Topic: What are you listening to now?

[Que]

I'm afraid I'm a little disappointed by this disc. I don't know the music in any other recording so I can't say if that's the fault of the performance or the works themselves. Either way: lifeless and unenthusiastic.

Your findings are confirmed here: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Jul/Merulo_motets_95243.htm

There are alternatives on Tactus that I need to check out. Thanks!

Go with that Montiverdi you were drooling over. 

Got you... 

["Harry"]

I'm afraid I'm a little disappointed by this disc. I don't know the music in any other recording so I can't say if that's the fault of the performance or the works themselves. Either way: lifeless and unenthusiastic.

Go with that Montiverdi you were drooling over. 

Yes, I had the same impression of that disc, so I hesitated buying it. Merulo would have been a disc I would grab immediately, but your review made it clear to me, that it is indeed lifeless.

["Harry"]

Amori & Sospiri, Passions in Early Baroque Music.

Sances: Usurpator tiranno
Cazzati: Passacaglio
Caccini: Al fonte, al prato
Kapsberger: Toccata I
Uccellini: Aria V sopra la Bergamasca
Dalla Casa: Ancor che col partire
Picchi: Pass'e mezzo
Strozzi: Lagrime mie
Anonymous: Spagnoletta
Riccio: Canzon a una Flautin ov. Cornetto
Falconieri: O bellissimi capelli
Fontana: Sonata Nr. 1
Piccinini: Chaccona in partite variate

Ensemble Anthonello.
Midori Suzuki, soprano.

The sheer variety of the music presented on this disc is amazing. It is showing essential aspects of the music at the beginning of the Baroque period in general. And that is exactly the era that makes me happy. I never encountered this Japanese ensemble before, and I only knew Midori Suzuki, who was for a short time one of the Key sopranos in the BIS Bach cantatas series. A sweet voice, lost this girlish tone she had, but in its place a matured and somewhat warmer voice emerged out of it.
As I said the variety of the music is an important element in the success of this recording. Composers ranging from Giovanni Felice Sances, over to Giovanni Battista Riccio and much between. This ensemble is good, even very good.
As to the sound, well...superb would be the appropriate term.

[Traverso]

Bach

[Biffo]

Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances - two-piano version - Ashkenazy & Previn. The enthusiastic  postings above, and others over the years, reminded me that the Dances always left me slightly disappointed without being able to say why. For many years I only had one orchestral version - Ashkenazy/Concertgebpouw; the Gergiev is a very recent acquisition and it had the same effect. I enjoy the two-piano version more. Given the general enthusiasm, it is probably just me.

["Harry"]

Carlo Ambrogio Lonati.

Sonate da Camera, from XII sonate e Violino solo e basso, Salzburg 1701.

Ars Antiqua Austria, Gunar Letzbor.

Lonati is a underrecorded composer, and frankly hardly anybody knows him. But he was a good composer and wrote music that can show itself with confidence. You can read a lot about Lonati on internet.
Suffice to say that this performance by Ars Antiqua Austria is a good one, and that Letzbor behaves himself, not too many violistic pranks.
Pristine sound.

[Traverso]

Mozart & Prokofiev

A recommendable set of recordings.

[ChopinBroccoli]

Mozart & Prokofiev

A recommendable set of recordings.

Best Prokofiev 5 there is, IMO

[steve ridgway]

^Awesome. You (I believe) showed me that Hommage à Boulez before, and I really want to get it. But I'm attempting to take a break from purchasing CDs online for the time being. It looks excellent, enjoy! I really enjoyed the Intercontemporain recording this morning. It definitely clicked like never before.

What of this recording...:



... any opinion...? I'm thinking of picking up a cheap box set on Sony which includes this work (it's entitled 20th Century Masterworks, and features a host of mostly extreme, far-out post-war avant-garde music in addition to the Boulez). I'm actually surprised how many times it has been recorded, especially by Boulez himself.

I like the box, 9.5 hours of assorted experimental albums released in the late 60s and early 70s .

[Traverso]

Best Prokofiev 5 there is, IMO

I am glad I bought this set. Yesterday I listened to the first disc with Schumann and it was enchanting, he is a true servant of the arts.
I am still listening to Mozart so Profiev is in the waiting room.

