What are you listening 2 now?

[vers la flamme]

Frédéric Chopin: Nocturnes, opp. 9 & 15. Fou Ts'ong

Very very happy with this impulse buy. For under $2 a disc I couldn't say no. Fou was a very, very fine Chopin pianist.

[Operafreak]

Complete Nocturnes-Jan Lisiecki (piano)

[Que]

Morning listening - The Magic of Polyphony:



Last disc. An eclectic selection for Early Music veterans.

[Harry]

Frédéric Chopin: Nocturnes, opp. 9 & 15. Fou Ts'ong

Very very happy with this impulse buy. For under $2 a disc I couldn't say no. Fou was a very, very fine Chopin pianist.

I could not agree more.

[Roasted Swan]

The other day I was in one of my local charity shops.  They had on the counter one of those "help yourself for a donation" baskets usually kept for free DVDs etc that sometimes come inside the Sunday papers etc (in the UK at least).  This time there were half a dozen or so early BBC Music Magazine discs - no performance details or liner notes - just the artists and a slim-line jewel case.  I grabbed the following 5 for a couple of quid in the collecting tin......



All from the first year or so of the magazine.  I've not listened to them all yet but what I have heard is genuinely excellent.  The Bruckner 9 was recorded inside Liverpool Cathedral (The Anglican I guess?) so it has a big acoustic and sounds tremendous.  The Elgar/Lloyd is also very fine.  A fiery Cello Concerto from Tortelier and Carr and the Lloyd is the same performance released on the Albany label - I'd forgotten what a good piece Lloyd No.9 is.  The Rachmaninov/Stravinsky is also powerful and  characterful.  Lastly the Sibelius 5 (not heard the Nielsen yet) is a blazing performance - very dynamic

Got to drive to somewhere for some playing later so it'll be Nielsen and Mahler to set me on my way.  With the fate/future of the BBC still a political ping-pong ball being batted around with the Right claiming Left Wing Liberalism and the Left saying the Beeb is just a mouthpiece for government be careful if it disappears in a storm of politically-centric outrage.  So much will be lost and never recovered - these recordings and what they represent are a tiny sample of that.  I'll enjoy them while I can.

[Traverso]

Just received my ImportCDs order last night, and couldn't wait to listen!

Poulenc
Stabat Mater
Regine Crespin, soprano
Choeur René Duclos
Paris Conservatory Orchestra
Georges Pretre
(on CD)

congratulations,it is a really fine box,I love the piano music and the many other fine recordings. 



Hauntingly beautiful... the more I listen to Poulenc, the more he becomes one of my favorites.

[Traverso]

Morning listening - The Magic of Polyphony:



Last disc. An eclectic selection for Early Music veterans.

And a fine collection it is.......

[Lisztianwagner]

Attending a performance of this on Saturday reminded me how thoroughly I love the piece:

Schoenberg
Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21

(Sinopoli/Staatskapelle Dresden)

Completely agree; and a really excellent recording!

[Lisztianwagner]

Franz Liszt
Etudes de Concert S.144 & 145

Pianist: Claudio Arrau

[Traverso]

Bach


Weihnachtsoratorium

[Todd]

[Traverso]

From Bach's Christmas Oratorio to Loudun's Devils is a great change of heart.


It's been decades since I read Aldous Huxley's book, a book that was very enlightening about the infatuation that took place in France (1634). Penderecki's music, of course, is limited to the storyline of the book, while Huxley touches on numerous other things in his book. A striking finding at the time for me was that not the method but the therapist is decisive in psychotherapy, a sobering fact.

The film that Ken Russel made of it is a bit over the top. The book is gripping to read at times and contains a wealth of all kinds of related matters.

[vandermolen]

Howard Hanson 'The Cherubic Hymn' (LP)

[kyjo]

Casella: Symphony No.2

Pounds the table! A blockbuster of a symphony! Btw, have you noticed the similarity between the scherzos of Casella's 2nd and Tubin's 3rd? It struck me upon revisiting the Tubin recently.

[kyjo]

Arnold Bax
Tintagel

Sir Mark Elder & Hallé Orchestra

Don't know that performance, but what a ravishingly beautiful work!

[kyjo]

Just received my ImportCDs order last night, and couldn't wait to listen!

Poulenc
Stabat Mater
Regine Crespin, soprano
Choeur René Duclos
Paris Conservatory Orchestra
Georges Pretre
(on CD)



Hauntingly beautiful... the more I listen to Poulenc, the more he becomes one of my favorites.

+1 Poulenc has also become one of my very favorite composers over the past few years. And the Stabat Mater is unquestionably one of his finest masterpieces! It's Poulenc at his most "serious", and as such it's quite a compelling listen.

[kyjo]

Test-Drive Tuesday

Goffredo Petrassi

Divertimento in C (1930) World Première Recording
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma
Francesco La Vecchia

If memory serves, that's a really delightful work in the best Italian neoclassical tradition.

[Linz]

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1

[bhodges]

For an article I'm writing to be published on Election Day (!), exploring versions of Copland's A Lincoln Portrait (which I hadn't heard in years). Among many fine versions, this one is quite good, with Adlai Stevenson, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Eugene Ormandy. Considering it was released in 1965, the sonics are great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRB5CWRxPtQ

-Bruce

[Biffo]

Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony - Bournemouth Symphony Chorus & Orchestra with Christopher Maltman baritone and Joan Rogers soprano conducted by Paul Daniel - fine performance