What are you listening 2 now?

[San Antone]

A 2019 Mode recording (the 13th installment of their Feldman series) by Aki Takahashi.  He remains my preferred interpreter of Feldman's late piano works.

[ChopinBroccoli]

I do not think that slow is always necessarily bad. Oftentimes music can greatly benefit from being allowed to "breathe".

Maybe so but Presto usually meant Allegro to him and caused performances to drag... I had Szell's Mendelssohn 4 backed with the Midsummer which I consider utterly phenomenal and I kept reading all of these reviews of Otto's recordings of the same two pieces so I decided to check them out ... they've got to be 40% slower and in spite of that slower speed, they're played sloppier and with this kind of artificial emotional heaviness added.  I can't see any reason to prefer them.  Mendelssohn wasn't Mahler. 

[ChopinBroccoli]

If I could only hear one Beethoven 6th it would have to be Klemperer's.  Just sayin'.

For me, The Pastoral is all about orchestral balance and the interaction of the secondary and tertiary voices with the principles... so, Szell's is my favorite by far ... the ultimate onion peeler ... von Dohnányi's Cleveland version is also stellar... similar kind of conductor.

[ChopinBroccoli]

Indeed the first movement of his Mahler 2 on EMI with the Philharmonia is on the fast side and a good deal faster than Rattle on his award winning CBSO account. I prefer it too. Much more bitingly urgent.

I'd rather hear Klemperer conduct a high school orchestra than hear Rattle conduct the all-star ensemble of your dreams

I'm not bashing Otto, but I prize different things in music than he did

[ChopinBroccoli]

Famous performances which need no introduction from me.

Exciting and intense! Classic

[Moonfish]

Disc 2 from this excellent set. These are mono recordings, made in 1952 (Finlandia and Symphony no 5) and 1953 (Symphony no 4).

I wouldn't necessarily prefer this 4th to his 1965 DG recording with the BPO, or the 5th to either the 1965 BPO DG recording or the 1960 stereo Philharmonia 5th also included in this set. The Finlandia is very exciting, though the recording is, as you might expect, a little constricted.

All these recordings do serve to remind us of how Karajan championed Sibelius from quite early on.

Definitely need to revisit these recordings. What's the sound like? A "soft" historical type? I lately realized that I enjoy "historical" sound quite a bit in vocal recordings. I guess one gets attuned to and become attached to these types of recordings after a while.

[Mirror Image]

Sextet from this wonderful disc:

[vers la flamme]

The problem is when he did speed up, he didn't maintain ensemble discipline, got sloppy

Have you heard Klemperer's Mahler 2nd? It's the opposite of what you describe. VERY fast, very tight and very disciplined. An amazing performance.

[ChopinBroccoli]

Have you heard Klemperer's Mahler 2nd? It's the opposite of what you describe. VERY fast, very tight and very disciplined. An amazing performance.

I haven't but I don't like Mahler very much so I have heard only a few recordings of that one ... I wouldn't know the piece well enough to judge

But I knew Mendelssohn 4 and his Midsummer Night's front to back and Klemperer's (which many critics love) is slow as hell and the playing is clearly inferior to the Szell/Cleveland classic

[San Antone]

[Traverso]

Poulenc

Mélodies CD 1

[Traverso]

Sextet from this wonderful disc:

It's good to see you back.

[Moonfish]

Purcell
Dido and Aeneas

Graham/Bostridge/Tilling/Palmer
European Voices/Le Concert d'Astree
Emmanuelle Haim

[asin] B0000E6POJ[/asin]

[Traverso]

Purcell
Dido and Aeneas

Graham/Bostridge/Tilling/Palmer
European Voices/Le Concert d'Astree
Emmanuelle Haim

[asin] B0000E6POJ[/asin]

You are in good company with this fine Dido 

[Moonfish]

You are in good company with this fine Dido 

Yes, it is fine indeed. I went to a local university production a few years ago and was stunned by the performance. The students were doing fantastic and I was charmed by the singers performing as Belinda and Dido. I went back twice as I was charmed. I still have to find a recording that I love as much as that live performance, but I'm still looking. E.g. Janet Bakker is great, but I still like the live performance I attended quite a bit more. Still, Haim's recording is excellent. Do you have any other favorite recordings of Dido and Aeneas, Traverso?

[Mandryka]

But what about Bostridge's Aeneas?

I saw him sing Aeneas in a semi staged production, I like that Peter Pears way of singing myself.

[JBS]

Some vocal Berlioz aujourd'hui:

CD 7 of the Erato "Complete Works" set, including La mort d'Orphée (with Rolando Villazón), Cléopâtre (with the wonderful Véronique Gens), Huit scènes de Faust, and the hitherto unkonwn to me Le ballet des ombres and Sardanapale.

[asin]B07JZB1VWN[/asin]

As I go through that set, I have found Berlioz's songs to be an especially valuable discovery.

TD, from that same set

[Maestro267]

Moyzes: Symphony No. 12
Slovak RSO/Slóvak

Dutilleux: L'arbre des songes
Capuçon (violin)/Radio France PO/Chung

[Moonfish]

Listened to these late last night and now I am already revisiting them. I really wanted to hear No. 7 one more time.

Beethoven
String Quartets Nos. 7 & 9
Vienna Konzerthaus Quartet

The 3rd mvmt in SQ#7 is haunting and the VKQ really impresses me in these passages.




from

[Karl Henning]

Love this disc:

Liszt Élégie vc/pf
Romance oubliée vc/pf

Alkan
Sonate de concert, Op.47 vc/pf

Liszt
La lugubre gondole vc/pf
Die Zelle in Nonnenwerth vc/pf
Andantino
Deuxième Élégie vc/pf

Emmanuelle Bertrand vc
Pascal Amoyel pf