[vers la flamme]

I like the box, 9.5 hours of assorted experimental albums released in the late 60s and early 70s .

Well that sounds awesome... right up my alley 

Current listening: Boulez's Marteau sans maître yet again, same recording as before, Boulez/Intercontemporain/Summers. What a piece!!

[ChopinBroccoli]

I am glad I bought this set. Yesterday I listened to the first disc with Schumann and it was enchanting, he is a true servant of the arts.
I am still listening to Mozart so Profiev is in the waiting room.

Simply mesmerizing... so many moments in his playing where it feels as if he were improvising like a great jazz player, like it wasn't written down... I've never heard any other classical pianist who could so easily and frequently achieve this aesthetic effect in their playing... even among other players who I greatly admire (Argerich, Rubinstein, Gilels, Casadesus, Trifonov, Zimmerman, Serkin, De Larrocha, Ashkenazy, to name a few) it's achieved maybe 5% of the time (maybe 10 for Rubinstein) ... with Richter in his peak years, it happened at least briefly in every piece he played, the delicious illusion of spontaneity

An absolute genius!

[Brewski]

Dvořák: Symphony No. 6 (Dohnányi/Cleveland) — A longtime favorite recording, thanks to the spectacular work from the musicians and Decca's sound quality. The Janáček Taras Bulba is pretty glorious, too.

--Bruce

[Florestan]

Lyrical, colorfully orchestrated, tuneful (though not memorably so) works. The 3rd concerto features a structural oddity, beginning as it does with an extended cadenza which creates --- probably unwittingly --- a quite Haydnesque effect of false, even wrong, start. Aulin was the most celebrated Swedish violinist of his time and it shows: he had a knack for writing long, flowing, heartfelt, legato melodies. A most enjoyable disc.

[Traverso]

Rachmaninov

 A warm summer night evening,this piano concert suits very fine for the occasion.



 

[k a rl h e nn i ng]

The Vermeer Quartet playing LvB

[ChopinBroccoli]

Rachmaninov

 A warm summer night evening,this piano concert suits very fine for the occasion.



 

This and Van Cliburn ... unsurpassed, for me

[Traverso]

Simply mesmerizing... so many moments in his playing where it feels as if he were improvising like a great jazz player, like it wasn't written down... I've never heard any other classical pianist who could so easily and frequently achieve this aesthetic effect in their playing... even among other players who I greatly admire (Argerich, Rubinstein, Gilels, Casadesus, Trifonov, Zimmerman, Serkin, De Larrocha, Ashkenazy, to name a few) it's achieved maybe 5% of the time (maybe 10 for Rubinstein) ... with Richter in his peak years, it happened at least briefly in every piece he played, the delicious illusion of spontaneity

An absolute genius!

Although they are different, Michelangeli and Richter have much in common and were friends.

[HIPster]

Thank you for the review and recommendation SimonNZ!

I will certainly be adding this one. 

I'm a sucker for the music of Monteverdi and his contemporaries.  Now playing this somewhat recent purchase:

The phrase Memento mori (Latin for "remember that you will die") is a symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death. Catholic prayer oratories in the early years of the 17th century employed the vernacular Italian instead of Latin, a significant factor in attracting more participants. This works in this collection of 'moral cantatas' were designed to heighten the devotional feelings of those attending. The ancient practices of laude, basso ostinato and lamenti, as well as popular new musical genres, including opera, were used as a vehicle for spiritual messages in these works by Monteverdi & Rossi. Geoffroy Jourdain leads Les Cris de Paris in powerful readings of these deeply moving works.


This release is outstanding! 

[kyjo]

Dvořák: Symphony No. 6 (Dohnányi/Cleveland) — A longtime favorite recording, thanks to the spectacular work from the musicians and Decca's sound quality. The Janáček Taras Bulba is pretty glorious, too.

--Bruce

An utterly fantastic disc! In most other hands, Dvorak’s 6th comes across as a merely “pleasant” work. Not so with Dohnányi and the Clevelanders, who invest the music with such energy and commitment that it almost becomes a completely different piece, on par with the last three symphonies.