What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

Krenek: Symphony No. 2

Wow, I had thought that his first symphony was a solid musical edifice, but this one is even more mighty, monolithic, heavy, granitic and very contrapuntal. I'm seeing myself enjoying these symphonies more than expected.

[ritter]

Krenek: Symphony No. 2

Wow, I had thought that his first symphony was a solid musical edifice, but this one is even more mighty, monolithic, heavy, granitic and very contrapuntal. I'm seeing myself enjoying these symphonies more than expected.

Yes, a superb work! I haven't listened to it for quite some time now, but remember that when I first encountered it (when the Zagrosek recording was released almost 30 years ago), a connection to Bruckner sprang to mind...

I should listen to it again soon...

[ritter]

As I'm reading George D. Painter's biography of Proust, and I'm at the point where Marcel is about to start his liaison with Reynaldo Hahn, and Count Robert de Montesquiou's promotion of Léon Delafosse is also being discussed, this CD seemed a natural choice tonight:




The CD offers Hahn's wonderful and precocious Chansons grises (Verlaine) and Feuilles blessées (Moréas), plus Watteau from Portraits de peintres as a piano piece (i.e. sans the recitation of Proust's text). Delafosse was very celebrated in his day as a pianist (and also for his looks), but now has lapsed into almost complete oblivion. Of him we get a couple of solo piano pieces, plus several mélodies (including a cycle of five songs on his protector Montesquiou's poems, and one to a text by Proust lui-même).

The Duo Dix Vagues is made up of soprano Clémentine Decouture and pianist Nicolas Chevereau, and they perform splendidly.


Delafosse's portrait by none other than John Singer Sargent:

[JBS]

[Linz]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart CD 10
Missa in C major KV 317 "Coronation Mass"
Vesperae solostimmen, solennes de confessore KV 339,  Chor, 2 Clarintrompeten, |Pauken, 3 Posaunen, Fagott, 2 Violenen, Bass und  Orgel,
Litaniae Laurentanae KV 109
Hans Buchhierl soprano (KV 317, 339), Ursala Buckel, soprano(KV 109) Andreas Lehane, Alto, Theo Altmeyer, Tenor (KV 109), Richard van Vrooman, Tenor, (KV 109). Michael Schopper, Bass (KV 317, 339), Eduard Wollitz, Bass (KV 109)
Tölzer Kabenchor, Collegium Aureum, Rolf Reinhardt

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, 1877 Linz version with revisions - Ed. Leopold Nowak
Frankfurt Radio Sympphony, Paavo Järvi

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Continuing on with the Villa-Lobos symphonies --- now playing Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7

[Linz]

Ludwig van Beethoven CD 5
3 Duets for Clarinet and Bassoon, WoO 27, No. 1
Johannes Brahms Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op.11
Robert Schumann Fantasiestück, Op.73, Märchenerzählungen, Op. 132
Max Reger Clarinet Quintet in A Major, Op. 146
Gervase De Peyer; Melos Ensemble

[foxandpeng]

Ruth Gipps
Symphony 2
Rumon Gamba
BBC NOoW
Chandos

More Gipps #2. Starting to feel a little familiarity with this symphony, now. Good stuff. Lots of melody and variation to hold on to.

[Symphonic Addict]

Yes, a superb work! I haven't listened to it for quite some time now, but remember that when I first encountered it (when the Zagrosek recording was released almost 30 years ago), a connection to Bruckner sprang to mind...

I should listen to it again soon...

There's a kind of Brucknerian imposingness in this work, certainly.

[Symphonic Addict]

Henze: Musen Siziliens and Moralitäten
Davies: Naxos Quartets 5 and 6

[Karl Henning]

[Symphonic Addict]

Interesting. The first live recording I see of a Weinberg symphony, and no less than the 12th, one of his best.

[Symphonic Addict]

Delius: Hiawatha

This is a beauty. I've always found early Delius worth my time and this lovely tone poem is not an exception. 

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Delius: Hiawatha

This is a beauty. I've always found early Delius worth my time and this lovely tone poem is not an exception.

I have mixed feelings about Hiawatha and I think this boils down to the fact that Delius himself had removed some pages of his manuscript, which rendered the work as incomplete. The performing edition was prepared by Robert Threlfall who is a Delius scholar and he worked on this edition in conjunction with the Delius Trust. Supposedly, Threlfall worked in material taken from Delius' handwritten score. It is lovely, but it will never be a work that I completely fall for due to my suspicions about it and what material was exactly used to fill in for the missing pages of the manuscript. The fact remains that those pages of Delius' original thoughts were removed (thanks to the composer himself), which makes Hiawatha an interesting piece of history, but hardly representative of a complete work.

Even as someone who fancies himself a Delius fanatic of sorts, his earlier period works don't quite satisfy me like his middle and late period works. I do, however, have much affection for works like Koanga, the Piano Concerto and Paris: The Song of a Great City, which all date from this early period. Gorgeous works.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Delius Three Small Tone Poems



This work dates from the earlier part of Delius' career (c. 1890). It's beautiful and you can hear snippets of where Delius is heading a decade later in turn-of-the-century works like Appalachia and the opera, A Village Romeo and Juliet. This Lloyd-Jones is the first recording to feature all three works together and performed as they were originally intended.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Krenek: Symphony No. 2

Wow, I had thought that his first symphony was a solid musical edifice, but this one is even more mighty, monolithic, heavy, granitic and very contrapuntal. I'm seeing myself enjoying these symphonies more than expected.

I need to take another stab at Krenek. I own that CPO set of symphonies and couldn't really connect with any of the music.

I've been reading yours and @ritter's comments about Krenek with great interest.

[JBS]

Second go at this

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Delius American Rhapsody



American Rhapsody is an early, kind of test run of sorts for the more substantial Appalachia (c.1898 - 1903) . This work was composed in 1896. It shares some features with the more well-known Appalachia, but there's a section towards the beginning that brought Dvořák's Carnaval Overture to mind, but also the atmospheric sections in Sibelius' first version of En Saga.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Ginastera Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 28