What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

Psaume XLVII

I'm a sucker for gargantuan works like this one. Thrilling to the bone.

[Karl Henning]

Stravinsky

CD 13 Chamber Music & Historical Recordings, Vol. 2

Duo concertant
Joseph Szigeti, vn
Igor Fyodorovich, pf

Serenade in A
Igor Fyodorovich, pf

Concerto for 2 solo pianos
Igor Fyodorovich & Soulima Igorovich

Piano-Rag Music
Igor Fyodorovich, pf

Sonata for 2 pianos
Arthur Gold & Robert Fizdale

Sonata for piano
Chas Rosen

One of my favorite discs in the box

[Carlo Gesualdo]

Johannes DE Lymburgia, before Batiste Romain would make a full album of this composer, I have the CD media,  had only two Motets of his work on a Das Alte Werk label Germany on an obscure release called, let me find it first, wait a second:

Ciconia - Dunstable - Brasart
GeistlicheMusik - Religious Music
Circa 1400

It featured on side two of LP of Lymburgia the are two Motets:
Surge Propera, amica mea and also
Salve virgo vergia.

Minor detail, Batiste Romain perhaps heard this vinyl, because another almost know name appear Arnoldus DE Lantins, he did an Album. Had just received this, this week, in the mail of Arnold & Hugo de Lantins, so that it for now, goodnight fellas.

Bien le bonsoir

[Symphonic Addict]

Zdravitsa

Perhaps a controversial work, but wow, the music here is incredibly gorgeous and tuneful. For me it's rather inspired musically speaking.

[Karl Henning]

Zdravitsa

Perhaps a controversial work, but wow, the music here is incredibly gorgeous and tuneful. For me it's rather inspired musically speaking.

It's a beauty.

[André]

Listened over the past few weeks. Here's a quick recension of the contents.

Beethoven: 9 symphonies, Triple concerto, Choral Fantasia.

Kegel's Beethoven is rather unusual in that it does not present a constant pov of the works (like Böhm or Schmidt-Isserstedt for example). His approach is sometimes massive (3, 9), sometimes pushing a militant 'from darkness to light' agenda (5), extremely fresh and vivacious in the Pastorale, echt classical in 1 and 2, granitic yet transparent and boisterous in 7. The Triple concerto has the advantage of featuring three fine chamber musicians, none of which attempts to steal the show or make a statement of their every utterance. The slow movement has to be the most beautiful I've heard in this work. The Fantasia is very fine, with commanding presence from Rösel and fine singing. For some reason the text sung is different from usual. Having been recorded in East Germany before the wall came down, it may have to do with the original text's references to deity and the like.

Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem. In this work Kegel shows himself a brahmsian of the Klemperer persuasion, with tempi that never drag and a determined way with the work's progression. His is not a beatific view of the Requiem. Consequently the emotional kernel of the work, the beautiful soprano solo Ihr habt nun traurigkeit sounds slightly prosaic. The singer, Marie-Anne Häggander, sings with power and conviction but her top notes don't possess the seraphic beauty of other ladies' (Price, Janowitz, Schwarzkopf, Popp). I've always felt this work is a flawed masterpiece, with movements of transcendent beauty and power (1,2, 3, 5), while others (4 and parts of 6 and 7) seem to wander rather aimlessly. Fine as it is, this performance does not dispel that feeling of unevenness.

The last disc is made of potboilers and other orchestral bon-bons. While not bad I fail to understand why we were not given something more substantial. Kegel recorded a lot. He was Carl Orff's favourite conductor (I have his trilogy already). Mahler or Bruckner would have rounded this portrait of the conductor's art better than this. Still, a fine set in excellent sound.

[bhodges]

Haydn: Symphony No. 23 (Christopher Hogwood / Academy of Ancient Music) - Sprightly, beautifully played. Sound is somewhat better than video, which is not the crispest, but never mind. The performance conquers all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvRGH8s1X6g

--Bruce

[Symphonic Addict]

It's a beauty.

Good to know I'm not the only one to enjoy it.

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Ravel
Trois poèmes de Mallarmé
Jill Gomez, soprano
Members of the BBC SO
Boulez

[Wanderer]

.

[vandermolen]

A great career ending in such a disgraceful way... That was a really sad moment.

OT
+1

[vandermolen]

The problem with the LSO is indeed their Barbican Hall. I never understood why they don't relocate to another hall or just build a new one. But almost all of the LSO Live recordings I've heard have sounded lifeless.

