What are you listening 2 now?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Maiden-Listen Monday: Mennin, Sinfonia (1970)

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



I sure am curious about the photo in the Soviet Union

Interesting composition. He looks cool in the photo!

[VonStupp]

Samuel Barber
A Stopwatch and an Ordnance Map, op. 15
Sure On This Shining Night, op. 13 no. 3 (for chorus and piano)
Agnus Dei, op. 11 (for chorus)

Conspirare - Craig Hella Johnson

Stopwatch for men's chorus and timpani is a beast on this recording, although I thought I remembered brass parts too. Oh well, this is the blockbuster of the recording so far. The Conspirare men are haunting and bombastic in equal parts, with acid-etched tuning. The Spanish Civil War-based texts are unique and quite moving. Really quite something!

I was never enamored with Barber's arrangements of his own works, jammed into a choral setting. Agnus Dei seems cluttered with text and the need to breathe as opposed to the seamless strings of its previous versions, and the magic of Shining Night as a Lied is a bit clunky with choir (as I thought Monk and His Cat was too, not on this disc).

Consistently fine singing so far. Now on to the 30+ minute cantata I have been waiting for.

[classicalgeek]

Christopher Rouse
Symphony no. 1
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
David Zinman

(on Spotify)

[Iota]

Liszt: Années de Pèlerinage, 3rd year

Zoltan Kocsis (piano)


Written much later than the first two books, and a significantly more sombre and forbidding place, where there seems some pretty naked soul-baring going on. Not everybody wanted to record it, but luckily for me Kocsis did, as I found it a riveting listen.
He constructs some truly monolithic passages of playing in the darker pieces, I felt almost pinned to my seat for the last three of them. The more ethereal moments that break through the gloom in the earlier pieces are gorgeously done too. 

[SonicMan46]

Well, still going through my 'American Collection' and now up to:

MacDowell, Edward (1860-1908) - Piano Concertos, Orchestral Suites, Others w/ the performers on the cover art; the middle recording (MP3 DL) w/ Charles Johnson is a duplication of the Suites on the Naxos disc; each has a different third work. Edited Wiki bio below, although born in New York City, MacDowell's educational background is European Romanticism.  Up next, a half dozen discs of his piano music also w/ some duplication.  Dave

ADDENDUM: Just attached some reviews for those interested.

Edward MacDowell was an American composer and pianist of the late Romantic period. He was best known for his second piano concerto and his piano suites Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces and New England Idylls. Woodland Sketches includes his most popular short piece, "To a Wild Rose". He went to Paris in 1877 and was admitted to the Paris Conservatory. After two years, he continued his education in Frankfurt, Germany, where he studied piano with Carl Heymann and composition with Joachim Raff. In early 1880, he met Franz Liszt and Clara Schumann, and visited Liszt next year in Weimar and performed some of his own compositions. (edited, Source)

   

[Bachtoven]

Great playing and very good sound. It includes the Toccata and Fugue in D minor and the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue!

[VonStupp]

Samuel Barber
The Lovers, op. 43 (with chamber orch.)
Easter Chorale, op. 40 (with chamber orch.)

Conspirare: Company of Voices & Orchestra - Craig Hella Johnson

I haven't come across such a sexually-charged choral cantata since Carl Orff's Catulli Carmina. When the men sing out 'Strip off your clothes', my wife guffawed.

If you want a feel of the heat from these texts, this chamber orchestra arrangement is right in your face, recording wise. I remember the old Andrew Schenck live recording leading the Chicago SO & Chorus, but this one takes out a bit of Barber's symphonic scope to pave towards intimacy and directness. The Lovers (30 minutes-ish) is one I will need to listen to a few more times for further appreciation, but it is in the same sound world as Prayers of Kierkegaard.

I added a 5-minute YouTube video where Craig Hella Johnson speaks to his motivations in this work. A good way to hear some of this recording, at its least.

https://www.youtube.com/v/4JyaC7EI8AY&ab_channel=ConspirareChoir

[Irons]

Dyson: Concerto da Camera.



A fine inventive work for string orchestra/quartet with at it's heart a moving slow movement which to my ears is an elegy. Do not know if he meant it so, doesn't matter if he didn't, but written in 1949 I associate this movement with the dead of WWII.

[classicalgeek]

Tippett
Symphony no. 1
Piano concerto
Howard Shelley, piano
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox



I heard echoes of Stravinsky's two neoclassical symphonies in Tippett's First, as well as Walton's First Symphony; the Piano Concerto reminds me more of Bartok. Not to suggest Tippett was derivative, of course - he had a distinct voice already, that became even more apparent in his later works. I found both these works, appealing though they are, 'tough nuts to crack', so to speak - but I think they're worth my time and effort. I'll "keep on listening"!

