What are you listening 2 now?

[Karl Henning]

Bartók
String Quartet № 5, Sz. 102 (1934)
String Quartet № 6, Sz. 114 (1939)

[Mirror Image]

Lambert: Rio Grande - Jean Temperly - mezzo, Christina Ortiz - piano, London Madrigal Singers, LSO André Previn
Lambert: Concerto for Piano and Nine Solo Players - Richard Rodney Bennett - piano, Members of English Sinfonia - Neville Dilkes
Lambert: Elegiac Blues and Elegy - Richard Rodney Bennett - piano
Walton: Old Sir Faulk - Richard Rodney Bennett - piano
Walton: Symphony no 2 - London Symphony Orchestra - André Previn

If anyone doesn't know Constant Lambert's Rio Grande, I urge you to give it a spin. It's a lot of fun.

The jazzy Piano Concerto is, I think, given an even better performance here than the one I was listening to yesterday with the Nash Ensemble and Ian Brown, Bennett really giving in to the jazz elements in the score. He is just as successful in the solo piano pieces.

The disc is rounded out by Previn's splendid 1973 recording of Walton's second Symphony.

I rather like these recordings on Hyperion:



I'm not sure what the availability of any of these recordings is now, but they're fun discs to be sure.

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Barber
Violin Concerto, Op. 14
Hahn
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra
Wolff

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Kodály
Peacock Variations
BSO
Leinsdorf

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Got a start on this today:



Klami's piece starts out evoking the Rite of Spring, then shifts a little backwards to the soundworld of the Firebird or earlier. Nice enough. Thin but piercing brass presence, and you have to turn the volume up a bit to flatter the orchestra.

You inspired me to haul out one of my Klami discs.  Just listened to his Cobblers on the Heath followed by his Kalevala Suite with Vanska and the Lahti forces:


Happy listening at this end! 

PD

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Remeber to ask your wallet NICELY!

 

PD

[SonicMan46]

Some new acquisitions the last few days:

Hummel, Johann (1778-1837) - Piano Concertos w/ Howard Shelley (two used CDs; also received a 3rd one which was scratched and skipped, already obtained an Amazon refund).

Kozeluch, Leopold (1747-1818) - Piano Trios, V. 3 w/ Trio 1790 on period instruments; their first volume was in 1994 w/ different string players; the second/third volumes in 2015 - Leopold composed 63 numbered KB trios, so a ways to go!  Dave

   

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Vlado Perlemuter: Ravel Piano Works, Record One.



Menuet Antique.
Pavane pour une Infante défunte.
Jeux d'eau.
Gaspard de la Nuit.

I haven't heard of that pianist before now Irons; how did you find the performances and sound to be?  EDIT:  I should have added that I remember that Nimbus' motto/aim was to have things sound natural and sadly, both of us found this to mean that at least in orchestral works, the orchestra sounded rather remote and lacking shall we say "a certain punch"?  Wondering how they did with solo or chamber works?

PD

[Mirror Image]

I haven't heard of that pianist before now Irons; how did you find the performances and sound to be?

PD

I'm not sure how the LPs sound, but CDs sound horrible. They're drowned in reverb to the point where clarity, articulation and nuance are smeared beyond recognition.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I'm not sure how the LPs sound, but CDs sound horrible. They're drowned in reverb to the point where clarity, articulation and nuance are smeared beyond recognition.

Sorry to hear that.

PD

[Spotted Horses]

Kokkonen, Piano Quintet



This music resonates strongly with me. Over the course of the four chamber works on this release Kokkonen's style evolves from Neo-classical, to serial, back to free tonality. But the constant in his style is a free contrapuntal texture, music constructed from small melodic and harmonic cells, great melodic, harmonic and expressive interest.

[Brian]

First listen to this music:



Lyapunov's 12 Transcendental Etudes are a conscious sequel to and continuation of Liszt's 12 Transcendental Etudes, written in the keys that Liszt didn't get to. The final one is an elegy in Liszt's memory written in the manner of a Hungarian rhapsody. This is big, virtuoso, super-romantic music, stuff that the middle-aged Liszt would have been proud of. And Florian Noack tackles it with all the personality and skill needed to make it sound huge, with especially satisfying booming bass sound in etudes like the Epic Song and the Carillon. He first learned the music at age 14, has a genuine passion for it, and has recorded the fastest cycle available to my knowledge (beating Scherbakov I by only about 45 seconds over the course of the 70-71 minutes) (yes, Scherbakov has recorded the cycle twice, for Marco Polo and then for Steinway & Sons in a two-CD set with the Liszt Etudes to form a fully complete cycle).

The booklet is very strange; in four languages, it puts a load of white space on every page. Sometimes there's one paragraph alone on a page, and then you turn the page to read the next paragraph. This doesn't mean the typeface is huge - they just put a lot of white space. Weird.

[Mirror Image]

Sorry to hear that.

PD

You make it sound like I'm the one who recorded it.

[Karl Henning]

You make it sound like I'm the one who recorded it.

Oh, she does not.

[André]

Very interesting music from a composer who is new to me.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Jacques Duphly harpsichord works. Aya Hamada.

[Mandryka]

Feeling slightly irritated by the close sound, with resultant un-tight bass.

[Que]

Jacques Duphly harpsichord works. Aya Hamada.

[Irons]

I'm not sure how the LPs sound, but CDs sound horrible. They're drowned in reverb to the point where clarity, articulation and nuance are smeared beyond recognition.

Hopefully you will not take offence when I say not for the first time you overexaggerate to make a valid point.

[Karl Henning]

CD 1:

Two Krylov Fables, Op. 4
Larissa Diadkova, mezzo
Women's Voices of the GöteborgsOperan

Three Pushkin Romances, Op. 46a
Sergei Leiferkus, bass

Six Romances, Op. 62
Sergei Leiferkus, bass

From Jewish Folk Poetry, Op. 79a
Luba Orgonasova, soprano
Nathalie Stutzmann, contraltob (now music director designate of the Atlanta Symphony, by the bye)
Philip Langridge, tenor

Göteborgs Symfoniker
Järvi