What are you listening 2 now?

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Sibelius
Luonnotar & Pohjola's daughter
From the Bernstein Concertos box.

(A first listen to both works)

How did you like them Olivier?

re Shostakovich Piano Trio No.2
I'm going to butt in here to mention that it's worth seeking out the recording by the composer, with David Oistrakh and Milos Sadlo - dating from the '60s so the stereo sound is not 'historic' by any means.  (Readily available, Amazon, Spotify, etc)


Shostakovich plays Shostakovich (5 CDs)

For years my go-to has been the Vienna Trio:


Shostakovich Trio No.2 - Vienna Trio

But I think this has now been displaced by this fine recent recording by Trio Con Brio, though fair warning - in their hands the final movement turns into a bit of a romp, which is obviously not how you heard it from the Borodins!
As thread duty, I've listened to this three times in the last two weeks.


Shostakovich Trio No.2 - Trio Con Brio Copenhagen

The Trio No.2 is absolutely Shostakovich at his very best, IMO.

Thank you for your suggestions A.H.!  I checked in my music collection just now and I found another recording with *Shostakovich, Dimitri Tziganov (violin), and Sergei Shirinsky (cello) from 1945 that I'll listen to soon.  I agree that the Oistrakh/Sadlo/Shostakovich one sounds particularly tempting!  I have a few Oistrakh boxed sets and will double-check in there for it.  Alas, I haven't heard of the other two trios but will try and keep their names filed in the back of my brain (somewhere!).   

*For those who are curious, it's included in one of those Membran 10 CD clamshell box sets (the one of Shostakovich).

PD

[Pohjolas Daughter]

  Hmmm...the Cunning Little Vixen, Taris Bulba (?), some orchestral stuff. Kubelik conducting a modern Mass with a really funky name, some Firkusny (piano) stuff I couldn't sink my teeth into... I mostly browse and sample, so can't say off the top of my head.  But I've got some Takacs and Pavel Haas squirreled away. I'll see if I have any of their Janacek.

TD:
Lucchesini---Late Schubert (Audite)

The mass that you were referring to is called . 

Sorry that the Firkusny didn't work for you.  Personally, I love his playing and those works, but I would highly suggest not just randomly sampling them.  Listen to them when you are feeling relatively calm and can take some time to listen to them quietly and are not distracted by other things. 

Good luck and looking forward to hearing about your future excursions into the musical world!

PD

[Papy Oli]

How did you like them Olivier?
PD

Had a good first impression of the PD, err...PD 

I'll need to revisit of course. I have some more tone poems to explore in a Berglund Icon box. I plan to listen to those later on.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Had a good first impression of the PD, err...PD 

I'll need to revisit of course. I have some more tone poems to explore in a Berglund Icon box. I plan to listen to those later on.

Hope that you enjoy your journey Olivier!

PD

[Traverso]

Masters of the German Baroque

CD 1

This CD starts with the beautiful but grievous  "Es ist g'nug"

[Harry]

Walter Bricht.
Orchestral Works, volume I.

Symphony Suite in A minor.
Verwehte Blätter, Eight small pieces for Orchestra.
Symphony in A minor.

Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Andrew Constantine.

Walter Bricht is forgotten and probably will stay that way, no matter that his music needs to be heard and is of high quality. For me this composer is a revelation and a binding factor of musical styles from his time.
The orchestra is not one of the best one could wish for, so the performance leaves me a little underwhelmed, but there is nothing to choose, so I go for it. Sound is quite good.

[Harry]

Alexander Brincken.

Orchestral Works, Volume I.

Symphony No. 4 in G minor.
Capriccio for Piano and Chamber Orchestra, opus 11.

Alexander Brincken, Piano.
Royal Scottish National Orchestra,, Rainer Held.

In the end after 4 times listening to it, I have come to the conclusion, that Brincken wrote a fantastic Symphony in a late Romantic style, and gets away with it. Just a few composers succeed in these days to write such a work, that can hold its own, with many a composer from the romantic era.
Also the highly contrasting opus 11 is a revelation for me. Its modernity is one of great interest.
The performance is excellent as is the sound. Hopefully Toccata will release more music of his hand, he certainly deserves it.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

William Walton: 5 Bagatelles. Ana Vidovic. Sharp performance by then 19 y/o.

