What are you listening to now?

[San Antone]

Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
Performer: Maria Ewing, François Le Roux, José van Dam, Christa Ludwig, Patrizia Pace, et al.
Orchestra: Wiener Philharmoniker
Conductor: Claudio Abbado

[aligreto]

Schubert: Octet....

[Camphy]

Prokofiev: Sonata for violin & piano 1

[asin]B00SO4D0NS[/asin]

[The new erato]

Maria Milstein; interesting association.

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

Er.. You've lost me a bit. Where did evil come into it? Ah, unless you've just segued into what your listening to right now! 

^ And I thought evil was just 'glamorous'-with-a-twist.'

Sometimes I'm not as Callas as I think I am. . .

---



There's a sort-of mini climax toward the end of the first movement of the Dvorak Violin Concerto which I love. I only wish that Dvorak would have fleshed-out and developed that melody for the rest of movement!

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

Yes Macbeth is a pure goodness!

Evil here too, and occasionally pretty thunderous as well:

[asin]B00006C2D8[/asin]

Have you heard Stokowski's live late-fifties Shosty Eleventh?

I think 'incandescence' would be an underexaggeration.

[aligreto]

Honegger: Symphony No. 3....

[Pat B]

Earlier I listened to Bruch's Second Violin Concerto and some more obscure violin + orchestra works. I've heard the concerto before but not the others. None of it really grabbed me, but I should give it another listen.

Now listening to Mahler's Klagende Lied.

[Tsaraslondon]

Have you heard Stokowski's live late-fifties Shosty Eleventh?

I think 'incandescence' would be an underexaggeration.

Sound is awful, but performance, as you say, incandescent!

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

Sound is awful, but performance, as you say, incandescent!

Oh, definitely.

If it were for the best and most powerfully engineered 'sound,' then my vote would be for the EMI Berglund/Bournemouth performance.

But when it comes to performance 'per se'- I always reach for the 'wide-open throttle, pure nitromethane supercharged Hemi' reading of the Stokowski- which just leaves the competition behind in the dust.

[Todd]

[amw]

No. 1.

I didn't think I needed another Nielsen set, but this performance changed my mind, tbh.

edit: No. 3 is... less good. I mean, still good, but it's starting to change my mind back again. But the No. 1 is undoubtedly the best performance I've heard.

[Wakefield]

I have recently listened through Vivaldis op. 1 - op.12 incl. Yes, there are some outstanding works there, but much of the rest is just stuffed with repetitive and foreseeable stereotypes IMO, but this may rather belong to the "unpopular opinions" thread.

Can I ask you a sincere question? Vivaldi should be judged, then, by the repetitive stuff (it is a concession) or by his extraordinary stuff. A man should be judged by the valleys he walked or by the mountains he conquered? Bach, for instance, had a very clear opinion on this. Bach didn't need to listen to the first twelve numbers of Vivaldi's catalogue to transform his encounter with him in a sort of breaking point in his career. Bach just needed to know the Op. 3 in order to accept his genius.

Not to mention that it is Baroque music, and these guys, by definition, were forced to write a lot of strictly dispensable music in order to earn a living (especially if they didn't have a reasonably well paid official position).

All that said, I don't doubt for a second that every man has right to choose his own gods. 

[Mirror Image]

No. 1.

I didn't think I needed another Nielsen set, but this performance changed my mind, tbh.

Oramo's Nielsen is top-notch. One of my favorites.

[Mookalafalas]

Can I ask you a sincere question? Vivaldi should be judged, then, by the repetitive stuff (it is a concession) or by his extraordinary stuff. A man should be judged by the valleys he walked or by the mountains he conquered? Bach, for instance, had a very clear opinion on this. Bach didn't need to listen to the first twelve numbers of Vivaldi's catalogue to transform his encounter with him in a sort of breaking point in his career. Bach just needed to know the Op. 3 in order to accept his genius.

Not to mention that it is Baroque music, and these guys, by definition, were forced to write a lot of strictly dispensable music in order to earn a living (especially if they didn't have a reasonably well paid official position).

All that said, I don't doubt for a second that every man has right to choose his own gods. 

  Nice post. 

TD:
[asin]B015EW76S2[/asin]

  Kind of fits the discussion.  This is very high caliber stuff, but high caliber for a craftsman who was expected to produce steadily.  Goebel and the team do a great job as well. I like this much better than his recent Biber, which I thought fell rather below the mark.

[kishnevi]

In answer to your (rhetorical) question about Hunt Lieberson, "None that I know of."

I wonder, though, what is your problem with Daniels, a singer, who, to my mind, has very similar qualities to Hunt Lieberson, and who also, as far as I am aware, has never made a bad record. I first heard him live at the Barbican in an all Vivaldi programme with Fabio Biondi, and fell completely under his spell. I was pretty much allergic to countertenors before I heard him, but here was a voice of surpassing beauty, full and rich that easily filled the hall, allied to a gift for communication, innate musicality and an emotional connection with the text which is second to none. I have heard him live several times now, in a wide range of different music, and he never disappoints.

I do not get the emotional connection you refer to.  Perhaps seeing him live made a difference?

Can I ask you a sincere question? Vivaldi should be judged, then, by the repetitive stuff (it is a concession) or by his extraordinary stuff. A man should be judged by the valleys he walked or by the mountains he conquered? Bach, for instance, had a very clear opinion on this. Bach didn't need to listen to the first twelve numbers of Vivaldi's catalogue to transform his encounter with him in a sort of breaking point in his career. Bach just needed to know the Op. 3 in order to accept his genius.

Not to mention that it is Baroque music, and these guys, by definition, were forced to write a lot of strictly dispensable music in order to earn a living (especially if they didn't have a reasonably well paid official position).

All that said, I don't doubt for a second that every man has right to choose his own gods. 

Do not forget that Vivaldi did not foresee people listening to concertos in a row, twelve at a time. Perhaps a couple interspersed with other music, not necessarily his, at a weekly concert. 
TD CDs 36/37 of the SEON box
Telemann 12 Sonate Methodice

[Todd]

From the big box.  Nicely played, but could use a bit more oomph.

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Gergiev sounds quite involved in this performance. It seems that many of his LSO Live performances are hit/miss. This may very well be a hit if he keeps up this kind of momentum.

[Mandryka]

Beauty Farm sing Gombert motets. The recording is closely miked and loud. The sound they make together really has a  powerful bass, Hilliard made a sound a bit like this for Gombert. They sing forth in a hot, passionate, extrovert way. Phrasing is fluid, there is a pulse but only just. Balances are voix égales.

In the notes they pride themselves on having created editions which reveal for the first time Gombert dissonances in an authentic way. The dissonances seem less striking than with Henry's Eight or The Sound and the Fury, who have recorded some of the same motets.

[SimonNZ]

Ondrej Adamek's "Polednice" for choir and orchestra - Alexander Liebreich, cond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yXh6aN99Vg


once again very impressed by this composer - sometime last year I was telling anyone who cared to listen to check out the particularly well shot and well performed concert film that Ensemble Intercontemporain made of his fascinating and unique "Kameny":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qotj5LdxASA