What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

NP:

Mahler
Symphony No. 9 in D
Czech Philharmonic
Neumann

From this set -

The cover art looks like the envelopment of chocolates or candies. It's not far from reality, actually. Each symphony is a bom-bom in many aspects.

[Mirror Image]

Oh, good to know, John. That says allot to me in many respects. Thanks.

You're welcome. This is a difficult symphony to get right. Too often you have a plodding first movement that doesn't gather much steam while the second movement gets more electricity while the remaining two movements are kind of put on the back burner. Haitink is the only conductor I've heard in this work that has given a fully measured performance of it and is the only one that has convinced me of its merit. Rozhdestvensky and Kondrashin get close, but even here they can't quite get their nails into it the way Haitink has done.

[Symphonic Addict]

Thank you too, Dave, that PBS & FQ version looks enticing, although I am not a fan of fortepianos.

Other performances I own:



plus the one in the Philips Complete Works edition which I can't remember otoh.

The piano quartets are among my very favorite Mozart works.

And while I am at it, I've been listening to nothing but Mozart in the last few days and I could listen to nothing but Mozart all day long for a long time without ever getting bored or feeling the need for a change. His music is as passionate and dramatic as one could wish for, but in a subtle way and in a concise manner (he can go from joy to sorrow and back in the space of a few bars). There's also a bittersweet melancholy in so much of his works that few others were able to match --- in fact, besides Schubert and Chopin I'm not aware of any other. Yes, ultimately he is a cheerful, merry, jolly and life-affirming composer --- and what's wrong with that, I wonder? Bottom line, he is my desert island composer hands down.

I'm looking at you, Cesar, while typing --- and you know only too well why.   

That is fantastic and is what I also look for when music is concerned: to enjoy what I like, gives me pleasure, makes me feel alive and satisfies me the most. Your approach to Mozart's genius and figure is much closer than mine, of course, so I get what you mean.

My ultimate favorite composer would have to bee... Beethoven, or Brahms, then Nielsen, Dvorak, Sibelius o Shostakovich. I can't decide.

[Symphonic Addict]

You're welcome. This is a difficult symphony to get right. Too often you have a plodding first movement that doesn't gather much steam while the second movement gets more electricity while the remaining two movements are kind of put on the back burner. Haitink is the only conductor I've heard in this work that has given a fully measured performance of it and is the only one that has convinced me of its merit. Rozhdestvensky and Kondrashin get close, but even here they can't quite get their nails into it the way Haitink has done.

Paavo Berglund (with an English orchesta, methinks) on Warner is also exciting and visceral. I wish Bernstein would have conducted this masterpiece.

[Mirror Image]

Paavo Berglund (with an English orchesta, methinks) on Warner is also exciting and visceral. I wish Bernstein would have conducted this masterpiece.

Yeah, Berglund/Bournemouth is good, indeed, but I still can't help thinking he's no match for Haitink/Concertgebouw.

Thread duty -

Last work for the night:

Glazunov
String Quintet in A major, Op. 39
Utrecht String Quartet & Michael Stirling

[Symphonic Addict]

Revueltas: String Quartet No. 4 Música de feria

Plenty of personality under 9 minutes.

[Symphonic Addict]

Really? I think it's one of Nielsen's best works.

+1!

[Operafreak]

Boieldieu: Piano Concerto & Six Overtures

Nataša Veljković (piano)

Howard Griffiths

[Que]

Morning listening:

 

Finishing my journey through this set with the two masses on disc 2: one by Nicolas Gombert and an anonymous one

Renaissance riches revealed

http://www.musica-dei-donum.org/cd_reviews/Etcetera_KTC1410.html

[vandermolen]

Early morning listening (with the volume turned down); MacMillan Symphony No.4. After attending the concert last night I had to hear some more MacMillan this morning!

[Que]

I took the opportunity to take these Gombert recordings for a test drive on Spotify:



No matter how often you listen, the awful cover stays the same....
And I already I've already read somewhere that the discs come without texts... Sounds like a familiar Fra Bernardo screw up of presentation... 

But the performances convince me to put this on the shopping list.

