What are you listening 2 now?

[JBS]

TD: Finally starting with this Dvorak album I bought last year.



I must say the liner notes are particularly good, giving proper insight into the 19th century domestic music-making world these were written for.

This was the group of Dvorak works you were hunting high and low for last year, wasn't it?

TD
[asin]B004MGMIA8[/asin]
CD  7 of 52
12 works I think I've never heard of before.

[Madiel]

Thank you both, gentlemen.
Actually that is my reaction to all 3 CDs I have heard so far.  And it's not that I think the music is not good. It's just that I keep thinking "this is kind of like composer so-and-so, but not quite as good".  Although, come to  think of it, I did not have that reaction to Nicturnes 6 and 7.

It's an interesting one. Faure's music has never entirely carved out a niche for itself, and that's partly because he stands at a weird crossroads. Somewhat Romantic, somewhat Modern (heck, he outlived Debussy and wrote some of his greatest works once he'd retired and time to devote himself to composition).

And more than anything else, subtle.

He rarely stands up and shouts for attention. The liner notes for Stott make that point if I recall correctly, that some pianists don't warm to Faure because the reward-to-effort ratio is a bit skewed. You work damn hard and you don't get everyone going wow and ooh and aah about how spectacular it all sounds. The relationship between what the musician sees on the page and what an audience hears can be quite surprising.

If anything makes Faure stand out it's his sense of harmony and of line. There are long sequences of modal inflections and twists and turns.

[Madiel]

This was the group of Dvorak works you were hunting high and low for last year, wasn't it?

I know I was trying to navigate my way past various choral versions, yes, and also trying to figure out exactly how many Moravian Duets there were and who did them all. It shits me no end that vocal duets and quartets seem to be more frequently rendered by choirs, ignoring the original form. That view is even more strengthened by these liner notes!

I mean, this is one of the most crucial things in Dvorak's entire career. The Moravian Duets are what got him noticed, and led to the request for the Slavonic Dances.

I can't remember who put me onto this album, but it fits the bill perfectly and is also remarkable for having a period piano that doesn't bother me at all. It sounds perfectly appropriate.

Dvorak's songs in general seem to have a bit of a patchy discography. That's probably what you get for mostly writing in Czech rather than German. The Moravian Duets were actually published in German and then English for the Czech original finally got a printing.

[San Antone]

Really stunning SACD sound on that one.  The piano concerto has gotten a lot of spins in my listening room.

I don't have the ability to play SACD - but the music is really good.

[Mirror Image]

I can only nod my head in agreement with what Madiel wrote about Fauré.

Thread duty -

A Ravel Double-Bill: Two versions of Ma mère l'Oye

First, the version for two pianos:



And then the version for orchestra:

[JBS]

It's an interesting one. Faure's music has never entirely carved out a niche for itself, and that's partly because he stands at a weird crossroads. Somewhat Romantic, somewhat Modern (heck, he outlived Debussy and wrote some of his greatest works once he'd retired and time to devote himself to composition).

And more than anything else, subtle.

He rarely stands up and shouts for attention. The liner notes for Stott make that point if I recall correctly, that some pianists don't warm to Faure because the reward-to-effort ratio is a bit skewed. You work damn hard and you don't get everyone going wow and ooh and aah about how spectacular it all sounds. The relationship between what the musician sees on the page and what an audience hears can be quite surprising.

If anything makes Faure stand out it's his sense of harmony and of line. There are long sequences of modal inflections and twists and turns.

A quick zipthrough of Stott's liner notes (by Bryce Morrison) don't show me a statement like that, but they do talk about pianists afraid to play a number of Faure pieces because of their dark and introspective emotional content. [But I do remember someone saying what attribute to Stott.]

The Moravian Duets were actually published in German and then English for the Czech original finally got a printing.

I can understand why the German versions were published first, given the position of Bohemia in the Hapsburg empire. But to have the English versions published before the Czech versions is a bit weird.  I have wishlisted the CD.

[Mandryka]

K311. Really poised and elegant performance, I like it very much.

[Madiel]

Shostakovich, From Jewish Folk Poetry

Both the piano version and the orchestral one.





