What are you listening to now?

[Brian]

You don't say which recording of the 2nd you heard, but if it was again Tintner then in both this and the 1st what you have been listening to were reconstructions of early drafts which went through much further revision before finally seeing the light of day in their first published versions.  It is a long time since I heard that Carragan 1866 version of the 1st but my recollection is that it was very different from the 1877 "Linz" edition which is what mostly gets played nowadays, on which I am guessing most of those voting in favour made their judgements.  Likewise the 1872 edition of the 2nd, which went through a process of iterative refinement in performance until you get the first "official" version of 1877 as conducted by Giulini, one of those recordings which makes you glad God gave you ears.

The First was Tintner and the Second was Skrowaczewski, who uses the Nowak edition without the cuts in the finale.

[Ken B]

Bruckner 4

[asin]B00BN1QV0S[/asin]

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

It seems to me the very pinnacle of hubris that so many rock musicians think they've got the stuff to write symphonies.  this is one, finally, that's worthy of the name (though actually written as a ballet score) 

[asin]B0002T260G[/asin]

[Sadko]

Bruckner

Symphony no. 0

USSR SO
Rozhdestvensky

EDIT: 0-1-1 - Bruckner, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky: Jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne (Hermann Hesse) [There is an enchantment/magic in every beginning]

[asin]B0064LJXWA[/asin]

[SonicMan46]

Beethoven - Symphonies - spending some time w/ this box today - Dave

[Sadko]

One more enchanted beginning:

Dvořák

Symphony No. 1 in C minor "The Bells of Zlonice"

Staatskapelle Berlin
Otmar Suitner

[asin]B0007D0AX2[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

Faust/Poppen rock!

[Mirror Image]

Concur and I count myself a fan of his!; your observation applies equally well to other works in this set, at least of the ones I've heard.  Igor's does not work at all for me.     Too bad, it was a very good, very creative idea to group these VCs in this way.

I'm a fan of his playing but felt this set to be unusually lackluster all the way through. There's no denying his obvious virtuosity, but these performances just didn't seem to click with me. Yes, it's a great concept to group these concerti together, but, unfortunately, the end result was less than the sum of its parts.

[Mirror Image]

Now:



A new acquisition. Listening to The Miraculous Mandarin. This is an absolute barnstorming, ferocious performance of this ballet. Certainly a feather in Peter Eotvos' cap here. Gives some serious competition to my current favorite Dohnanyi/VPO. This is a live recording made with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie.

[Todd]

[Mirror Image]

Now:





Listening to The Immeasurable Space of Tones. Really remarkable work. J. L. Adams is a fantastic composer IMHO. Granted, I can only take him in smaller doses, but he does his thing quite well.

[RebLem]

I am still experimenting with how I want to report my listening activities.  This time, I have chosen to go back to reporting a little more detail about each piece, but the big change here is that for every disc I list, the commentary follows immediately instead of being gathered at the end after everything has been listed without comment. Since my last report, I have listened to the following:

DVD of Vladimir Horowitz @ Carnegie Hall, the final disc in his set, and the only DVD.  It is an edited film of two concerts he did with the same program, on 2 JAN and 1 FEB 1968.  They  just chose, apparently, the best performance of each piece from the two concerts for this one film.

Chopin: Ballade 1 in G Minor, Op. 23 (9:34)   |Nocturne in F Minor, Op. 55/1 (5:37)   |Polonaise if F Sharp Minor, Op. 44 (10:42)
Domenico Scarlatti: Keyboard Sonata in E Major, K. 380 (3:15)   |Keyboard Sonata in G Major, K. 55 (2:46)
Schumann: Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18 (7:39)
Scriabin: Etude in D harp Minor, Op. 8/12 (2:50)
Schumann: Kinderszenen, Op. 15--# 7 "Traumerei" (3:12)
Bizet-Horowitz: Variations on a Theme from Bizet's "Carmen" (3:58)

It is one thing to listen to a performance.  It is  another thing entirely to watch  this tall, thin, almost emaciated, man who looks, somehow, much older than his then 64 years, playing.    The conformation of his body seems not to be ideally suited to  the piano.  His legs are long, so he has to sit somewhat further away from the piano than others.  He fidgets as he makes the compromises necessary to begin playing, first sitting a little further away from the keys than he should, in order to reach the pedals and keep his legs comfortable and then needing to make further adjustments in order to reach the keys and play comfortably. 

