What are you listening to now?

[Karl Henning]

Again:

Holmboe
Quartetto sereno, Op.197 (Op. posth.) (1996)
Redigeret af Per Nørgård
The Kontra Quartet

[asin]B003NEQAMC[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Lasso
Tristis est anima mea

One exquisite motet.

[North Star]

One exquisite motet.

Indeed!

[Brian]

Just decided to see what trouble Mirror Image is getting into here.



In Autumn, overture
Sigurd Jorsalfar, three-movement suite
From Holberg's Time

My favorite string orchestra recordings of Holberg are probably these (random order):

[Mirror Image]

Very nice, Brian. As for getting into trouble, it's too late!

Now:

Symphonies 2 & 6 from this recording:

[North Star]

Lasso
Tristis est anima mea

And again, along with other motets, superb performances from Singer Pur

[asin]B001S86JAS[/asin]

[Brian]

Very nice, Brian. As for getting into trouble, it's too late!

The two full-orchestra works I tried were really good - each a bit faster than some of the rivals - and the main characteristic of this Holberg reading is that there's a microphone really close to the first row of cellists, so you can hear the cello parts with great detail. Otherwise, I mean, all Holberg performances are lovely, pretty much. The main question is how rhythmically precise they are, and this one isn't on the level of, say, Norwegian Chamber Orch on Simax (the awesome album with the moose cover in my post above).

[Mirror Image]

The two full-orchestra works I tried were really good - each a bit faster than some of the rivals - and the main characteristic of this Holberg reading is that there's a microphone really close to the first row of cellists, so you can hear the cello parts with great detail. Otherwise, I mean, all Holberg performances are lovely, pretty much. The main question is how rhythmically precise they are, and this one isn't on the level of, say, Norwegian Chamber Orch on Simax (the awesome album with the moose cover in my post above).

Thanks for the feedback. I've never really heard a bad Holberg ether.

[Spineur]

A romantic moment before going to bed..

[aligreto]

Mozart: Piano Quartet in E flat major K. 493....

[bhodges]

Shostakovich: Prelude and Scherzo for String Octet, Op. 11 (Apple Hill String Quartet and VEM String Quartet, recorded 3/22/15 at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles) - An(other) excellent version, though the sound quality is a bit  muffled. But worth hearing for fans of the piece.

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

Edit: This one, with the Prazak and Zemlinsky Quartets, is even better, and in clearer sound. (Recorded at the Wissembourg Festival, 9/4/13)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JcmnFDoAzU

--Bruce

[Mandryka]

Richard Lester and lots of others play Scarlatti  K126.  What has become apparent to me over the past few couple of weeks is how sometimes Scarlatti's music really is like a sort of exploration of keyboard effects, like he was doing for the harpsichord what Henry Cowell did for piano, but it's done with such an amazing sense of storytelling, the inevitable logic of the flow of events, that the music is elevated to art.


In K 126,   Lester is good  at telling the story and he does so by marking the sections with tempo changes. He conceives the work as very complex, with many sections, like a fantasy by Buxtehude of something.

Belder  plays it colourfully. I preferred Lester's harpsichord to Belder's instrument (Belder's Flemish and Lester Italian maybe - I haven't checked) and I like his way of using  lots of variety of touch and texture.

Baiano was also very good, more energetic than Lester and I'm not sure that's my cup of tea. Lester is deeper because he's a bit slower.

Ross and Columbo and Jandó (modern piano) are too linear IMO, they don't differentiate the sections enough and that isn't good.  Claudio Columbo plays crudely IMO. Valenti as always has colourful things to say, but the instrument is unbearable, and anyway, it's very solemn - I suppose solemnity and romanticism go hand in hand, anyway it isn't my cuppa.

[Kontrapunctus]

While I don't like contemporary music as much as I used to, this is an enjoyable disc in small doses. Stemper's style is sort of a mix of Elliott Carter, Debussy, Schoenberg, and some jazz. Most of it sounds frighteningly difficult to play! Good sound.

[SonicMan46]

Just decided to see what trouble Mirror Image is getting into here.

 

In Autumn, overture
Sigurd Jorsalfar, three-movement suite
From Holberg's Time

Brian and others owning/listening to Grieg's orchestral works w/ Aadland - any comparisons yet to the performances in the Ruud box which I own and enjoy (inserted above, right) - did not feel that I needed another set of these works, but some of the comments on Amazon are quite positive!  Dave

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Symphony in C minor (EG 119)
Land-Sighting, Op. 31
Olav Trygvason, Op. 50

Another winning recording from Jarvi and the Gothenburgers.

[SimonNZ]

Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire - Mary Thomas, soprano, David Atherton, cond.

[Ken B]

Miaskovsky
Symphonies 2 and 13
The big box o' symphonies.

[Mirror Image]

Now:



Old Norwegian Romance, Op. 51
Fire Digte (The First Meeting), Op. 21
Romancer, Op. 25
Sex Digte (A Swan), Op. 25
12 Songs, Op. 33
Norway, Op. 58
The Mountain Thrall, Op. 32
At A Southern Convent's Gate, Op. 20
Bergliot, Op. 42

Another gorgeous disc from Jarvi and the Gothenburgers.

[André]

Quartets 2, 12 and 17.

[Brian]

Brian and others owning/listening to Grieg's orchestral works w/ Aadland - any comparisons yet to the performances in the Ruud box which I own and enjoy (inserted above, right) - did not feel that I needed another set of these works, but some of the comments on Amazon are quite positive!  Dave

Dave - do take a look at my comments in the Grieg thread, but the bottom line is that all three major series (Ruud on BIS, Aadland on audite, Engeset on Naxos) are extremely good, and that you cannot go wrong with any or all of them. If you have the Ruud box, you have top-notch performances and sound!