[Mirror Image]

I would like to hear the Elgar. JLW bumped up his pension pot by performing the Elgar CC all over the UK multiple times. Have nothing of Menuhin as a conductor, but maybe I should.

He certainly performed the Cello Concerto superbly. Menuhin was actually a better conductor than I would've given him credit for. He recorded some other Elgar and an excellent recording of Vaughan Williams' 5th symphony coupled with the Concerto for Two Pianos.

[Mirror Image]

Ha!

You just reminded me that somewhere I had a recording of Rozhdestvensky conducting the Ministry of Culture SO in this, which I never got around to digitising ... and after tearing my office apart for half an hour, I eventually found it at the bottom of a box:



I have no memory of what it sounds like so will be rectifying that right now.

Oh, very nice. Good to know there exists another recording of it and from Rozhdestvensky, too, which is awesome. I might have to see if I can track this one down. Thanks for the correction.

[Roasted Swan]

I would like to hear the Elgar. JLW bumped up his pension pot by performing the Elgar CC all over the UK multiple times. Have nothing of Menuhin as a conductor, but maybe I should.

Menuhin was notoriously technically bad as a conductor but his Elgar recordings are genuinely very good indeed.  One of my very favourite Enigmas is this one;



and the "In the South" is equally fine.  These Tring discs were very good almost without exception both technically and musically and with a bit of searching can still be found usually very cheaply......

[Traverso]

Villa-Lobos

Bachianas Brasileiras No.1
Bachianas Brasileiras No.2
Bachianas Brasileiras No.3

[Mirror Image]

I wouldn't bother.  It's unlistenable.

I don't know if it's actually in mono, but it might as well be, because it sounds like it was recorded down the other end of a very long tunnel - but worse, far worse than that, on equipment with such a limited dynamic range, that in order to capture anything at all of the ppp beginning, they set the level so that it distorts massively on anything above mf.  String sound particularly is teeth-grindingly awful.  I think it has the worst sound I've ever heard on an undamaged CD - really the only (barely) playable disk I have that sounds worse is a heavily corroded recording of Koussevitsky conducting Bruckner, which sounds like someone in the orchestra is tuning an outboard motor throughout.

The real shame is that somewhere in that dreadful cacophony are traces of what sounds like probably a good performance of a fascinating piece of music ... so I have ordered a copy of the Rostropovich, for whom it was written (and presumably had the composer's approval.)  Thanks for alerting me to that.

Thanks for the feedback here, ultralinear. Sounds like I'll pass on it. And yes, the Rostropovich performance is damn good. The audio quality, as expected, is certainly an update from that horrendous Rozhdestvensky disc you mentioned.

[Mirror Image]

Villa-Lobos

Bachianas Brasileiras No.1
Bachianas Brasileiras No.2
Bachianas Brasileiras No.3

Someone is on a V-L kick. Nice!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

It's a gold disc. Other than this, your guess is as good as mine.

Was the disc sold very well? Good news and I must check it out.

[Papy Oli]

Continuing Bach's BWV 61. This time, Koopman and Rilling.

[Mirror Image]

Was the disc sold very well? Good news and I must check it out.

I doubt it sold well, Dry Brett. I mean come on, it's Hindemith. When has Hindemith ever sold well? I think they just called it Gold, because the CD's playing side is gold. Regardless of what it's MDG called it, yes, you must check out this recording and ALL of their Hindemith recordings while you're at it.

[Irons]

He certainly performed the Cello Concerto superbly. Menuhin was actually a better conductor than I would've given him credit for. He recorded some other Elgar and an excellent recording of Vaughan Williams' 5th symphony coupled with the Concerto for Two Pianos.

Good to hear that. Another poster praised Menuhin conducting RVW, possibly RS.

[Traverso]

Someone is on a V-L kick. Nice!

and
Yesterday Descrobimento do Brasil wich very nice,now hearing the swinging Toccata  (Bachianas)

[Mirror Image]

Good to hear that. Another poster praised Menuhin conducting RVW, possibly RS.

I'm not sure about Roasted Swan, but Sgt. Rock has spoke on several different occasions about his love for that RVW Menuhin recording.