What are you listening 2 now?

[vandermolen]

Barber, Second Essay for Orchestra op.17 (Alsop, RSNO)

One of my favourite pieces of music.

[Florestan]

Disc 1, D537 & D568.

[vandermolen]

Concert champêtre

Delight, just delight! On this work Poulenc exacerbated the word wit. It's unmercifully sparkling. The moving cadenza from the 1st movement contrasts quite well with the other sections. There is no dull moment throughout. I can't get enough of this concerto.




String quartet No. 5

Oh God, what lovely! The main theme from the 1st movement is quite similar to one of the 3rd movement from Grieg's Piano Concerto. Besides stormy, visionary, crazy and wacky works, Langgaard had a notoriously sensitive skill to write aesthetically pleasing music. It's moving in its sheer beauty.




Romance for strings

Yet another gorgeous work for strings from the English tradition. When I hear this is almost like living a religious experience. Wonderful.

Possibly my favourite Finzi disc Cesar. I had the original LP release. A thumbs up for Poulenc's Organ Concerto as well.

[Madiel]

Thomas Koppel, Moonchild's Dream



Composed in 1991 and this album was recorded in 1992, so it was hot off the presses. As were most of the works on the album, actually. Only the Holmboe that motivated me to get it is "old" music from 1974.

Koppel's work is... it tends to sound like a soundtrack to be honest. Highly melodic, romantic, lush. Koppel also wrote rock music.

Rather reminds me of The Mission, but with recorder instead of oboe. I'm actually quite fond of The Mission, but I'm not entirely certain on first listen how I feel about getting that style of music in a concerto. It's very well executed, mind you, from both Petri and the orchestra.

[Traverso]

Bach

Cantatas CD 35

[Madiel]

Shostakovich, Four romances on poems by Pushkin, op.46



And then the first three orchestrated. Shostakovich himself never orchestrated the final, longest song.



Some of the first music Shostakovich wrote after the famous Pravda editorial, before the 5th symphony (but after some incidental and film music). So this is pretty close to a first look at the new, starker style. And it's impressive.

Shostakovich had plans for 12 Pushkin songs, though from the things I've read I'm not entirely clear whether he planned 12 songs right away or later on. He only completed 9 in the end: this set of 4, then another 4 in op.91, and then op.128 is where things fell down with only one song composed.

Anyway, they're damn fine works in my opinion.

This is the first time I've properly heard the orchestral version. It works, but if anything I'd say that, out of these 2 performances, it's the piano one where more colour is drawn out of the words.

[Harry]

New acquisition. Recommended by Jeffrey!

I had already a few recordings by this composer, so I knew what to expect. In my collection is a CD  with the Seven beauties, and the complete ballet suite no. 2, The Path of Thunder, on Naxos. Chandos has only the VI movement, "Lullaby" .
The Naxos has the Royal PO, under Dmitry Yablonsky, recorded by Mike Clements a highly skilled engineer. He delivers a pristine sound! The orchestra is a match for the Bournemouth SO. So what is better on the Chandos? The sound, by a margin, a bit more detail and omphh. The acoustics are slightly better, and Karabits adds his own flavour, but all in all they are pretty close in execution. Still I am pretty pleased with this new Chandos recording.

[Biffo]

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra - Boulez/New York Philharmonic in Manhattan Center.

[asin] B00GZHRFDC[/asin]

Sounds better than I remember in my previous survey of the work.  This recording came up because someone mentioned a 24/48 version (not sure it is really a new transfer).  The 24/48 version has the channels reversed on every streaming service I checked (Qobuz, Tidal, Amazon)

https://tidal.com/browse/album/120675863
https://open.qobuz.com/album/j0ziohwwrpzib
https://music.amazon.com/albums/B07ZDGGCXM?tab=CATALOG&ref=dm_wcp_bp_albm_link_albm_t

[asin] B07TNVWVVJ[/asin]

Utterly delightful.  I especially like the woody sound of the strings.

Thanks for alerting me to the Berlioz. After sampling it on Spotify I have bought it as a download. I already have the same forces in Harold/Les nuits d'ete. Excellent recordings.

[Harry]

CD XI of this magnificent box.

Concerto transcriptions I.

It got little attention on GMG, apart from my constant praise of course. And that is deserved. All played on the same magnificent Zanin organ, which is fully up to the task. Stella makes a feast of Walther's music, and so it's party time for me, when his music fills my listening room. The recording quality is pristine.

[aligreto]

Handel: Hercules [Gardiner]





Gardiner presents a very refined and polished performance with very fine singing from both the solo vocalists and the chorus.

[aligreto]

One of the greatest SQ cycles I know.

Agreed on you declaration. I have a few different cycles but not that one. How does it compare with or stand up to others?

[aligreto]

on the radio:

Jesse Norman singing the Four Last Songs

I must pull that one off the shelf soon, perhaps even later today.

[Iota]

Szymanowski Nine Preludes Op.1

Martin Roscoe (piano)

Perhaps a staging point between Chopin/Scriabin and mature Szymanowski, but these Preludes are lovely and entirely self-sufficient without needing to be seen through the lens of the past or future. Very nicely played too.

[San Antone]

Johann Sebastian Bach : Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violoncello Piccolo
Mario Brunello

Very interesting transcriptions; enjoyable so far.

[aligreto]

Soler: Sonatas Nos. 91 & 94 [Pipo]





This is beguiling and engaging music that is very well presented here.

[Harry]

New arrival.

William Walton.
Symphonies No. 1 & 2.
Orchestre National de Lille, Owain Arwel Hughes.

The first Symphony sounded great, the second spectacular. As to the performance I can say that this interpretation is on a high level, projecting Walton's ideas in a lucid and detailed way, with a steady pulse. Shimmering harmonies, allowing me to navigate through the score, notes that dissolve into particles of liquid sound, and is performed with an energy that consumes all my attention. This is not a gentle world in which Walton dwells, but lamentations over a world lost to us all. It has a message much larger as the mere notes are telling us. There is a lot of self realisation in this music, and that is exactly the key to Walton's music. Not easy to grasp, granted, but eminently worth listening to.

[Mirror Image]

Agreed on you declaration. I have a few different cycles but not that one. How does it compare with or stand up to others?

I find the ABQ to be fantastic in Bartók. They bring a certain Viennese rigor to the music. Almost like they're performing Schoenberg or Wellesz but the approach totally works. I may prefer the Takács because of the rawness and black magic they bring to Bartók, but the ABQ's cycle is a fine alternative. I also own the Emerson Quartet's cycle and the Quatuor Danel's cycle. I've heard the heard the Emersons once and didn't think much of it. I haven't even heard the Danel yet.

[Mirror Image]

Debussy
Préludes, Book I
Paul Jacobs



Spectacular!

[San Antone]

Beethoven - The complete sonatas for pianoforte & cello
Pieter Wispelwey, Paul Komen

[aligreto]

Puccini: La Boheme Acts 1 & 2 [Erede]