What are you listening 2 now?

[Mirror Image]

I've always enjoyed Adams's music when I hear it, but I rarely feel the desire to seek it out.  When I connect with it's an intellectual connection not an emotional one.

Interesting. I seem to always have an emotional response to Adams' music, especially works like Harmonielehre, Violin Concerto, Harmonium, The Dharma at Big Sur, Shaker Loops, The Wound-Dresser et. al.

[Traverso]

Muffat

continuing with the second CD

There is certainly a lot to enjoy in this recording although I bought a new set of these works yesterday.
I am curious about the performances of Joseph Kelemen. I have listened to the Toccata Prima and however beautiful I still prefer Leonhardt's DHM recording.
I'm not sure but the Kelemen set was sold out on several sites, which may indicate that it is almost out of print.

[SonicMan46]

Chadwick, George Whitefield (1854-1931) - Orchestral Works & Piano Music - finishing up my small Chadwick collection - Peter Kairoff is a local and head of the music department at Wake Forest University (who employed me for 34 years in the radiology department of their medical school).   Dave

   

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Schuman
Credendum
Albany SO
David Alan Miller



My biggest problem with this recording is with the orchestra itself. It sounds like there isn't that large of a string section in the Albany SO. I mean I know I shouldn't expect LA or Chicago sized string sections, but it does sound rather undernourished.

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Adams
Grand Pianola Music
London Sinfonietta
Adams



The composer on his Grand Pianola Music:

When Grand Pianola Music was first performed in New York (in 1982 in a festival of contemporary music organized and conducted by the composer Jacob Druckman) the audience response included a substantial and (to me) shocking number of "boos." True, it was a very shaky performance, and the piece came at the end of a long concert of new works principally by serialist composers from the Columbia-Princeton school. In the context of this otherwise rather sober repertoire Grand Pianola Music must doubtless have seemed like a smirking truant with a dirty face, in need of a severe spanking. To this day, it has remained a weapon of choice among detractors who wish to hold up my work as exemplary of the evils of Postmodernism or–even more drastic–the pernicious influences of American consumerism on high art. In truth I had very much enjoyed composing the piece, doing so in a kind of trance of automatic recall, where almost any and every artifact from my musical subconscious was allowed to float to the surface and encouraged to bloom. The piece could only have been conceived by someone who had grown up surrounded by the detritus of mid-twentieth century recorded music. Beethoven and Rachmaninoff soak in the same warm bath with Liberace, Wagner, the Supremes, Charles Ives, and John Philip Sousa.

But Grand Pianola Music genuinely upset people, doubtless due to the bombastic finale, "On the Dominant Divide," with its flag-waving, gaudy tune rocking back and forth between the pianos amid ever-increasing cascades of B-flat major arpeggios. I meant it neither as a joke nor a nose-thumbing at the tradition of earnest, serious contemporary music nor as an intended provocation of any kind. It was rather, in its loudest and most hyperventilated moments, a kind of Whitmanesque yawp, an exhilaration of good humor, certainly a parody and therefore ironic. But it was never intended, as has since been intimated, as a "political" statement about the state of "new music." Nevertheless, I was alarmed by the severity of its reception, and for years I found myself apologizing for it ("I've got to take that piece down behind the barn and shoot it"). Now, though, I'm impressed by its boldness.

As with Harmonielehre, which began with a dream of a huge oil tanker rising like a Saturn rocket out of the waters of San Francisco Bay, Grand Pianola Music also started with a dream image in which, while driving down Interstate Route 5, I was approached from behind by two long, gleaming, black stretch limousines. As the vehicles drew up beside me they transformed into the world's longest Steinway pianos...twenty, maybe even thirty feet long. Screaming down the highway at 90 m.p.h., they gave off volleys of Bb and Eb major arpeggios. I was reminded of walking down the hallways of the San Francisco Conservatory, where I used to teach, hearing the sonic blur of twenty or more pianos playing Chopin, the Emperor Concerto, Hanon, Rachmaninoff, the Maple Leaf Rag and much more.

Despite the image that inspired it, and despite the heft of its instrumentation, Grand Pianola Music is, for the most part, a surprisingly delicate piece. The woodwinds putter along in a most unthreatening fashion while waves of rippling piano arpeggios roll in and out like slow tides. Three female voices (the sirens) sing wordless harmony, sometimes floating above the band in long sostenuto triads while at other times imitating the crisp staccato of the winds and brass.

The principle technique of the piano writing was suggested to me by the behavior of tape and digital delays, where a sound can be repeated electronically in a fraction of a second. The two-piano version of this kind of delay was accomplished by having both pianists play essentially the same material, but with one slightly behind the other, usually a sixteenth or an eighth note apart. This gives the piano writing its unique shimmer.

Grand Pianola Music is in two parts, the first being in fact two movements joined together without pause. Of these the second is a slow serene pasture with grazing tuba. The finale, "On the Dominant Divide", was an experiment in applying my Minimalist techniques to the barest of all possible chord progressions, I-V-I. I had noticed that most "classical" Minimalist pieces always progressed by motion of thirds in the bass and that in all cases they strictly avoided tonic-dominant relations, relations which are too fraught with a pressing need for resolution. What resulted was a swaying, rocking oscillation of phrases that gave birth to a melody. This tune, in the hero key of Eb major, is repeated a number of times, and with each iteration it gains in gaudiness and Lisztian panache until it finally goes over the top to emerge in the gurgling C major of the lowest registers of the pianos. From here it is a gradually accelerating race to the finish, with the tonalities flipping back and forth from major to minor, urging those gleaming black vehicles on to their final ecstasy.

