What are you listening 2 now?

[Selig]

According to the label: "A fifth organ volume is still in preparation" - I'm still holding out hope!

[Lisztianwagner]

Alexander Zemlinsky
Symphony No.2

Riccardo Chailly & RSO Berlin

[Que]

According to the label: "A fifth organ volume is still in preparation" - I'm still holding out hope!

Let's hope so! The series is magnificent.

[André]

I wonder what the composers would have made of the cover picture. Lady Godiva dry humping her stallion sure sets the stage for feverish, passionate goings on. The music is fine if not quite sultry in mood.

Both composers were almost exact contemporaries (born in 1882F and 1883R). At the time Poland did not exist as an independant state. Rozycki was born in Warsaw, then in the Russian sector, while Friedman was born near Cracow, in the Austrian zone. No country in Europe has seen its boundaries move as much as Poland's. In 1848 the partition between Prussia, the Austrian and Russian empires eradicated it completely as an independent state. Rozycki's career was centered mainly in Berlin, Friedman's in Vienna.

That may be a reason why polish music after Chopin does not have a strong national stamp (often marked by its folk dances and their rythms and harmonies) - unlike, say, Russia, Czechia or Hungary. And yet it is extremely accomplished. Influential musical institutions in Berlin, Leipzig, Moscow, Prague or Vienna were just a train journey or two away, so it's not like Poland (whatever its borders were at any time) was a musical desert.

Thanks to our dear friend Maciek I have about 100 discs of music by polish composers outside of the Chopin-Szymanowki-Luto/Pen/Gor orbit. I can now add Friedman to the list (I already have a few works by Rozycki).

Both quintets here are very substantial, in a big, beefy, effusive brahmsian idiom. Rozycki's is 42 minutes long, Friedman 38. Textures are clear but very full. Rozycki has strong themes, developing them with lots of unison string writing, achieving a concerto-like effect. Friedman is more modern, with some angular writing, an alternation of angry, agitated moments with waltzy, decorous ones (first movement). Its music is more varied, mingling unconnected episodes. Unsurprisingly there are many chopinesque turns in the piano part (Friedman was a great interpreter as well as musicologist/editor of Chopin's work).

A very fine disc, beautifully played and recorded.

[Karl Henning]

[DavidW]

This recording was a surprise treat! I seldom listen to Field, perhaps that should change.

[brewski]

Really enjoying Nevermind in the Bach Goldberg Variations. The concert will be available to watch, free, for 72 hours after tonight.

Tomorrow night they appear at Weill Recital Hall in NYC (Carnegie's small venue) in a completely different program with lots of Jacquet de la Guerre.

[foxandpeng]

Remembering
Kaija Saariaho
Cello Concerto 'Notes on Light'
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
John Storgårds
BIS

I really like this. Saariaho is a real loss.

[Karl Henning]

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Vivaldi
Stabat Mater, RV 621
Sara Mingardo
Concerto Italiano
Rinaldo Alessandrini

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Vivaldi
Le Quattro Stagioni
Anne-Sophie Mutter
Wiener Philharmoniker
HvK

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Adams
City Noir
ORF Vienna RSO
Alsop

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Gubaidulina
Sieben Worte
Gothenburg SO
Mario Venzago

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Last work for the night:

Hindemith
Sonata for Two Pianos
Piret Randalu, Kalle Randalu

[AnotherSpin]

I wonder what the composers would have made of the cover picture. Lady Godiva dry humping her stallion sure sets the stage for feverish, passionate goings on. The music is fine if not quite sultry in mood.

Both composers were almost exact contemporaries (born in 1882F and 1883R). At the time Poland did not exist as an independant state. Rozycki was born in Warsaw, then in the Russian sector, while Friedman was born near Cracow, in the Austrian zone. No country in Europe has seen its boundaries move as much as Poland's. In 1848 the partition between Prussia, the Austrian and Russian empires eradicated it completely as an independent state. Rozycki's career was centered mainly in Berlin, Friedman's in Vienna.

That may be a reason why polish music after Chopin does not have a strong national stamp (often marked by its folk dances and their rythms and harmonies) - unlike, say, Russia, Czechia or Hungary. And yet it is extremely accomplished. Influential musical institutions in Berlin, Leipzig, Moscow, Prague or Vienna were just a train journey or two away, so it's not like Poland (whatever its borders were at any time) was a musical desert.

Thanks to our dear friend Maciek I have about 100 discs of music by polish composers outside of the Chopin-Szymanowki-Luto/Pen/Gor orbit. I can now add Friedman to the list (I already have a few works by Rozycki).

Both quintets here are very substantial, in a big, beefy, effusive brahmsian idiom. Rozycki's is 42 minutes long, Friedman 38. Textures are clear but very full. Rozycki has strong themes, developing them with lots of unison string writing, achieving a concerto-like effect. Friedman is more modern, with some angular writing, an alternation of angry, agitated moments with waltzy, decorous ones (first movement). Its music is more varied, mingling unconnected episodes. Unsurprisingly there are many chopinesque turns in the piano part (Friedman was a great interpreter as well as musicologist/editor of Chopin's work).

A very fine disc, beautifully played and recorded.

This is a painting by the Polish artist Władysław Podkowiński, Szał uniesień (Frenzy of Exultations), 1894. Podkowiński, terminally ill and unable to sell his sensational painting, slashed it with a knife at the exhibition on April 23, 1894, fueling speculation about unfulfilled love and his tragic fate.

[Que]

New release by Cappella Mariana cs. The theme of this recording are the Oriental travels of Czech (Bohemian) composer and writer Kryštof Harant (of Polžice and Bezdružice) (1564–1621)

https://www.cappellamariana.com/en/discography/pilgrimage-musical-journey-of-krystof-harant-to-jerusalem/

The mix of an intro with drumrolls and recited texts, Oriental music and scattered movements of a mass by Harant, is not exactly my cup of tea.... But streaming allows me to focus on Harant's Missa quinis vocibus, which is very nice though not exceptional. Well worth hearing in superb performances by Cappella Mariana.

[AnotherSpin]

Friedrich Gulda plays Diabelli like a wild stallion, bold, untamed, and charging full speed ahead. He's not one for half-measures; when it's loud, it's thundering, and when it's soft, it's a whisper on the wind. He takes the curves sharp, leans into the twists, and somehow, just when you think he's about to lose control, he lands right at the heart of the music, like he knew the way all along.

MPS's sound is amazing, which is only natural given its reputation.

[Que]

A recording from 2004 by Emma Kirkby and Fretwork of Byrd's songs with viol consort accompaniment, mixed in with instrumental pieces.
How could I have missed this?!    Anyway - absolutely wonderful! 

Indispensable for Byrd watchers, I would say...

[Harry]

sensational painting,

Indeed it is @AnotherSpin .
The wild nature of horse, linked to the passion of a woman, nothing wrong with that.

[vandermolen]

I don't even know that I've listened to it, so:
Aleksandr Glazunov
Symphony № 8 in E^b, Op. 83
BBC Natl Symphony of Wales
Tadaaki Otaka

The pounding three note motif in movement two pre-echoes Vaughan Williams's 6th Symphony (2nd movement)