What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

Martin: Erasmi monumentum, for organ and orchestra

This is the Martin I'm not too keen on. Too solemn and pensive for my taste. The 2nd mov. has more motion and bite, nonetheless.

[Mirror Image]

Now playing Stravinsky Les noces with Currentzis and various soloists and MusicAeterna:

[Symphonic Addict]

Joseph Ryelandt: Symphony No. 4 Credo

A forgotten Belgian gem. The epic 1st movement is something else with its musical struggle. The key of E-flat minor knows how to add that forceful nature.





Bax: Overture, Elegy and Rondo

A suite-symphony of sorts. It's playing right... now, that is an opening! A seldom-known Bax worth listening!

[Karl Henning]

CDs 23 & 24
Rakhmaninov
Cti &c.

SFSO
Edo de Waart


Love this!

[Mapman]

Poulenc: Clarinet Sonata, and Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano
Pascal Rogé et al.

I've enjoyed the Poulenc I've heard recently. His music is so happy and fun.

[Mirror Image]

Poulenc: Clarinet Sonata, and Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano
Pascal Rogé et al.

I've enjoyed the Poulenc I've heard recently. His music is so happy and fun.

Happy and fun are certainly adjectives I'd use to describe some of Poulenc's music, but not all of it. The Clarinet Sonata, in particular, has some darker, more introspective moments --- in fact, quite emotionally compelling.

[Karl Henning]

From Triad's 20 March concert:

https://www.youtube.com/v/QEcPs_SjX4Q

[bhodges]

Poulenc: Clarinet Sonata, and Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano
Pascal Rogé et al.

I've enjoyed the Poulenc I've heard recently. His music is so happy and fun.

That is such a lovely recording.

--Bruce

[Symphonic Addict]

Holmboe: Symphony No. 5
Tubin: Symphony No. 6

This combination is dynamite!

[JBS]

Nice! I saw the opera onstage decades ago (with Fiorenza Cossotto). That recoding you're listening seems interesting (but the presence of Gianni Poggi is off-putting to me -- I've found him simply dreadful in other operas).

Did you know that the great Wagner himself wrote a series of transcriptions from La Favorite for two violins?  Available on an Oehms CD. 

Good afternoon, Andrei!

And that opera (in a touring Met production) was one of my least favorite nights at the opera: advertised with Pavarotti as the tenor, only to be told at the last minute that James Alexander would be substituting due to "illness"*, and finding the soprano to be a Slavic lady who in both height and width was bigger than Alexander (perhaps she had been cast with Pavarotti's dimensions in mind, although Alexander was not a small man) and who seemed to think standing stock still front center stage while shrilling at the audience supplied any acting needs.

*a considerable segment of the audience had cynically expected this, thinking Atlanta was not big enough for his ego.

[kyjo]

Luigi Dallapiccola
*Partita
%Dialoghi
*4 Liriche di Antonio Machado
Three Questions with Two Answers
*Gillian Keith, soprano
%Paul Watkins, cello
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda
(on Spotify)



A fascinating composer with at least two distinct styles: a sort of modal, pastoral mode, and an angular, atonal, almost Webernian austerity.

I love the early Partita! It's rather in the spirit of contemporaneous works by his compatriot Casella.

[kyjo]

Happy and fun are certainly adjectives I'd use to describe some of Poulenc's music, but not all of it. The Clarinet Sonata, in particular, has some darker, more introspective moments --- in fact, quite emotionally compelling.

Yeah, his later works, in particular, acquired a darker, more bittersweet quality at times. I'm thinking of works like the Stabat Mater, Dialogues des Carmelites, and the Violin Sonata.

[Mirror Image]

Now playing Schoenberg String Quartet No. 2 in F sharp, Op. 10 with Susan Narucki and the Schoenberg Quartet:



Sizzling Arnie!

[kyjo]

Holmboe: Symphony No. 5
Tubin: Symphony No. 6

This combination is dynamite!

As Karl would say, Nice!

[JBS]

TD
Cziffra playing Beethoven: the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas.

Sandor Vegh and Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg playing Mozart: Divertimenti KV 287 / KV 205

[Mirror Image]

Yeah, his later works, in particular, acquired a darker, more bittersweet quality at times. I'm thinking of works like the Stabat Mater, Dialogues des Carmelites, and the Violin Sonata.

Well, the choral works and operas of Poulenc tend to have a dramatic elements. Unless you know of a broadway adaptation of Dialogues des Carmélites.

[Mapman]

Happy and fun are certainly adjectives I'd use to describe some of Poulenc's music, but not all of it. The Clarinet Sonata, in particular, has some darker, more introspective moments --- in fact, quite emotionally compelling.

True. I haven't heard much of the darker Poulenc yet. I liked the trio better than the clarinet sonata, although the clarinet sonata will probably grow on me in the future.

[Mirror Image]

True. I haven't heard much of the darker Poulenc yet. I liked the trio better than the clarinet sonata, although the clarinet sonata will probably grow on me in the future.

The sonatas for clarinet and oboe are some of my favorite Poulenc. I wish he had composed some string quartets as I think he would've worked his magic with this medium.

[kyjo]

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles (complete ballet)



One of the only complete recordings of this, one of the most gorgeous and shamefully neglected ballets in the repertoire. Full of contrast, color, great tunes, and no lack of drama, this is truly a must-hear for all Poulencians (and others)!


Pierne: Piano Quintet



This work has good ideas, but I felt that Pierne often overuses them to the point of repetitiousness (e.g. the zortzico rhythm in the second movement). As far as French piano quintets go, I prefer the ones by Cras, Hure, Hahn, Vierne, Schmitt, and Faure.


d'Indy: Jour d'ete a la montagne



A very pleasant re(?)-acquaintance with this evocative piece of nature painting. While few of d'Indy's ideas scream outright memorability, my attention was kept throughout due to his keen use of orchestral color.


Robert Ward: Symphony no. 2, Piano Concerto, By the Way of Memories, 5x5 - Variations



Ward, an American Neo-Romantic in the vein of Hanson et al, doesn't deserve to be forgotten. His music is suffused with a sincere, nostalgic lyricism that never becomes cloying. Take the first movement of the bipartite Piano Concerto, for instance - sheerly blissful writing as far as I'm concerned. It might be my favorite American PC if only the second movement lived up to the first. All the other works on the disc are of the same style and quality. Now, if only Naxos could devote a few volumes of their American Classics series to this guy...


Haydn: String Quartet in F major, op. 77/2



His last complete quartet is a thoroughly engaging and quirky work full of many surprising twists and turns. Unusually for Haydn, the third movement is a geniune scherzo instead of minuet, and quite thrilling and effective it is! The Buchberger Quartet play with plenty of energy, my only gripe being the occasionally questionably intonation of the first violinist.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Now playing Stravinsky Le sacre du printemps with Markevitch conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra:

Nice performance!
I'm going to check the Rite by Erich Leinsdorf.