What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

Radulescu: Piano Sonatas 1-3

Some contemporary piano works whose idiom is not overtly forbidding or cacophonous. Rather, they possess a prominent thought-provoking countenance. Interesting, certainly.

[Daverz]

Theodore Dubois: Messe pontificale

Very charming music, and the performance by the chorus is wonderful.  Fantastic sonics, too.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now going to finish up Elder's RVW cycle with Symphonies Nos. 7, 8 & 9

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Selina Ott - Arutiunian, Peskin & Desenclos: Trumpet Concertos.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Ignaz Friedman - Chopin, Weber, etc..

[Symphonic Addict]

A first listen to these two Chinese "romantic" classics:

Chen/He: Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto
Chu/Liu: The Yellow River Piano Concerto (Chengzong Ying, Adrian Leaper, Slovak Radio SO)

An intoxicating display of oriental delights. I was taken by the Violin Concerto the most, what a wallow!

[JBS]

Diagilev was famously snooty about Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue: "Good jazz, bad Liszt."

He was in a way correct, although badly phrased. Gershwin's concertos are superior to Liszt's (meaning Liszt's officially labelled concertos, but not Totentanz).
So it's more Liszt was bad Gershwin.

TD

Second go at this CD.

[Number Six]

Vivaldi: Cello Concertos
Jean-Guihen Queyras
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin & Georg Kallweit

[JBS]

I seem to remember that my enthusiasm for Elder in these symphonies wasn't very widely shared. Not a problem, but I enjoyed them very much.

Mind you, I also liked Andre Manze (possibly because I've seen him conduct on many occasions in Liverpool), so what do I know?

I like Manze's RVW cycle, and never quite understood why so few others seem not to.

Elder's RVW is a different story, and maybe it suffers from being not as good as his Elgar cycle, which can be reasonably described as better than anyone else's.

[T. D.]

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Bliss Oboe Quintet

[steve ridgway]

Pierre Henry - Tokyo 2002

[Symphonic Addict]

Kernis: Symphonies 2 and 4

The front cover of the 2nd illustrates its temperament quite well. It features a sustained and powerful tam-tam stroke at the ending. A terrific work. As for the 4th, it was a bit underwhelming, this is more dissonant and not as attractive or original as the first two.

I wonder why his 3rd symphony hasn't received any recording yet.

[steve ridgway]

Wow! A histrionic Lamentation!

In 1968 a vocal opus of great peculiarity and dramatic character originated: Inane, soliloquy for soprano and orchestra. It had been commissioned by SFB, a Berlin radio station, for Joan Carroll, the American opera singer living in Germany, who sang the part in the premiere in Berlin in January of 1969. The Latin title means "emptiness" or "cavity". The text by Manuel Thomas deals with a very serious subject: the psychic condition of a woman whose baby is removed before delivery. In its mixture of anguish, pain, rage, and remembrance it is a parallel to Erwartung by Arnold Schonberg to the text of Marie Pappenheim. And the score of Reimann in its expressionist spirit also is indebted to this monodrame of the year 1909. It obviously restrains in favour of the solo part the sound of the orchestra broken up in many ways, an emotional and strangely scanned prose of the winds and the multitone chords of the low strings. The two artists wrote: "Inane would not have originated without Joan Carroll. Only her personality in which the most diverse inspirations and means of art coexist side by side caused us to write a piece for her in which all her capabilities were to be utilized."
The text with its alternating dramatic and lyric heights and lows has been set to music for her. In it there are naive folk tunes alongside with hysterical declamations, dramatic outbursts like the one in front of the empty bed and when seeing letters from the beloved, grimacing passages like the one spoken at a high pitch of the nocturnal thief with sustained chords and jazz-like pizzicati of the double-basses, powerful increases in volume and nuances fading away. In this pandemonium Miss Carroll raged and belcantoed with a convincing inner commitment.
--H. H. Stuckenschmidt

Thanks very much for that information! The music would fit such a nightmarish story well.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Last work for the night --- Vasks Lidzenuma Ainavas (Plainscapes)

[steve ridgway]

Schuller - Triplum

[SimonNZ]

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Alright, one more work --- Lyadov Village Scene by the Inn, Op. 19

[steve ridgway]

Berio - Sinfonia

[steve ridgway]

Birtwistle - Earth Dances