What are you listening 2 now?

[André]

Revisiting this old friend from lp days:



My favourite performance of this late Brahms masterpiece: biting yet emotionally generous, tautly propulsive yet gorgeously expansive.

[Mirror Image]

A great performance!

Absolutely! I love all of Previn's Rachmaninov.

[Mirror Image]

Just out of curiosity, is this performance in English or Russian? I don't believe I've heard the performance, but Previn was always excellent in Rachmaninov.

It's in Russian. You certainly need to hear this performance! It smokes!

Exactly on Bernstein! That M3 on Sony/Columbia is special - he has that extra little bit of heartfelt passion, that "tugging at the heartstrings" quality, that puts his performance over the top for me. His is one of the versions that makes me tear up in the finale - especially at that final peroration the begins after the brass chorale. And you're right, Levine is very good indeed - part of his appeal is the Chicago Symphony, arguably one of the world's great orchestras. Certainly that was the case in the Third (I found that while I enjoyed his First, with the London Symphony, they don't match Chicago in Mahler.)

Yeah, Bernstein always had a special touch with Mahler and with good reason: he had a kinship with the composer and felt his moral duty to bring him international attention and thank goodness he did!

[classicalgeek]

It's in Russian. You certainly need to hear this performance! It smokes!

Thanks! I'm not as familiar with The Bells as I'd like to be - I only remember listening to it once (Bychkov's recording, I think), but it really struck me as a masterpiece. I know it was one of Rachmaninov's own favorite compositions.

Yeah, Bernstein always had a special touch with Mahler and with good reason: he had a kinship with the composer and felt his moral duty to bring him international attention and thank goodness he did!

Totally agree with you there - both of Bernstein's cycles are essential to me. Few have done Mahler better!

Thread duty:

Mendelssohn
String symphonies nos. 1-6
Amsterdam Sinfonietta
Lev Markiz
(on Spotify)



Delightful!

[Mirror Image]

Going through Blomstedt's traversal of the Sibelius symphonies, starting with the 1st:

[SimonNZ]

[vers la flamme]

Two of my favourites as well, although I like all the symphonies. I wonder if you know the Violin Concerto, which I'm playing this very minute! Not only do I consider it to be one of Alwyn's finest and most memorable works but also one of the great (and unaccountably neglected) British violin concertos. You're absolutely right about 'Odd Man Out'.

Will seek this disc out!

[classicalgeek]

Mendelssohn Day continues:

Mendelssohn
Piano concerto no. 1
Capriccio brillant in B minor
Piano concerto no. 2
Cyprien Katsaris, piano
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Kurt Masur
(on Spotify)

[André]

On Youtube, music by Yevhen Stankovych: A Symphonic Poem. Volodimir Sirenko, The Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.

[classicalgeek]

Wrapping Mendelssohn Day up with my favorite Mendelssohn symphony, in my favorite performance  :

Mendelssohn
Symphony no. 3
London Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado
(on Spotify)



Abbado's is a sweeping, grand, romantic approach, and I really love it in this symphony. Tempos are on the slow side - with the exposition repeat in the first movement, the performance takes close to 42 minutes - but it never drags. I may be in the minority (or at least I think I am) - but I just adore the coda, especially if it's not taken too slow (admittedly it starts slow in Abbado's recording.) I've never been one to think that the symphony should end quietly and in the minor, and I think the coda really works as a sort of epilog and final grand gesture.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Understandable. There is a very fine account of Pinkham's Christmas Cantata from his stomping grounds at the New England Conservatory, where he taught for almost 50 years:

https://vimeo.com/80032537

VS

Thank you for the link.  Busy here today cooking and am a bit beat. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

PD

[Todd]

Disc twenty-six, a recital with twenty-five tracks of works by nineteen composers, most of whom I do not associate with Cziffra.  The Scarlatti sonatas are quite fine, and Cziffra plays with an appealing lightness of touch not evident in more virtuosic fare.  And of course when he needs to turn it on, as with Islamey, he does. 

[vers la flamme]

Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons. Daniel Hope, André de Ridder, Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin

[VonStupp]

Thank you for the link.  Busy here today cooking and am a bit beat. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

PD

And to you! Make sure to find some time to relax this Thanksgiving weekend too!

VS

[Tom 1960]

[Cato]

Fixed it for you!   


(Check the link and you will see SL1500: change that to a smaller number, in this case 500.

[André]

From classical/folkloric to freely atonal. Nice album.

[Bachtoven]

[listener]

"The Italian Violin School"
TARTINI: Concerto in G    D74
Giovanni Guglielmo, baroque violin    L'Arte dell'Arco
VIOTTI: Concerto 17 in d
Franco Mezzena, violin  Symphonia Perusina
PAGANINI: Sonata per la Gran Viola
Luigi Alberto Bianchi, viola   RIAS Orchestra Berlin
     Maestosa Sonata Sentimentale
Massimo Quarta, violin     Stefania Redaelli, piano
    no notes, this looks like a re-issue sampler, I bought it pre-owned.

[Daverz]

Wranitzky (AKA Pavel Vranicky), Symphony in C Op. 33 No. 2



Lovely tunes and very nicely orchestrated (for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, strings).

Cowell: Variations for Orchestra



A nice addition to the small Cowell discography.