What are you listening to now?

Started by Dungeon Master, February 15, 2013, 09:13:11 PM

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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.
Quote from Manuel, born in Spain, currently working at Fawlty Towers.

" I am from Barcelona, I know nothing.............."

Traverso

Mozart & Prokofiev

A recommendable set of recordings.






ChopinBroccoli

Quote from: Traverso on August 24, 2019, 04:30:51 AM
Mozart & Prokofiev

A recommendable set of recordings.







Best Prokofiev 5 there is, IMO
"If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it!"
- Handel

steve ridgway

Quote from: vers la flamme on August 22, 2019, 02:35:09 PM
^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 8).

Traverso

Quote from: ChopinBroccoli on August 24, 2019, 04:42:44 AM
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

Quote from: 2dogs on August 24, 2019, 04:43:32 AM
I like the box, 9.5 hours of assorted experimental albums released in the late 60s and early 70s 8).

Well that sounds awesome... right up my alley  :laugh:

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

ChopinBroccoli

#140746
Quote from: Traverso on August 24, 2019, 04:54:01 AM
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!
"If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it!"
- Handel

bhodges

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.

[asin]B00000E4KO[/asin]

--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.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Traverso

Rachmaninov

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





Karl Henning

The Vermeer Quartet playing LvB
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

ChopinBroccoli

Quote from: Traverso on August 24, 2019, 11:54:18 AM
Rachmaninov

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






This and Van Cliburn ... unsurpassed, for me
"If it ain't Baroque, don't fix it!"
- Handel

Traverso

Quote from: ChopinBroccoli on August 24, 2019, 07:03:38 AM
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

Quote from: SimonNZ on August 23, 2019, 05:43:42 PM

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:
[asin]B00D3S1XL6[/asin]

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!  :)
Wise words from Que:

Never waste a good reason for a purchase....  ;)

kyjo

Quote from: Brewski on August 24, 2019, 09:28:29 AM
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.

[asin]B00000E4KO[/asin]

--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.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

HIPster

Quote from: "Harry" on August 24, 2019, 03:19:19 AM
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.

Very nice review Harry:)

Okay, added to the wishlist. . .  :laugh:

Anthonello's Frescobaldi disc on BIS is a favorite of mine.

Now playing:

[asin]B000BQVAKM[/asin]
Wise words from Que:

Never waste a good reason for a purchase....  ;)

Karl Henning

The Op. 123 in the Harnoncourt LvB box.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Iota



String Quartet No.5

Not sure I find the opening fugue as charismatic as the rest of it, but from little acorns mighty oaks etc. And the excellent final Passacaglia's theme does seem to pinch a few notes from its subject.

Kontrapunctus


Madiel

A Bach cantata twice in a week? At this rate I'll... still be rapidly overtaken by those going through a CD each day...  :laugh:



BWV 45, Es ist dir gesagt, Mensch, was gut ist
I am now working on a discography of the works of Vagn Holmboe. Please visit and also contribute!