[vandermolen]

I though I'd play my other recording of MacMillan's powerful 4th Symphony. Brabbins is slightly longer than Runnicles but I enjoy both equally. I've realised, listening to this, the influence of Charles Ives on MacMillan's music. MacMillan mentions admiration for Ives in his short musical autobiography and I am more aware of it now:

[Biffo]

Bach: Wachet! Betet! Wachet! Betet! - Cantata for the 2nd Sunday in Advent - Gustav Leonhardt directing Concentus Musicus Wien, Tolz Boys Choir & soloists.

BWV70a was written in Weimar for Advent but later expanded in Leipzig for the 26th Sunday after Trinity as BWV70. When I was looking for a recording of BWV70a to download to fill the gap in my collection of cantatas I couldn't find one. Today I actually played BWV 70 which I think is close enough. This morning I found a performance of BWV70a from Helmut Rilling on YouTube but went ahead with BWV70 anyway.

[aukhawk]

Ah!  I hadn't realized that there was more than one cadenza in No. 1--which makes more sense now with the liner notes (underneath it says "(Cadenzas:  Benjamin Britten)  There's nothing underneath the Cello Concerto No. 2 though.  I suspect that Britten also wrote cadenzas for it too?  Do you happen to know Irons?

Thanks for reminding me; I had forgotten that Rostropovich was close to Britten [Must be getting old here....how could I have forgotten that?!    ].

I'm old enough to have been around when that Haydn Cello Concerto (No.1 in C) didn't exist 
It was 'discovered' around 1961 (I think) and so, at the time of the Rostropovich/Britten recording in 1964, there would not have been much of a performance tradition around the cadenzas.  The other concerto had never been lost so the cadenza would already have been well established.

Across all the recordings of the Concerto in C, you'll find a rich variety of candenzas very often supplied by the performers themselves (as it should be).  In the recording by Ludovit Kanta (on Naxos) the 1st movement candenza is totally left-field, wandering off into modernist territory and back again - I love it!  Without the booklet to hand (it's filed away somewhere inaccessible right now) I don't know the source for this version.

[Traverso]

Gabrieli

Sacrae symphoniae
Canzona prima a 5
Canzona a 8
Six Canzonas (1608)

Vejvanovský

Soanata natalis
Sonata la posta
Harmonia Romana
Sonata tribus
Baletti pro tabula

[Harry]

Georg Philipp Telemann.
Wind concertos, volume IV.
La stagione Frankfurt, Michael Schneider.

This music is addictive, it never stops me being amazed at the quality of his compositions, and not to forget the more than perfect performances. Well now, both boxes in the rerun! For the counterpart "The Grand concertos" is as good.

[Traverso]

Bach

Sonatas for Flauto Traverso

Sonata BWV 1030
Partita BWV 1013
Sonata BWV 1035

[MusicTurner]

(...)

Across all the recordings of the Concerto in C, you'll find a rich variety of cadenzas very often supplied by the performers themselves (as it should be).  In the recording by Ludovit Kanta (on Naxos) the 1st movement cadenza is totally left-field, wandering off into modernist territory and back again - I love it!  Without the booklet to hand (it's filed away somewhere inaccessible right now) I don't know the source for this version.

Agree, not a recording that looks remarkable, but very nice to have, IMO. Breiner likes to do such stuff with a twist in the arrangement, cf. also his recording Mozart's Piano Concerto no.20 with jazz in the cadenzas. I'm sitting with the Haydn Naxos CD booklet, but there's no info regarding the choices in the cadenzas there, except from that they are by Peter Breiner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Breiner

[Harry]

Georg Philipp Telemann.
The Grand concertos for Mixed Instruments.
Volume IV.

La Stagione Frankfurt, Michael Schneider.

Superb.

[Iota]

Georg Philipp Telemann.
The Grand concertos for Mixed Instruments.
Volume IV.

La Stagione Frankfurt, Michael Schneider.

Superb.

+1 Those CPO Telemann recordings are scintillating.


Here:



Debussy: Cello Sonata

Queyras (cello), Tharaud (piano)


Surely one of the shortest 'established' cello sonatas at around 10 mins, but as time seems to disappear within seconds of beginning, such matters hardly seem relevant. Queyras and Tharaud pick out the emotionally extra-planetary, drifting moods nicely in stylish and nuanced manner.