What are you listening 2 now?

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Penderecki
Dimensions Of Time And Silence
Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir
Andrzej Markowski

[Spotted Horses]

I know you or someone had mentioned the CD set recently. It basically came up as the only version of the minuets on my streaming service, and I wasn't going to complain about that.

The minuets themselves aren't all that interesting. But the serenades and divertimenti are definitely on my radar for a future purchase.

If cost is not the primary concern, I would suggest the two relevant volumes of the Philips Mozart Edition.





All of the recordings I have listened to so far have been outstanding, and the ensembles include ASMF, ASMF Chamber Ensemble, Netherlands Wind Ensemble, and some others including some Boskovsky.

[Karl Henning]

Pass the Schubert. Yum.

(* chortle *)

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Mahler
Symphony No. 3 in D minor
Jessye Norman, soprano
Wiener Philharmoniker
Abbado



For me, this is one of Abbado's best Mahler performances. Blows his later Berliner performance out of the water.

[Brian]

The good thing about this Matthies-Köhn Brahms series is that you get analytical clarity of transcriptions which really reveal all the music's inner workings, counterpoint, idea development, and all those other intellectual things - it's like looking at an X-ray - and you get performers who are sensitive interpreters in their own right. Perfect middle ground. I still think their readings/vision of the Second and Third Symphonies are better than, say, 70% of most orchestral conductors'.

[Karl Henning]

Mendelssohn: Paulus, Op. 36

    Gundula Janowitz (soprano), Rosemarie Lang (contralto), Hermann-Christian Polster (bass), Hans Peter Blochwitz (tenor), Theo Adam-(bass), Gothart Stier (bass)
    Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Leipzig Radio Choir, GewandhausKinderchor-    Kurt Masur
   

I've listened to Paulus in the Herreweghe box (an outstanding affair, overall). I remember not objecting to the piece, but I don't see myself becoming an enthusiast.

[Karl Henning]

Do give "Pagan poem" a try. I think it is Loeffler at his most lush and exuberant: piano solo obligato, extended solos for the english horn,three extra trumpets in the finale! A late Romantic bijou presented in impressionistic colours.

"Besides several symphonic poems – including La Mort de Tintagiles (after Maeterlinck) with solo viola d'amore, op. 6 (1897, rev. 1900), and the Poem (1901, rev. 1915) - Loeffler left behind a large body of chamber music for a wide range of instruments, three operas, and roughly forty songs. Several of his works (including a Poème for cello and orchestra) are lost. A Pagan Poem (after Virgil) for orchestra with obligato piano, cor anglais, and three trumpets (1904-6) was originally composed in 1901-2 as Poème païen (d'après Virgil) for two flutes, oboe, clarinet, cor anglais, two horns, viola, double bass, piano, and three trumpets. Once again Loeffler applied the severe self-criticism that induced him time and again to give his works a final polish. The orchestral version was premièred on 29 October 1907 during a private concert in Fenway Court (the home of his friend, the musically-minded Isabella Stewart Gardner), with the pianist Heinrich Gebhard (an ardent champion of the piece) and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Karl Muck. The public première was given with the same performers in Boston Symphony Hall on 22 November 1907. The work received excellent reviews and quickly became popular – perhaps one reason why Loeffler did not venture on another orchestral work for a long time thereafter.

The Poem is dedicated to the memory of Gustave Schirmer, who died of acute appendicitis on 17 July 1907, and with whose wife Loeffler was on terms of friendship. The work was published roughly two years later by G. Schirmer (the autograph score is preserved in the Library of Congress, Washington DC) and also appeared in an edition for two pianos, arranged by Heinrich Gebhard. The only extra-musical references in the score are the short subtitle "after Virgil" and the addendum Poème antique in the piano part. Loeffler once said that he loved "the word 'pagan' connected with the ancients."2 He left no statements regarding the work's genesis or "program": "When I am ready to write," he once claimed in an interview, "the ideas are likely to be clear in my head. More often than not they come from something I have read, an impression received, perhaps from a single line. [...] 'A Pagan Poem' was the result of the chant of the sorceress as recited in Virgil's Eclogue. From that the rest grew."3

Virgil's Bucolics, like the Aeneid, were popular reading-matter in France; a new edition of 1912 contained woodcuts by Aristide Maillol. In their range and variety, the Bucolics sing of the full panoply of "pagan" rural life, which was later stereotyped into an ideal world in Symbolism and the Lebensreform movement. Many compositions of the fin de siècle reflect this ideal in all its variety, especially in the anglophone world, where it was a much-beloved subject (John Ireland, Arnold Bax, Granville Bantock). But the best-known works along these lines were unquestionably Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. Although there is no precise reference in the orchestral score, Loeffler referred to [Damon seu] Pharmaceutria – Damon or The Sorceress (Virgil's Eighth Eclogue) in the first version of 1901-2. The work is prefixed with a quotation from this poem.

