What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

Juon: Piano Quartet No. 1 in D minor 'Rhapsody'

This work has very good thematic material which flows in a rather free form to some extent. Great composer and great music.

[AnotherSpin]

Johann Sebastian Bach
Clavier-übung III

Matteo Messori

[Mookalafalas]

In what field is "not verbose enough" a valid critique?

Doctor.
   "It's cancer. Stage 4. Amazing you're still alive."

TD:

  Right now Franck's D Sym.  This box is all winners, near as I can tell.

[Madiel]

Doctor.
   "It's cancer. Stage 4. Amazing you're still alive."
 

The question was really asking what field he was in. Not indicating no such field could possibly exist.

[Mookalafalas]

The question was really asking what field he was in. Not indicating no such field could possibly exist.

My intention was not to refute your statement but to say something humorous. In the future I will refrain.

[Madiel]

Emojis are called for. 

[Madiel]

Vivaldi: Teuzzone



This one is all kinds of curious: the work, the performance... the quality control of the booklet in Act 2 where the scene numbering goes completely crazy and the Italian and English texts swap places for a page and a half...

It's known that Vivaldi reused music from previous operas to create this work, his first after arriving in Mantua. The liner notes completely miss the opportunity to actually identify which arias come from where, which is disappointing compared to other volumes in the series. There was only one aria that I actually thought I'd heard before in another opera, I'll have to go back and compare more closely sometime. There is a mix of views about whether Vivaldi also used arias by other composers (and I think perhaps later research has overtaken what's said in the booklet).

The plot is the fairly standard blend of love and politics. We've got an emperor dying in Scene 1, a plot to usurp the throne by faking the emperor's will, and the usurper is actually in love with the rightful heir and doesn't want to kill him while her co-conspirators do. That's about the size of it. It's maybe not the absolute best one but it's mostly coherent.

And the performance is also reasonably well done, but little things hold it back. It seems to start off being just a bit... "nice". I didn't real feel any real passion until the pivotal scene towards the end of Act One when the fake will is read out, almost as if they needed the drama to start in earnest. Maybe that's just me, although I did find a review that described it (positively) as "fresh without being sparkling", and I think I would have liked just a little more sparkle. There's some very good music here though.

Also, despite no statement that it's a live recording, there are clear thumps and bangs in a few places. And the casting is a little curious. The title role is taken by an occasionally shrill male "sopranista", when it was originally a 'trouser' role played by a female singer. I completely understand why male castrati roles are sometimes taken by women, and that occurs here. But I don't get why Savall would cast a man in a female-sung role. He's got a man singing a female soprano role, and a woman singing a male castrato soprano role... and from a different review I know I'm not the first person to find this puzzling.

Anyway, it's fairly good but I wouldn't put this in the first rank with Dario and Ottone.

[steve ridgway]

Luc Ferrari - J'ai Été Coupé

[Que]

This arrived this morning:



I was curious and since I couldn't access the ASV recordings of music by Scottisch Robert Carver streaming, I got it on disc.
Several issues here... The music is slightly underwhelming, and the performances more so... The opening motet is written for 19 (!) voices, the mass for 10. Impressive, but hard to pull off for both composer and performers. It's kind of boring...

To top it all off: the disc suffers from "bronzing". An affliction which affected discs produced in the UK in the early '90s and issued by ASV, Hyperion, Unicorn, Pearl, etc. It plays fine sofar, but so much for the reliability of physical media...   

[Roasted Swan]

This arrived this morning:



I was curious and since I couldn't access the ASV recordings of music by Scottisch Robert Carver streaming, I got it on disc.
Several issues here... The music is slightly underwhelming, and the performances more so... The opening motet is written for 19 (!) voices, the mass for 10. Impressive, but hard to pull off for both composer and performers. It's kind of boring...

To top it all off: the disc suffers from "bronzing". An affliction which affected discs produced in the UK in the early '90s and issued by ASV, Hyperion, Unicorn, Pearl, etc. It plays fine sofar, but so much for the reliability of physical media...   

