Topic: What are you listening to now?

[Mandryka]

Recorded in 1985 and issued by Koch Schwann, later licensed to DGG. This is the orchestral arrangement by Fritz Stiedry (1883-1969), a protégé of Gustav Mahler. Participated in the premieres of Schonberg’s Die Glückliche Hand. Director of the Berlin Opera, emigrated to the USSR in 1933, where he premiered Shostakovich’s first piano concerto with the composer as soloist. Emigrated to the US, where his career at the Lyric Opera and the Met lasted from 1940 to 1958. The orchestra is treated very transparently, indeed the results are luminous. 6 of the 20 canons are played by a keyboard duo. I haven’t been able to find if this was part of Stiedry’s original concept or if it was that of the conductor Hans Zender, a conductor usually heard in modern music (Rihm, Dallapiccola, Webern, Feldman and his own compositions).

I found the result very satisfying. I am usually bored before the halfway mark in this work, but not here.

When I heard it I was a bit disappointed because, given Zender's reputation for new music, I was hoping for something more adventurous in the orchestration. Where's the Klangfarbenmelodie? The piano pieces are nicely done though.

[Madiel]

I just worked out that Shostakovich was 13 years old when he wrote op.1. This is terrifying.

Moving on to op.3, written at the ripe old age of 15.

[Florestan]

Disc 6, the last. Say's moaning & groaning was quite tolerable on the other 5 but on this one it's really annoying. Nevertheless, this is an excellent set.

[Traverso]

Bach

[André]

According to the booklet of the DG release all the arrangements are made by Fritz Stiedry, not Hans Zender.

The contrapuncti are played in the sequence of the original printed score, except that the canons are interspersed between the contrapuncti and played by the two pianists, who also play the three-part mirror fugue. All the other contrapuncti, the four-part mirror fugue and the unfinished fugue are played by the symphony orchestra.

If you consider the AoF a symphonic work - and as such it is well played - , this may well be for you, but it is not my cup of tea.

Thanks for the info, Premont, I couldn’t figure how the orchestra/keyboard setup had come into being. The DGG issue is a super budget one, with only a paragraph of notes, in German only. And it didn’t clear up the issue.

Bought it on JPC for a couple of € if memory serves.

[Madiel]

Volume 3 of "The Lesser Known Nielsen"



A more appealing singer than on the first 2 volumes, so that's a plus. Which then leaves you with the fact that a great number of these songs were designed more for popular singing than for listening. There are a few from incidental music for plays, and the rest are from collections of "folk-like" melodies or songbooks intended for school use (some are still mislabelled). They are simple and strophic.

I shall press on to listen volumes 4 and 5 but I doubt they are going to be revelatory.

[vandermolen]

Bliss: Miracle in the Gorbals
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden conducted by Constant Lambert (1946):

[Traverso]

Purcell