What are you listening 2 now?

[Harry]

Albert Lortzing (1801–1851).
Overtures, Ballet Music, and Concert Pieces.
See back cover for details, and recording dates.
Marc Gruber horn · Philipp Baader trumpet.
WDR Funkhausorchester, Ernst Theis.

Absolutely delightful, music that makes your heart sing in jubilant tones. Lortzing is not much liked on GMG, but that does not take away my pleasure at all. Your all invited to the party by the way!
Decent performance and good sound.

[Harry]

There must be a Lennox Berkeley thread somewhere, anyway: have seen my love for his symphonies reaffirmed in recent days. I find them brilliant, vibrant with life. Would they still be performed anywhere?

Most certainly, in my own concert hall, and believe me it sounds fabulous like a live recording.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Chávez Piano Concerto



Which I will follow with another Latin American PC --- Guarnieri Piano Concerto No. 1

[Spotted Horses]

After Weinberg String Quartet No 4, I'm going to listen to 3, 2, 1. Today No 3, in d-minor



A generally dense, darkly hued work, very satisfying the recording by the Arcadia Quartet.

[DavidW]

After Weinberg String Quartet No 4, I'm going to listen to 3, 2, 1. Today No 3, in d-minor



A generally dense, darkly hued work, very satisfying the recording by the Arcadia Quartet.

That will probably be THE cycle when it is finished. Also, it is just awesome to have three ensembles committed to Weinberg's string quartets.

[Florestan]

Started the Pietro de Maria set of Chopin's complete solo piano works with the Waltzes and the Polonaises.



Excellent.

[Spotted Horses]

That will probably be THE cycle when it is finished. Also, it is just awesome to have three ensembles committed to Weinberg's string quartets.

One installment left, and they seem to be doing about one per year. How did I not know about this?

[SonicMan46]

Started the Pietro de Maria set of Chopin's complete solo piano works with the Waltzes and the Polonaises.

 

Excellent.

Hi Andrei - agree - have owned Pietro De Maria for a while; recently after many years of debate (availability and cost?), I added the Real Chopin inserted above w/ multiple performers and period instruments, but this variety, these are consistent performances to my humble ears -    Dave

[Florestan]

Hi Andrei - agree - have owned Pietro De Maria for a while; recently after many years of debate (availability and cost?), I added the Real Chopin inserted above w/ multiple performers and period instruments, but this variety, these are consistent performances to my humble ears -    Dave

Hi, Dave. I have the Real Chopin box as well but haven't listened to it yet.

[DavidW]

Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra, Little Suite, and 4th Symphony:

[Que]

https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-4550/

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Apr02/Smetana_Dvorak.htm

[Roasted Swan]

Hi, Dave. I have the Real Chopin box as well but haven't listened to it yet.

There's a pretentious/presumptuous title for a box if ever there was.  Is the surreal Chpoin played by a fish?

[Roasted Swan]

https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-4550/

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Apr02/Smetana_Dvorak.htm

Cracking disc - great trio of players.....

[Traverso]

Schumann

CD 1

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Panufnik Violin Concerto



This is the kind of concerto that would be ideal for someone like Leila Josefowicz: its angular, knotty but also has moments of lyricism.

[Linz]

Aaron Copeland Billy the Kid and Rodeo
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra,  Leonard Slatkin

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Lutosławski Symphony No. 4



The rather Impressionistic introduction to this symphony is mesmerizing.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Martinů Concerto For Violin, Piano And Orchestra, H. 342

[Karl Henning]

This is from Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered.
Rumours that Shostakovich had written a work 'in secret' satirizing the Zhdanov Decree had been in circulation for some time after the composer's death.The existence of the satirical cantata Rayok (variously translated as The Peep-Show, The Gods, and A Learner's Manual) was finally confirmed when it received a first public performance in Washington in January 1989 by Mstislav Rostropovich. He used a copy made available to him by the musicologist Lev Lebedinsky. The Rayok was  a popular entertainment at traveling fares, where a booth housing a box which has specially made peepholes allowing viewing of a series of pictures turning on a revolving drum. The booth was manned by a 'Rayoshnik' whose running commentary was made in doggerel verse, using many invented and ridiculous diminutives. When young, Shostakovich had been fascinated by the Rayok and its language, as he informed his friend Oborin in a letter dated 26 September 1925. 'How are your delishki [diminutive of "dela," meaning "affairs, things"] [...], how go things with Shebalishki [Shebalin] and Mishki [Misha Kvadri]?  Forgive the last two phrases — I have recently begun to study rayoshni language.' This typically Russian form of musical satire has its roots in the centuries-old Skomorokhi lampoons. Shastakovich also knew and loved the satirical songs of the 19th-century classics such as Dargomyzhsky's The Worm and Mussorgsky's 'The Seminarist' and 'The Flea.' In Soviet times the most popular form of musical political satire could be found in the 'shastushki', a kind of limerick usually peppered with indecent puns and illusions, and also the kapustnik, a kind of home bred 'review'. Shostakovich's Rayok nevertheless has a direct antecedent in Mussorgsky's work of the same name. Whereas he created a caricature of the enemies of the 'New Russian School' (more commonly known as 'The Mighty Handful'), Shostakovich lampoons the cultural activists who launched the 'struggle with formalism'.

Shortly after the Washington performance Shostakovich's widow produced from the family archive the original manuscript(s) together with some preliminary sketches. They are written in the characteristic purple ink Shostakovich used until the early 1960s, and none of them are dated. The work was performed in the Soviet Union a few months after the Washington premiere in a slightly different version. Later that year an additional excerpt was found, constituting an extended concluding scene (which Venyamin Basner remembers Shostakovich playing to him around 1967.)  There is also disagreement about the time of Rayok's creation. The curator of the Shostakovich archive, Manashir Yakubov. who was responsible for finding all the rough sketches and various manuscript versions of it in the archive, claims that the work was conceived and partly written already in 1948 and that it was completed in two further stages, in 1957, then the late 1960s. This version of events is supported by Izaak Glikman. He alone of Shostakovich's friends claims that the composer played Rayok for him in the summer of 1948 from a rough sketch written on a single sheet of paper. Vissarion Shebalin's widow remembers Shostakovich playing it at their Moscow flat 'sometime in the 1950s', in any case after Shebalin fell ill. Shebalin's  advice to Shostakovich was to destroy all trace of the work, as 'you could be shot for such things'.
Lebedinsky dates Rayok to the time of the second Union of Composers' Congress, which took place between 28 March and 5 April 1957....

[Que]

Cracking disc - great trio of players.....

I've had it for years now, but still return to it once in a while.