What are you listening 2 now?

[TheGSMoeller]

This entire album rocks...

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Giacomo Puccini: Tosca. Victor de Sabata, Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano

First listen to this famous recording, which was sent to me by mistake. (I wanted the Karajan one with Leontyne Price.) So far so good. Anyone who knows me knows that I am far from an Italian opera aficionado, but I do find Puccini to be an interesting composer, and I would love to explore his music in more depth.

The hotel I usually stay at in Athens, Greece is about 5 blocks from the apartment where Callas and her mother lived when she was a teenager.  It is a downtown, middle-class area in the city. When I jog in the morning, I always pass by the apartment complex and often drink hot chocolate at a cafe next to the building. The apartment complex is neither fancy nor poor, just middle-class.

Raining here in Georgia, too. I have a Roslavets disc that I have yet to listen to, with Marc-André Hamelin on Hyperion. Thanks for the reminder.

Excellent album by MAH!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Khachaturian, Dance Suite.

[aligreto]

1+ - have not listened to that in years! Must correct - Dave

I have only just come across this set Dave and I really look forward to hearing a lot more from it.

[steve ridgway]

Ligeti - Double Concerto. I'm happy with all the concerto pieces in this box, each is absorbing in its own way.

[Harry]

Eduard Franck.

Quartet in C minor, opus 55, & E flat major, opus 54, for two Violins, Viola, and Cello.

Edinger Quartet.

[Traverso]

Mozart

Symphony 36 & 38

Concertgebouworkest

[VonStupp]

This entire album rocks...

Just a few days ago I listened to Karel Ančerl with his Czech players and singers in this exact same Stravinsky program on Supraphon; I would be curious to hear how they compare. I do love Carolyn Sampson, and Daniel Reuss on Harmonia Mundi is usually strong.

[SonicMan46]

Eduard Franck.

Quartet in C minor, opus 55, & E flat major, opus 54, for two Violins, Viola, and Cello.

Edinger Quartet.

Harry - appears that you and I are the two main collectors of the Francks music on Audite -   

But if anyone else is interested, I started a thread on this father-son duo back in 2008 - has gotten only to 2 pages HERE but a lot of recordings shown, discussed, and reviews left.  Dave

[VonStupp]

Sir William Walton
Façade
Dame Edith Sitwell & Peter Pears, narrator
English Opera Group - Anthony Collins (1954)

Siesta, Scapino, Portsmouth Point
LPO - Sir Adrian Boult (1955)

Orb and Sceptre
&
Sir Arnold Bax
Coronation March
LSO - Sir Malcolm Sargent (1953)

Sir Arthur Bliss
Welcome the Queen
LSO - Sir Arthur Bliss (1959)

I know many don't like speaking alongside orchestral music, but Dame Edith Sitwell's syrupy, dowager timbre is one for the ages, and the piping Peter Pears is good. The mono sound is quite excellent and I don't hear from Anthony Collins nearly enough.

The sound isn't so great for the rest of Walton and Bax, but the Bliss is in stereo. Another good Decca Eloquence compilation.

[SonicMan46]

Ries, Ferdinand (1784-1838) - Piano Sonatas, Trios, & Concertos Nos. 8/9 w/ the performers on the cover art. The Piano Trios are his Op. 2 & 143 works which appear to be his total output in that format (from his composition LIST); the Piano Sonatas disc has just four of many works for solo piano - Susan Kagan has recorded 6 volumes of his piano works on Naxos, plus 3 volumes of Violin Sonatas - might check Spotify and make a playlist?  Ries wrote 9 Piano Concertos, recorded by Christopher Hinterhuber on 5 volumes also for Naxos - Dave

   

[aukhawk]

Tackling the Emperor again.



I'm more in the right mood for it today, but... the 1st movement still does seem to be a bit too long for my attention span. Grand-heroic is not my favourite musical tone.

I'm with you there.  And that is why - although I do like those 3rd and 4th Concertos as performed and recorded by Perahia and Haitink, I was very pleased to discover this recent recording of the 'Emperor' by Bezuidenhout with Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester, which deflates the music of much of its pomposity and makes it almost sound like something that Haydn could have written in his last years.  (Haydn died, in Vienna, in 1809, the same year that Beethoven started work on this Concerto - in Vienna.)


Beethoven, Piano Concerrtos 2 & 5; Bezuidenhout, Heras-Casado

[Symphonic Addict]

I've explored some of his chamber music which has given me great pleasure. The jazz influence, partly, makes it a real treat to hear.

[bhodges]

Morten Lauridsen: O Magnum Mysterium (Kings College Choir, Cambridge, 2009) - This composer's most famous work, and for good reason. Among many fine versions, recorded and online, this one ranks with the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KvrbYZB2vY

--Bruce

[vandermolen]

Weinberg Cello Concerto.
New arrival.
I bought this for the Cello Concertino, which I heard on the radio and was very impressed by. However, I had forgotten how good the Cello Concerto is, with its echoes of those by Shostakovich and Miaskovsky and yet carrying the searching, poetic and visionary qualities of Weinberg's best music:

[bhodges]

Kurt Weill: Lost in the Stars (Barbara Hannigan, singing and conducting, with l'Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, live recording, May 28, 2021)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Q-4JcqEa8

--Bruce

[vandermolen]

I've seen Jeffrey talking about Diamond's symphonies recently, so I needed to refresh my memory by listening to one of them, more precisely the Sym. No. 1. Stupendous work indeed. There is much vigour running throughout. The slow movement has a touching spiritual aura. I also like the inclusion of bells.

Delighted that you also think highly of Diamond's First Symphony Cesar. It is a fabulous work and I also like 'The Enormous Room'.

[aligreto]

Alwyn:





Autumn Legend
Pastoral Fantasia
Tragic Interlude

This is very fine music and music making.

[VonStupp]

Sir William Walton
Symphony 1 in b-flat minor

Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Wasps: Overture

LSO - André Previn (1966 & 1971)

A world beater, for sure.

[vandermolen]

Alwyn:





Autumn Legend
Pastoral Fantasia
Tragic Interlude

This is very fine music and music making.

Great disc! 'Autumn Legend' has been rightly described as Alwyn's 'Swan of Tuonela'.