What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

Nice, Cesar! I still haven't received my copy yet, but good to read you enjoyed it.

I quite suspect you'll have a good moment by listening to it, John. I'm eager for new releases of this series.

[Symphonic Addict]

Vaughan Williams: Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1

If I were British, I'd nominate this work into the 'Your Country in a Classical Music Nutshell' thread. Pure Vaughan-Williams-esque. The Celtic and energetic section is great fun. A lovely piece of music.

BTW, an astounding disc all around!

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

This is also an interesting disc:



The music does have a similarity with that of Scriabin, but this music also has alluring writing.

I will check it out Cesar. Nice title though. Have a nice weekend! ✌️✌️✌️

[Mirror Image]

I quite suspect you'll have a good moment by listening to it, John. I'm eager for new releases of this series.

Yes, indeed. I hope they get around to recording some more Villa-Lobos. I'd love to hear Gênesis and Erosão performed by the São Paulo SO hopefully with Isaac Karabtchevsky (who recorded all of the symphonies to great acclaim). It'd be nice to have another series of the Chôros, too. I love the Neschling recordings on BIS, but it's always nice to hear other interpretations, especially when the music is of such a kaleidoscopic range as these works.

[Mirror Image]

NP:

Delius
The Walk to the Paradise Garden
Hallé
Barbirolli





Composed over 1900-1901, A Village Romeo and Juliet is the first extended work of Delius' maturity -- the first in which his musical language is confidently, complexly congruent with his personal vision. And if that vision deepened into an impersonal Nietzschian wisdom as the century moved on, A Village Romeo looms as the unique moment in Delius' work in which Romantic love is portrayed with passionate directness. On that score, the verismo-cum-Wagner working out of Koanga (musically motivated, in any case, by Delius' absorption in the indigenous Black music of the American south) before, and Margot la rouge after, hardly rates. In the later works, human affections are jaded or compromised (e.g., Cynara ["I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion"]) or the adulterous affair atmospherically sketched in the first part of Fennimore and Gerda (1909-1910), his last opera, in which the happy ending is gratuitous and unconvincing. And after the extended duet, which A Village Romeo largely is, the only other love duet in Delius' ripest style is that between Zarathustra and "Life" in the third movement of A Mass of Life (1904-1905)! In his adaptation of Swiss poet and novelist Gottfried Keller's novella Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe, Delius -- with the dubious help of the numismatist and litterateur Charles F. Keary -- shows the lovers Sali and Vrenchen first as children before presenting them at length as mutually absorbed teenage naïfs, thereby investing their attraction with an aura of fore-doomed innocence. As fine as their final rapturous duet and Liebestod are, however, Delius entrusts the supreme expression of their love to the orchestra in the often-excerpted interlude known as The Walk to the Paradise Garden linking the tumultuous fair scene with the couple's startled arrival at the Paradise Garden tavern, hangout of bohemians, vagabonds, riffraff, and the Dark Fiddler who haunts the children. Technically, it allows the music to flow seamlessly, prompting the mind's eye to a vision of the lovers alone with their love, as the scene is shifted behind the curtain. A motivically knit rhapsody, it melds the children's ecstatic passion with the serene impersonality of nature -- in passages foreshadowing Summer Night on the River (1911) and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring (1912) -- with incandescent poignance. Curiously, this interlude, often cited as the heart and distillation of A Village Romeo, was composed and added to the score only in 1906 and is usually heard in Sir Thomas Beecham's arrangement for reduced orchestra.

[Article taken from All Music Guide]

[Symphonic Addict]

Le Flem: Piano Quintet in E minor

A sensual, impassionate work, perhaps somewhat akin to Fauré or Ravel in style.

[Operafreak]

Robert Schumann and Nicolas Namoradze: Arabesque/ Nicolas Namoradze

[vandermolen]

I'd rather have an opinion especially on the "listening thread".  Without a comment/reaction to what the person has just listened to I find this particular thread incredibly dull.  I want to know how/why a person reacted to what they have just heard.   Perhaps I'll start a "what I had for breakfast" thread...  no comment or explanation.... just today it was toast and marmalade... fascinating I know........

Porridge with Greek bio-live Yoghurt and blueberries - a very healthy start to the day.

[vandermolen]

For sure this Kempe is the pre-eminent version - warm hearted and nostalgic but also powerful.  The Wilson is sensationally played but just too driven too much of the time.  Regret is key to this work.

Very much agree (Korngold Symphony) - the other one that I rate very highly is conducted by André Previn (DGG)

[vandermolen]

This is also an interesting disc:



The music does have a similarity with that of Scriabin, but this music also has alluring writing.

I agree - very poetic and atmospheric.

[Operafreak]

 



Maurice Duruflé - Complete Choral Works- Trinity College Choir, Cambridge, Richard Marlow

[Lisztianwagner]

Béla Bartók
String Quartet No.6

[Traverso]

C.P.E Bach


Magnificat WQ 215

[Biffo]

Gustav Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Riccardo Chailly, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, with singers Matthias Goerne, Barbara Bonney, Sara Fulgoni, and Gösta Winbergh

Bit of a Mahler kick since the maestro's birthday earlier in the month—but it's been mostly symphonies 7 and 8. It's good to return to some of the earlier music. When I first got into Mahler, I became quickly obsessed, as I reckon happened to a lot of us, but now I appreciate his music only sparingly. I still hold the conviction that he was without a doubt one of the greatest composers to ever live 

As for the recording, it's super killer, but I'm not sure about the Urlicht. (This is kind of a reconstructed, all-inclusive DKW with the symphonic fragments included; there is also Das himmlische Leben which became the finale of the 4th symphony.)

Urlicht and Das himmlische Leben were written before the respective symphonies, initially as songs with piano accompaniment.

[aligreto]

Bax: In the Faery Hills [Thompson]





This is another one of Bax's works that is filled with wonderful atmosphere, on this occasion more on the lighter side for the most part when compared with other works of his, but it does also have its dark moments too. It also demonstrates, to me, his prowess in orchestration.

[Madiel]

Nørgård: Echo Zone



I tend to find his percussion works to be among the more approachable things. I guess I'm not looking for big tunes or anything...

EDIT: My exploration of his works had stopped for 51 weeks. Whoops. But I definitely have to be in the mood.

SECOND EDIT: The piece was actually written for Safri Duo, so that's cool.

[Madiel]

Nørgård: Spaces of Time, for orchestra 'with piano'

[vers la flamme]

Urlicht and Das himmlische Leben were written before the respective symphonies, initially as songs with piano accompaniment.

I did know this, hence why these are referred to as the "Wunderhorn symphonies". But many recordings of the Wunderhorn-Lieder do not include them. I liked that this set does (though like I said, not my favorite Urlicht ever, though maybe I just like it better in the context of the second symphony.)

Now playing:



Gustav Mahler: Symphony No.4 in G major. Georg Solti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, w/ Kiri Te Kanawa in the finale

First listen to this recording. So far, so good. This is a symphony with very detailed parts for pretty much every instrument, requiring a virtuosic orchestra, and who better to deliver but the CSO. For a lot of people the soloist in the finale makes or breaks a recording, and I haven't gotten there yet, so we'll see.

[Traverso]

Xenakis

[vers la flamme]

For a lot of people the soloist in the finale makes or breaks a recording, and I haven't gotten there yet, so we'll see.

Kiri is not bad, maybe a bit on the operatic side. It's kind of a hard part to nail down. My favorite is Reri Grist on the Bernstein/NYPO recording.