What are you listening 2 now?

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NP: Reich The Desert Music

[DavidW]

Happy birthday Nielsen

[JBS]

This afternoon:





And as part of Avishai Cohen's Ashes to Gold CD, some Ravel

[brewski]

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Manfred Honeck (conductor)

This seems like an excellent performance. Honeck keeps everything moving along on a stream of adrenalin, either in full flight or temporarily soothed by some swooning melody, and throughout seems to have the orchestra on the end of his baton, so complete is the impression of his control.
Having said that, I felt somewhat outside of events as I listened, not sure why, I feel certain it was not down to Honeck, I may just not really have been in the mood for a large, swashbuckling symphony. Whatever it was, I'd still nonetheless highly recommend it to anybody who might be, and will be paying more attention to Honeck in the future.

The Honeck/Pittsburgh recordings I've heard — maybe half of their output so far — have been terrific. Their work and repertoire aside (mostly "yes"), the recordings themselves are superb. Of the many outstanding labels today, Reference Recordings almost always does an impressive job.

[DavidW]

The Honeck/Pittsburgh recordings I've heard — maybe half of their output so far — have been terrific. Their work and repertoire aside (mostly "yes"), the recordings themselves are superb. Of the many outstanding labels today, Reference Recordings almost always does an impressive job.

Especially his Bruckner and Tchaikovsky.

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NP: Glass String Quartet No. 1

[Henk]

This afternoon:

Just added some Von Bingen to my library on Qobuz. Didn't realize she was a composer (too).

[Linz]

Joseph Haydn Symphony No. 93 in D Major
Symphony No. 94 in G major "Surprise"
Symphony No. 103 in E flat major "Drum Roll"
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Eugen Jochum

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Continuing on with the Glass symphonies --- NP: Symphony No. 5, "Requiem, Bardo, Nirmanakaya"




Glass' Symphonies Nos. 5-7 are all vocal-oriented symphonies. The 8th marks his return to purely orchestral music.

[André]

Although I didn't detect the spark of genius anywhere, I thoroughly enjoyed Busch's unfailing inventiveness in crafting interesting phrases and sounds in these works - a lot of which are in the familiar Theme and Variations trope. The Divertimento is definitely a mini masterpiece and deserves to be listened to.

[Karl Henning]

NP: Reich The Desert Music

With texts by Wm Carlos Williams. An early Reich favorite of mine.

[Symphonic Addict]

Hindemith: Lustige Sinfonietta, Rag-Time (wohltemperiert) and Symphonic Dances

The Lustige Sinfonietta is in his early late-Romantic, quasi-expressionistic period (the 2nd movement has a more neoclassical countenance, though). Supremely phenomenal work. Rag-Time uses ideas of the Fugue in C minor from Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, book I, and the result is a fun and clever orchestral realization. The Symphonic Dances is more like a proper, robust symphony that has his unmistakable stamp. All in all, a superb CD from beginning to end.

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With texts by Wm Carlos Williams. An early Reich favorite of mine.

Nice, Karl. I don't know this work too well. I've only heard it perhaps 2-3 times in 15 years, so I'm definitely due for more listens. But I really liked what I heard. Reich is rather pushing himself in some new harmonic directions in The Desert Music.

[AnotherSpin]

This night my city has once again been attacked by the Russians. There are civilian casualties; a maternity hospital was among the places hit. Residential buildings are burning in the city center, which is under UNESCO protection — but who will care? What people care about are string quartets and versions of symphonies by composers from the country of murderers.

It's hard to keep sleeping on a night like this, so I'm listening to music.

[AnotherSpin]

Sweelinck
Leo van Doeselaar

[JBS]

Third or fourth listen to this CD.

Amazon blurb

Philip Cannon's Concertino for piano and strings (1951) dates from his formative years. It was written for the Petersfield Festival, where it was premiered on 27 January 1951 by soloist Joseph Cooper, with the Petersfield Orchestra conducted by Kathleen Merritt. This lively, neo-classical piece has achieved over a thousand performances internationally. Though John Addison's Concertino for piano and orchestra is, for the most part, couched in a light-hearted language, it is the product of a serious, and unfailingly inventive, approach to keyboard and orchestral writing. Speaking of the work to Lesie Ayre of the London Evening News, the composer remarked that, 'it is a real concerto in the full sense of the word I would not be ashamed to show the work to any first-class pianist'. Francis Chagrin maintained an intensely practical and unpretentious attitude towards his own craft, observing that, 'My music is not for first performances - it is just to be played'. His Piano Concerto was first performed by soloist Franz Osborn, with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer, at an SPNM Experimental Rehearsal held at the Royal College of Music on 4 February 1944. Conversation Piece by John Addison was written in 1958 to a commission from the BBC Concert Orchestra for that year's British Light Music Festival. John Addison felt that, by the late-1950s, too great a divide had opened up between serious and light music: 'Concertgoers think contemporary music is so alarmingly serious that when confronted with a mildly witty turn of phrase, they assume something has gone wrong. I remember the astonished sigh of relief when, in the course of introducing one of my chamber works, I told the audience I would not mind if they smiled'. In Conversation Piece, Addison exploits to the full his talent to amuse and divert.

To the best of my knowledge none of the composers has any influence on the decisions of the current British government.

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NP: Reich Jacob's Ladder and Traveler's Prayer

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NP: Reich Music for Ensemble and Orchestra

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NP: Schnittke String Quartet No. 1

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NP: Brahms String Quintet No. 1 In F Major, Op. 88