What are you listening 2 now?

[Traverso]

Bach

Continuing with these fine Cantatas, always a joy to hear.

[SimonNZ]

Serenade for tenor, horn and strings: It's the first time I hear the whole work. In general I'm not too keen on vocal works with either piano or other accompaniment, but this was different. Positively impressed. The work is just poetry and atmosphere, all the instruments and the voice are blended for great effect. The voice of the tenor is incredible. Nocturne and Elegy were the parts I found more wondrous.

I played the Les Illuminations from that disc just the other day. Very good, but Pears' recording with Gossens I think superior - and among the very best recordings of the work more generally.

now:

[Traverso]

Buxtehude

A fine recording,when you listen to this CD it is clear that Bach was influenced by the music of Buxtehude.The singing feels natural so that your attention immidiate goes to the music ,The sound  fits like a glove with this music and I would recommend this recording.Seeing what is going on in the world it is hard to belief that there is also this music almost coming from another world.

[Florestan]

In memoriam Paul Badura-Skoda. RIP.



(The last is a twofer; he plays D960 on three different pianos: Conrad Graf 1826, Boesendorfer 1923 and Steinway 2004)

[Harry]

A Fantastic Voyage. CD II.

Italy-Storie di Napoli.

Marco Beasley, Voice.
Guido Morini, Harpsichord, Piano, & direction.

Marco Beasley is a fine singer, and this disc is bubbling with joie de vivre, and an unmistakable stamp of hitting all the right buttons. The music fizzes with a compound of some sonorous muscle and rhythmic flair. And the occasional schmalz is no stranger to the music, like the music by Guido Morini who was born in 1959 or Lucio Dalla, (1943-2012)) & Giuseppe Cioffi, (1901-76) plus Pino Daniele (1955). Not really my thing but it fits in the program. No texts provided unfortunately. Many unknown composers.  Recording is excellent.

[Biffo]

Scriabin: Prometheus - Poem of Fire - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra & Berliner Singakademie conducted by Claudio Abbado with  Martha Argerich piano - streamed from the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall

[Tsaraslondon]

Serenade for tenor, horn and strings: It's the first time I hear the whole work. In general I'm not too keen on vocal works with either piano or other accompaniment, but this was different. Positively impressed. The work is just poetry and atmosphere, all the instruments and the voice are blended for great effect. The voice of the tenor is incredible. Nocturne and Elegy were the parts I found more wondrous.

I love the Serenade. Well, I love all the works on this disc, though I've come to prefer a soprano in Les Illuminations as it was at the first performance.

I have quite a few performances of the Serenade, but it was written for Pears and his two recorded performances are the ones I reach for most often.

[Tsaraslondon]

Scriabin: Prometheus - Poem of Fire - Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra & Berliner Singakademie conducted by Claudio Abbado with  Martha Argerich piano - streamed from the Berlin Philharmonic Digital Concert Hall

A fantastic performance and part of this disc I was listening to only a couple of days ago.

[Papy Oli]

Good morning all,

A first listen to Joly Braga Santos with his Symphony No.4.

https://www.youtube.com/v/dVdoKw_3eRA&t=604s

[Biffo]

A fantastic performance and part of this disc I was listening to only a couple of days ago.

Interesting, I didn't know the concert had been issued as a disc - probably worth having for the Scriabin alone.

[Harry]

Johann Jacob Froberger.

Complete music for Harpsichord and Organ. CD XIV.

Other Partitas movements, for Harpsichord.
Allemande tres bonne in D minor & Praeludium in G, both for organ.

Harpsichord by William Horn after Ioannes Ruckers, (1638)
Pinchi organ, op. 446, Basilica di San Giorgio fuori le mura, Ferrara.

Excellent performances.

[Biffo]

Shostakovich: Symphony No 1 in F minor - Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Kiril Kondrashin

[Christo]

Good morning all,

A first listen to Joly Braga Santos with his Symphony No.4.
https://www.youtube.com/v/dVdoKw_3eRA&t=604s

Nice! I think you are aware, that this is the "old" recording, with Silva Pereira conducting the Romanian Radio SO & the Choir of the George Enescu Philharmonic from 1978? It's the only recording with the choral version of the Finale, and worth hearing for that reason mainly. The newer Marco Polo release has a better performance & audio quality; in terms of CD"s we're talking about:

versus

[Tsaraslondon]

Music of Estonia.

Villem Kapp - Symphony no 2
Arvo Pärt - Cantus in memory of Benjamin Britten
Eduard Tubin - Symphony no 3 (Heroic)

Another excellent disc from BBC Music Magazine. The three works are conducted by Neeme Järvi and his two sons.

[Harry]

English Music, CD XII.

Henry Purcell.

10 Sonatas in Four parts.

Recorded in 1979, it is still A State of the Art recording, and that also goes for the performance. I am still amazed how well Hogwood as his band understood the intrinsic meaning of authentic performance practice, and how they excelled in their interpretations, which became the standard for others.

[Tsaraslondon]

Interesting, I didn't know the concert had been issued as a disc - probably worth having for the Scriabin alone.

It is, but the whole disc is worth listening to.

[Karl Henning]

Serenade for tenor, horn and strings: It's the first time I hear the whole work. In general I'm not too keen on vocal works with either piano or other accompaniment, but this was different. Positively impressed. The work is just poetry and atmosphere, all the instruments and the voice are blended for great effect. The voice of the tenor is incredible. Nocturne and Elegy were the parts I found more wondrous.

The Serenade is exquisite!

[Traverso]

Hans Werner Henze









The Frenchman Théodore Géricault based his masterpiece on a real shipwreck. In 1816 the frigate sailed Méduse on a sandbank 60 miles off the west coast of Africa. 250 people on board fit into the sloops, and 147 others climbed on a wooden raft that was towed.

But the captain had the ropes cut because it quickly stopped the sloops.
The raft soon fought over the scarce provisions. Already in the first night 20 people died, sometimes due to suicide. The waves crashed into the overloaded vessel and only the shipwrecked ones in the middle were not washed away.

After four days, there were 67 people left on the raft. Hunger led a number of them to cannibalism. The law of the strongest was true: the dead were eaten and the weak thrown overboard.

On day 12 the French ship Argos got the raft in sight. 15 people on board were saved, of whom five later failed. The captain and the rest of the crew in the sloops managed to reach the French colony of Senegal.

The 27-year-old Géricault thought it was a fascinating story and wanted to immortalize it. The result made him world famous.

[Harry]

English Music. CD XIII.

Thomas Augustine Boyce.

Eight Overtures.

This is by far the most famous disc in this set. Highly praised by all. And they were right. It is an amazing performance of these overtures, thus I doubt very much if they could be bettered. Authentic excellence!

[Todd]

Well played but kind of generic.