What are you listening to now?

[Todd]

The Ninth.

[Todd]

PCs 9 & 14.

[TheGSMoeller]

A sudden feeling of sadness while listening to this since I've heard the news about Harnoncourt...

[asin]B00000IMU9[/asin]

[Artem]

Found this today at a local used cd shop and have already listened to it 3 times in a row. Motets are especially good.

[asin]B0000DET8P[/asin]

[SimonNZ]

Ondřej Adámek's "Ca tourne ça bloque" - Ensemble Court Circuit, Jean Deroyer, cond.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBTSFRqN9V4

[Florestan]

Last week it´s been an all-Lieder one.

This 5-CD boxset of Mendelssohn´s work in the genre is a desert island one --- not least because of the classy artwork featuring paintings by the same Mendelssohn.



From the Hyperion website:

The latest research indicates that at least one hundred-and-six lieder, thirteen vocal duets and sixty part-songs by Mendelssohn have survived. Yet even during an age characterized by an apparently insatiable desire for the musically obscure and neglected, these impeccably crafted microcosms are rarely encountered in the concert hall where Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf (even Liszt by musical association) continue to form the backbone of the Austro-German Romantic lieder tradition.

The main reason for this neglect is Mendelssohn's comparatively narrow emotional range. Whereas the aforementioned composers all fearlessly probed the dark side of the human psyche, for the peaceable, broadly contented and self-contained Mendelssohn such concerns simply lay outside his experience. Equally, his songs were above all intended to be sung and enjoyed around the piano at home rather than subjected to public scrutiny. It is hardly Mendelssohn's fault that (with the notable exception of Mozart) commentators generally share an irrational tendency to upgrade the value of music in which laughter emerges only through tears rather than the other way round.[/b]

(emphasis mine, and amen!)

This superb disc starts with a most frolicsome and insouciant Die Forelle and ends with a truly demonic Erlkonig that sent shivers down my spine.



Also started my way through Loewe´s complete Lieder & Balladen with vol. 1 (of 21)



So far, so good.

Now playing

[Wakefield]

Dvorák: Piano Quintet, Op. 81, Bagatelles, Op. 47
Ensemble Explorations



I'm a great admirer of Dieltiens and his Ensemble Explorations, but this 2007 lovely release flew totally under my radar.

I knew the superb quintet, but I was totally unprepared for the intimacy and power of those small pieces of Op. 47, scored for the combination of two violins, cello... and harmonium, here played by the pianist Frank Braley.

Highly recommended. 

[aligreto]

Found this today at a local used cd shop and have already listened to it 3 times in a row. Motets are especially good.

[asin]B0000DET8P[/asin]

Great find! That is an excellent disc.

[aligreto]

Schubert: Die Winterreise with Tear/Ledger....

[Rinaldo]

This 5-CD boxset of Mendelssohn´s work in the genre is a desert island one --- not least because of the classy artwork featuring paintings by the same Mendelssohn.

First time I've heard about Mendelssohn's lieder other than those ohne worte. Must explore!

Speaking of easygoing, feel good music:

[asin]B000003D0V[/asin]
A treasure trove of beautiful melodies and gripping polyphony, especially the titular symphony and the Alleluia and Fugue.

[Maestro267]

Walton: Symphony No. 1 in B flat minor
City of Birmingham SO/Rattle

[Florestan]

First time I've heard about Mendelssohn's lieder other than those ohne worte. Must explore!

A most curious case, this one: a composer more famous for his songs without words than for his songs with words, and it´s a pitty because the latter are just as good as the former.

[The new erato]

A most curious case, this one: a composer more famous for his songs without words than for his songs with words, and it´s a pitty because the latter are just as good as the former.

I wasn't aware that those had been boxed up. Is that a recent thing, and is the box favorably priced?

[Florestan]

I wasn't aware that those had been boxed up. Is that a recent thing, and is the box favorably priced?

They hadn´t been, actually. My bad --- I thought of them as a whole, hence my rather misleading wording. There are only the individual volumes available, of which the 5th is a twofer.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Day One of my Vaughan Williams-athon, beginning with the Mass in G Minor on a pristine LP.  So much to look forward to (and quite a bit of VW remains unrecorded, though the RVW Society has done much to remedy that situation).

[Florestan]

Earlier today



Now playing, for a change

[Karl Henning]

G'day, Andrei!

In my ear now:

Webern
Variations, Op.27
Pollini

[asin]B005PUUMQ2[/asin]

[Maestro267]

After yesterday's playthrough of The Apostles:

Elgar: The Kingdom
Soloists, London Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult

[Karl Henning]

After yesterday's playthrough of The Apostles:

Elgar: The Kingdom
Soloists, London Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra/Sir Adrian Boult

What's your opinion of The Kingdom? TIA.

[Brahmsian]

What's your opinion of The Kingdom? TIA.

Good morning, Karl!

Thread duty:

Stravinsky

L'Oiseau de feu

Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Dorati

Decca