What are you listening to now?

[North Star]

You can have your Vanska, North Star. ... and I love that you love Sibelius.

Right back at you.

Thread duty - happy 150th birthday

Sibelius
Valse triste
Helsinki Philharmonic
Paavo Berglund

Andante festivo
Finnish RSO
Sibelius (New Year's Eve Radio Broadcast, 1939)
https://www.youtube.com/v/vgXI8tnibmI

[Sergeant Rock]

Thread duty - happy 150th birthday

I can't start celebrating for another forty minutes.

Sarge

[North Star]

I can't start celebrating for another forty minutes.

Sarge

He wasn't born in your timezone, you know.  0:)

[SimonNZ]

on the radio:

Balakirev's Symphony No 1 - James Loughran, cond.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Well, my Bach is worse than my bite.

Besides, its the job of others to be witty, and clever, and to entertain me.

My job is just to be gorgeous.

I envy you your position...I think...

[Henk]

Some Palestrina. Brilliant Classics box set.

[ritter]

Well, Perséphone is definetely not one of my favourite works by Stravinsky (and this listen hasn't helped improve my opnion of the piece  )...so, I've now jumped to one of my all-time favourites, Agon  :

[Tsaraslondon]

Puccini

Butterfly

Callas, Gedda, Danielli
La Scala Orchestra
Karajan

[asin]B000002RXX[/asin]

The most shattering recording of Madama Butterfly ever put on disc, its peroration almost too painful to listen to.

The recent Warner transfer is quite an improvement on all those that went before.

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Listening to 2 Pieces, Op. 6. Great stuff.

[Marsch MacFiercesome]

The most shattering recording of Madama Butterfly ever put on disc, its peroration almost too painful to listen to.

The recent Warner transfer is quite an improvement on all those that went before.

. . . quite an improvement on everything. . . . . . . except for the cover.

[Todd]

From the big box.  Revisiting one of my favorite Pictures.  The Glinka/Balakirev and Bach/Busoni are superb, too.

[SimonNZ]

Henze's "Elogium Musicum" for choir & orchestra - Riccardo Chailly, cond.

Live: April 21, 2013, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBS83kf14Dk

[NikF]

Brahms: 4th Symphony - Klemperer/Philharmonia.

[asin]B00A4AI19I[/asin]

This morning my choice was almost Kleiber with the Vienna, but it's dark and rainy outside and as I'm about to for a run this feels more robust and fitting the mood.


Update: Brrrrr...

[Todd]

PC 19.

[SimonNZ]

Ondrej Adamek's String Quartet No.2 "Lo que no`contamo`" - KNM Berlin Quartet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSBiqK4_9Yo

[NikF]

Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 - Rattle/Berliner Phil.

[asin]B00369K1GA[/asin]

[Florestan]

Last night



This is otherworldly music, so otherworldly in fact that I can take it only or two pieces at the time.



Durante is that Neapolitan composer who did not write one single opera, confining himself almost exclusively to sacred music. He atoned for that with some operatic twists and turns here and there, but never as intrusive or ostentative as to spoil the general piety and dignity required for such music --- and in the case of Christmas music, they work wonders in term of conveying an irrepressible feeling of joy.

Now playing

[The new erato]

Last night, disc 2 from this:

[asin]B00QBEQWQU[/asin]

Very nice!

[Tsaraslondon]

Often forgotten and very difficult to get hold of, this is surely one of the best studio recordings of Tristan und Isolde, with Linda Esther Gray a superb Isolde, warm and vulnerable in a way Nilsson is not, but with plenty of steel when required, the voice rich and firm in the lower register, gleaming and powerful at the top. What a tragedy that illness cut short her career. Mitchinson is not on her level, but his is still a creditable Tristan, and there are excellent performances from Wilkens, Joll and Howell as Brangane, Kurewenal and Marke.

Goodall's experience and love of the score is evident in every phrase. His tempos may be slightly slower than some, but the music never drags and there is no want of power. Recorded in very natural sound, this is in every way a five star recording, which should be far better known than it is.

[The new erato]

This may have had something to do With it (copied from wikemedia):

"Passionate about all things German, in the 1930s Goodall openly sympathized with the Nazi regime, which he perceived as a defender of Germanic cultural traditions. Goodall also actively supported Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and he eventually joined the party just five days after Britain's declaration of war on Germany. He maintained his outspoken pro-Nazi views during World War II, the uninhibited expression of which once led him to be briefly questioned by the police. Goodall was known to refer to the Holocaust as a "BBC Jewish plot" "

His own worst enemy is a concept that springs to mind. No doubt he would be better known if it weren't for these political controversies.