What are you listening to now?

[Karl Henning]

For what it's worth, Karl, their Brandenburg Concertos are excellent, as is their Monteverdi - Vespers recording.  I do hope you make it to their performances once in a while.

Yes, I love that recording of the Monteverdi!

Hindemith, String Quartets vol. 2 (Nos. 5-7)  Amar Quartet (on Naxos)

First listen to these works.
Some of it is good, some of it interesting but doesn't connect with me.  And some of it, unfortunately a large part,  seems like Bartok on one of his lesser days.

Alack the day! I wonder if either the group or the recording (or both) have been the let-down. I cannot say that I think quite so highly of them as I do the Bartók, but I find them excellent nevertheless.

[listener]

BRAHMS:  Academic Festival Overture,  Alto Rhapsody,  Tragic Overture,
Variations on a Theme of Haydn
Hallé Orchestra and Chorus, Bernadette Greevy, contralto   James Loughran, cond.
not the smoothest sounding performances but good tempos and balance
NARDINI: Violin Concerto in e  TARTINI: Sinfonia Pastorale for Violin and Strings
Concerto for Violin in d
Jan Tomasow, violin and conducting the Vienna State Opera Chamber Orch.
MONTEVERDI: Il ballo delle ingrate
Società Cameristica di Lugano  Edwin Loehrer, cond.

[TheGSMoeller]

as is their Monteverdi - Vespers recording.

Yes, I love that recording of the Monteverdi!

One of the best I've heard, actually was the first so I credit the B.B. with my current Monteverdi appreciation. 

[not edward]

I don't think it would be the Amar Quartet.  If  am not mistaken, this quartet was formed by Hindemith who may well have been the original violist.

This is a new ensemble which takes the name of Hindemith's own. Would that the original Amar Quartet were well-represented on disc... I'm sure there'd be a lot of fascinating stuff there in addition to the recordings they did leave (a few quartets by Mozart, Bartok, Hindemith and Beethoven are about it as far as I'm aware).

Spent a bit of time recently with an interesting piece featuring string quartet, Isang Yun's Concertino for accordion and strings. Though on the surface it's no more than well-written conservative modernism (in the tradition of Hartmann and Henze as much as anyone else), I find the writing for the solo accordion elevates this work well beyond the routine: it would never have occurred to me that one could write a work where the accordion's sound emerges almost imperceptibly from that of the four strings. That's not all there is to it, of course, for Yun was too accomplished a composer to fob his listeners off with placid fake orientalisms: the soloist also plays an oppositional role at times, the rhetoric much closer to that of a conventional concerto here. All in all, a work much meatier than I would have expected--the title certainly undersells it--and Stefan Hussong seems to be revelling in the solo part. (The rest of the disc, though not quite as striking, is very well worth hearing too.)

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[Karl Henning]

Frescobaldi
Ricercari
Sergio Vartolo, hpschd & org

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[Geo Dude]

[Octave]

Re: Sinopoli Second Viennese box:

Word just in that my order has been delayed (which I knew already from checking the site).
I suppose the good news is, that the word was delayed and not cancelled!

Take that, Beantown!  That what ya'll get for getting your Haydn a week before us.

[Karl Henning]

(* chortle *)

[Brian]

From Naxos Music Library, the new Sibelius #1 from Minnesota:



Maybe it's the streaming sound and my headphones, but this is a small-scale, almost chamber-like reading of the symphony, a far cry from the barely-controlled wildness of Segerstam. Tempos in the first movement second subject are micromanaged, and clarity is prized over drama or "bigness." Interesting. Not sure how I feel about the very American wind/brass sound, although this is clearly a very well-drilled orchestra.

EDIT: Oh the climax of the slow movement gets very peculiar. Vanska is acquiring some serious mannerisms.

[Todd]

Dusting off a recording I haven't listened to in a while.  Some exceedingly well played, elegant Dvorak. 

[listener]

BEETHOVEN: Symphony no.3 "Eroica"
SW German Radio Orch., Bade-Baden      Horenstein, cond.
BARTOK: Viola Concerto  op. posth.    Gyula DAVID: Viola Concerto
Pál Lukács, viola     Janos Ferencsik, cond.   Staatliches Konzert-Orchester (Hungarian)
TCHAIKOWSKY:  "Moscow" Cantata  (no text/translation supplied)  Overture "1812" op.49  Marche Slav op. 31
Moscow Radio Chorus and Symphony Orch.   Rozhdestvensky, cond.

[DavidRoss]

#4



Low voltage? Maybe if you were expecting Sousa....

[TheGSMoeller]

#4



Low voltage? Maybe if you were expecting Sousa....

It's a good set, I think the 2nd might be the best of the four performed here, but like Harnoncourt's Schubert cycle, I can put on any of the discs and let it ride.

[Wakefield]

Mozart - Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21



Annerose Schmidt, piano
Dresden Philharmonic
Kurt Masur

[Lisztianwagner]

Émile Waldteufel
The Skaters

http://www.youtube.com/v/zirn3M3ewQc

[Sammy]

Prokofiev solo piano music courtesy of Roger Woodward, one of the very few outstanding Bach pianists:


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[Parsifal]

Prokofiev solo piano music courtesy of Roger Woodward, one of the very few outstanding Bach pianists:


[asin]B0091JS3XM[/asin]

I plan to listen to his WTC when I have gotten though Tureck's MCA recording.

[Johnll]

Interesting; I did not know if this were the original quartet whose membership had obviously changed, like many long-standing quartets - or if, as you say, it were an entirely different group who merely took the name. 

I also agree with your comments about the Yun work.

Plus 1 on this one and your rec on Meyers SQs from a few days ago - your comments on Shosty well....better left alone and each to his own.

[DavidRoss]

Grouchy's 3rd

Not as scrunchy and lively as Brüggen's "reference" 3rd, rather imperial and majestic instead, but still a fine alternative performance.

[Sammy]

I plan to listen to his WTC when I have gotten though Tureck's MCA recording.

I trust you will find Woodward's WTC a major treat.  He also has a single disc on Celestial Harmonies of a few Bach pieces.