What are you listening 2 now?

[Spotted Horses]

Toch, Symphony No 2, Francis, cpo



Revisiting these works briefly after discussion on the Toch thread. Basically I find the music fascinating. The clear negative is that the recording perspective is rather distant and reverberant, for my taste, and it requires a lot of effort to hear what is going on, except in the tumultuous tutti passages.

[Symphonic Addict]

I'd rather have an opinion especially on the "listening thread".  Without a comment/reaction to what the person has just listened to I find this particular thread incredibly dull.  I want to know how/why a person reacted to what they have just heard.

I thought I was the only one to feel this. Very well put.

[Spotted Horses]

I'm very happy with just a cover shot.  These have led me to some interesting discoveries.

I agree that the most useful thing about this thread is that I find out about the existence of recordings I didn't know existed. But I find a concise description of the reaction to the experience useful. Ideally something descriptive and not judgmental.

[DavidW]

Honestly you are not missing anything by not knowing why I've been listening to Weinberg's string quartets lately. 

Hard disagree.  It might inspire me to listen to them, or just remind me that they exist.  I know I'm not alone by being inspired by what other people are listening to.

It's funny because I used to think as you do, and in fact even created a thread to discuss and not just post recent listening.  But older me is fine just seeing what people are listening to even without any context whatsoever.

There is so much great music out there and honestly just being reminded of their existence on this thread is more rewarding than all those other threads rambling on about the minutiae of performance X vs Y.

[Linz]

Mahler Symphony 3 Lorin Maazel my first listening to it

[DavidW]

Funny enough I also though have a habit of not reporting on everything I listen to!   Especially if it is a repeat (which I do a lot).

[bhodges]

Though I do like comments on whatever is being heard (even if brief), I also like this thread for its objective, "just the facts" side. It reminds me of the feature Google rolled out awhile back, showing searches happening in real time. (This GMG thread is a little less frantic, but you get the idea.)

https://trends.google.com/trends/hottrends/visualize?nrow=5&ncol=5

--Bruce

[DavidW]

Oh yes I misread your post.

[Traverso]

Mahler Symphony 3 Lorin Maazel my first listening to it

Interesting,what is your opinion,after listening to it of course 

[VonStupp]

Unfortunately, I don't own the Albrecht recording. I generally like his conducting and may end up springing it for it. Would be nice if you could give it a listen and let me know your impressions.

Looking back at some old notes, it looks like I was generally enthusiastic over this recording, noting some very forward percussion and harp with a strong bass line. I gave the nod to Kempe, though. I'll see if I can dig back through to the actual recording.

VS

[VonStupp]

For this morning and continuing to Great Britain:



From this set:

I think 'Great Britain' is the most successful in the series so far (4 of 9), mainly because each work is long enough that you get a real sense of each composer's message and their abilities in conveying developed musical ideas. SWR's focus on 20th Century choral music is probably a better choice, instead of trying to represent each region throughout history in fits and starts, as I feel they did for Russia. This entry features 1975-2013 only, with an emphasis on post-1990.

Peter Maxwell Davies
Corpus Christi with Cat and Mouse (1993)
This one reminds me of William Schuman's Mail-Order Madrigals, except in olde-English. Really a fascinating musical language that is a great companion to Britten's Sacred & Profane.

James MacMillan
Alleluia (2013)
A beautiful creation that maintains invention across its 13 minutes. I am taken with choral composers who can make interesting vocal music on one word alone. Randall Thompson probably did it the best on Alleluia, but I very much like what MacMillan does here.

Jonathan Harvey
How could the soul not take flight (1996)
I don't know Harvey at all, but this one uses more avant-garde vocal techniques, and I kinda dug it in the end.

John Tavener
Schuon Hymnen (2003)
I first heard Tavener in his Song for Athene in the late 90's, a piece that really swept through the choral community. I wasn't thrilled with his style, around the same time Eric Whitacre was making waves in the US, so I lumped them together. I like that there is a rhythmic profile here, instead of endless floating ululations, although Tavener is still rather repetitious.

Benjamin Britten
Sacred and Profane, op. 91 (1975)
I love Britten. This was a very late work and doesn't last long, but is a wonderful example of his singular choral style married to his unique selection of texts, almost in a madrigal-ian fashion.

SWR Vokalensemble - Marcus Creed

VS

[Lisztianwagner]

Béla Bartók
String Quartet No.5

[Roasted Swan]

NP:

Korngold
Symphony in F-sharp, Op. 40
Munich PO
Kempe



This performance is so much better than John Wilson's on Chandos, but I'd put it on par with Previn on DG. I also like the Werner Andreas Albert on CPO.

For sure this Kempe is the pre-eminent version - warm hearted and nostalgic but also powerful.  The Wilson is sensationally played but just too driven too much of the time.  Regret is key to this work.

[Bachtoven]

Excellent music, very committed playing, merely adequate sound.

[aligreto]

Mahler: Symphony No. 4 [Boulez]





I find the opening movement is light in tone, very lyrically played and very full sounding. I also get a sense of both joy and fun there. I find the second movement to be slightly quirky with a slightly disconcerting and sinister undertone. I like the contribution of the lower register tones towards this atmosphere. I find the slow movement to be warm and full sounding. It is filled with emotion and the expansiveness of the presentation enhances this. It is neither sentimental nor overly intense. The voice of Juliane Banse in the final movement, while being very good, does not suit my taste in this role. I find it to be far too operatic sounding.

[Madiel]

Re opinions: while I do like quite hearing a bit about what people thought of a recording, the issue that was brought up was people having an opinion about someone else's opinion, and getting rather worked up about that other person's opinion.

It sometimes happens with the opinions of other GMG'ers. It also seems to happen with Hurwitz, where we first have to get a second-hand summary of what Hurwitz' opinion is BEFORE we get a response to it - an approach which it has its own dangers.

Other people are allowed to have a different opinion from you. This includes Hurwitz.

Perhaps Hurwitz had a colourful way of talking about Boulez' move to conducting that combined a negative view of Boulez' later conducting (a view not universal but also not otherwise unheard of) with the facts. Because some elements of our third-hand report of what Hurwitz said about what Boulez said (not THOUGHT) have similarities to what John said about what Boulez said. Or perhaps Hurwitz was purely talking about his own take on it without attributing it to Boulez.

Either way, the appropriate place to get outraged at Hurwitz is on the YouTube comments section, where he might actually bother to read the outrage but probably won't care about it. It's not great to bring it here in an effort to get OTHER PEOPLE to be outraged about it too. And of course, it probably wasn't worth getting outraged about it in the first place.

So yeah, I share the view that I'm more interested in hearing what you think about Boulez conducting Mahler then I am in hearing what you think about what Hurwitz thinks about Boulez conducting Mahler. Or you can just report that you're hearing Boulez conducting Mahler.

[Todd]

Better than I remembered, though still not a top three choice or anything.

[vers la flamme]

I've had the Bernstein/DG Mahler set for ages now and have yet to really listen to any of it... I know it's a polarizing one. Might need to get around to hearing some of it one of these days, while I'm on this Mahler kick.

[Linz]

I have just finished listening to the Final of the third I had to go out so I heard it in bits but after the Finale all I can say is WOW and I am now listeng to Kindertotenlieder Which follows the 3rd Symphony and Agnus Baltsa

[Traverso]

I have just finished listening to the Final of the third I had to go out so I heard it in bits but after the Finale all I can say is WOW and I am now listeng to Kindertotenlieder Which follows the 3rd Symphony and Agnus Baltsa

Good to hear that you are impressed by the performance.