What are you listening 2 now?

[Roasted Swan]

Symphony no 4 and Francesca da Rimini.

Bychkov's elegant and lovingly detailed performances are not what I personally enjoy in these works. I want more sulfurous drama, more emotional hysteria, more fanatically incisive playing than what is offered here (however gorgeous). In the symphony, Karajan/Berlin (1964 DG or 1971 EMI) is just as suave and elegant but more eloquent and dramatic. Better still, two LSO versions (Szell and Böhm) as well as two Boston versions (Monteux and Munch) offer clear-headed but heatedly intense accounts. In Francesca, Munch again (BSO but even better: RPO), Stokowski and a couple of old soviet performances raise hell like few other. Haitink in Amsterdam offers even more gorgeous playing in both works and the almost 40 year old recorded sound is just as ample and vibrant. Not a disappointment then, but not a home run either. A solid double in center field.

Another great succinct and informative review Andre!  I do love Tchaikovsky and have been tempted by this set but hesitating because I've been wondering whether it will be exactly as you describe - lovingly detailed but essentially dull!  Phew - you've saved me a few pounds so thankyou.  Recently heard the new Nutcracker from Vladimir Jurowski and his State Academic SO "Evgeny Sventlanov".  I've seen Jurowski in concert several times here with his LPO and always been impressed.  This new recording is exactly the same as the Bychkov; beautifully played, nothing to be offended by, much to admire in terms of execution and recording but about as theatrical as a wet Wednesday in Scunthorpe (UK industiral town of limited appeal....)  How I yearn for the fire and blast of the performers you mention.  "Safe" is such a damming word in the Arts!

[andolink]

Michel Pignolet de MONTÉCLAIR: Jephté, an opera in 5 acts with a prologue (1732)

[Que]

Morning listening - just unwrapped:



http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2010/Apr10/Service_Venus_cdh55290.htm

Q

[Florestan]

Am I alone in feeling that melodically speaking this ballet is not on the same level as the other two?

[Que]

Michel Pignolet de MONTÉCLAIR: Jephté, an opera in 5 acts with a prologue (1732)

Amazing piece & composer! 
I remember that I was so surprised, since Montéclair isn't exactly a household name. I was wrong....

Q

[Madiel]

Sibelius: Suite mignonne, Suite champetre, and Suite caracteristique.

Using this version to stream.



Ollila tends to take this music on the fast and zippy side. I think occasionally he might overdo it.

EDIT: Also trying this version, which my previous notes indicate I thought was good.



SECOND EDIT: And of course I'm immediately faced with a couple of movements feeling a bit slow... This is all very light and undemanding music, Sibelius offering up little bon-bons.

[Que]

Turning off the Legrenzi - well played, but the music itself is uninteresting.

This is a new composer to me - but I found him on Spotify and am listening to his music.  Very nice.

I got the Legrenzi oratorio and it has everything right in terms of performers: I Sonatori and Invernizzi.
You can't go wrong with those...  But I didn't find the music very engaging, it's the performance that saves it IMO.
Still kept it, should give it another go.

Q

[Que]

Am I alone in feeling that melodically speaking this ballet is not on the same level as the other two?

It's a bit more repetitive and even thsn the others, but I still have a soft spot for it.

I might join you and others in some Tchaikovsky, perfect mid-winter listening. 

Q

[Harry]

Am I alone in feeling that melodically speaking this ballet is not on the same level as the other two?

Yes I am quite sure you are alone in this, at least for me!

[Christo]

Am I alone in feeling that melodically speaking this ballet is not on the same level as the other two?

You are. 

Please do, if you ever have an opportunity (mine are an accidental outcome of my job, worked often day & night in St. Peterburg, avoiding the traffic in order to walk 1,5 hours to my Deparment, at one time located in Smolniy Sobor, a real punishment ;-). With a steady eye on so many cities I saw and learnt to love - among them Rome, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Tblisi, Cracow, Lisbon, Lviv, Venice, Erbil, London, Durban, Florence, Budapest, Stockholm, Iași, Dublin, Munich, Tallinn, Barcelona, Brno, Erfurt, Almaty, New York, Caïro, Amsterdam, Trabzon, Antakya and dozens of smaller ones, I can honestly say that the brand-new (1703) Saint Petersburg made the most lasting impression, especially in the midst of Winter, the Neva frozen and snow abounding.        

