What are you listening 2 now?

[aukhawk]

Sainte-Colombe Fils
Delicious fare in this recent release from the team that raised the Marais bar so high.
Melting, drooping, heavily minor-key music, strong French accent.


Sainte-Colombe Fils - Pièces de Viole - l'Achéron

[Iota]

Kurtág: Double Concerto, Op. 27 / 2
Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello), Asko/Schönberg (chamber orchestra)
Reinbert de Leeuw

Kurtag creating captivating and pervasive atmospheres/colours in this piece (as in Stele e.g) and I'm duly captivated. The somewhat stellar line-up don't fall short either. Very enjoyable.

[Florestan]

[Todd]

Bad Boy Barto's Bartok!  Yes!!  I do enjoy me a good Barto recording.  He's perhaps my favorite trainwreck pianist.  I come to every one of his post-EMI recordings with the full expectation that his eccentricities will distort the music, perhaps pervert it, but also that he will deliver technically accomplished and usually tonally alluring playing that brings a few unique traits of the music to the fore.  I also expect slow tempi.  So slow.  This last trait does in fact come to pass here.  Comparing the timings to my still co-reference Kocsis/Fischer recording, Barto/Eschenbach come in at about a minute slower per movement on average, with the slow movement of the First taking a couple minutes longer and the slow movement in the Third taking about four-and-a-half minutes longer.  Time to get to it.

The First starts with dark, ominous, weighty lower register playing from Barto.  Pianistic bite and edge are in short supply until about two hundred seconds in, and then it is fleeting.  In the middle section, the playing slows down and becomes almost a caricature of the music.  The second movement, so very slow, distends and distorts the solo part and mixes that with a folksy orchestral part.  The engineers opted to boost the piano and cymbals, and sometimes Barto sort of meanders off, though he finds his way back, and he plays a mean accompaniment in some of the latter parts.  The slow end of the movement and transition to the final movement, where recorded perspective shifts toward something more recessed, finds Barto displaying virtuosic chops, and there's ample color and a sense of lightness in some passages that's very folk and dance music oriented. 

The Second starts too slowly, plain and simple.  This concerto is all about showy virtuosity, and while Barto brings that before too long, it just doesn't rev enough for the first couple minutes.  The trade off is clarity, so there's that.  As the movement moves along, Eschenbach's attention to detail and the orchestral color really bring it to life, with the folk music component again more evident than in some recordings.  The string opening of the Adagio sounds gorgeous, and as Barto enters, slow and ominous and almost ridiculously heavy, he offers a maximum contrast, and one can hear music that later reappeared in the MSPC.  The Presto section whirls nearly uncontrollably, before galloping and galumphing.  The second Adagio section is slow but tense as all get out, thank you.   The final movement, a bit slower than some others, nonetheless has ample verve and playing to the gallery excitement and caps off a version that more than makes up for the unpromising open.

The Third is where the most severe tempo tomfoolery occurs, but it is also the one most apt to survive the slow treatment intact.  The opening movement immediately demonstrates that.  Barto goes slow, bringing the orchestra with him, and the first minute is very fine.  After the long and kind of slow trills, Barto opts for a tempo and style that sort of evokes Brahms and does indeed sound too stodgy.  But also, not quite stodgy enough.  The Adagio religioso is ridiculously slow, with Eschenbach laying the groundwork and aiding and abetting at every turn.  Barto, when exposed and alone, sometimes evokes an utter simplicity of sound and style that nearly rivals the best that Marie-Luise Hinrichs and Michel Block can summon.  He brings time to a stand-still, holding on to notes, letting them trail off into the great mystery of oblivion.  Too purple?  OK, he plays real slow and it sounds real purdy.  Better?  As the movement inches forward, Barto builds to a mixing desk enhanced climax that thunders and slowly pulverizes before switching to slow, elevated playing.  The final movement has more pep and doesn't deviate too much from standard timings.  The clarity and the folksiness of it all work nicely and the whole thing, even with its enlarged proportions works well. 

This un-reference recording more or less aligns with expectations.  Barto and Eschenbach have performed these concertos together for years – they also recorded the Second years ago for EMI – and their coordination and experience shows.  Eschenbach is a fine Bartokian, and his command of the orchestral parts is quite fine, and he tailors the music to the soloist's requirements as appropriate.  When Barto takes center stage, the results, precisely as expected, are mixed.  Sometimes heavy-handed to the point of vulgarity, sometimes lithe and flexible, sometimes brazenly virtuosic, sometimes delicately nuanced, sometimes self-effacing, he's all over the place.  And that will occur in single movements.  This recording does not induce the same aural rubbernecking his massively sluggish Schubert and Brahms piano concerto trainwrecks do, and it never leads to materially raised eyebrows, but it does fall outside the norm in terms of style. 

[Florestan]

[pjme]

I do have some Vine somewhere in the collection...A ballet...? A symphony....?  I'll let you know.

On ABC Classics:
Microsymphony (1986)
Symphony nr 2 (1988),  nr 3 (1990)
Sydney SO : Stuart Challender

ABC Classics/Australian composer series:
Oboe concerto- Canzona - Suite from the Tempest - Smith's alchemy
Tasmanian SO Ola Rudner

Havent listened to these works in a very long time.  Look forward to re-discover!

[Traverso]

Bach

Cantata

Elly Ameling's singing is enchanting

Non Sa Che Sia Dolore  (He doesn't know the meaning of sadness)

[Traverso]

Bach

[Mandryka]

Sainte-Colombe Fils
Delicious fare in this recent release from the team that raised the Marais bar so high.
Melting, drooping, heavily minor-key music, strong French accent.


Sainte-Colombe Fils - Pièces de Viole - l'Achéron

i just find the music of fils less attractive - less introspective, less melting, less drooping, less heavily minor key - than sieur.  And I know I'm the only one, but I don't much like the sound of L'Achéron - authentic or not -  - too tubby in the bass. Anyway, after trying it again I have fled to this

[Florestan]

[DavidW]

I have the opposite preference. The first symphony is much more impactful and groundbreaking. One of the best first symphonies by a 20th-century composer if you ask me.

They are both in my top tier for Penderecki:

Tier 1: 1, 5, 3, Seven Gates of Jerusalem
Tier 2: 2, 4, 8
Tier 3: 6

[DavidW]

Thread duty:

[SonicMan46]

Vivaldi, Antonio - Cello Sonatas - Dave

   

[Traverso]

Bach

Non Sa Che Sia Dolore

other recording of this lovely cantata....

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Do you happen to know the names of the cover art and artist?

[Lisztianwagner]

Maurice Ravel
Daphis et Chloé

Pierre Boulez & Berliner Philharmoniker

[Florestan]

Do you happen to know the names of the cover art and artist?

The booklet says:

Cover: Chateau de Fontainebleau Interior by Gaspard Walter (Dreamstime.com)

[Todd]

[Linz]

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Keyboard Music, Vol. 12, Miklós Spányi

[Symphonic Addict]

They are both in my top tier for Penderecki:

Tier 1: 1, 5, 3, Seven Gates of Jerusalem
Tier 2: 2, 4, 8
Tier 3: 6

Both of us have the 1st and 7th in high regard.

My ranking would be something like this:

2, 7, 1, 3, 6, 5, 4 and 8.