What are you listening 2 now?

[Karl Henning]

I shouldn't have called Glass lesser-known ....

[Karl Henning]

TD:

Maiden-Listen Monday!

Myaskovsky
Symphony № 15 in d minor, Op. 38

[DavidW]

I shouldn't have called Glass lesser-known ....

I don't know what would be more depressing being the discount Glass, the discount Tchaikovsky,... I don't know.

I bet somewhere out there is a composer by the name of oh I don't know... Clyde Henning.  He says "hey want to hear Henningmusik?"  Someone replies "oh yes I love Karl Henning's music!"  And then Clyde sighs heavily.

[Mirror Image]

Maiden-Listen Monday!

Gil Shaham playing the Korngold Concerto, Op, 35

This is your first time hearing the Korngold VC or just this particular performance?

[Karl Henning]

This is your first time hearing the Korngold VC or just this particular performance?

The Concerto, John.

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Lutoslawski
Jeux Vénetiens
Polish Radio National SO
Lutoslawski

From this set -

[Mirror Image]

The Concerto, John.

Oh, wow...very nice. Let me know what you think about it whenever you can the time, Karl. This is one of my favorite VCs.

[Symphonic Addict]

Lyadov: Baba-Yaga and The Enchanted Lake

Whilst Baba-Yaga is more agitated and with a wizardry-like feel to it, The Enchanted Lake is particularly atmospheric and mysterious.

[Karl Henning]

TD:

Maiden-Listen Monday!

Myaskovsky
Symphony № 15 in d minor, Op. 38

I like this very much.

[Karl Henning]

Oh, wow...very nice. Let me know what you think about it whenever you can the time, Karl. This is one of my favorite VCs.

Exquisite!

[Mirror Image]

Exquisite!

My thoughts exactly.

[kyjo]

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, as ever, for the detailed info, Peter!

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Korngold
Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35
Gil Shaham, violin
LSO
Previn

[Mapman]

Maiden-Listen Monday
Rubbra: Symphony #5
Hickox: BBC NOW

Unfortunately, I didn't find it as interesting as his 6th (or 2nd).

[classicalgeek]

Yngve Sköld
Symphony no. 2
*Violin Concerto
*Tobias Ringborg, violin
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Tuomas Ollila
(on Spotify)



Really charming, delightful, witty stuff; even if it's not the most original writing, it's still completely lovable. I can hear Grieg's influence as well as Carl Nielsen's, even Rachmaninov's in the second subject of the first movement of the Symphony. I'd like to see more recordings of Sköld's music!

[kyjo]

Maiden-Listen Monday
Rubbra: Symphony #5
Hickox: BBC NOW

Unfortunately, I didn't find it as interesting as his 6th (or 2nd).

FWIW, my favorite Rubbra symphony is the 7th, which has an unusually colorful and characterful (for Rubbra!) scherzo. I enjoy his 5th, 6th, and 8th symphonies as well, but, on the whole, he's not one of my favorite English composers. That said, his music has a seriousness of purpose that should repay repeated listening.

[kyjo]

Yngve Sköld
Symphony no. 2
*Violin Concerto
*Tobias Ringborg, violin
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Tuomas Ollila
(on Spotify)



Really charming, delightful, witty stuff; even if it's not the most original writing, it's still completely lovable. I can hear Grieg's influence as well as Carl Nielsen's, even Rachmaninov's in the second subject of the first movement of the Symphony. I'd like to see more recordings of Sköld's music!

Oh yes, the 2nd Symphony is a real gem, pretty much on par with, say, Atterberg in terms of exalted melodic inspiration. The slow movement has a moving, hymn-like simplicity that is quite affecting. For whatever reason, I don't have strong memories of the VC. I'd also love to see more recordings of Sköld's music - he's been one of the unluckier Swedes when it comes to recorded representation on disc.

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Mahler
Symphony No. 3 in D minor
Waltraud Meier, mezzo-soprano
Eton College Boys' Choir, London Philharmonic Choir, London Philharmonic Orchestra
Tennstedt



As always Tennstedt shows a special way with Mahler. The LPO plays their hearts out and everything was captured is superb audio.

[Symphonic Addict]

Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 1

I like the somewhat "vintage" sound of this recording.

[André]

I wouldn't have thought there was a market for Milhaud's concerto for marimbaphone and vibraphone, but there it is, amongst a good number of recorded versions (at least 9). This specific disc has the advantage of pairing it with other Milhaud works. Most other versions feature it together with percussion works by other composers. Even Celibidache gave it a go !

It's a real concerto, 3 movements and 20 minutes of pure aural and melodic delight. This fine Milhaud recital includes a substantial filler in the form of a 5 mov. suite for chamber orchestra by Austrian composer Michael Radanovics, commissioned by the disc's performers for the 50th anniversary of WWII's end. It is fine music even without that connotation.