What are you listening to now?

[North Star]

Test-drive Tuesday
Dutilleux
Piano Sonata
Geneviève Joy
[asin]B014E89QBW[/asin]

[SymphonicAddict]

Ropartz's sonatas have eloquence, poetry, some impressionistic gestures and the Breton flavour of his native land. Very pleasant music. If I had to choose an only work among them, it would be the Violin Sonata No. 2. That is an awesome piece.

[SymphonicAddict]

Lutoslawski
Symphony No. 1
Silesian Triptych
Jeux vénitiens
Chantefleurs et Chantefables
Postludium I
Olga Pasiecznik (soprano)
Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Antoni Wit



Lutoslawski is one of my favorite composers to emerge during WWII. His early music has ties with Polish folk music and takes on a Bartókian hue, but even the composer himself doesn't like his Concerto for Orchestra, which was a success for him, but he found himself progressing in a way that would bear very little resemblance to what the composer achieved in the beginning. He began exploring texture and started using aleatoric techniques in his compositions, which helped give his music a new freedom. Of course, his music was still highly structured and organized even when considering how aleatory played a part in his later compositional output. One thing that is remarkably clear is Lutoslawski had an uncanny ear for sonorities and harmonies as evidenced by his songs, which are some of the best written in the later half of the 20th Century, IMHO. He remains, for me, an inspiration and I'm finding that the more time I spend with his music, the more I like it and understanding its' musical universe.

Lutoslawski is one of my very favorite 20th century composers, and that set doesn't disappoint at all. His soundworld is quite recognizable, intriguing and eerie.

[Mirror Image]

Lutoslawski is one of my very favorite 20th century composers, and that set doesn't disappoint at all. His soundworld is quite recognizable, intriguing and eerie.

He's certainly among my favorites as well, SymphonicAddict. Yes, he has an unmistakable, individualistic compositional voice and that's one thing I noticed about him upon discovering his music so many years ago. He's also a composer whose development is relatively easier to chart than some composers. Basically, there's two phases: the early, folk-influenced phase and then the turn to more Modernistic trends in order to find his own style. I can't think of any composer that sounds anything like him. Now, we have a composer we can talk a lot about. (Not that we don't like a lot of the same composers of course.)

[SimonNZ]

if the aria weren't so peculiar this would probably be a more celebrated recording

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

if the aria weren't so peculiar this would probably be a more celebrated recording

He plays the aria without ornaments, more or less. I like it, although when I say so I'm usually accused of being an ignoramus (along with Kempff).

[SimonNZ]

He also plays the aria much faster than usual.

[Zeus]

The Guerra Manuscript, Vol. 4
Ars Atlantica, Manuel Vilas, et al.
Naxos

[asin]B01N47ZYBS[/asin]

[TheGSMoeller]

Lucia Swarts BWV 1008, this is thoughtful introspective poetic. The sort of articulation I associate with Bylsma -- short cells.

Thank you for posting this, Mandryka. I was unaware of this release, but streaming it now. I own both of Bylsma's Suite recordings, and Schiff on EMI, and have been satisfied with these three for years, but this one  from Swarts has really captured my attention. You've described it perfectly...thoughtful introspective poetic.

[André]

William Wallace was a contemporary and friend of Bantock, with whom he co-founded The New Quarterly Music Review. Of the two men, Bantock had the more successful career and was the more original and accomplished composer. Hyperion devoted much time and care on their music, in its 'Scottish Romantic' series.

Although titled "prelude", the first piece is a dramatic overture or tone poem all by itself. No other music for Aeschylus' play followed. The Pelléas suite otoh comprises other music than what is presented here. The composer wrote 5 movements, but extracted 3 to form a short suite (15 minutes). It is very nice, but does not really tell us much about the Maeterlinck play. Death of Melisande is a moving threnody.

In the Creation Symphony Wallace attempts - as implied by the title - to develop a work encompassing the process of the Creation by God. Wallace was a christian with strong sympathies for syncretism. Therefore a strong sense of the cosmos and its infinity is present in the symphony. Musically it translates into a "reflection of the evolutionary process of Nature, one subject growing out of another, and all springing from the initial germinal idea". It is emphatically not a descriptive work like Haydn's Creation, but attempts to reach the idea of the creation process, not any specific 'events'. It should be noted that Wallace wrote the work a few years before Scriabine's similarly influenced orchestral confections.

A well-rounded compilation of interesting late-romantic works. Wallace may be a minor master, but he makes his voice heard with assurance with these well-crafted works.

[SymphonicAddict]

He's certainly among my favorites as well, SymphonicAddict. Yes, he has an unmistakable, individualistic compositional voice and that's one thing I noticed about him upon discovering his music so many years ago. He's also a composer whose development is relatively easier to chart than some composers. Basically, there's two phases: the early, folk-influenced phase and then the turn to more Modernistic trends in order to find his own style. I can't think of any composer that sounds anything like him. Now, we have a composer we can talk a lot about. (Not that we don't like a lot of the same composers of course.)

