What are you listening 2 now?

[Operafreak]

Peteris Vasks: Distant Light

[Irons]

Good afternoon all,

Earlier on, continuing through the Kempe Strauss set with Don Juan and Ein Heldenleben.



Now, some JS Bach organ works by Isoir (mix of CD6 & 7).

Took a fancy to give Kempe's Also Sprach Zarathustra a spin. The proceeding  work on the LP, Don Juan, which to my surprise I enjoyed more.

[Mirror Image]

Mahler: Symphony no.10 Adagio.

First ever listen I think.

Good to see you getting into some Mahler, Madiel. Is this a set you own in your collection or are you streaming it?

[Lisztianwagner]

J.S. Bach
Goldberg Variations

[Traverso]

Louis Couperin

[VonStupp]

Franz Schubert: Mass in G major, D 167. Claudio Abbado, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Wiener Staatsopernchor

First listen, sounds nice.

Beautiful!

VS

[Mirror Image]

Béla Bartók
Concerto for Orchestra

Pounds the table!

[VonStupp]

Franz Berwald
Symphony 1 in g minor 'Sérieuse'

Gothenburg SO - Neeme Järvi

I don't know Berwald's symphonies well, but the first is completely charming on first hearing.

VS

Listening to the 2nd from the Järvi set.

VS

Franz Berwald
Symphony 2 in D Major 'Capricieuse'

Gothenburg SO - Neeme Järvi

[aligreto]

Ireland: Concertino Pastorale [Hickox]





This is my first time to hear this work.

Having only heard it this one time I feel that I need to listen to this work again at a later stage. I felt that the music was somewhat episodic and disjointed in the opening movement. I did immediately like its lyrical tone however with those wonderful, disconcerting double basses rumbling in the undergrowth yielding a wonderful atmosphere. The slow movement, on the other hand, is a richly coherent work. It basically has the same tone and atmosphere as the opening movement but its scoring is richer and the atmosphere is much more pastoral due to the tempo. The final movement is a great contrast and it is a terrific affair. It is really driven very well and full of exuberance and excitement.

[Que]

Louis Couperin

I'm very grateful that Van Asperen did that Louis Couperin series.

[aligreto]

Took a fancy to give Kempe's Also Sprach Zarathustra a spin. The proceeding  work on the LP, Don Juan, which to my surprise I enjoyed more.

This is not an unusual situation in my experience.
I have come across quite a number of people who, once they get past the opening movement of Also Sprach Zarathustra, actually dislike the rest of the work.

[Spotted Horses]

Took a fancy to give Kempe's Also Sprach Zarathustra a spin. The proceeding  work on the LP, Don Juan, which to my surprise I enjoyed more.

Don Juan is probably my favorite work by Strauss. I should listen to Kempe's recording. Karajan's 80's recording is the one I always seem to go back to.

That reissue has been remastered, and I have the original edition from the early days of the CD. I wonder if the new issue sounds noticeably better.

[Karl Henning]

Béla Bartók
Concerto for Orchestra

Excellent!

[Que]

Beethoven: Middle Period Sonatas Op. 53 - Review by James Manheim

"Recordings of Beethoven's sonatas on a historically appropriate piano are seldom encountered. This one, part of a series by Dutch pianist Paul Komen, features a piano from 1825, some two decades after the famous sonatas of Beethoven's middle period were composed. Pianos from this far along in the instrument's development sound close to later grands in many respects, but the rate of decay of a note, once sounded, is much more rapid that the modern listener is used to. The result is extreme clarity of texture, even in a big, virtuoso work like the "Waldstein" Sonata in C major, Op. 53. Hear the point a couple of minutes into the Rondo finale where Beethoven shifts into overdrive with sweeping two-octave scales in the left hand accompanying the restated theme in the right -- Komen exploits to the hilt the instrument's ability to bring out these scales. And if his interpretation of the Piano Sonata No. 22 in F major, Op. 54, misses the scampering quality of Beethoven's humor, his "Appassionata" sonata, No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57, is as intense and dramatic as one could wish, with the tinkling high notes of the instrument deployed with appropriately unearthly effect at several junctures.

The chief disadvantage of this disc as compared with, say, Komen's recording of Beethoven's last three sonatas is that the piano isn't very closely matched with the repertory here. Pianos changed rapidly over Beethoven's lifetime, and he not only soaked up technical innovations but demanded them from manufacturers, partly but not completely as a result of his encroaching deafness. A piano from 1805 rather than 1825 would have shown Beethoven really struggling against an instrument's limitations. Sample, if you can find it, a cycle by American fortepianist Malcolm Bilson and his students that uses instruments very close in time to the works played.; it's on Switzerland's Claves label. In the absence of that set, the listener will find much of interest in this very fresh set of some endlessly played Beethoven works."

[Traverso]

I'm very grateful that Van Asperen did that Louis Couperin series.

That makes two of us, I wondered for a while if there might be a fifth recording in the pipeline.There are sometimes very large time intervals between the releases of the different volumes.

[Traverso]

Frederick Delius



A Mass of Life
Harper/ Watts/ Tear/ Luxon
London Philharmonic Choir
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Charles Groves
(1971)

[André]

A very magnificent disc. The choral music is grand, awesome, the orchestral pieces boisterous and lively, the engineering superb - big, bright, resonant in the best Chandos tradition.

[SonicMan46]

Bull & Byrd w/ Kit Armstrong on piano - small package from PrestoMusic arrived tonight - first up for a listen - heard this recording on Spotify a month or so ago and hesitated (don't have much of this English music on piano, but the performance was excellent) - then read a bunch of outstanding reviews (attached for those interested) - and decided to order the 2-CD set.  Dave

[Todd]

[Brian]

Total fabulousness.