What are you listening 2 now?

[Linz]

Wilhelm Stenhammar Symphony 2 and Serenade

[Todd]

[Karl Henning]

Tell me about these pieces.

[Peter Power Pop]

Gustav Holst's
The Planets

Andrew Litton, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra

A curious recording, I think. It certainly has its moments, but it all sounds terribly polite with not enough raw energy to excite. "Dull" might be the word. And just as it doesn't ooomph with Mars, it races through Venus with barely a nod to anything voluptuous at all. All a bit bizarre, I think.

Did Peter Scott ever get around to buying it, I wonder? He did set himself a note to do so... in October 2020, since when... silence!

No, I never got around to listening to the Litton Planets. I still haven't bought the CD. The cheapest I can get it for at the moment is AU$28 on eBay (it's a horrifying AU$37 at Amazon), but $28 is still too expensive for me. (Call me "Skinflint Pete".) I know it's been two years, and theoretically in that time I could have saved up enough to buy it many times over, but I keep buying other (cheaper) CDs and Blu-rays instead.

I could just download it from a variety of sources (hello, file-sharing services), but I made it a sort of policy to only review Planets CDs I own. So Mr Litton and co. will have to wait a little longer before getting pestered by A Man Called Peter.



Warning: Self-Promotion Alert – Here's my Peter's Planets website.

[Karl Henning]

"Papa"
Quartets, Op. 71, N^os. 1-3
Amadeus Quartet

[JBS]

Les Bavards.

From

There's no synopses, much less libretti, supplied by this set, so I have no idea what's going on, but the music is definitely fun.

[JBS]

No, I never got around to listening to the Litton Planets. I still haven't bought the CD. The cheapest I can get it for at the moment is AU$28 on eBay (it's a horrifying AU$37 at Amazon), but $28 is still too expensive for me. (Call me "Skinflint Pete".)

I could just download it from a variety of sources (hello, file-sharing services), but I made it a sort of policy to only review Planets CDs I own. So Mr Litton and co. will have to wait a little longer before getting pestered by A Man Called Peter.



Warning: Self-Promotion Alert – Here's my Peter's Planets website.

It's $14 (USA) at Presto, though I have no idea what they charge for shipping to Australia.
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8647874--holst-the-planets-elgar-enigma-variations

ETA
That's $20.73 AUS. Doesn't sound so cheap. (Somehow I thought Oz was a lot closer to parity with the US)

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Oh, No! No! No!

That CD is the 1959 stereo recording. The first cover you showed was the 1955 mono recording! You had me thinking that the mono recording had been released on CD, somehow. I'm a Mercury fanatic, you see.

Good to know. Thanks.

IIRC that photo shows Nijinsky in costume for the title role.

I never knew! He doesn't look like Nijinsky.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Interesting. I must check it out!

[Peter Power Pop]

It's $14 (USA) at Presto, though I have no idea what they charge for shipping to Australia.
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8647874--holst-the-planets-elgar-enigma-variations

ETA
That's $20.73 AUS. Doesn't sound so cheap. (Somehow I thought Oz was a lot closer to parity with the US)

Australia's dollar is complete rubbish at the moment. For the last few months, it was 64c to the American dollar. It's now 67c. (Whoopee, I guess.)

I went to the Presto page for the Litton Planets, and it's listed at AU$22.50. Shipping to Australia is AU$5.80. That's a total of AU$28.30, which is basically the same price as the CD available from eBay (AU$28.11).

I can't find it cheaper than that anywhere else. (Buying direct from the BIS website is hideous. Shipped to Australia, it's 20 Euros, which for me is AU$30.)

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Moszkowski Piano Works: Etsuko Hirose.

[VonStupp]

Arthur Honegger
Symphony 1
USSR Ministry of Culture SO - Gennady Rozhdestvensky
(rec. 1985)

Saw some chit chat regarding Honegger's symphonies and figured it was as good a time as any to take them for a spin.

Have only really listened to Honegger's cantatas and oratorios regularly, so it will nice to visit these.

VS



From this set:

[Karl Henning]

The word that comes to mind with Ustvolskaya is uncompromising.  And the memory of pianist Tamara Stefanovich approaching the keyboard to play Sonata No.6 wearing what looked like welder's gloves (for reasons which soon became apparent.)  I like to imagine Ustvolskaya would have finished a recital by destroying the piano with a sledgehammer, the way Pete Townshend would smash up his guitars.  Yet for all that, the music seems very approachable - there's so much going on, of which I don't pretend to understand more than a fraction, but it's never boring.  I find the Piano Concerto especially listenable - I have another recording with Lubimov (the work's dedicatee) which if anything is even more vigorous.

The Silvestrov pieces seem to occupy the other end of the scale, where both dynamics and tempo are dialled back virtually to stasis.  Likewise the Kancheli, apart from an Ustvolskaya-like eruption in the middle.

At first sight it would seem that these pieces don't go together, yet as a program it works.  If there is a unifying theme, it is of time being pulled apart.  Silvestrov and Kancheli stretch the material so far that the threads start to separate and you can look through it, where Ustvolskaya tears it into strips and throws it in the air for you to make what you want of it.

This might not appeal to everybody, but I like this disc a lot.

Thanks! Most interesting.

[JBS]

Australia's dollar is complete rubbish at the moment. For the last few months, it was 64c to the American dollar. It's now 67c. (Whoopee, I guess.)

I went to the Presto page for the Litton Planets, and it's listed at AU$22.50. Shipping to Australia is AU$5.80. That's a total of AU$28.30, which is basically the same price as the CD available from eBay (AU$28.11).

I can't find it cheaper than that anywhere else. (Buying direct from the BIS website is hideous. Shipped to Australia, it's 20 Euros, which for me is AU$30.)

Ouch!

TD

Dvorak Opus 85

[JBS]

Good to know. Thanks.


I never knew! He doesn't look like Nijinsky.

Here's a photo of Nijinsky in costume I found on Wikipedia's page for the ballet

[Peter Power Pop]

TD

Dvorak Opus 85

I don't think I've ever heard any Dvořák piano music. Must investigate*.

(*Right after I finish my ballet music phase.)

https://www.sonyclassical.com/releases/releases-details/dvorak-poetic-tone-pictures-op-85

[JBS]

I don't think I've ever heard any Dvořák piano music. Must investigate*.

(*Right after I finish my ballet music phase.)

https://www.sonyclassical.com/releases/releases-details/dvorak-poetic-tone-pictures-op-85

The Supraphon box is good, like all the sets in their Dvorak series


There's also a set on Brilliant but I've never heard it.

I don't want to downgrade Andsnes: he's good but there's a whole bunch more.

[Symphonic Addict]

An excellent Sculthorpe CD for starters. Cello Dreaming is particularly wonderful.

[JBS]

TD

First listen. Monteverdi is the main composer but not the only one: the conceit behind the program is that it's a Vespers he might have organized during his time in Venice at San Marco.

[Brian]

The Supraphon box is good, like all the sets in their Dvorak series

There's also a set on Brilliant but I've never heard it.

I don't want to downgrade Andsnes: he's good but there's a whole bunch more.

I would like to recommend the brand new (within the last 12 months) Supraphon box from Ivo Kahanek. Artistically equal (I like Kahanek's Humoresques a lot), sonically 50 years newer, and Supraphon still has its superb proud standard for good booklet notes.