What are you listening to now?

[Moonfish]

Thread duty...

Bax: Symphony No 2/ November Woods       Royal Scottish NO/ Lloyd-Jones

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Handel: Sue Stille, Sanfte Quelle      Rial/Australian Baroque Company/Oman

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Mozart: Symphonies No 40 & 41        Berliner Philharmoniker/Giulini

[Wakefield]

Finally cracked open the Horowitz big box with Rach 3.  Not my favorite Rachmaninoff work, and I've certainly heard versions I prefer (Kocsis, Janis, Volodos, Simon, Argerich, Cliburn, Ashkenazy).

With so many versions in mind, I suppose it's increasingly hard to enjoy a work itself, as the first time: naively. As so many things in life, comparative listens are both enlarging and also an insidious poison.

Now:

[king ubu]

Great set! How do you like the audience?   

Still making my way through it all for the first time (though I've had some of the Christie recordings before and have played a few of the discs more than once). Enjoying it quite some indeed ... hadn't really taken notice of the audience - anything in particular on these discs? I was tending to other business while listening, as I'm doing most of the time these days, alas.

Now playing disc 6 of this:

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Which is this one here:

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Found a very nice LP (Odyssey) of Eleanor Steber singing Barber's Knoxville recorded in Nov. 1950.  Fun new fact (for me) : she commissioned the work from him.  Many, I think, will prefer a more natural to her operatic approach to this work, but really quite enjoyable and a happy find.  Here's the CD:

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[André]

Bruno Walter rehearsing Beethoven symphonies. Fascinating. I was not aware that his English was so good. Very fluent, pleasantly accented. Never the stern taskmaster, always polite and attentive to every minute nuance of playing. He often speaks to the players (first desks) by name and sings his wishes to illustrate musically. His insistence on proper balances and exact rythms is almost maniacal.

This is firmly mitteleuropa playing. Soft-contoured, firmly shaped, never excessive. Compared to Charles Munch, who is all craggy, almost hysterical charging and surgically balanced, it is hard to believe that they came from more or less the same musical background. Munch spent decades playing in Germany (he was concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester) under Abendroth, Walter, Furtwängler.

[EigenUser]

Currently:

[Ken B]

Currently:

Pfffft. Ionisation.

[EigenUser]

Pfffft. Ionisation.

Nope

[Ken B]

 

Nope

Atmospheres

[listener]

A very interesting cello programme
REINECKE:  Concerto in D, op. 82     SCHUMANN arr. Ansermet: Adagio and Allegro op. 70    BLOCH: Suite for solo cello, TAVENER: Threnos for solo cello
GOLIJOV: Mariel for cello and marimba
Michael Samis, cello    Gateway Chamber Orch.    Gregory Wolyrec, cond.
And one of the more rare offerings in the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series:
Vianna da MOTTA:  Piano Concerto in A, Fantasia Dramatica for piano and orch.
Ballada for piano solo
Artur Pizzaro, piano    Orquestra Gulbenkian
Martyn Brabbins, cond.
And finish with some guitar music by Augustín BARRIOS and PONCE: Folia de España – Theme & Variations with Fugue
John Williams, guitar

[Ken B]

K A Hartmann, Violin Concerto, funebre
Steinbacher, Orpheus CO

[torut]

Dave Smith - Al Contrario, played by Sarah Walker
A very nice calming piano piece. Thanks to Dax.

[Moonfish]

Purcell: Theatre Music     AAM/Hogwood

[otare]

Beethoven's three last sonatas. CD 5 from the Decca Richter box. Marvellous playing.

[king ubu]

Discs 11 and 14 now:

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CD 11 / FRANCOIS COLIN DE BLAMONT: Égine

Virginie Pochon, Caroline Mutel, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Arnaud Marzorati
Les Nouveaux Caractères/Sébastien d'Hérin


CD14 / La Renaissance de l'Orchestre Français

DELALANDE: Les Folies de Gardenio (extraits)
Ensemble Baroque de Limoges/Christophe Coin

MONDONVILLE: Sonates en symphonie Op. 3 Nos. 4 & 6
Les Musiciens du Louvre/Marc Minkowski


Disc 14 again contains material released elsewhere (Laborie and Universal/DG/Archiv/whatever), but to me it's all new.

[king ubu]

Completing my first run-through the entire thing now:

CD 15 / Les Italiens à la cour de France

SACCHINI: Oedipe à Colone (extraits)
PICCINNI: Didon (extraits), Didone abbandonata (extrait)

Roberta Invernizzi
Capella della Pietà de' Turchini/Antonio Floro


CD 16 / L'Opéra français aux portes du romantisme

Sacchini's "Dardanus" overture, followed by bits from operas by Kreutzer (Abel), Monsigny (Le Déserteur), Lesueur (La Caverne), Gossec ("Sabinus"-Suite) and Philidor (Ernelinde) sung by Pierre-Yves Pruvot, played by Les Agrément/Guy van Waas; then we get some Grétry: an overture (Le Huron) and two exceprts (La Fausse Magie, L'Amant jaloux) sung by Isabelle Poulenard, played by Les Paladins/Jérôme Correas


CD 20 / Les Nouveaux accents de la foi au temps de LouisXVI

GOSSEC: Terribilis est
GIROUST: Benedic anima mea
Choeur de chambre de Namur (Jean Tubéry), Les Agrémens (Guy van Waas)/Jean-Claude Malgoire

RIGEL: La Sortie d'Égypte
Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, Orchestre des Folies françoises (Patrick Cohën-Akenine)/Olivier Schneebeli

SÉJEAN: Noël suisse
LASCEUX: Morceau pour les Flûtes
BALBASTRE: Marche des Marseillois et l'air ça ira
Olivier Latry (org)

all but the organ pieces of this last disc has been previously released (on K 617), but again all is new to me

[Sergeant Rock]

Haydn Symphony No.38 C major




Sarge

[North Star]

Sibelius
Symphonies nos. 4 & 5
Maazel & Wiener Philharmoniker
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[Brahmsian]

Sibelius
Symphonies nos. 4 & 5
Maazel & Wiener Philharmoniker
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*pounds the table!* 

[Sergeant Rock]

The Hobbit playing with fire: Haydn Symphony No.59 A major




Sarge