But one sees no such tentativeness once he begins to play.  Then, he is a master.  One frequently sees that in some passages, his left hand crosses the right hand to hit a few notes that one would ordinarily expect from just listening come from the  right hand.  Sight adds another dimension.   His proficiency at Chopin is unexcelled, and he has few peers, of course.  He finds a lilting subtlety in the Schumann Arabeske that few other pianists have plumbed.  The Traumerei is one of his perpetual favorites and appears in this collection on many occasions, but his most emotionally satisfying performance of this brief excerpt is not in this collection--it is the one from his Moscow concert in 1986, when many in his audience were in tears as he played this piece;  the great Horowitz had returned to his homeland for the first time since 1925.

Volume 42 of the complete Toscanini RCA recordings:

Beethoven:  Piano Concerto 4 in G Major, Op. 58 (21:08)--Rudolf Serkin, pianist, rec. Studio 8-H, 26 NOV 1944   
Piano  Concerto 1 in C Major, Op. 15 (32:05)--Ania Dorfman, pianist, rec. Carnegie Hall, 9 AUG 1945.

This disc, I think, represent two of Toscanini's lesser efforts.  Serkin was never one of my favorites in Beethoven, though his recording of the Emperor with Bernstein was one of the first five or six classical LPs I ever bought.  But that was before I really knew anything about which were the best interpretations.  I tended, in my early collecting days, to choose LPs with the longest and most detailed liner notes so I could familiarize myself with the composer, the work, and its place in history and the composer's output.  Those who remember those days will recall that Columbia records usually filled that bill, and that was the company for which Serkin and Bernstein made most of their recordings.

The PC 1 has a much stronger point of view.  It is one of the fastest recordings of this work on record, especially in the last movement.  Dorfman and Toscanini are obviously committed to a classical rather than a romantic view of this work.  They make this concerto sound more like Mozart than any other performance of it I can recall.  It is not the view I prefer.

CD 2 of the 4 CD set of Dvorak's larger chamber works from Supraphon.  The Panocha Quartet is featured with other musicians as needed.

String Quintet 2 in D Major, Op. 77 (1888) (string quartet + double bass) (33:29)--Pavel Nejtek, double bass
Intermezzo (Nocturne) for string quartet + double bass (4:22)--Pavel Nejtek, double bass.
Sextet in A Major, Op. 48 (1978) for violins, violas, and cellos in pairs (32:46)--Josef Kluson, 2nd viola: Michal Kanka, 2nd cello.

These Dvorak performances are universally excellent.  As I have said before, this box is absolutely essential for any lover of Dvorak's chamber music.

CD 12 (the last) of Vladimir Ashkenazy's traversal of the Shostakovich Symphonies.  These two feature the Royal Philharmonic Orch., rec. 1992.

Sym. 9 in E Flat Major, Op. 70 (1945) (24:51)
Sym. 15 in A Major, Op. 141 (1971) (40:05)

I have to add these two recordings to the list of those that are among the best in the Ashkenazy set.  His 9th, especially in the first movement, is one of the cheeriest works in DS's oeuvre, written, as it was, in the immediate aftermath of Soviet victory over Germany in 1945. 