Sure! I seem remembering some of them right now (Martinu, Shostakovich, VW, Nielsen, Sibelius, Schnittke, etc).

[Mirror Image]

Sure! I seem remembering some of them right now (Martinu, Shostakovich, VW, Nielsen, Sibelius, Schnittke, etc).

Yes to all of those! Great list I must say.

Thread duty -

Lutoslawski
Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4
Les Espaces du Sommeil
John Shirley-Quirk, baritone
Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor



Salonen's Lutoslawski recordings are some of his best, IMHO. Right up there with his Debussy and Stravinsky.

[Ken B]

if the aria weren't so peculiar this would probably be a more celebrated recording

That IS an incredibly celebrated recording. It has been since it was first released. Only the first Gould was ever more famous or praised.

I think it is 1) so wrong and 2) fantastic. If you want to make a case for non-HIP Bach this is the prime exhibit. E

TD
Hummel
String Quartets
Delmé Quartet

Excellent.

[HIPster]

First play of a recent purchase:

[asin]B00UKNOHHO[/asin]

The whole disc is excellent. 

[Kontrapunctus]

[Mandryka]

Thank you for posting this, Mandryka. I was unaware of this release, but streaming it now. I own both of Bylsma's Suite recordings, and Schiff on EMI, and have been satisfied with these three for years, but this one  from Swarts has really captured my attention. You've described it perfectly...thoughtful introspective poetic.

She's made quite a few recordings which I plan on exploring over the next few days.

One thing which I find really striking is the care that good cellists like Swartz are now taking to prepare instruments which suit the music of the suits. The days where someone would just turn up with one cello, the same one they might use for Beethoven and Britten to boot, and knock out these suits in the studio, are hopefully coming to an end.

[SimonNZ]

That IS an incredibly celebrated recording. It has been since it was first released. Only the first Gould was ever more famous or praised.

I think it is 1) so wrong and 2) fantastic. If you want to make a case for non-HIP Bach this is the prime exhibit. E

TD
Hummel
String Quartets
Delmé Quartet

Excellent.

Really?? This hasn't been my experience at all. I used to collect recordings of the Goldbergs and had 40 or 50 of them at one stage. I was constantly reading reviews and discographies and criticism of the recordings, talking to friends and people online about them, and reading lists of favorite Goldberg albums from others. My memory is that people seemed mostly unaware of the Kempf disc.

TD:



Debussy Preludes, Pascal Roge

[Mandryka]

Stokowski Tchaikovsky 4, American Symphony Orchestra, Vanguard. I'd never heard this famous and extremely contentious recording before so I was glad to find it on the web. To me it just sounds like Tchaikovsky, shows how little I know about the composer! I think the last time I listened to his fourth symphony was in 1990

It's here, if anyone wants to listen and tell me why it's so contentious

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x34opdd

[Harry]

TD, Third listen.
Pietro Vinci.
Secondo Libro di Ricercari a tre voci & Primo Libro della Musica a due voci.
Diego Cannizzaro, plays on a Giuseppe Speradeo organ from 1666, nella Chiesa di San Pantaleone in Alcara Li Fusi, Messina.
Pitch: LA3 = 415 HZ. Temperament: Mesotonico regolare.
Restored in 2000.

An absolute gem to me.

[Irons]

William Wallace was a contemporary and friend of Bantock, with whom he co-founded The New Quarterly Music Review. Of the two men, Bantock had the more successful career and was the more original and accomplished composer. Hyperion devoted much time and care on their music, in its 'Scottish Romantic' series.

Although titled "prelude", the first piece is a dramatic overture or tone poem all by itself. No other music for Aeschylus' play followed. The Pelléas suite otoh comprises other music than what is presented here. The composer wrote 5 movements, but extracted 3 to form a short suite (15 minutes). It is very nice, but does not really tell us much about the Maeterlinck play. Death of Melisande is a moving threnody.

In the Creation Symphony Wallace attempts - as implied by the title - to develop a work encompassing the process of the Creation by God. Wallace was a christian with strong sympathies for syncretism. Therefore a strong sense of the cosmos and its infinity is present in the symphony. Musically it translates into a "reflection of the evolutionary process of Nature, one subject growing out of another, and all springing from the initial germinal idea". It is emphatically not a descriptive work like Haydn's Creation, but attempts to reach the idea of the creation process, not any specific 'events'. It should be noted that Wallace wrote the work a few years before Scriabine's similarly influenced orchestral confections.

A well-rounded compilation of interesting late-romantic works. Wallace may be a minor master, but he makes his voice heard with assurance with these well-crafted works.

You make William Wallace sound interesting. I have heard the name but that's all.