[Karl Henning]

Still the Adams piece I like best:

https://www.youtube.com/v/DQJaJuMTouE

[Mirror Image]

Still the Adams piece I like best:

https://www.youtube.com/v/DQJaJuMTouE

It's a fine piece, but I seldom listen to it. There are just so many other Adams works that deserve my attention.

[bhodges]

Dipping into some of the Ear Taxi Festival in Chicago, which is livestreaming almost all of its events.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STcqG7qQNTo

--Bruce

[VonStupp]

Franz Liszt
Hungarian Fantasy
Totentanz, S. 126

Jean‐Yves Thibaudet, piano
Montréal SO - Charles Dutoit

These two are a lot of fun with a bit more pianist flamboyance than the concertos.

Dutoit has never been my favorite conductor, but I have long thought he does best as an accompanist on record, and that is evident here. The other that comes to mind is his Chopin with Argerich.

I don't know if this recording deserved the Eloquence treatment, but it was an enjoyable listen.

[Que]

I am curious about the performances of Joseph Kelemen.
I'm not sure but the Kelemen set was sold out on several sites, which may indicate that it is almost out of print.

This fabulous set includes the Muffat and at only €17 quite a steal, if you ask me...




https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/sueddeutsche-orgelmeister/hnum/8108077

[Harry]

This fabulous set includes the Muffat and at only €17 quite a steal, if you ask me...




https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/sueddeutsche-orgelmeister/hnum/8108077

Seconded!  Joseph Kelemen is one of the best organists I know, and I know a lot of them. His Muffat has the be heard to be believed, but who listens to me anyway.

[Todd]

I originally pre-ordered this from Amazon, but they did not ship promptly, so I opted to go for a download instead.  Cheaper and instant delivery.

I do not have another complete set of Dvorak's piano music (how many are there?), but I do have a decent selection of pieces played by Rudolf Firkušný, and Ivo Kahánek basically matches his older compatriot in terms of ivory tickling and interpretation in the first eighteen (of 87) tracks I've listened to.  Which means this will likely be the reference complete set for this century.  Kahánek's rhythmic acuity in some of the dance pieces is quite captivating, to go with with refined touch - which is not to say he can't sound "rustic", too.

[VonStupp]

Franz Liszt
Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-6 (for orchestra)

LSO - Antal Doráti (rec. 1960-63)

Now Playing:

Yowsers! The LSO plays this music like their lives are depending on it. Granted it sounds like Khachaturian-esque circus music, but they are completely in it to win it.

Some of this might be the up-close Mercury sound, but the strings are so visceral sounding here. Splendid and a lot of fun! I doubt I would need another set, although what do I do with my Fistoulari?

I never know how I feel about the cimbalom in this music and in Kodály as well. It is lessened here in comparison to Iván Fischer on Philips, I think, who encourages a little more improvisation from his Hungarian players.

[SonicMan46]

   

I originally pre-ordered this from Amazon, but they did not ship promptly, so I opted to go for a download instead.  Cheaper and instant delivery.

I do not have another complete set of Dvorak's piano music (how many are there?), but I do have a decent selection of pieces played by Rudolf Firkušný, and Ivo Kahánek basically matches his older compatriot in terms of ivory tickling and interpretation in the first eighteen (of 87) tracks I've listened to.  Which means this will likely be the reference complete set for this century.  Kahánek's rhythmic acuity in some of the dance pieces is quite captivating, to go with with refined touch - which is not to say he can't sound "rustic", too.

For myself, I had the Kvapil box for a long while (sound may have been an issue?) - but the Brilliant set w/ Inna Potoshina was well reviewed in Fanfare and by Hurwitz on ClassicsToday, so did some culling - I'm happy w/ her performances, but will be interested in further comments on Kahánek - Dave

[vandermolen]

That's a neat recording.

VS

+1

[vandermolen]

Absolutely gorgeous, and this is a very good performance.

Yes, I'm quite tempted by it.
Great conductor name! 

[vandermolen]

George Antheil
Symphony #4, '1942'
John Storgårds
BBC Philharmonic
Chandos

I very much like this recording of #4, which I think is a much underrated piece of music.

+1

[Traverso]

This fabulous set includes the Muffat and at only €17 quite a steal, if you ask me...




https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/sueddeutsche-orgelmeister/hnum/8108077

You are right,I have cancelled the purchase (amazon) and ordered the set.(JPC) I saw it this morning,hopefully they can stop the delivery,,otherwise I have to send it back.

[Karl Henning]

https://www.youtube.com/v/plL2VDAoThU

[Mirror Image]

Okay, moving on from Adams and onto a perennial favorite of mine, Mahler...

NP:

Mahler
Das klagende Lied
Ernst Haefliger, Elisabeth Söderström
London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
Boulez

From this set -