What are you listening 2 now?

[Mandryka]

Morning listening on Spotify:



Since Ignacio Prego's Goldbergs (Glossa) made a favourable impression on me, I picked this 2014 recording of the French Suites (Cantus).

https://www.voix-des-arts.com/2015/02/cd-review-johann-sebastian-bach-french.html

Tempi are quite moderate, but Prego keeps the music flowing.
The rich sound of the Keith Hill harpsichord suits Prego's subtle, delicate style.

I checked it out but after the first track I said to myself "this is like David Cates" - so I went to Cates and enjoyed it tremendously - much more than in the past - just the first suite. Anyway, it's just not true that Prego is like Cates, but I think you should try Cates.

[Linz]

Friedrich Gulda Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 and Wilhelm Backhaus with Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 both conducted by Bohm

[Que]

I checked it out but after the first track I said to myself "this is like David Cates" - so I went to Cates and enjoyed it tremendously - much more than in the past - just the first suite. Anyway, it's just not true that Prego is like Cates, but I think you should try Cates.

I will, thanks.

[Mirror Image]

Tower Records Japan reissued The Bell. Looks quite nice.

https://tower.jp/item/4366803/%E3%83%8F%E3%83%81%E3%83%A3%E3%83%88%E3%82%A5%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2%E3%83%B3%EF%BC%9A-%E4%BA%A4%E9%9F%BF%E6%9B%B2%E7%AC%AC2%E7%95%AA%E3%80%8A%E9%90%98%E3%80%8B,-%E3%83%90%E3%83%AC%E3%82%A8%E3%80%8A%E3%82%B9%E3%83%91%E3%83%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B9%E3%80%8B,-%E3%80%8A%E3%82%AC%E3%82%A4%E3%83%BC%E3%83%8C%E3%80%8B%E6%8A%9C%E7%B2%8B;-%E3%82%A2%E3%82%A4%E3%83%8D%E3%83%A0%EF%BC%9A-%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E3%83%A9%E3%83%87%E3%83%AB%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E3%82%A2%E4%BA%A4%E9%9F%BF%E6%9B%B2%EF%BC%9C%E3%82%BF%E3%83%AF%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AC%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%89%E9%99%90%E5%AE%9A%EF%BC%9E

Oh, I've seen this reissue before, but had forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder. Looks like a nice recording.

[Mirror Image]

Now playing Penderecki Largo for Cello and Orchestra with Arto Noras/Antoni Wit/Warsaw National PO:



Aside from the composer's own recordings of his music on EMI and Dux (amongst other labels), this Wit series remains invaluable for the Penderecki fan.

[Lisztianwagner]

That disc makes for great listening.

Agreed, definitely!


Now, from this set:

Alexander Zemlinsky
String Quartet No.2

Alban Berg
String Quartet Op.3

[Mirror Image]

Now playing Penderecki Kosmogonia with various soloists and Wit/Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra & Choir:



An excellent performance, but doesn't quite eclipse this earlier one (now reissued on Cold Spring):

[VonStupp]

WA Mozart
Great Mass in C Minor, K. 427

Ileana Cotrubaș, soprano
Kiri Te Kanawa, mezzo
Werner Krenn, Tenor
Hans Sotin, bass

John Alldis Choir
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Raymond Leppard (rec. 1974)

For this afternoon:

VS

[Mirror Image]

Now playing Britten Phaedra, Op. 93 with Sarah Connolly/Gardner/BBC SO:

[listener]

TITELOUZE (1563-1633)
Magnificat (Sexti Toni) and Hymns: Ave maris stella, Pange lingua, Veni Creator, Conditor alme siderum, A solis ortus,Exsultet coelum
Jean-Charles Ablitzer organ (Dallam, 1675, Guimiliau, France
and a small group singing the alternate verses.
BRUCH: Violin Concerto 1,  MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in e  TCHAIKOWSKY: Sérénade mélancolique
Josef Suk, viollin       Czech Philharmonic, Prague S.O.
makes the Bruch sound good again.

[classicalgeek]

Benjamin Lees
Symphony no. 2
Symphony no. 3
Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz
Stephen Gunzenhauser
(on Spotify)

[Todd]

[Mirror Image]

Now playing Elgar Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82 with Ehnes/Armstrong:



I haven't heard this work in ages. Beautiful performance so far.

[Linz]

Zubin Mehta conducting Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 2 with Ashkenazy on the piano and Haitink Conducts Brahms Piano concerto No. 2 with Ashkenazy

[Mandryka]

That's the 4th time at least! This month!