And both very good. At first I wasn't sure I was going to like the orchestral one as much (yes, I know most people start with the orchestral) because it's not as stark, but there are definitely moments where Shostakovich's choice of orchestral colour really adds something. And this orchestral reading is a very dramatic one. All of the singers seem up to the task as well.

[Mirror Image]

One more work before bed:

Debussy
Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé
Lorna Anderson
Malcolm Martineau

[Tsaraslondon]

A superb rendering of Debussy's concert version of Le martyre de Saint Sébastien with narration prepared by Germaine Inghelbrecht for performances conducted by her husband and approved by Debussy and D'Annunzio.

[ritter]

Peter Serkin in memoriam...

J.S. Bach - Concerto for 3 Harpsichords, Strings and Continuo in C major BWV 1064 -Rudolf and Peter Serkin, Mieczyslaw Horszowski (pianos) Marlboro Festival Orchestra, Alexander Schneider (cond.).

[asin]B07MGJ6T1T[/asin]
Later today, I'll be listening to Peter Serkin's recording of the Schoenberg PC conducted by Boulez.

[vandermolen]

I can only nod my head in agreement with what Madiel wrote about Fauré.

Thread duty -

A Ravel Double-Bill: Two versions of Ma mère l'Oye

First, the version for two pianos:



And then the version for orchestra:

I love that piano version of the Ravel 'Mother Goose Suite'.

Thread duty.
Mihkel Lüdig: Overture-Fantasy No.2 (1945)

[Tsaraslondon]

Fantastic transfer of these wonderful 1972 performances of Psaume 47 and La tragédie de Salome under Jean Martinon. Thrilling music thrillingly performed.

[vers la flamme]

Felix Mendelssohn: Symphony No.3 in A minor, op.56, the "Scottish". Kurt Masur, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. Happy birthday to the master, 211 years.

[Madiel]

Holmboe Recorder Concerto, aka the reason I hunted down this album.



The reason for hunting it down (apart from, well, it's Holmboe) is that I think Petri's performance is much better than the alternative recording.

[vandermolen]

I just saw a Kondrashin box, only 360 euros and 20 for shipping.
If I may ask you, do you have a complete set or only separate recordings of the symphonies
I will listen to the Haitink recordings after the Ashkenazy.
I think that I will relisten but surely not all of them,as I said before,I really liked the eight.

https://www.ebay.nl/itm/Kondrashin-Kyrill-Shostakovich-Complete-Symphonies-11-CD-MEL-CD-10-011065/312977606382?hash=item48deeb46ee:g:6cUAAOSw-RheNbXg

The Kondrashin has always been absurdly priced although I've managed to pick up a few of the individual releases (4,8,9,11,15 as far as I remember).
err yes, I do have one or two boxed set of the complete symphonies 

Haitink (prob my favourite) I do not know a more moving version of No.13 'Babi Yar'.
Maxim Shostakovich
Barshai
A DGG box featuring different conductors (Karajan, Jarvi, Bernstein etc)
Petrenko (only recently acquired - haven't listened to it properly yet)
Rostropovich - also need to properly listen to this one.
Jansons - have enjoyed what I've heard so far.

[ritter]

Second listen to this CD, whcih I got last summer:

[asin]B00GIXPYIG[/asin]
This time around, I found René de Castéra's Concert for piano, cello, flute and clarinet (from 1922) really enjoyable. The idiom is typical "French midcentury mediteranean" (for lack of a better description, and even if its not mediterranean at all, but rather from the French Atlantic coast--Castéra was from the Landes region). The elgiac beauty (as one amazon reviewer puts it)  of the Concert is right up my ally. The substantial Trio in D for piano, violin and cello is an eralier work, much more late romantic in outlook, but solidly constructed and agreeable.

[vandermolen]

Alexander Brincken (b.1952)
Symphony No.4 (2014-2015)
Could have been written a century or so earlier but IMO still a great discovery to which I suspect I'll be returning often. I was reminded whist listening of Franz Schmidt's 4th Symphony and, in the finale, of Schulhoff's memorably defiant 5th Symphony. Above all it moves me emotionally and I'd strongly recommend it to those who (sort-of) share my taste in music:

[Traverso]

 Sibelius

Symphony No.5 & 6

[San Antone]

Takemitsu : In an Autumn Garden
Kinshi Tsuruta