What are you listening 2 now?

[Madiel]

Maybe I can make an entire night of string quartets in D minor...

Sibelius, Voces intimae

[Harry]

Starting with this new box with 4 CD'S.

Francisco Correa de Arauxo.
Libro de Tientos 1626.

CD I.

Bernard Foccroulle (Organs: Iglesia Santiago Apostol in Castano del Robledo, Colegiata de San Pedro in Lerma, Abdij in Grimbergen, Iglesia San Juan Bautista in Marchena), In Alto, Lambert Colson.

Starts very well I must say.

[vandermolen]

Braga Santos: Symphony No.3, London Symphony Orchestra, Alvara Cassuto (1986 recording, Henry Wood Hall, London).
This is one case, I think, where the Portugalsom release is superior to the one on Marco Polo (good as it is):

[Operafreak]

Chanson d'Amour/ Sabine Devieilhe (soprano), Alexandre Tharaud (piano)

[foxandpeng]

Einojuhani Rautavaara
Harp Concerto
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Leif Segerstam
Ondine

[vandermolen]

Einojuhani Rautavaara
Harp Concerto
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/Leif Segerstam
Ondine

That's a fine CD Danny - the 8th is my favourite Rautavaara symphony and, with the Harp Concerto, it makes a great programme.

[Que]

Starting with this new box with 4 CD'S.

Francisco Correa de Arauxo.
Libro de Tientos 1626.

CD I.

Bernard Foccroulle (Organs: Iglesia Santiago Apostol in Castano del Robledo, Colegiata de San Pedro in Lerma, Abdij in Grimbergen, Iglesia San Juan Bautista in Marchena), In Alto, Lambert Colson.

Starts very well I must say.

Please keep me posted!

[Florestan]

This is a crackerjack. The brillante waltzes are brilliantly executed, the more introspective ones have just the right amount of bittersweet melancholy. In both cases, the voices of both hands are markedly delineated, making for a delicious, truly waltzing counterpoint. The splendid, voluptuous, almost achingly beautiful tone of a Bösendorfer (not specified as such in the booklet but clearly distinguishable in the photos) is captured in SOTA sound. An oustanding performance, highly recommended.

Mandryka, check it out --- or PM me for the FLACs and booklet.

FWIW, Aimo Pagin is the son of Silvia Marcovici.

[Operafreak]

  Beethoven & Schubert- Aaron Pilsan (piano)

[foxandpeng]

That's a fine CD Danny - the 8th is my favourite Rautavaara symphony and, with the Harp Concerto, it makes a great programme.

Agreed. I've very much enjoyed being in the Rautavaara symphonies for the last few days, although my wife tells me she now knows how the compound at Waco must have felt after the ATF had blasted 'music' at them for days on end.

Harp Concerto is a plus.

[Iota]

Boulez: Structures, Book 1
Alfons, Aloys Kontarsky (pianos)


Music that seeks to strip itself of any vestige of musical history, to attain a kind of pure contemporaneity. Something it does fairly successfully, almost brutally at times, seemingly stripping itself of emotion in the process. The uncompromising and austere results make for fascinating listening.
A world away from the beautiful and brief twelve-tone world of Boulez' 12 Notations pour piano which I had listened to just previously.

[DavidW]

This is superb! h/t to Davey.

Nice!

For me an excellent recording of Beethoven's 7th and 8th.  It has that Scherchen bracing momentum.  Also odd that we're dealing one of the few recordings that live up to the vague label of "quasi-HIP" because there are period instruments and modern, some period practice and modern all melded together.  Anyway I loved it.

[bhodges]

Last night, was supposed to hear the Curtis Symphony Orchestra in Bartók Piano Concerto 2 with Yefim Bronfman, followed by Tchaikovsky 5. Well, the damn virus forced a complete change of program.

Instead, the Dover Quartet (who are excellent) saved the day, along with violist Roberto Díaz (in the string quintet), and Bronfman in the piano quintet. Especially enjoyed the latter.

Brahms: String Quintet No. 2 in G Major
Brahms: Piano Quintet in F Minor

--Bruce

[Todd]

Disc three.

[Maestro267]

Walton: Symphony No. 2
Bournemouth SO/Litton

Dvorak: Symphony No. 4
RSNO/N. Järvi

[Mirror Image]

Now playing this Bloch Pro Arte Quartet recording in its entirety:

[Biffo]

Dvorak: The Golden Spinning Wheel - London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Istvan Kertesz - my favourite of the tone poems though not this performance

[Harry]

Starting with this new box with 4 CD'S.

Francisco Correa de Arauxo.
Libro de Tientos 1626.

CD II.

Bernard Foccroulle (Organs: Iglesia Santiago Apostol in Castano del Robledo, Colegiata de San Pedro in Lerma, Abdij in Grimbergen, Iglesia San Juan Bautista in Marchena), In Alto, Lambert Colson.


The organ is recorded a bit too far from the microphones for my taste on CD II, thus the polyphonic lines are harder to distinguish. But the organ sounds warm, not aggressive. Further on the organ gets clearer in expression. The vocal  contributions  by InAlto are decent enough, a bit raw, and somewhat at odds with ensemble balance, but by and large its pretty good.

[ritter]

Even if the release date is variously given as May 6 or May 20, this was in my letterbox yesterday (sent from Greece) when I got back home after a week away on business in Portugal and then Germany:


This version of Maderna's "lirica in forma di spettacolo" is billed as a "suite dall'opera" intended for the concert hall, not the opera house, and was recorded live in Milan in 1981. It's a reconstruction, at the behest of the composer's widow, of a performance led by Maderna himself in Berlin in 1969. On this occasion, actor Carmelo Bene recites —in a slightly OTT style, truth be told— segments from the Hölderlin novel, but also introduces other texts by Hölderlin. So, we get a Hyperion which is dramatically unified by the recitation (but that as a result, may be less palatable to non-Italian speakers or those who are not tolerant of spoken word in musical works). Still, this is quite fascinating, and Maderna's music is simply extraordinary.

[ritter]

Boulez: Structures, Book 1
Alfons, Aloys Kontarsky (pianos)


Music that seeks to strip itself of any vestige of musical history, to attain a kind of pure contemporaneity. Something it does fairly successfully, almost brutally at times, seemingly stripping itself of emotion in the process. The uncompromising and austere results make for fascinating listening.
A world away from the beautiful and brief twelve-tone world of Boulez' 12 Notations pour piano which I had listened to just previously.

Interesting comments, Iota. I must admit that Structures, and particularly Book 1, is the Boulez composition I listen to less often. I should revisit it soon....