[Brian]

As always, Manfred Honeck's Beethoven is an "event," an interpretation which goes where nobody has gone before while only once resorting to gimmickry, novelty, or tastelessness. The balance between the Pittsburgh Symphony's sections is instead the real star, whether in the hushed muted violins at the beginning of the scene by the brook, or the French horns thrillingly present in the first movement's big tune. At times, he slightly exaggerates dynamic changes so that, for example, the strings can step back and allow the woodwinds to be more clearly heard. This does, however, extend at times to rewriting the music; Honeck adds a piccolo to the first and third movements in a way I find totally unnecessary. (He says it's because it's hard to hear the flutes. You can solve that with conducting, as many past recordings have shown. Adding a piccolo is using a cheat code.)

His booklet notes, as usual, brim with explanations about how he uses rubato, where he tells the players to phrase music like a yodel, and even the fact that he made the woodwind soloists watch lots of YouTube bird call videos. Thankfully, the more gimmicky-sounding effects don't really manifest themselves in the performance to the degree you would expect/fear. Instead we get a performance of utter loveliness where everything seems well considered. For example, it turns out that watching bird call YouTube videos only has the effect of making the bird "cadenza" in the slow movement sound, like, 10% more cadenza-ish.

I mentioned that it "only once" resorts to gimmickry. This is the introduction of ponticello string playing in the storm to make the storm scarier. I think this is inauthentic and in poor taste. This isn't Berlioz. Moreover, the music is already scary enough. The timpanist pounds away, and the trumpets inject louder and brasher than usual to contribute to the movement's dissonance and unrest. As with the added piccolos elsewhere, the interpretation was perfectly good without the meddlesome addition. (Honeck, in his booklet notes, forgets himself and says this is the only movement with piccolo. Not anymore it's not.)

The first two movements are a little faster than normal -- if you cut out the expo repeat, the first movement is faster than Karajan '63 -- but with a sense of flow and an attention to phrasing which makes everything sing. It's not chilly at all. The finale, by contrast, is a little slower, more reverential. Honeck sees a clear religious meaning to this material and to the peasants' thanks. The overall result is that the whole symphony's architecture is backloaded rather than frontloaded, with everything building up to a finale almost as reverent and chorale-like as in, say, Mendelssohn's "Reformation" symphony. The ending is truly affecting, more meaningful than usual I'd say and with nice French horns contributing to the climax around 8'.

Favorite performance ever? Not so. Makes me rethink everything I know about the piece? Definitely yes. I'll listen to other favorites (like Barenboim/Teldec) with new ears now, alive to bits of the score which Honeck plays up and little moments of magic that only he has. His choices with the ponticello strings and piccolo overdo interpretive choices he'd already smartly made, but if you can set those aside, this is a unique account and one which somehow highlights both the superficial nature-painting and the spiritual depth of the symphony.

The coupling is Steven Stucky's 16-minute piece Silent Spring, based on Rachel Carson's book and with cringeworthy movement titles, taken from Carson, like "Rivers of Death." Mostly, it is pretty generic wholesale "friendly modernist" stuff -- a series of nocturnes with textures instead of tunes, a harmonic language that the very young Schoenberg would have found boundary-pushing, and vaguely menacing tone. An orchestral piano might remind you of Martinu symphonies. There are no overt references to nature or springs or anything. "Rivers of Death" comes the closest to pictorial, since it has lots of big mean percussion, snarling trombones, and woodwind instruments which I guess depict falling acid rain (?) by doing twisty downward series of notes. Then the finale slowly cuts out all the members of the orchestra, a la Haydn 45, except it is a metaphor for species extinction.

Ultimately, I see no reason to ever hear the Stucky piece again, which is unfortunate since it's coupled to a Pastoral I'll want to revisit and reconsider.

[vandermolen]

Bax: Symphony No.3 (Barbirolli's first recording with the Hallé Orchestra,1944)
Like Heward's recording of the Moeran Symphony or Harty's of Walton's 1st Symphony, this is truly a legendary performance. The Ireland works are a fine bonus:

[vandermolen]

Mine too. I don't understand why those Japanese people don't reissue Symphony 1 by TJ from RCA. Jeffrey has the LP record.

A very good point Manabu (and John). RCA also never issued Edward Downes's LSO recording of Bax's 3rd Symphony on CD. It's my favourite version (I played it over and over again in the Library listening room when I was at university). Most Bax fans prefer other recordings but not me.

[Todd]

Favorite performance ever? Not so. Makes me rethink everything I know about the piece? Definitely yes. I'll listen to other favorites (like Barenboim/Teldec) with new ears now, alive to bits of the score which Honeck plays up and little moments of magic that only he has. His choices with the ponticello strings and piccolo overdo interpretive choices he'd already smartly made, but if you can set those aside, this is a unique account and one which somehow highlights both the superficial nature-painting and the spiritual depth of the symphony.

Looks like I need to get a copy ASAP, listen, and then A/B with Carlos Kleiber.

[vandermolen]

Nice!

Yes, it's terrific - my favourite work by Frankel.