What are you listening 2 now?

[pjme]

Heard it yesterday on the radio. Beauty!

https://www.youtube.com/v/unb-z1KT3_c

[cjvinthechair]

Wonderful 'steer' - listening to a live performance from YouTube...what a pleasure on a Sunday lunchtime !

[The new erato]

Such an underrated and underrecorded composer.

[Madiel]

Finishing off the Pejacevic piano works



Weirdly, the track timings printed in the booklet suddenly become utterly wrong for most pieces in the last section of CD 2, when they're fine elsewhere. I wonder what that's all about.

[Que]

Wonderful 'steer' - listening to a live performance from YouTube...what a pleasure on a Sunday lunchtime !

Nice! 

Now:



A reminder that there is some amazing sounding Telemann out there.

[Operafreak]

Beethoven: Streichquartette, Op. 18- Amadeus Quartet

[Harry]

Johann Sebastian Bach.

Six Cello Suites.

Pierre Fournier, Cello.
Recording, December 1960, Hannover, Beethoven Saal.

A guilty pleasure I admit, but what a fine renditions these are. It was my first confrontation with Bach's music, when I was 12. He is a modern hipster for me. I was not aware of authentic performances at the time, although this one comes close for me. What a feeling and yet emotion is restrained. He never goes over the top, and gives a galant and well informed performance. I still get goose bumps all over. What a elegant musician Fournier was. The aristocrat of Cellists. Still a benchmark for me. The sound is topnotch.

[Todd]

First disc of this twofer.

[Todd]

[JBS]

What seems to be the better known cover art for the re-issue, and probably fits better with the composer's Catholicism than the Vajrayana imagery of the original LP.

This is CD 15 of the Sony Peter Serkin set, which includes the recordings he made as part of Tashi.

I must say I am enjoying this much more than usual with Messiaen, and more than any other recording I've heard of QftEoT.

[SonicMan46]

Woelfl, Joseph (1773-1812) - Piano Concertos - short bio below, but longer one HERE by Margit Haider-Dechant stating "The first list of works that I compiled in 2006 already extended to approx. 500 works....This later proved to be provisional. To date 620 works have been verified..." - I own 10 CDs of his works and not much left to pick on Amazon USA - we wrote a lot of wind chamber music which I'd like to hear?  Dave

Wölfl (Woelfl), Joseph, Austrian pianist and composer who was a pupil of Leopold Mozart and Michael Haydn while serving as a chorister at the Salzburg Cathedral (1783-86). He was then in Vienna (1790-92) and Warsaw (1793), and again in Vienna from 1795; he was considered Beethoven's rival as a pianist. In 1798 he married the actress Thérèse Klemm. Traveling through Germany, he gave numerous concerts as a pianist, reaching Paris in 1801, where he was acclaimed as a piano virtuoso. In 1805 he went to London, and almost immediately established himself in the public's favor as a pianist and teacher. He was, however, of an eccentric disposition, and became involved in all sorts of trouble. He died in obscurity at the age of 38. (Source)

 

[aukhawk]

First listen ever to this work. From the Sony Peter Serkin set.
As with almost everything I've heard by Messiaen, I'm not terribly impressed.
More than enough notes but not enough music.



ETA
Either my ears adjusted or Messiaen got better as he went along. Still not a cycle I'll be returning to often.
I do suspect it's better experienced as 20 pieces to be played separately and not one grand cycle.

I really like those bits of Vingt Regards that I like (basically, 11 of the 20) and listen to them frequently - and I don't listen to the rest.  (I recommend Batagov though.)
Messiaen - especially his piano music and his organ music - seems to offer three modes of expression - 'Meditation' (which I really like), 'Birdsong' (challenging but OK - especially good on the organ) and 'Shock and awe' (which I don't enjoy). 
In Vingt Regards a good tip is - he pretty much alternates between Meditation (the odd-numbered pieces) and Shock & awe (the even numbered ones).  This makes it very easy to arrange an agreeable playlist.
A detailed breakdown is:
Meditation - all the odds except 13, add No.4; Shock & awe - all the evens except 4, add 13; Birdsong - No.8. 
(I may have missed some birdsong elsewhere - he slips it into all his music in the most charming and unexpected ways.)

[Todd]

Mozart and Scriabin do not come to mind as great discmates.  I'm not sold on the combo.  I am sold on Chochieva's smokin' pianism, though, exactly as expected.  I streamed this as a try before I ultimately must buy.

[Brian]

I really like those bits of Vingt Regards that I like (basically, 11 of the 20) and listen to them frequently - and I don't listen to the rest.  (I recommend Batagov though.)
Messiaen - especially his piano music and his organ music - seems to offer three modes of expression - 'Meditation' (which I really like), 'Birdsong' (challenging but OK - especially good on the organ) and 'Shock and awe' (which I don't enjoy). 
In Vingt Regards a good tip is - he pretty much alternates between Meditation (the odd-numbered pieces) and Shock & awe (the even numbered ones).  This makes it very easy to arrange an agreeable playlist.
A detailed breakdown is:
Meditation - all the odds except 13, add No.4; Shock & awe - all the evens except 4, add 13; Birdsong - No.8. 
(I may have missed some birdsong elsewhere - he slips it into all his music in the most charming and unexpected ways.)

There is a birdsong section to "Le baisir" (15) but it is overall my favorite, as it is mostly meditation with a bit of triumph and emotional payoff. (It is also often programmed separately/singly.)

Otherwise I agree with you about the meditation sections being my favorite, and your guide here is really useful to newcomers like JBS or not-super-familiar listeners like me.

[Karl Henning]

What seems to be the better known cover art for the re-issue, and probably fits better with the composer's Catholicism than the Vajrayana imagery of the original LP.

This is CD 15 of the Sony Peter Serkin set, which includes the recordings he made as part of Tashi.

I must say I am enjoying this much more than usual with Messiaen, and more than any other recording I've heard of QftEoT.

Nice!

[Traverso]

Bach


Sonata No 2

[Lisztianwagner]

Olivier Messiaen
Oiseuax exotiques I/41

[Karl Henning]

.

[JBS]

I really like those bits of Vingt Regards that I like (basically, 11 of the 20) and listen to them frequently - and I don't listen to the rest.  (I recommend Batagov though.)
Messiaen - especially his piano music and his organ music - seems to offer three modes of expression - 'Meditation' (which I really like), 'Birdsong' (challenging but OK - especially good on the organ) and 'Shock and awe' (which I don't enjoy). 
In Vingt Regards a good tip is - he pretty much alternates between Meditation (the odd-numbered pieces) and Shock & awe (the even numbered ones).  This makes it very easy to arrange an agreeable playlist.
A detailed breakdown is:
Meditation - all the odds except 13, add No.4; Shock & awe - all the evens except 4, add 13; Birdsong - No.8. 
(I may have missed some birdsong elsewhere - he slips it into all his music in the most charming and unexpected ways.)

I suspect you won't care for Serkin, since he did pretty well with the Schock and Awe element, less so with Meditation element.
I only remember one bit of Birdsong during the whole cycle.

[Traverso]

Messiaen


CD 1