What are you listening 2 now?

[Kaga2]

 

Balm for my ears and soul in these hard times.

I like the Rubinstein.

[Irons]

I had a friend who was a conducting student of George Hurst.  By all accounts a very fine musician/conductor but an extremely difficult person to work with.  I suspect that since much of conducting - certainly with professional orchestras - is down to respect and collaboration, players simply would not tolerate his approach and temperament.  I must admit I don't find his Planets to be that remarkable (it used to be available on Amazon as a download I think) and the Naxos/Elgar discs (there's an Enigma as well) are good without being for me the best.

Interesting to hear some insider info on George Hurst the man as opposed musician. Far as I am aware his Planets never made it to CD but readily available to listen on YT. I recall the resident GMG Planets expert, I have forgotten his name, who listened to about 1,000 versions of the work thought highly. Sounds great on vinyl, but of course each to his own.

[vandermolen]

Tippett
Symphonies # 1 & 2

Both works I increasingly appreciate.

Now playing:

VW Concerto Grosso (from the set depicted above).

[André]

I had a glitch in a Carus disk once, turned out to be in every copy and at Carus they were not very helpful.
Do you have the three-in-one set?

[asin]B00BFZ6H4W[/asin]
Q

It's 2 boxes, one 10 discs with the sacred works, the oratorios box has 4. I bought them in April 2019, so I can't return it anymore.

[Florestan]

I like the Rubinstein.

A major find for me. Warm, witty and gentle Romantic music, right up my alley on every occasion, not just now.

[Kaga2]

More early music from Gothic Voices, this time masses by Pierre de la Rue.

[Marc]

Bach, Johannes-Passion BWV 245.
John Eliot Gardiner et al for Soli Deo Gloria (SDG-712), live recording 2003.

I've never warmed for Gardiner's view on the Matthäus-Passion, either studio or live, but he most certainly is one of my BWV 245 'heroes'.
Intense and warm. Maybe a tad too much vibrato in Bernarda Fink's alto voice, but... who cares. It's heartfelt.

(Gardiner's Archiv/DG studio recording of 1986 is also very very good IMHO.)

[ritter]

Revisiting Maurice Emmanuel's orchestral music.

[asin]B004UMGSGO[/asin]

This petit-maître's music can be delightful (particularly the Suite française).

[vandermolen]

Shchedrin: Symphony No.1

[vandermolen]

Great to learn, last week I listened to some Frank Martin and suddenly I realized their similarities, in worldview but also their musical world, though Andriessen the greater communicator. Perhaps you can understand why the 'Fifth' on this same disc, the 1962 Symphonie concertante, means even more for me? It is the most 'Dutch' per content (full of references to the Dutch Renaissance, Valerius' battle songs a.s.o.) and per musical tradition both, I mean?  0:)

I will listen to Symphonie Concertante, probably tomorrow. Interesting to hear of Frank Martin. He was the favourite composer of my uncle who lived in Switzerland. 'In Terra Pax' is my favourite work by Martin. He's one of those composers whose music I would like to explore more.

[vers la flamme]

Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Concerto in D major, op.61. Itzhak Perlman, Carlo Maria Giulini, Philharmonia Orchestra

This is a great recording of a work that I don't think I've ever fully come to grips with. I don't fully understand what Beethoven is going for in this music, but to me, it does not sound characteristic of his "heroic" period. I don't feel like I'm being taken on an epic journey; I feel like something more stationary is being presented to me, a monument of some sort. I don't see it as too many steps removed from Sibelius' violin concerto of 100 years later.

It's damn powerful music though. I'm enjoying it more than ever.

[JBS]

This

From this


First listen as an adult to this recording.

When I was kid, my mother had a copy of the first half (through Act 2 Scene 1) of Traviata on 78s. (No idea why she didn't have the second half.) I played it...a lot.  [Perseveration is the technical term.] It was my introduction to opera. I am fairly certain it was this recording. It certainly matches my aural memories.

CD 1 contains Acts 1 and 2, CD 2 Act 3, filled out with a trio from I Lombardi, the third act of Rigoletto (Warren, Milanov, Peerce), and "Va pensiero".

[prémont]

Bach, Johannes-Passion BWV 245.
John Eliot Gardiner et al for Soli Deo Gloria (SDG-712), live recording 2003

(Gardiner's Archiv/DG studio recording of 1986 is also very very good IMHO.)

Yes, surprisingly good. Just the right amount of drama without overdoing it. I have never heard his SMP, but I can say, that I never warmed to his Archiv b-minor mass.

[steve ridgway]

Interesting to hear some insider info on George Hurst the man as opposed musician. Far as I am aware his Planets never made it to CD but readily available to listen on YT. I recall the resident GMG Planets expert, I have forgotten his name, who listened to about 1,000 versions of the work thought highly. Sounds great on vinyl, but of course each to his own.

Johnny Violent is da bomb for Mars .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzgg9aCmKTA

[Iota]

Pierre De La Rue: Requiem

A disc that reappeared a couple of days ago during sorting out, after an absence of a few years. A welcome reunion. 

[San Antone]

Swing Symphony

When Wynton Marsalis was commissioned to compose his third symphony, he took inspiration from composers like Ives, Gershwin, Copland, Bernstein, and Ellington as he sought to create a musical meditation on American ideals. The definitive performance of the resulting, critically acclaimed work—Swing Symphony—is now an album by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, conducted by maestro David Robertson.

Commissioned in 2010 by the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Marsalis's Symphony No. 3 is at once invigorating and elegiac, bombastic and introspective, and has been performed by orchestras around the world. This recording, which took place in front of a rapturous, sold-out crowd in St. Louis's Powell Hall, marks the very first release of a modern classic that captures the full breadth of 20th-century orchestral music and the spirit of American optimism. (Marsalis website)

Ensemble    JLCO with Wynton Marsalis and St. Louis Symphony
Release Date    July 1st, 2019
Recording Date    May 4-6, 2018

[André]

Quartets 5, 2, 4, 6



Flute Quintet and quartets 3 and 4.

Kraus composed a series of 6 works in quartet form in 3 movements in 1783, usually ending with a very short finale in scherzo/menuetto form. They were published as his opus 1. I think they are nearly as good as those by Haydn and Mozart. Wish he had composed more SQ later in life. He would probably have beefed up his structures (4 movements), with a different center of gravity. Only no 6 has a four movement structure with reversed inner movements (a scottish dance followed by a largo). It is the most substantial of the 6, but no 4's first two movements are masterly.

The Schuppanzigh is playing according to HIP and I must say they make more of the works' often surprising colours and textures (both quartets can be compared in no 4). Viola and cello are more eloquent than with the Lysells, playing with real burnished tone.

The flute quintet is a real charmer.

[Christo]

Tippett
Symphonies # 1 & 2

Absolutely fine symphonies, I'm particularly fond of the rhythmic-atmospheric 'pounding the table' opening chords of the Second. But I dare confess more than a liking for the more-than-enigmatic Third and am old enough to recall the sense of sensation on hearing the premiere of the Fourth, opening as it does with its heavy breathing sounds. Nothing wrong with symphonic master Tippett, more a riddle why he seems almost forgotten. 

[Maestro267]

de Sabata: Gethsemani
London PO/Ceccato

I haven't picked this disc up for years. It happened to be near the top of a pile, and I decided to listen to one of these three tone poems by Victor de Sabata.

[Symphonic Addict]

A major find for me. Warm, witty and gentle Romantic music, right up my alley on every occasion, not just now.

One I gently recommended you and to others several months ago.