What are you listening 2 now?

[Madiel]

Arrived today. Just starting on it.



I think this might be the first time I've ever ended up with 2 recordings of a work from the same performer. So now my little spreadsheet has to distinguish between the 1972 analogue recording of Iberia and the 1986 digital recording.

This is not a terrible outcome. While I gather there isn't considered to be an enormous interpretative difference between earlier and later recordings made by de Larrocha (the timings generally aren't that different**), for Iberia it does seem to be a question whether the best available is the Decca analogue or the Decca digital. Now I just get to have both.

Also a bunch of shorter Albéniz bon-bons, and some of the relatively small amount of genuine piano music that Falla wrote.


**Though I can tell you now, the earlier recording of El Puerto has a definite zip to it even if the tempo changes mean the end result is only slightly shorter. It's fabulous.

[Madiel]

Diverting from Spain from a bit. Schumann, Liederkreis II (the Eichendorff one), op.39



The man could write a killer tune.

[steve ridgway]

Bartók: Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta

[steve ridgway]

Messiaen: Poèmes Pour Mi

[steve ridgway]

Scelsi: Khoom

[Que]

Nice, very nice....

[Madiel]

Finishing off the Falla pieces on here...



And gosh, they're really good. The 4 Spanish Pieces are full of character, rather more interesting than the short Albéniz pieces on here before them (though to be fair those are originally from an LP of "favourite encores" so they're not the most demanding music).

And then there's the Fantasía Bética which is a large-scale showpiece written in 1919, taking off from Iberia and the like and adding a bit more dissonance to the harmony. It was written for Artur Rubinstein, who quickly decided it was more trouble than it was worth and dropped it from his repertoire.

[Que]

[Luke]

And then there's the Fantasía Bética which is a large-scale showpiece written in 1919, taking off from Iberia and the like and adding a bit more dissonance to the harmony. It was written for Artur Rubinstein, who quickly decided it was more trouble than it was worth and dropped it from his repertoire.

The Fantasia is one of my favourite pieces by Falla - I love its dust dry sunburned harshness, which lacks any prettification but sings so strongly as a result. I used to play it quite obsessively as a teenager and performed it once or twice,

Edit re the Rubinstein connection, AR also commissioned Villa-Lobos' Rudepoema, which is comparable in length and in its unleashing of its composer's wildest music. They'd make a good coupling...

[Madiel]

The Fantasia is one of my favourite pieces by Falla - I love its dust dry sunburned harshness, which lacks any prettification but sings so strongly as a result. I used to play it quite obsessively as a teenager and performed it once or twice,

Edit re the Rubinstein connection, AR also commissioned Villa-Lobos' Rudepoema, which is comparable in length and in its unleashing of its composer's wildest music. They'd make a good coupling...

You must be a rather good pianist to have been tackling this stuff as a teenager.

[Iota]

Poulenc: Figure Humaine
Skylark, Matthew Guard

Not sure I've ever heard this before, clearly an egregious oversight because it's a truly marvellous thing. It held me spellbound from start to finish and was over way too soon. Better late than never I guess, but really what a miss. The performance seems very good, enough to completely haul me in anyway.

[Harry]

Nice, very nice....

I will listen to this one too, after your Nice...Nice...and  very Nice    

[Florestan]

KV 482, 488 & 382
Hob XVIII:4

[vandermolen]

Arthur Butterworth: Symphony No. 4 - a Baxian-Sibelian score:

[Luke]

You must be a rather good pianist to have been tackling this stuff as a teenager.

I think I may have been better then than now. At least, I had more flexibility - I probably play with more maturity now, but less agility.

[Traverso]

Bach

CD 1

[Florestan]

KV 482, 488 & 382
Hob XVIII:4

Exceptional performances, all. A crackerjack sleeper.

[Roasted Swan]

Exceptional performances, all. A crackerjack sleeper.

Its Friday.... Its 5 o'clock ....... its..... (if you know you'll know)

[Leo K.]

I finding a new love for Karajan's Bach.

[ritter]

Poulenc's Piano Concerto in C-sharp minor, in a remarkable performance by pianist Maroussia Gentet and the Orchestre Philharmnique de Radio France, conducted by Mikko Franck (live in Paris in October 2019).

I've loved this piece since I first heard it many years ago. It's alternation of esprit (at times, blatantly tongue-in-cheek) and melancholy is very alluring to me.

All movements are appealing, but I have a soft spot for the first (where, apart from humour and nostalgia, there's a certain feeling of gravity in the central secton), and think the concluding Rondeau a La Française: Presto giocoso is Poulenc at his best. The first time the pianist quotes Old Folks at Home (aka Swanee River), with interjections by the muted trumpets (the passage starts at 21' in the YouTube video) is magical. It's nice to notice the smiles on the conductor's and pianist's faces at that point.