What are you listening to now?

[Opus106]

Leoš Janáček
The Suite from The Cunning Little Vixen

Bohuslav Martinů

Oboe Concerto
Fantasie

Henri Dutilleux
Symphony No. 1

Pauline Oostenrijk, Oboe
Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra | Gabriel Chmura

This looks very interesting indeed, Nav!! What do you think of the pieces? (and the performance)

An enjoyable concert, Karlo; very fine music all 'round, especially from the Czech masters. I had somehow wrongly remembered that I'd listened to the entire thing before, but only when the Fantasie (for piano, oboe, theremin* and string quartet) began I realised that there was some new music in my way. The oboe concerto, which was an instant hit with me when I first heard it, sounded ever nicer this time; it really ought to be better known. The Fantasie is the first piece I've listened to where a theremin plays a prominent role. (In Ives' 4th symphony, which is the only other piece featuring this instrument I've come across, it creates more of an 'atmosphere', or at least part of it, in the final movement.) Here, however, it sounded, at times, like a gagged soprano of mediocre talents --sub-par, really -- trying to intervene in an otherwise excellent piece of chamber music. (Perhaps it was just the recording/performance/me.) The Dutilleux I've herad once before in another performance, and it is completely different from this later, 'sound-scapy' works. Enjoyable orchestration. I'm afraid I can't comment on the performances as these are the only versions (apart from the HD, as mentioned) I've heard so far.



*Firefox doesn't recognise the word!

[Opus106]

The Fantasie is the first piece I've listened to where a theremin plays a prominent role.

Of course, there is this...

http://www.youtube.com/v/75V4ClJZME4

...although I'm not sure if it can be counted in.

[Karl Henning]

Nav — I didn't realize the piece allowed for either theremin or ondes Martenot!

Thread Duty:

Martinů
Fantaisie, H.301 for theremin (or ondes Martenot), ob, str qt & pf (1944 Ridgefield, CT)
Solistes de l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg

[asin]B00005AMLI[/asin]

[Gurn Blanston]

Okay, so I saw the references to the ophicleide this morning!

Later, during one of the 8th Grade classes, the word "flatterer" comes up, and among the rather nasty English equivalents there is the Greek-derived "sycophant."

I mentioned that in Greek it also was a most unpleasant word, but since few people know about it, "sycophant" in English is quite acceptable.

So later I went to a dictionary to see if the etymology explained just how obscene the word is in Ancient Greek.  I opened the dictionary at random...looked down to see where my thumb happened to break open the book...

...and my eyes landed on the word "ophicleide"!!!

Should I be afraid?  Is this an omen?  Of what?  Will I be accosted today by somebody wielding an ophicleide and trying to lighten my wallet of its $3.17?

Probably for another thread, but I must say here that I am intimately familiar with the ophicleide, even possessing video of two being usefully employed (playing Symphonie Fantastique, if you must know), and I also thought I knew about sycophants, but apparently not enough to push them over the proverbial edge that looms beyond ass-kisser....

[jlaurson]

I mentioned that in Greek it also was a most unpleasant word, but since few people know about it, "sycophant" in English is quite acceptable.

I was going to question that... (well, I still don't think it's got any English speaker will find it a remotely acceptable word, when applied to him or herself), but then I realized that the word I was thinking of was really "sophist"... which, if I call you that in English you can strike out my birthday in your calendar... but which in Greek was apparently just a description of anyone who used that particular reasoning, named after the good sophists.

Thread duty:


  J.S. Bach
Cantatas for Ascension Day v.28
BWV 43, 37, 128, 11
Gardiner / ORR / Ruiten, Bragle, Tortise, Henschel
SDG 185
German link - UK link

The straggler... because these cantatas were not usable on the in the 2000 recordings, so they were finished last year at St.Giles' Cripplegate. You can tell that this is not a on-the-run effort (not to disparage the rest of this marvelous series)... but you can still tell it's a live recording. A favorite, among the lot.

[madaboutmahler]

Good evening, all!