[vandermolen]

Einar Englund: Orchestral works - a great introduction to this fine Finnish composer. I've always loved the Second Symphony 'Blackbird' but, this evening, have greatly enjoyed the PC No.1 and the Shostakovich-like 4th Symphony 'Nostalgic' for strings.:

[vandermolen]

Tippett
Symphony no. 1
Piano concerto
Howard Shelley, piano
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Richard Hickox



I heard echoes of Stravinsky's two neoclassical symphonies in Tippett's First, as well as Walton's First Symphony; the Piano Concerto reminds me more of Bartok. Not to suggest Tippett was derivative, of course - he had a distinct voice already, that became even more apparent in his later works. I found both these works, appealing though they are, 'tough nuts to crack', so to speak - but I think they're worth my time and effort. I'll "keep on listening"!

The 1st is my favourite of the Tippett symphonies.

[Klavier]

He's an accomplished player but not terribly moving or exciting.

[André]

Einar Englund: Orchestral works - a great introduction to this fine Finnish composer. I've always loved the Second Symphony 'Blackbird' but, this evening, have greatly enjoyed the PC No.1 and the Shostakovich-like 4th Symphony 'Nostalgic' for strings.:

Indeed, this is one of the finest Naxos discs ever made. Very few knew of Englund before this was released.

[classicalgeek]

The 1st is my favourite of the Tippett symphonies.

I'll definitely give it another listen! I haven't listened to a lot of Tippett's music, but I can tell there's a lot of 'meat on the bones', so to speak. I've been trying without luck to find scores of his orchestral music for download online; he's not listed on Boosey & Hawkes' 'perusal' program or on Nkoda - I like to listen with a score whenever I can!

Thread duty:

Howard Hanson
Symphony no. 2 'Romantic'
Seattle Symphony Orchestra
Gerard Schwarz



I'm still warming up to Hanson, I think. I enjoyed the 'Romantic' more than the 'Nordic', but it seems rather short on substance, for lack of a better word. It's very pretty, very tuneful, very heart-on-sleeve Romantic - and I can appreciate it for those qualities.

[André]

The three works here are quite different. No 2 is a big, concentrated work of great ambitus. It is said to be the closest to traditional tonality among Searle's 5 symphonies. No 3 was composed immediately after and reverses its predecessor's fast-slow-fast design to a slow-fast-slow one. The last movement has a creepy, extended passage with the unusual combination of baritone oboe, english horn and bass clarinet - plus tuba growls for good measure.

Maybe Searle had enough material for a big, multi-movement work but preferred to give us two succinct works that bookend each other, one looking backward, the other forward ? In any case they have strikingly different atmospheres, no 3 being biting, cryptic, angular. I enjoyed both very much, no 2 especially so.

No 5 is a one-movement, 5 sections piece, with a palindromic start and end: « the ethereal music of the opening unfolds and moves down through the orchestra (...) the coda returns to the slow introduction, but this time the process is reversed - beginning low with bassoons, bass clarinet and english horn, and ending high on upper strings and woodwind ». It is a mostly quiet but still eventful score. The notes mention its webernian style, with short, angular motifs (not really phrases). I must say it works very well.

Overall this disc is much to be preferred to the other one (symphonies 1 and 4 plus two short works). Very modern stuff but highly relatable. Symphony no 2 is a hit. Nos 3 and 5 are highly interesting and sophisticated works. No 1 is interesting but rather uncouth and unpolished IMO. No 4 is not to my taste.

[classicalgeek]

Brought on by the 'works for organ and orchestra' discussion:

Malcolm Williamson
Organ Concerto
Malcolm Williamson, organ
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Adrian Boult



Really interesting work - I'm not sure what I thought! Definitely eclectic and a bit wild... but wonderfully orchestrated. Not sure it's a new favorite work for organ and orchestra, but I'm glad I heard it!

[JBS]

Good to know. I look forward to hearing this set. It's in the pile somewhere 

You already have it? Amazon US gives its release date as next month.

TD
Schumann Symphonies 3 and 4
From this set

A lot of Schumann symphony recordings leave me underwhelmed. This cycle joins Kubelik and Gardiner as performances that produce excellent music.

[Marriner did another Schumann set with ASMF. This  RSO Stuttgart cycle includes the Zwickauer Symphony, the Manfred Overture, and the Overture Scherzo and Finale.]

[Klavier]

[Mirror Image]

Ah, another fresh and complete mystery yet to be discovered

Yes! Berg and Schoenberg are firm favorites of mine, but I don't have much love for Webern.

[JBS]

Currently CD 3


Is it heresy to say Telemann was better at writing concertos than Bach?