Rip a lossless copy of that disc asap!  The company PDO were responsible for producing these discs that bronzed.  Annoyingly they were used by a lot of the smaller UK recording companies that you list above.  Thankfully, the issue does seem to have been limited to that single factory - there were lots of stories going around that all CD's were going to degrade in a fairly short time span I recall......

[Pizzicato-Polka]

Listening to Chopin the whole weekend thanks to this lil'    event:



Btw, I just returned to the forum after some years and I'm a bit baffled by the following: is there really no thread for the 19th Chopin competition yet? I couldn't find it, at least.

[pjme]

I first started a thorough listen, and tried to classify his music, meaning, and person in the context of his life and what he did or did not do. There is not a single piece that did not intrigue me, or was less interesting. Chansons Bretonnes I remember as excellent, as all the works I listen too, later on I will be more specific about it, but I understand your admiration. The fact that you esteem the work is important for me to know.

If I remember correctly there are several GMG members who at least - appreciate - Koechlins highly personal, unusual, often quite strange sound world.
I was lucky to attend twice a live perfprmance of Le livre de la jungle (Brussels & Rotterdam) and have explored his large oeuvre since I discovered his name as orchestrator of works by Fauré and Debussy.
I'm very fond of the early (1911) and quite germanic-romantic atmosphere of the Ballade (solo piano or piano & orchestra). the superb oboe sonata, the very difficult and long piano quintet. The Chansons Bretonnes (cello & piano) are exquisit.
For the longer works it takes for me the same amount of listening concentration I need as for listening to a Bruckner symphony or a late Beethoven quartet.....
The stringquartets are my most recent "discovery".
I hope sooner or later we will get a good biography. Koechlin is such a wonderful figure - proto ecologist, his relationship with Catherine Urner, his travels in the US, his (late) connection with Brussels (Franz André and Paul Collaer), his friendship with Milhaud, Sauguet....

Kœchlin published articles on aesthetics, musical language, and music criticism. His broad knowledge also led him to consider sociological issues such as music education, the role of radio, music in film, and the political engagement of artists. He drew on his knowledge of ancient Greece to reflect on democracy in the modern world. Inspired by his contemporaries, he discussed the ideas of Romain Rolland as well as those of Tolstoy, Bergson, and Duhamel. Close to the Communist Party, he actively participated as an artist in structuring cultural initiatives. In 1937, he was appointed president of the Fédération musicale populaire (Fédération of Popular Music). An exceptional man, a highly original and committed artist, he can be considered a true modern-day humanist."
( source:Michel Duchesneau)

[Mandryka]

Martin: Mass for double choir

One of the most sublime choral pieces I know.

I listened to a new Japanese release of this mass yesterday

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPIZWjwgyKJDTv0p7ZarnPuDea7nktCKE

[Que]

   

[Madiel]

More of the Red Priest...



Salve Regina in G minor, RV 618
Non in pratis (introduction to Miserere), RV 641
Regina coeli [fragment], RV 615

I have a note from the Hyperion series of sacred music saying that I particularly liked this setting of the Salve Regina (there are 3 different settings extant), and it proves a winner again here.

High on my list of the Vivaldi discoveries that I'd like to see happen is finding a Miserere that he wrote. Because the 2 introductions that exist are crying out for something to attach to. As it is they end on a bit of a cliffhanger. Delphine Galou is more or less made to sing this sort of thing.

[AnotherSpin]

Bach: Preludes and Fugues, Schübler Chorales

Matteo Messori

[Selig]

Bach: Preludes and Fugues, Schübler Chorales

Matteo Messori

I've especially liked the Schübler Chorales on this.

[Traverso]

Mozart

The last CD with Serenades and divertimenti.....

Divertimento in D KV 131
Serenade in D KV 286/269a
Ein Musikalischer Spass KV 522

[Todd]

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Arthur Meulemans orchestral music.