Yesterday:
[asin]B00000I7RA[/asin]

Very fine performances of brilliant music!

This afternoon:
[asin]B000NTPAN0[/asin]

So beautiful!

[Wakefield]

I was going to question that... (well, I still don't think it's got any English speaker will find it a remotely acceptable word, when applied to him or herself), but then I realized that the word I was thinking of was really "sophist"... which, if I call you that in English you can strike out my birthday in your calendar... but which in Greek was apparently just a description of anyone who used that particular reasoning, named after the good sophists.

The discredit implicit in the word "sophist" is one of the most resounding successes of Plato.

Plato was rich and aristocrat and he couldn't respect to people teaching in exchange for money.

Today philosophy teachers (all of them proud employees) happily teach the same  doctrine in their lessons of Greek Philosophy. 

[Karl Henning]

Good evening, Daniel!

And now, featuring the rehabilitated composer:

Koechlin
Nocturne chromatique, Op.33
Deborah Richards

[Karl Henning]

Schuman
Symphony № 6 (1948)
Seattle Symphony
Schwarz

[asin]B003NEQATA[/asin]

[Lisztianwagner]

Good evening all. Only Wagner today.....

Richard Wagner
Tristan und Isolde, act 1^

[asin]B000002SDZ[/asin]

[jlaurson]

The discredit implicit in the word "sophist" is one of the most resounding successes of Plato.

Plato was rich and aristocrat and he couldn't respect to people teaching in exchange for money.

Today philosophy teachers (all of them proud employees) happily teach the same  doctrine in their lessons of Greek Philosophy. 

Huh... very neat. Sort of like Shakespeare and the posteritous slamming of Richard III.

And the word-twisting... the idea of a sophist who uses literalisms in order to betray the spirit of the word by sticking to the letter?

[Wakefield]

And the word-twisting... the idea of a sophist who uses literalisms in order to betray the spirit of the word by sticking to the letter?

The sophists basically taught Rhetoric: the art of being right. They trained their pupils to argue because they believed that truth could not be limited to just one side of the argument. So they were basically relativists, quite evidently on the contrary side of Plato's ideas, who believes in the objectivity of beauty, truth, justice and so. Their interests were, therefore, more on the logic of the argumentation than on the truth itself. 

[Karl Henning]

Isn't being right a condition, rather than an art?

[Sadko]

Wagner

Transscriptions

Cyprien Katsaris

[Wakefield]

Isn't being right a condition, rather than an art?

That's exactly what Plato thought because the truth is one and objective.

Relativists usually think the other way: truth is not a condition of the things themselves, but a property of the propositions about those things. So truth implies, essentially, a right articulation of the discourse. And that's the field of the Rhetoric. 

[Gurn Blanston]

This one here;

[asin]B0000027TV[/asin]

By far my favorite Bach disk. 

[jlaurson]

Wagner

Transscriptions

Cyprien Katsaris

Ay... hark! You have that recording? So do I, but I lost the booklet. I suppose you might not be able to send me a reasonably high quality scan of it, could you? That would be grrrrrrrreat!

[prémont]

J S Bach: Orgelbüchlein

Pierre Bardon
at the Isnard organ of the Cathedral of the Royal Monastery in St.-Maximin, France.
Label: Syrius

Authoritative, relaxed playing and colourful, often full registrations - sometimes so full as almost to drown the music in organo plenissimo. Bardon´s playing seems deeply felt and reminds me sometimes of Walter Kraft. Each prelude is preceded by the chorale in question in plain harmonisation. The booklet mentions nothing about this, but I think Bardon improvises these harmonisations. This way of performing the Orgelbüchlein works IMO better than alternatim singing.

The historic very French Baroque sounding organ is gorgeous and is very well captured by the engineer.

[Sadko]

Ay... hark! You have that recording? So do I, but I lost the booklet. I suppose you might not be able to send me a reasonably high quality scan of it, could you? That would be grrrrrrrreat!

I sent you a PM.

[not edward]

Just because.

[asin]B00004YU78[/asin]