What are you listening to now?

[Mirror Image]

I'm starting off with Quatrain before moving on to the piece whose title on the cover of this wonderful disc



Then I'll decide what to listen to next.....

Great disc, Jessop! Love all of those pieces and Ozawa, as always in Takemitsu, is at the top of his game.

[Mirror Image]

The "ondiste" (in the photo) was Valerie Hartmann-Claverie (she has the perfect name for the instrument lol, "Claverie" kind of sounds like "clavier", i.e. keyboard). She was also the ondiste in my hands-down favorite recording of the piece:
[asin]B00JJ9GV4C[/asin]

Not sure who the ondiste will be for the NYPhil performance in March. I liked Salonen a lot, but I kind of wish someone else was conducting it just so I could see another person do it. Then again, Turangalila two times in less than a year -- I have no right to complain .

It is really great living only two hours away from NYC. There are a lot of great concerts there.

Very cool, Nate. I own this Lintu recording and I haven't even listened to it (yet). It must be really good considering how many Turangalila performances you've heard. What do you think of Chung's Turangalila?

[HIPster]

Marvellous morning Monteverdi:

[asin]B006T6HGOM[/asin]

A recent purchase - in very heavy rotation.

[Maestro267]

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet (complete)
Cleveland Orchestra/Maazel

This ballet makes 2½ hours go by really quickly. I'm not one for suites or excerpts at all. I don't feel I "own" the work unless I have the complete score on disc.

[Brian]

First listens to these violin concertos:



I wish the tempo marking "Sans hate" meant what it sounds like it means! But in French "hate" in fact means "haste". At any rate, I ended up liking the incredibly compact 10-minute Concerto No. 1 more than its bigger sequel. The First has a quirky slow romance with snare drum accompanying the tune.

[North Star]

First listen (this recording)

Berlioz
Les nuits d'été
Frank Patterson, Josephine Veasey, John Shirley-Quirke, Sheila Armstrong
Sir Colin Davis & London Symphony Orchestra
[asin]B00DMUOKGK[/asin]

[Brian]

A coupla days ago, Karl suggested that I might be an expert to ask about Debussy's ballet Khamma. But I don't know anything about it, and have never heard it before.

Time to fix that! Both Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's piano version (thanks Karlo for posting some of his comments), and Charles Koechlin's orchestration.



Side note: there's a Chailly Daphnis?!?! How did I not know this before? John (MI), have you heard it?

[North Star]

A coupla days ago, Karl suggested that I might be an expert to ask about Debussy's ballet Khamma. But I don't know anything about it, and have never heard it before.

Time to fix that! Both Jean-Efflam Bavouzet's piano version (thanks Karlo for posting some of his comments), and Charles Koechlin's orchestration.

Excellent! Looking forward to your impressions, Brian.

Thread duty - first listen

Berlioz
Te deum, Op. 22
Franco Tagliavni (tnr)
Wandsworth School Boys' Choir & Russell Burgess
London Symphony Chorus & John Alldis
Nicolas Kynaston (org)
Davis & London Symphony Orchestra

[Mirror Image]

Side note: there's a Chailly Daphnis?!?! How did I not know this before? John (MI), have you heard it?

I've heard, and own, it and my opinion is it's rather unremarkable compared to Boulez's DG account and not to mention Dutoit's on Decca.

[Karl Henning]

A coupla days ago, Karl suggested that I might be an expert to ask about Debussy's ballet Khamma. But I don't know anything about it, and have never heard it before.

Well, what I meant to suggest (which was equally erroneous) was that you may have absorbed any editorial gleanings from the liner notes.

[Brian]

Well, what I meant to suggest (which was equally erroneous) was that you may have absorbed any editorial gleanings from the liner notes.

I thought about looking it up on Naxos Music Library and copy/pasting, since I do have access to all those liner notes there. But Karlo beat me 

[Tsaraslondon]

The "ondiste" (in the photo) was Valerie Hartmann-Claverie (she has the perfect name for the instrument lol, "Claverie" kind of sounds like "clavier", i.e. keyboard). She was also the ondiste in my hands-down favorite recording of the piece:
[asin]B00JJ9GV4C[/asin]

Not sure who the ondiste will be for the NYPhil performance in March. I liked Salonen a lot, but I kind of wish someone else was conducting it just so I could see another person do it. Then again, Turangalila two times in less than a year -- I have no right to complain .

It is really great living only two hours away from NYC. There are a lot of great concerts there.

Speaking of ondistes reminds me of my friend and mentor, the late John Morton, who introduced me to both the Ondes Martenot and the music of Messiaen. So fascinated was he with the instrument that he acquired one himself (from Richard Rodney Bennett, I believe) and learned to play it. He would do talks on the instrument, and on a couple of occasions I accompanied him on the piano when he played excerpts from Milhaud's Suite for Ondes and Piano. He became quite well known as an Ondiste, and is featured on quite a few film scores. He also appeared once at the Proms, when Boulez conducted parts of Turangalila. (I don't think Boulez ever conducted the whole work. Something to do with objections to the Love Music. Boulez aficionados will no doubt be able to confirm or refute).

John died last year, but his appreciation and enthusiasm for music will always be remembered, by me at least.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Well, what I meant to suggest (which was equally erroneous) was that you may have absorbed any editorial gleanings from the liner notes.

Liner notes?  I'm wondering how many twenty-somethings know what liner notes are?  I learned more about music from them than any other source hands down (with possible exception of GMG) inc: active radio listening, musician friends, several college level classes.  From Albumlinernotes.com - "With the advent of digital music, Liner Notes are again fading away but terms like "album", "LP" and "EP" are still used today in the music industry."

[Brian]

I'm wondering how many twenty-somethings know what liner notes are?

Hello

[North Star]

I'm wondering how many twenty-somethings know what liner notes are?

Hello from me as well.

(seems that the answer is 100% )

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Yowza, is this VC wonderful! Exciting, soulful, melodic and danceably Mexican, in parts.  Fascinatingly, Ponce included therein a rueful reference to his big "pop hit" Estrellita - Little Star.  He had foolishly signed away his rights and rec'd no financial reward for its broad S. American success.  Szeryng was soloist for the VC's debut in '43.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Hello

You and Karlo are two outta ??  Anyway, you guys are "special cases."   

Edit : and besides, both of you are 'old souls.'

[aligreto]

Boccherini: Complete Symphonies, vol. 6....

[North Star]

You and Karlo are two outta ??  Anyway, you guys are "special cases."   

Edit : and besides, both of you are 'old souls.'

Had I known that wisdom comes with age, I might have passed on the offer.   0:)

[Tsaraslondon]

I remember seeing the famous ENO/Colin Graham production of Gloriana back in the 1970s with Ava June in the title role. The production did much to restore the opera to its proper place in the Britten canon, and in 1984 the production was videoed, this time with Sarah Walker in the title role.

This recording dates from 1993 at a time when the opera was seeing a brief revival with Barstow singing the role for Opera North and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden.

Quite why it has never recovered from the icy reception it got at the opening gala from a toffee nosed audience, who had little appreciation of opera is difficult to fathom. Some thought Britten's decidedly downbeat depiction of Elisabeth I's final years ill fitted to celebrations for the coronation of our present queen, and maybe it was. Still, when divorced from the circumstances of its original production, it emerges as a tensely dramatic work of Verdian scale and power. Listening to it today, I found it as involving as Britten's other large scale operas Peter Grimes and Billy Budd.