What are you listening 2 now?

[Traverso]

Walton


Façade: An Entertainmaint
Façade: Two Suites for Orchestra
The Wise Virgins: Ballet Suite

[vandermolen]

Villa-Lobos: Symphony No.4 'Victory':

[Papy Oli]

Bach - Brandenburg Concertos No.2-3-4 (Hogwood, AAM)

[Florestan]

[Florestan]

]Grand-heroic is not my favourite musical tone.

+ 1.

[steve ridgway]

Ligeti - String Quartet No. 1 "Métamorphoses Nocturnes". One of his early works composed in Hungary, I find it listenable enough to keep on my player.

[Mirror Image]

They are growing on me. Still having trouble distinguishing one from the next, but that will come with repeated listening.

A lot of this boiled down to they were written in pretty quick succession. Martinů wrote the majority of them in the States, but finished the 6th when he returned to Europe.

[foxandpeng]

Aulis Sallinen
Symphony 7 'The Dreams of Gandalf'

The snippets of Good King Wenceslas are always more of a surprise to me just before 19 minutes, than the growls of Smaug or the Balrog, but who can account for the dreams of wizards?

[Mirror Image]

Villa-Lobos: Symphony No.4 'Victory':

Nice, Jeffrey. I love many of Villa-Lobos' symphonies --- the 4th, 6th and 10th stick out in my mind the most.

[Justice Roberts]

Peter Mennin, SY5.

[Florestan]

New acquisition, first listen,

Sergei Bortkiewicz.
Piano Music.
CD I.

Trois Morceaux, opus 24.
Ein Roman, opus 35.
Trois Morceaux, opus 6.
Sonata No. 2, opus 60.

Klaas Trapman, Piano.

Its a riddle to me, why this composer was never approached by my curiosity, but finally I managed to buy this beautiful set with six CD'S, filled with music that makes my heart all warm and fuzzy. I love his music as much as I do Chopin. It has the same feel for me, and I am drawn into the emotion as soon as the music plays. Every piece a gem and invites repeated listening, which I will do. As a surprise came the third movement of the sonata No. 2, "Andante misericordioso", towards the end you will hear the Russian Orthodox melody, of "Christ has risen from the dead", which moved me greatly.
Klaas Trapman was a big unknown to me, but he makes a convincing case for this composer, and his technique is of a high quality. He clearly understands Bortkiewicz very deeply, for I find no fault his his playing or interpretation. Recommended.

I concur with everything you wrote about Bortkiewicz, he is one of my favorite composers in general, and in particular one of my Top Three 20C Russian composers, together with Rachmaninoff and Medtner.

The problem with this 6-disc Trapman set is that it's very far from being as complete as it claims. A much "completer" one is by Jouni Somero, comprising 9 discs, ie 3-disc worth of more music. Give it a try too, his playing is just as good. Also, you might want to check these:

[steve ridgway]

Ligeti - String Quartet No. 2. This is more what I associate with Ligeti.

[steve ridgway]

Happy Birthday Hilding Rosenberg (born 21st June 1892)
Dance Suite from 'Orpheus in Town', very catchy and with echoes of Nielsen's 6th Symphony in places:

So I thought I'd better play the next piece on the Ligeti CD - Hommage À Hilding Rosenberg which was written for his 90th birthday. Only a minute long, but it's a nice minute.

[Harry]

I concur with everything you wrote about Bortkiewicz, he is one of my favorite composers in general, and in particular one of my Top Three 20C Russian composers, together with Rachmaninoff and Medtner.

The problem with this 6-disc Trapman set is that it's very far from being as complete as it claims. A much "completer" one is by Jouni Somero, comprising 9 discs, ie 3-disc worth of more music. Give it a try too, his playing is just as good. Also, you might want to check these:

I was aware that the Trapman set was far from complete, but I was totally taken by Trapman's playing. I have the Symphonies, and the Dutton disc, and am very happy with them. I can find however not the Jouni Somero.

[Florestan]

I was aware that the Trapman set was far from complete, but I was totally taken by Trapman's playing. I have the Symphonies, and the Dutton disc, and am very happy with them. I can find however not the Jouni Somero.

I would gladly let you have the Jouni Somero set in digital (alas, not FLAC but MP3 --- but to my non-audiophile ears and equipment there's no perceptible difference between them), but as far as I know you have not yet joined the 21st century in this respect. 

[Harry]

I would gladly let you have the Jouni Somero set in digital (alas, not FLAC but MP3 --- but to my non-audiophile ears and equipment there's no perceptible difference between them), but as far as I know you have not yet joined the 21st century in this respect. 

True, I am a man of my age, and gladly so, and I can and will stay with CD's and High End equipment, if that would end I will end to exist.

[SonicMan46]

Several new acquisitions:

Dušek, František Xaver (1731-1799) - Music for Fortepiano with Marius Bartoccini; 5-CD set recorded in 2018/19 - 3 instruments used; fortepiano, Johann Schantz, c. 1805-1810; fortepiano, Nannette Streicher, c. 1797; harpsichord, anonymous German, c. 1720.  Short bio synopsis quoted below w/ link to his 200+ compositions of which little is available.  Despite knowing his name, this is my first purchase of his music - could not find a review of this package, but in the attachment a longer bio from Brilliant is included.

Bach, JS - Transcriptions of Vivaldi/Marcello Brothers w/ Sophie Yates on the harpsichord (double manual by Andrew Garlick, 1996 - a copy of a Jean-Claude Goujon, Paris, 1748); 7 transcriptions are on the disc, all but one after Vivaldi, written in 1713-14 when Bach was at Weimar.  Reviews attached for those interested.  Dave

František Xaver Dušek was a Czech composer and one of the most important harpsichordists and pianists of his time. Dušek was born in Chotěborky, which was part of the Kingdom of Bohemia. He was taught the harpsichord in Vienna by Georg Christoph Wagenseil and established himself around 1770 in Prague as a successful keyboard teacher. Dušek's wife Josepha Hambacher had been taught by him and was a famous pianist and soprano. She sang important soprano roles in Mozart operas. (Source)

 

[Traverso]

Holst

The Planets
London philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Adrian Boult

The Perfect Fool
Egdon Health
London Symhony Orchestra
André Previn

[SonicMan46]

I concur with everything you wrote about Bortkiewicz, he is one of my favorite composers in general, and in particular one of my Top Three 20C Russian composers, together with Rachmaninoff and Medtner.

The problem with this 6-disc Trapman set is that it's very far from being as complete as it claims. A much "completer" one is by Jouni Somero, comprising 9 discs, ie 3-disc worth of more music. Give it a try too, his playing is just as good. Also, you might want to check these:

 

Hi Andrei - of the many Bortkiewicz recordings shown in your post, I have the 5 discs above; looking at his List of Compositions, seems like I'm missing a handful of chamber works and a LOT of solo piano pieces despite the Stephen Coombs Dyad - not sure that I want a 'box' of the piano works, but Somero's entire output is available on Spotify, so will make a playlist; BUT, how is that 'Violin Sonata' disc on Apex?  Thanks.  Dave

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Shostakovich
Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok, Op. 127
Elisabeth Söderström, soprano
Vladimir Ashkenazy, piano
Fitzwilliam String Quartet