What are you listening 2 now?

[Spotted Horses]

Britten & Hindemith
Violin Concertos
Arabella Steinbacher
RSO Berlin
Vladimir Jurowski

I have loved everything I have heard from Steinbacher. Will have to look into this.

[Irons]

Schnittke: Piano Sonata No. 2

Cool and intriguing as usual with this composer.




Vaughan Williams: Violin Sonata

There is something about this performance that didn't convince me, it's like the violinist struggled at moments and the performance didn't flow conveniently.

I'm somewhat pleased to read your comments on the RVW sonata which I think is applicable to the whole CD. Beautiful playing and the sound top drawer but I remained unmoved, why I have no idea. 

[Harry]

Pjotr I'llich Tchaikovsky.
Symphony No. 6 in B minor,
Overture "The Storm".
LSO, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.

A super performance. And ditto sound.

[Traverso]

Vaughan Williams


A Sea Symphony

[Karl Henning]

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet (Baltimore Symphony Orchestra / Marin Alsop)

Having enjoyed her Prokofiev Symphony cycle, I should expect this to be good!

[Karl Henning]

Sergei Prokofiev's
Egyptian Nights - Incidental Music

Michail Jurowski, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester
Berlin, RIAS-Kammerchor, Chulpan Chamatova
(speaker), Jakob Küf (speaker), Victor Sawaley
(tenor), Arutjun Kotchinian (bass)

A lot of narration, but when the music is allowed to shine, it shines brightly: a pretty fabulous, identifiably idiosyncratic, score.

Yes!

[Karl Henning]

Hartmann
Concerto funebre*
Symphony No. 4 for string orchestra
Kammerkonzert^

Isabelle Faust (vn)*
Paul Meyer (cl)^
Petersen Quartett^
Münchener Kammerorchester
Christoph Poppen


Britten & Hindemith
Violin Concertos
Arabella Steinbacher
RSO Berlin
Vladimir Jurowski

Cheers Karlo!

(* pounds the table *)

[Karl Henning]

Camille Saint-Saëns'
Symphony in F major 'Urbs Roma'

Jean Martinon, Orchestre National de l'O.R.T.F.

I know I've listened to it, but remember nought of it.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

*Prodded by Todd's posting about a Praga Quartet set coming out soon, I grabbed a few Praga Digitals CDs to play.  So far Martinu's "Small pieces for cello and piano" with Michal Kanka and Jaromir Klepac.

Lovely works!  I particularly enjoyed the Four Nocturnes (track 11 in particular).  Put it on pause/stop for a bit as I'm currently running around the house....and also in the mood to listen to the CD which has his String Quartet No. 7 on it.

*Or perhaps I should say "Pragad" instead? 

PD

[Pohjolas Daughter]

**cough**
That's me and most of Saint-Saëns, I'm afraid! There are obvious well-known exceptions, but enjoying all his piano concerti and symphonies though I do, I'd be hard-pressed to recognise one that was played for me unawares. Mea culpa.

We all have our favorite works and composers so no need to feel embarrassed.

Just played:  Martinu's String Quartet No. 7 with the Prazak Quartet...wonderful work, exquisite playing and great sound.  From this CD:



Listening to this, my spirit just soared!  What a gorgeous and uplifting work and magnificent playing.  Sorry that I couldn't find a better picture of the CD for you all.

PD

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Carl Orff's
Trionfo di Afrodite

Eugen Jochum, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus

Excellent 1955 mono, and an enjoyable piece too. You certainly can't help but recognise Orff whenever you hear him!

I only know his Carmina Burana.   

What's this work like?

PD

[SonicMan46]

Beethoven, LV - String Trios w/ L'Archibudelli - recordings from the early 1990s but using Sony's 20 bit DDD technology - Dave

 

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I love it. Trionfo and Catulli Carmina are sort of the two other bits of the Carmina triptych. Carmina dates from 1935ish; Catulli from 1941ish; and Trionfo from around 1951. The later two parts of the triptych are nowhere near as melodious as Carmina Burana, but play much more on word-rhythm and percussive texture. As a school kid, I got a bit annoyed with Catulli Carmina because it calls for an orchestra of (for example) four (count 'em!) pianos, plus metallophones, glockenspiels, tam-tams and on and on... so I thought I was going to hear this gloriously rich, but exotic, orchestration... yet it seldom sounds like they're all playing at once. You get a piano chord here, a slight bong on the tam-tam there... very restrained, basically! Which was underwhelming for the schoolboy, but is more appreciated now.

If you really like Carmina, you are going to find either of the other two works (probably) a bit of a learning experience and you are unlikely (I think) to love them at first hearing, just because they superficially promise to be Carmina Burana 2 and 3, and turn out instead to be quite distinctively different and much less chorally and melodiously luxuriant. But I love both works, and I think Carmina itself sounds better -and more comprehensible- for knowing its 'total context'.

Thank you for the description.  Not certain if they would be my cuppa tea though.

TD

Having a mini-Martinu fest.  Just played the rest of that same CD--listened to the Sonata for 2 Violins and Piano; String Sextet and then the Nonetto.  Fine playing by all and put me in a great mood!

PD

p.s.  Boy auto-correct is annoying:  I caught just in time that it had changed "Having a mini-Martinu fest" to "Having a mini-martini fest"! 

[Maestro267]

Isn't the majority of Catulli Carmina acapella? I remember listening to it once and being disappointed the percussion only showed up at the very beginning and maybe the end?

[Linz]

Prokofiev Symphony No. 1 in D major The Classical, and Symphony No. 5 and The Russian Overture Jean Martinon

[The new erato]

Taking a break from rediscovering Walton by playing discs from the 12 CD Collectors Edition, I'm playing thos:

[Karl Henning]

CD 1:

Liszt-Busoni
Rhapsodie espagnole, BV B 58
Egon Petri, pf

Borodin
Symphony № 2 in b minor

Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (Minnesota Orchestra
Dimitri Mitropoulos

[Lisztianwagner]

Karl Adamdeus Hartmann
Symphony No.2

Rafael Kubelik & BRSO

[Symphonic Addict]

I'm somewhat pleased to read your comments on the RVW sonata which I think is applicable to the whole CD. Beautiful playing and the sound top drawer but I remained unmoved, why I have no idea.

Yes, not a special recording at all. This one (the Violin Sonata) remains unrivalled:

[Symphonic Addict]

Schreker: Flammen

A beautiful score, good late-Romantic stuff. A promising beginning to my Schreker opera traversal.