Yes, I agree John. I'm listening to Symphony No.4 again now (on headphones as it's early in the morning here!) I think that it's a fine performance but the acoustic is rather flat and lacking in depth. I'm still glad to have this CD. The performance sounds deeply felt and has revived my enthusiasm for the symphony. I'm looking forward to hearing symphony No.6 again later.
(VW symphonies 4 and 6 new release LSO/Pappano)

[vandermolen]

Thanks, John. I've been lurking, of course, just catching up.

As for my medical issues, thank you again. The irony is that I've never felt "sick" in any way - but I learned about three weeks ago that I have cancer in my parotid (salivary) glands. Fortunately a PET scan showed that it seems to be limited to those two areas (one on each side, of course) and should be treatable.

Anyway, I'm thinking I'll let some of the recent discussions in this thread influence me, and I'll listen to some Messiaen next: the catalogue of birds, of course!

Wishing you all the best for your treatment and recovery.

[vandermolen]

Totally agree, Jeffrey. Wirén was always able to pack a lot of incident in a short span of time, and certain works like the 3rd Symphony have an "epic" feel to them despite their brief duration. Definitely not "short-breathed" at all! As you know, Swedish composers are very dear to my heart as well and there are very few of them whose music I do not cherish. It is a travesty to me that a country that has produced so many fine composers goes pretty much unmentioned in most accounts of Western music history and is rarely represented in today's concert programs.

Very true about Swedish composers Kyle. The music of Rosenberg, Pettersson, Peterson-Berger, Wiren and Nystroem mean a lot to me.
Thread duty:
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.6
A very fine performance especially as Pappano, unlike many other conductors, does not rush the 'eerie progression through a bleak wasteland' pianissimo finale. Pappano steers a middle way in the 'big tune' at the end of the first movement between Barbirolli's full romantic treatment and Boult's more objective approach (which I prefer). I still think that this is one of the greatest symphonies ever written.

[pjme]

More Vivaldi with the superb voices of Margaret Marshall and Ann Murray!

[Florestan]

No. 1

Imo this is one of the best First symphonies. I particularly like the 2nd movement: those melancholy clarinet licks are to die for.

[Que]

Morning listening:



Very nice.  An important work in Alessandro Scarlatti's œuvre.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2018/Feb/Scarlatti_passio_RIC378.htm

[Irons]

Prokofiev: 1st & 7th Symphonies.



The crowning achievement of this issue is the recording which is one of Decca's best. Highly enjoyable but Weller is not my first choice for either symphony. For me no one matches the elan of Ansermet in the Classical Symphony or the beguiling seriousness of Martinon in the unjustly underrated 7th. 

[vandermolen]

No. 1

Imo this is one of the best First symphonies. I particularly like the 2nd movement: those melancholy clarinet licks are to die for.

And that's a great, beautifully presented, series.
Unlike the old Decca/London boxed set it includes the fabulous Tapiola as well.

[aukhawk]

Never liked it that much myself - it made Sibelius accessible to me and many others, at a bargain price - that was the best of it.  But after that subsequent listens to other interpretations were revelatory.

...
Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.6
A very fine performance especially as Pappano, unlike many other conductors, does not rush the 'eerie progression through a bleak wasteland' pianissimo finale. Pappano steers a middle way in the 'big tune' at the end of the first movement between Barbirolli's full romantic treatment and Boult's more objective approach (which I prefer). I still think that this is one of the greatest symphonies ever written.

Yes I listened to it yesterday and liked what I heard - mighty 2nd movement, unstoppable 3rd.  To my shame, I'd never heard of Antonio Pappano - was was a bit surprised to learn, on looking his name up, that he is an Essex boy.  So that's his English music credentials secured then.

The problem with the LSO is indeed their Barbican Hall. I never understood why they don't relocate to another hall or just build a new one. But almost all of the LSO Live recordings I've heard have sounded lifeless.

A whole lot easier said than done.  But the fact that the LSO Live sound is characteristic and hasn't changed much in the last 20 years suggests that somebody somewhere likes it this way - despite continuing adverse comment from pundits.  To quote from their own website, "the (LSO) musicians not only choose what should be recorded, but are also involved throughout the production process, ensuring only recordings they are happy with get released."
After all, from a production/engineering viewpoint, altering a recorded 'dry' or 'dead' acoustic to sound like, say, the Kingsway Hall, is trivially easy to do and has been so for all of those last 20 years - these days it is literally as easy as picking up a smileyface to put on a forum post.     But they don't.  Of course, there is the question of whether the 'dead' acoustic affects the musicians during performance.