What are you listening 2 now?

[Traverso]

Schumann

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing this entire disc --- Handel's Water Music with Pinnock:

[Traverso]

Bach

CD 3

[Harry]

Henri Vieuxtemps (1820 – 1881).
Cello concertos, No. 1&2.
Capriccio pour Alto seul op.55, in C minor ,,Hommage à Paganini".
Wen-Sinn Yang, Cello.
Evergreen Symphony Orchestra, Gernot Schmalfuss.

The music is well thought out and cleanly articulated. Yang possesses a light yet very clear tone in the fast passages, becoming sonorous, even noble in the melodic arches, soft in the contemplative moments, only to then switch back to a poignant and lively quality. And backed up by this young but fine orchestra conducted under the  experienced hands of Schmalfuss. There's nothing to complain about in terms of recording technique either; every detail is clearly audible, and the whole is balanced. If you like this composer, this disc will give you much pleasure as it did me.

[North Star]

Gerhard
String Quartet No. 2
Arditti Quartet



Skalkottas
Concertino in C major for Piano and Orchestra (1948)
Danae Kara
Orchestre National de Montpellier
Friedemann Layer

Hovhaness
And God Created Great Whales For Orchestra and Whales
Philharmonia Orchestra
David Amos

[Harry]

Francesco Bonporti.  1672-1749.
Concerti a quattro op.11 Nr.6-10
I Virtuosi Italiani.
Recorded: 1990.

Despite its age a well performed and recorded CD. I Virtuosi are a name to me, for I listen in the past to a lot of their recordings. This particular one with music of Bonporti recorded on the label Pierre Verany is a pearl. Bonporti is not appreciated as much as he should, and he would definitely need more exposure, for precious little is recorded, despite the quality of his music. This performance would be a good start into his music, if you can find it of course.

[SonicMan46]

Beethoven LV - Keyboard Sonatas with Ronald Brautigam on 3 different fortepianos (8 of 9 discs performed on Paul McNulty instruments after Walter & Sohn, c. 1802 & Conrad Graf, c. 1819); second pic a McNulty Walter production from 1805. Reviews attached (at least read Bob Greenberg's comments).  Dave

 

[Linz]

Richard Strauss Complete Orchestral Works CD 4
Don Quixote, Op. 35
Dance Suite from Keyboard Pieces by François Couperin
Staatskapelle Dreden, Rudolf Kempe

[Lisztianwagner]

Johann Sebastian Bach
Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I

Sviatoslav Richter (piano)

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, 1890 Version. Ed. Leopold Nowak, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshi Wakasugi

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Rachmaninov
Preludes, Opp. 23 & 32
Ashkenazy

From this set -

[Mapman]

Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra; Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
Britten: LSO; English Chamber Orchestra

[VonStupp]

Granville Bantock
Songs of the Isles
Elysian Singers of London - Sam Laughton

Bantock's choral music reminds of that from Delius, which isn't a bad thing at all.

Some are modal arrangements of folk songs while others are original pieces of greater length. How Bantock approaches vocal textures is intriguing.
VS

Some more of Bantock's choral music.



Granville Bantock
Golden Voyage to Samarkand
A Pageant of Human Life
Three Men's Choruses
St. Louis CC - Philip Barnes

The Golden Voyage uses the same Flecker text as Delius' Hassan, but runs a cappella for 10 minutes.

The titular Pageant sounds a precursor to Britten to some degree, with some polytonal textures. Most interesting a cappella choral literature from Bantock.
VS

[Karl Henning]

Now playing this entire disc --- Handel's Water Music with Pinnock:

Classic! TD: A first listen

[Karl Henning]

Gerhard
String Quartet No. 2
Arditti Quartet



Skalkottas
Concertino in C major for Piano and Orchestra (1948)
Danae Kara
Orchestre National de Montpellier
Friedemann Layer

Hovhaness
And God Created Great Whales For Orchestra and Whales
Philharmonia Orchestra
David Amos

A bit to my surprise, I love the Hovhaness!

[Karl Henning]

Another first listen:

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Continuing with a Faust theme which started with Berlioz's La damnation de Faust from many nights ago:

Schumann
Szenen aus Goethes Faust
Various soloists
Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale Gent
Herreweghe




About Schumann's Szenen aus Goethes Faust:

Goethe had finished the second part of Faust only 13 years before Schumann began his setting of it, and most readers were daunted by its mysticism and abstruse symbolism. The first part, the story of Gretchen, was easy enough to comprehend and even portray in music, but the second was far less easily grasped, let alone depicted. Additionally, the author himself had declared that Mozart should have written the music for Faust, so any composer would not only be judged by his treatment of one of the seminal and most-widely acclaimed works in German literature, but would aslo be setting himself up to be compared to Mozart.

Schumann wrote different segments intermittently, as inspiration or opportunity struck. In fact, he worked from back to front. In 1844, he began work on the ending of Goethe's Part Two, with "Fausts Verklärung" (Faust's Transfiguration). In 1845, he wrote to Mendelssohn that he was hesitant to have the results published or performed, though by 1848 he had gotten up the courage to have it produced as an oratorio for a small audience, and by 1849, the year of Goethe's centenary, it was performed in Dresden, Leipzig, and Weimar. After these performances, Schumann tackled it again, adding the second and first sections, and finally, in 1853, writing the overture. It was not performed in its entirety until 1862, almost six years after Schumann's death, but then was a great success and influence.

The first of the three sections depicts the story of Gretchen 's seduction, ending with the church scene. The second shows Faust's philosophical struggles to find meaning in the face of the "vier graue Weiber" -- the four gray women: Need, Guilt, Worry, and Sorrow -- and ends with Faust's death. The last is Faust's transfiguration. Schumann sets these stories, growing from the relatively mundane to the philosophical to the mystical with music reflecting these focuses.

The lengthy overture is tense and tempestuous throughout, with only fleeting lyrical passages. Aside from creating a dramatic, electrifying introduction, it also suggests the conflict between good and evil as well as Faust's turbulent search for enlightenment and peace. After this, the work opens in media res, with Faust's courtship of Gretchen. Her story is depicted in highly operatic music, beginning with the love duet, moving to Gretchen's passionate and desperate aria, and ending with the church scene. The stage directions even include props, such as Gretchen's flower. The second part begins with a strong contrast, the lively, fresh music of Ariel and the spirits, calling to Faust to enjoy the beauties of nature, but the next scene, with the four gray women, and the last, with the lemurs digging graves, Faust's delusions of hearing a new world being created, and his ecstatic calls for this moment to stay, are prototypical Romantic music, with the combination of intense orchestration and hints of the supernatural in the music of the women and the lemurs. The last scenes contain some of Schumann's most effective choral writing, especially the majestic opening passages of the chorus mysticus.

[Article taken from All Music Guide]

[Mapman]

Grieg: Fra Holbergs tid
Budapest Strings

[Karl Henning]

Another first listen:

My rash, impetuous first impressions: I love Halil, wanted to like Israfel better than I did (this first hearing, at any rate.) 

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Stravinsky
Orpheus
BBC Scottish SO
Ilan Volkov



It's a shame that there were only three volumes from this Stravinsky Volkov series on Hyperion. All three volumes are excellent.