What are you listening 2 now?

[steve ridgway]

Webern - Five Pieces For Orchestra, Op. 10

[Symphonic Addict]

The Concerto Gregoriano is one of my favorite Respighi works. While I like that Mordkovitch/Downes recording, I like this one even more:

I remember liking that Koch recording quite a bit too. Fortunately, that concerto has been relatively well served on record.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Pettersson Symphony No. 10



This will be my last Pettersson symphony for the night. It's a short one --- only 25 minutes. I'll have to spend more time with the 9th. It's a tough nut to crack.

[steve ridgway]

Scelsi - Okanagon for harp, tam-tam and double bass.

A slow, resonant, percussive piece. It is harp, but not as we know it  .

[steve ridgway]

Penderecki - Serenade

[steve ridgway]

Berio - Corale

[steve ridgway]

Takemitsu - Garden Rain

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Feldman Rothko Chapel






About Feldman's Rothko Chapel

American composer Morton Feldman (1926-1987) was drawn to abstract expressionist painting and included Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Jackson Pollack, and Robert Rauschenberg among his friends and associates. When he was in Houston for the Rothko Chapel opening in February 1971, the chapel donors asked him to compose a tribute to Rothko, who had killed himself in 1970 after completing a suite of 14 large paintings for the inside of the octagonal chapel that bears his name.

Feldman accepted, and his contemplative score was premiered in the Chapel in April 1972. It begins and ends with viola solos, the first a wide-spanned declamation punctuated by distant thunder from the timpani, the second a "quasi-Hebraic melody" written when Feldman was 15 years old and underscored by a minimalist pattern on the vibraphone.

In the middle hang muted choral chords, sung on an open hum, that suggest the centered spirituality of Rothko's paintings. Brief wordless solos for alto and soprano ensue (the soprano's little tune was composed on the day of Stravinsky's funeral service in New York), supported by the viola's declamation and the timpani interventions. At the very end, after the viola solo fades, those ethereal chords return over the persistently ticking vibraphone, time and eternity measured against each other.

"To a large degree, my choice of instruments (in terms of forces used, balance, and timbre) was affected by the space of the chapel as well as the paintings," Feldman wrote. "Rothko's imagery goes right to the edge of his canvas, and I wanted the same effect with the music - that it should permeate the whole octagonal room and not be heard from a certain distance."

"The total rhythm of the paintings as Rothko arranged them created an unbroken continuity. While it was possible with the paintings to reiterate color and scale and still retain dynamic interest, I felt that the music called for a series of highly contrasted merging sections. I envisioned an immobile procession, not unlike the friezes on Greek temples."

[Article taken from LA Philharmonic's website]

[steve ridgway]

Richard Strauss - Horn Concerto No. 1

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Barber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9



Such a fine symphony. Certainly one of the great symphonies written in one movement.

[AnotherSpin]

NP: Pfitzner Sextet in G minor, Op. 55



A gorgeous work. Pfitzner is one of those composers that just gets under my skin (in a good way of course). I find that the more I listen his music, the more I like it. Oh and that business about Pfitzner being a Nazi sympathizer is complete BS. Not everyone could flee Germany or Austria. Some composers stayed behind as they had already established reputations, it doesn't mean they're a Nazi. I'm thinking here of Richard Strauss in particular, which he took a high level position in the Reichsmusikkammer, but I'm sure he had no choice in the matter. Little did people know at the time that he was protecting his Jewish daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Anyway, I'm digressing --- Pfitzner is a fantastic composer!

Of course, there's no point in blaming Hans Pfitzner or Richard Strauss for not standing up to the regime while living in the Third Reich. People never really have a choice. The idea that we do is just an illusion. It was the same for composers who lived under Stalin in the USSR, including one very well-known name I'm not going to mention. The mere fact that I brought up his name on the forum seems to irritate some members like a red rag to a bull.

Still, I want to be clear about one thing: all of them stayed within criminal regimes, and to some degree, they knew what was going on. And to some degree, they took part in it. So let's not pretend they were somehow resisting. Quiet dissent isn't much different from loud approval.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Of course, there's no point in blaming Hans Pfitzner or Richard Strauss for not standing up to the regime while living in the Third Reich. People never really have a choice. The idea that we do is just an illusion. It was the same for composers who lived under Stalin in the USSR, including one very well-known name I'm not going to mention. The mere fact that I brought up his name on the forum seems to irritate some members like a red rag to a bull.

Still, I want to be clear about one thing: all of them stayed within criminal regimes, and to some degree, they knew what was going on. And to some degree, they took part in it. So let's not pretend they were somehow resisting. Quiet dissent isn't much different from loud approval.

I was just making a point about Pfitzner and Strauss in passing. I wasn't trying to create an open dialogue. But, I will say you can me as one who was irritated with your Shostakovich tirades.

Let's not go down that well-trodden road again.

[steve ridgway]

Szymanowski - Harnasie

[AnotherSpin]

I was just making a point about Pfitzner and Strauss in passing. I wasn't trying to create an open dialogue. But, I will say you can me as one who was irritated with your Shostakovich tirades.

Let's not go down that well-trodden road again.

Let's say I mentioned him in passing

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Szymanowski - Harnasie

For my money, Rattle's Szymanowski recordings are some of the finest things he's ever done. I also like his recordings of the Second Viennese School and some of his Britten. Little else he's done has resonated with me. Although, that recording he made with Krystian Zimerman of Bernstein's Symphony No. 2, "Age of Anxiety" was superb in all respects.

[Que]

[AnotherSpin]

CD 9, 10, 11

[Irons]

Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra and Don Quixote · Vienna Philharmonic, Clemens Krauss.

A special relationship.

[Que]

This recording ended up on my playlist because I was looking for a harpsichord performance of Ferdinand Tobias Richter's Toccatina, which is here included as a "filler" played by Jörg-Andreas Bötticher. He accompanies Hélène Schmitt in her performances of violin music by Ignazio Albertini, who was born in Northern Italy but worked in Austria and wrote in a similar style as Schmelzer and Biber.

[Que]

I decided to give this recording a go:



..to found out what this (to me) unfamiliar ensemble is like!
And it features Zelenka's Miserere ZWV 57 with the dramatic opening that I like so much. 

PS It is quite good, but in the increasingly crowded Zelenka-Hasse field, just not good enough.
There is some lack of clarity in the choral sing, and there is a lack of drive & gusto that this music needs.
Also, letting members of the choir sing short solos keeps the costs down but is generally not a good idea. Particularly the solos for soprano are quite virtuosic and too taxing, leading to some cringing results...