The 15th is another one of those symphonies that is scored for a relatively small orchestra, with particular attention to some of the quieter, softer percussion instruments.  It is chock full of quotations from Rossini, Wagner, and several of DS's own works.  For the Soviet press, he said this was "my protest against death."  I see something to that, but as always with a man who was acutely aware of the political situation in his own country, it was only part of the truth.  This seems to me a symphony about a man reviewing his own life, looking back in the first movement to childhood play with toy soldiers, moving on to the serious events of adulthood and war in the second and third movements, and finally to going through the five stages of death in the last movement, culminating in an ending with a fine contrapuntal arrangement that involves an underlying death dirge, struggle against the injustice of it all, ghostly recollections of childhood play, and then the final death spiral involving peaceful reconciliation and acceptance at the end.  IMHO, the best recording of this work was the very first, conducted by Maxim Shostakovich about a year after the publication of the work and available, as far as I know, only on LP.   

[listener]

LLOYD WEBBER    Variations
Julian Lloyd Webber, cello   Don Airey, keyboards, Rod Argent, keyboards    Jon Hiseman, drums & perc., Gary Moore, guitar  Barbara Thompson, winds

[Moonfish]

Well, the set has the advantage of being veeery cheap. You have Casadesus for the piano works (including both books of Préludes), the Julliard doing the SQ, Munch in orchestral pieces, and then this Martyre. This recording has received generally good reviews in France, and it isn't bad, but I find it strangely old-fashioned (i.e., too operatic for my taste). I think it's a recording that doesn't stress the modernity of this music (this is, after all, a rather late piece by Claude de France). And then, if you don't happen to speak French (I luckily do), the recitation can become a nuisance (even if Michael Lonsdale is rather good at it)...

Sorry for the delayed response, Moonfish ...I've been away on business all day in Barcelona.

Thanks for all that information Ritter! It is always interesting to hear more about different versions of Saint Sebastian. I have mostly listened to the Ansermet rendition, which I found enchanting. However, I do not have much in terms of comparison (yet). At the same time it doesn't seem that there are that many recordings. Hmm, Bernstein did one.. (narrated in ENGLISH!!!! but sung in French)...

[asin] B000009CYJ[/asin]

I wonder if Sony will do a vocal/opera box next year...

[Moonfish]

Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites 1&2
Sibelius: Pelléas et Mélisande op 46 

Berliner Philharmoniker/Karajan

[asin] B00000E2LF[/asin]


Mozart:
Piano Sonatas 9, 10 & 11 (K 311, K 330, K 331)
Allegro    K 312

Lili Kraus

cd 3 from
[asin] B00LLHG94W[/asin]

[North Star]

Some solo Horowitz
[asin]B0000CE9YK[/asin]

[North Star]

Hmm, Bernstein did one.. (narrated in ENGLISH!!!! but sung in French)...

They must have been under the influence of something when they decided to have the narration in English. 

[amw]

Just checking...


Bruckner Symphony No.2
Rozhdestvensky / USSR Ministry of Culture SO

Yup.  Still the best.

I will trade you my soul for that set.


Recommended by Sgt Rock. First impressions, at 30 seconds in, are that it's like Günter Wand, except good.

update: First two movements are rushed, but ok. But the slow movement is really solid—right mix of urgency and lyricism. Harps prominent. I really like this.

update 2: OK, finale is a different conception of the piece than the one the last 4 recordings I've heard have suggested. It's also 21 minutes of undiluted awesome. I may have to give it the edge over Rozhd for #1 of these five.
I've liked the finales the most in general though, so maybe the finale is just the only part of the symphony I actually like? (Though I really enjoyed this adagio as well, more than the previous ones I've heard, so who knows.)

[Moonfish]

From this set:


Claude Debussy: Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien - Michael Lonsdale (narrator). vocal soloists, Brighton Festival Chorus, Orchestre National d'Île-de-France, Jacques Mercier (cond.)

Original release?

[asin] B00006BSW2[/asin]

[Harry]

Some really fine Mottetti....

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2014/11/melani-alessandro-1639-1703-mottetti.html?spref=tw