What are you listening 2 now?

[Christo]

Last night at the "liberation concert" on the Amstel river in Amsterdam, I heard orchestra Phion play an over-familiar piece, but I broke my brain: what was it? Until in a flash: Aladdin of course, Carl Nielsen's most exotic score. Glad to get it out again. 

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Hat-tip to @Karl Henning

Now playing Krenek Symphonic Elegy, Op. 105 streaming via Presto Music



Very nice! I'm definitely going to have explore more of Krenek's music. And since I'm giving Presto Music's streaming service a trial*, I figured this would be a good time to do just that.

*I never thought I would be doing the streaming music thing, but there's just so much great stuff out there that I simply don't own and definitely won't own now that I've stopped buying physical media.

[Florestan]

I think it's impossible to define the ideal musical experience, opinions differ too much.

In my post above I wrote about the degree of compromises (abstractions) we must accept in the process of listening to music. So instead of seeking the ideal musical experience we should rather strive for the for us, as individuals, optimal musical experience. Even here opinions differ, but this will not prevent me from listening to music in the way I find optimal in the given circumstances.

Fully agreed.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now streaming via Presto Music --- Krenek Symphonische Musik No. 1, Op. 11

[Mandryka]

If ideality (is this a word?) means agreement between something and the original vehicle through which that something was presented, then I have no problem whatsoever in agreeing that harpsichords are ideal for Bach's keyboard partitas. My problem is with the selective application of this criterion. Harpsichords were not designed for being listened to in concert halls or through headphones from a recording. Therefore, such listening environments are not ideal for Bach's keyboard partitas. Demanding strict adherence to harpsichords while making allowance for recordings or recitals is inconsistent in terms of ideality. We can have the ideal instrument but rarely, if ever, do we have the ideal environment too, and therefore rarely, if ever,  do we have the ideal experience of old music. That's all I'm saying --- and this is the last time I'm saying it.

In Hugh Arthur Scott's paper "London Concerts from 1700 to 1750" (The Musical Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 2) he notes that there were in fact public concerts with harpsichord in London at that time.   I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that there were public concerts with Handel's solo keyboard suites in London, Paris etc , but I haven't got a reference.  Neither do I know when the Bach harpsichord concertos were  created in public, presumably in a Friday night concert at Cafe Zimmermann in Leipzig, when the composer was alive.

 

[brewski]

Live from Wigmore Hall, the Quatuor Danel:

Weinberg: String Quartet No. 14 Op. 122
Weinberg: String Quartet No. 15 Op. 124
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp Op. 142

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 4 in E Flat Major, 1878/80 Version (1880 with Bruckner's 1886 revisions) - Ed. Leopold Nowak
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariss  Jansons

[ChamberNut]

Hat-tip to @Karl Henning

Now playing Krenek Symphonic Elegy, Op. 105 streaming via Presto Music



Very nice! I'm definitely going to have explore more of Krenek's music. And since I've giving Presto Music's streaming service a trial*, I figured this would be a good time to do just that.

*I never thought I would be doing the streaming music thing, but there's just so much great stuff out there that I simply don't own and definitely won't own now that I've stopped buying physical media.

Good for you John on doing the Presto trial period!

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now streaming via Presto Music --- Korngold Symphonic Serenade, Op. 39

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Good for you John on doing the Presto trial period!

Thanks, Ray. Yeah, I figured I'd try it out and so far I've been satisfied with the audio quality. Also, it's really easy to navigate their streaming application. To have access to all of this music is rather overwhelming to me at the moment, so I'm trying to keep my composure as I'm browsing through what seems like endless amounts of recordings.

[Karl Henning]

Looks good!

[AnotherSpin]

[JBS]

Which would suggest that the listener's quarrel is with the tuning, rather than with the instrument.

It would be more precise to say with the tuner instead of with the tuning.

[Karl Henning]

It would be more precise to say with the tuner instead of with the tuning.

(* chortle *)

[JBS]

Human beings have theorized and experimented with tunings for many hundred years, and every existing tuning may be said to be theoretical, because there is no natural tuning. Also equal tuning is highly theoretical and experimental.

And as for the Goldberg Variations, we are at a loss, as we do not know the tuning Bach used. He reportedly had his own personal tuning.

In fact, Egarr's theory was that the tuning he used in that recording was Bach's personal tuning.

To be clear, my complaint with that recording had nothing to do with the tuning, and everything to do with its soporific lethargy, as if Egarr was trying to prove that the GVs were indeed composed to be used as a cure for insomnia.

[Brian]

Sampling the two works by Olli Mustonen, Nonetto II (two string quartets and one double bass) and a memorial piece for Casals written for four cellos. Mustonen has a musical style that is old-fashioned but not reactionary, perhaps because it is so straightforward, direct, and relatively simple. The adagio at the heart of Nonetto is very impressive, it's sort of like a romantic minimalist flowering of melody.

[Linz]

]Pyotr Illitch Tchaïkovsky CD 1
Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 13 "Winter Daydreams"
Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 17 "Little Russian":
USSR State Symphony Orchestra, Evgeny Svetlanov

[brewski]

Live from Wigmore Hall, the Quatuor Danel:

Weinberg: String Quartet No. 14 Op. 122
Weinberg: String Quartet No. 15 Op. 124
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp Op. 142

Unbelievably, encores: two of Prokofiev's Visions fugitives, arranged for string quartet. An incredible concert, which should be available to view for awhile.

[Que]

[Florestan]

Both quartets are Op. 25?