style. He's just starting to leave the nice salon tunes behind.

[North Star]

Langgaard
Works for string quartet
Nightingale String Quartet
[asin]B007C7FFMM[/asin]
[asin]B00H9KEU5U[/asin]
[asin]B00NF4PPW6[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Excellent selection, Karlo!

[Florestan]

[Madiel]

Various fragments of Debussy as I work out that neither the Warner nor DG boxes is ideal...

...I've seen a couple of rather disappointed reviews of the Warner box, with criticisms of the recordings chosen.

[prémont]

As I interpret it? (Not my expression.) That the playing is of the highest quality, like an artwork of genius exhibited in a museum; and also that there is a layer of glass separating that artwork from the museum-goer.

Thanks, sounds highly interesting. I think I need to acquire his ongoing Beethoven set.

[Zeus]

Roussel: Symphony No. 3, Bacchus et Aradne
Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Stephane Deneve
Naxos



Roussel is one of those composers I just kinda rush through.

This time, I'm listening with complete patience, an open mind, and zero expectations.  So far, it is quite nice!