Loeffler's composition opens with a slow "mystic" introduction from which there arises, first in the flutes and solo viola, an initial melody whose elements are of cardinal importance for the work as a whole. Moods and timbres follow in rich succession, reverting time and again to the motivic material of the opening. In the Lento assai (pp. 35 ff.) a prominent role is assigned to the piano, which is used, not as an orchestral instrument, but concertante in the same manner as the cor anglais. Perhaps the climax of the work is the entrance of the three off-stage trumpets, da lontano, accompanied only by timpani and piano (p. 66, rehearsal no. 1). Though only fifteen bars long, it has an extraordinary timbral and musical allure.

A choreographed version of A Pagan Poem was mounted in New York in 1930, with choreography by Irene Lewisohn, but some time after 1960 the work's popularity seems to have entered a rapid decline. To date there have been three recordings of the Pagan Poem, all predating this year, but none thereafter: one with Leopold Stokowski and his symphony orchestra (Seraphim S 60080), another with Howard Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester Symphony Orchestra (Victor Red Seal), and a third with Manuel Rosenthal and the Paris Philharmonic Orchestra (Capitol P 8188). The Stokowski and Rosenthal recordings have both been transferred to CD and released by EMI."
https://repertoire-explorer.musikmph.de/wp-content/uploads/vorworte_prefaces/802.html
I love it!

Thanks for all this, Peter! I've wanted to like Loeffler better than my limited exposure could really justify. I'll start anew with Pagan Poem!

[Karl Henning]

The Dutch New Spirituality composer  Joep Fransens, Harmony of the Spheres

Interessant.

[VonStupp]

Mendelssohn: Paulus, Op. 36

    Gundula Janowitz (soprano), Rosemarie Lang (contralto), Hermann-Christian Polster (bass), Hans Peter Blochwitz (tenor), Theo Adam-(bass), Gothart Stier (bass)
    Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Leipzig Radio Choir, GewandhausKinderchor-    Kurt Masur

I love Masur and the Gewandhaus in both this Paulus, as well as Elias, the latter with Israel. It doesn't hurt that he can bring in these overlong Mendelssohn oratorios in just over 90 minutes too!

Theo Adam is almost unbearable though.

VS

[steve ridgway]

Isang Yun - Pezzo Fantasioso. Found some on archive.org having looking on Wikipedia after seeing the composer in the top 50 recordings thread by Mirror Image and discovering his Darmstadt association.

[VonStupp]

Ralph Vaughan Williams
A Song of Thanksgiving
The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains

Sir John Gielgud, narrator
Bryn Terfel, baritone, et al.
Corydon Singers
City of London Sinfonia - Matthew Best

Bringing this one back out again. Enjoying it thoroughly.

VS

[Linz]

Bruckner Symphony 9 in D Minor and Liszt Les Préludes Mehta

[Lisztianwagner]

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Job

https://www.youtube.com/v/NtJZg5u3A6I

[Karl Henning]

The CSO plays the Brahms Op. 25 arrangement

[Mirror Image]

Isang Yun - Pezzo Fantasioso. Found some on archive.org having looking on Wikipedia after seeing the composer in the top 50 recordings thread by Mirror Image and discovering his Darmstadt association.

Nice! That is an excellent recording, Steve. For the record, Andre is also a big fan. You should definitely try and hear more of his music. Fascinating composer.

[Mirror Image]

And now I begin my Vaughan Williams Elder journey, but I'll start with a familiar disc and a personal favorite:

[Mirror Image]

Ralph Vaughan Williams
A Song of Thanksgiving
The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains

Sir John Gielgud, narrator
Bryn Terfel, baritone, et al.
Corydon Singers
City of London Sinfonia - Matthew Best

Bringing this one back out again. Enjoying it thoroughly.

VS

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Job

https://www.youtube.com/v/NtJZg5u3A6I

Pounds the table!

[Karl Henning]

Listening to this, and sorry again that Luke has gone off-grid.

[Todd]

[Linz]

Franz Schubert 4th symphony in C major and von Einem Philadelphia Symphony, Op.28 Zubin Mehta