Smolny sobor ('Convent'), Governor & Sociology Department including:

[Que]

Now:

[asin]B076177QT9[/asin]

Q

[San Antone]

[Florestan]

It's a bit more repetitive and even thsn the others, but I still have a soft spot for it.

Yes I am quite sure you are alone in this, at least for me!

You are. 

Okay, then.  Honestly, I can remember and hum dozens of tunes from The Nutcracker or the Swan Lake but very few from Sleeping Beauty.

Oh, and Johan --- there's no need to remind me of St. Peterburg every time you quote a post of mine. I got the message the very first time.

[Traverso]

I wanted to echo this thought, and also say thanks to @Traverso for putting me onto this work and Boulez's music in the first place. I have not cracked all of Boulez's works, not even close, but I have come to really enjoy Pli selon pli, Répons, Le marteau sans maître, and the Deuxième sonate pour piano over the past 6 months or so. The latter among these has been particularly enrapturing lately. What a composer.

Thank you for your kind words,it's a pity that you have not this box wich is now quite expensive  .


If there is something in this box that you like to listen to just let me know and I will tranfer it to you.

[Traverso]

 Mozart

Pianoconcertos  13-15-17

[San Antone]

Sur Incises
The Boulez Ensemble
Daniel Barenboim
Int. Release 02 Mar. 2018



sur Incises has many roots: most obviously in the solo piano piece, Incises (written originally for the Umberto Micheli Piano Competition, with which Maurizio Pollini had a strong association). Boulez's first intention, as he explained in a 1998 interview, was to 'transform this piece into a longer one for Pollini and a group of instrumentalists, a kind of piano concerto although without reference to the traditional form.' Other ghosts reared their heads, though, such as Bartók's Sonata and Stravinsky's Les Noces. In this context, unsurprisingly, Bartók offered a strong point of departure – opening similarly, yet differently, de profundis – yet, as with so much of Boulez's music, it was his conception of serialism as open-ended, ever-expanding, that dazzled. The spatial element is, of course, crucial. Here, again, it was greatly assisted by the hall and its acoustic, enabling us not only to hear but truly to feel the interplay between the ensemble as a whole (a giant reinvention of the piano, one might say), solo lines, and differently constituted groups within: three groups, considered vertically, each of percussion, harp, and piano, and, horizontally, the three percussionists, the three harpists, and the three pianists. Here, in the line of Boulez's – and Barenboim's – beloved Parsifal, not only did space become time, both became music. The way a trill passed across all three piano keyboards, Wendeberg and Kozhukhin joined by the equally excellent Karim Said, would offer but one case in point. Magic squares sensual, musical, conceptual, above all thrilling played themselves out and reinvented themselves before our eyes and ears (the 'thinking ear', as the hall's motto has it). Whatever the antecendents, it was vividly clear that Boulez's own proliferating method of generation actually had little in common with either Beethoven or Bartók; likewise his, and Barenboim's, control of liminal suspense and propulsive release. The work, like the two that had preceded it, passed as if in no time, whetting the appetite for more, much more, in the weeks, months, years to come. This hall and the events within, then, continue as a work-in-progress, very much in Boulez's sense.

Mark Berry

[Christo]

Oh, and Johan --- there's no need to remind me of St. Peterburg every time you quote a post of mine. I got the message the very first time.

You did???  #alwaysafirsttime 

[San Antone]

Caroline Shaw / Attacca Quartet
Orange

The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer returns with a wild and free-ranging collection of chamber pieces.

The music of Orange exudes joy and a sense of wildness. The second piece, "Valencia," is bright and quick. The longest, "Ritornello 2.sq.2.j.a," unfurls itself in many directions, unconfined by a motif or pattern. Taken together, the works of Orange share a curiosity to explore the crevices of a composition, highlighting textures and pacing, like the high-pitched stutters of "Punctum." Often, as on "Entr'acte," it feels like the performers are not looking toward an end but giddily chasing each other up the same hill, detouring where they see fit and perhaps stepping on each other's feet as they climb. Pitchfork

[Que]

More from the set:

[asin]B076177QT9[/asin]

Q

[staxomega]

Aldo Ciccolini playing Granados Goyescas.

And now Stravinsky's Pulcinella and Le Chant du Rossignol: