What are you listening 2 now?

[Karl Henning]

A top-quality video for its time.

Very impressed with how they must have cleaned up the sound. 

[Symphonic Addict]

I have it in a recording conducted by Dietrich Fischer-Diskau.

Looks like a good program.

[Symphonic Addict]

Meyer: Piano Sonatas 1-3

Three absorbing works that catch the attention with a myriad of engrossing and unpredictable ideas. Rewarding music. I should play his string quartets after listening to Donizetti's.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Oh, I haven't heard that in an age. You give me an idea!

Very nice, Karl. Enjoy!

Speaking of enjoying...

Thread duty -

NP: Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 In A Minor, Op. 77



And then more Shostakovich --- Symphony No. 13 in B-flat minor, Op. 113, "Babi Yar"

[JBS]

Very nice, Karl. Enjoy!

Speaking of enjoying...

Thread duty -

NP: Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 In A Minor, Op. 77

That's an excellent recording of the concerto by a violinist no one ever seems to mention.

TD

CD 4
Recordings never released before now
Dvorak Symphony 9
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded 7 June 1973 (stereo)
Ravel Daphnis et Chloe Suite no 2
New Philharmonia Orchestra
Recorded 10 September 1966 (mono)
Bach/Stokowski Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor
London Symphony Orchestra
Recorded 30 July 1963 (mono)

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

That's an excellent recording of the concerto by a violinist no one ever seems to mention.

Yes, indeed. Khachatryan is amazing. I think he's still around performing, but you never hear much out of him, because he's not often recorded. It seemed like he was on the Naïve label and there were a few releases, but then like vapor, he was gone. I think @Karl Henning is a big fan of this recording, too.

[JBS]

Yes, indeed. Khachatryan is amazing. I think he's still around performing, but you never hear much out of him, because he's not often recorded. It seemed like he was on the Naïve label and there were a few releases, but then like vapor, he was gone. I think @Karl Henning is a big fan of this recording, too.

I went looking. He released a recording last year of Ysaye's Solo Sonatas on Naive and has been giving concerts mostly as soloist in the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky concertos.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

I went looking. He released a recording last year of Ysaye's Solo Sonatas on Naive and has been giving concerts mostly as soloist in the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky concertos.

Excellent! Good to read that he's still active.

[AnotherSpin]

The Northern Black Sea region is flat as a table, nothing like the Alps. Maybe that's exactly why Eine Alpensinfonie holds a special kind of appeal when you listen to it from here.

Böhm's 1957 recording might be called sober, and that's fair. But in this case, it's a strength. He doesn't chase after big, cinematic effects or exaggerated climaxes. Instead, he gives us a version that's clear, well-structured, and full of inner logic. Strauss's dense orchestration comes through with real transparency; nothing gets lost or muddied.

The Dresden Staatskapelle plays with razor-sharp precision, and Böhm's steady pacing lets the music unfold naturally, without rushing or dragging. Sure, it's not the most thunderous or heart-on-sleeve interpretation out there, but there's a quiet confidence to it, a kind of poise and intelligence that makes it very satisfying if you're really listening.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Last work for the night --- Feldman De Kooning




About Feldman's De Kooning:

Morton Feldman's elegant chamber work dedicated to the painter "De Kooning" and scored for horn, percussion, piano, violin, and cello was composed in 1963. After composing works in the early 1950's that were in graphic notation and left most of the musical parameters (pitch, duration, timbre, event occurence) to the discretion of the performers, Feldman became dissatisfied with the result because although this manner of composing freed the sounds it also freed the kind of subjective expression of the performers that could not create the kind of pure sound-making that Feldman envisioned. He briefly returned to strictly notated works, found these too confining, and then created works in which most of the parameters were given except for duration and, consequently, coordination among the parts ("The O'Hara Songs" [1962], "For Franz Kline" [1962]). Following this, Feldman began to create works, like "De Kooning", "False Relationships and the Extended Ending" (1968) and others, which alternate fully determined and indeterminate sections within the same work. In "De Kooning", there are coordinated chords (verticalities) and isolated events (single tones and intervals ... verticalities stretched out horizontally or melodically) of a duration determined by the performers. The sequence of these single events is given however and players must enter before the last event has died out. These open sequences alternate with traditionally notated measures of rest with exact metronome markings, treating sound and silence in equivalent importance. The total duration of "De Kooning" is open but tends to be between 14 and 1/2 minutes and 16 minutes. Tiny bells, tubular bells, and vibraphone are mixed with high piano tones and icy string harmonics creating a crystalline texture, that contrasts with a more muted texture of low tympani and bass and tenor drum rolls, pizzicati, low cello tones, low vibraphone notes, lower piano aggregates and sustained horn pitches. The materials are limited to a few gestures on each instrument and create "identities" of a sort (for example, the repeated "foghorn"-like horn notes, the percussion rolls, and so on) that can easily be followed by the ear. The variety of timbre combinations is astonishing and the tempo of their unfolding gives the listeners plenty of time to appreciate their quality. No particular programme is intended, but the changing timbres may spontaneous stimulate imagery for the listener. Or, for another listener, the joy may simply be in sheer richness of the sonic experience, for the sounds themselves.

[Article taken from All Music Guide]

[AnotherSpin]

[Irons]

Skoryk: Violin Concertos Nos. 5-9.

I see Skoryk wrote nine violin concertos altogether. Lots on YT to investigate.

[Iota]

Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 4 in D major, Op.83
Mandelring Quartet

Prompted by a feeling there was more to harvest after a recent listen, I decided to revisit this quartet. And deep was my reward. I do find it a poignant masterpiece, DSCH seeming to connect with a lost innocence at times, in quietly stated but affecting fashion. And its overall (but not exclusively) elegiac mood is framed in such a consummately natural mosaic of nuance and structure, it feels organically connected at all levels. Blue riband DSCH for me.

[Traverso]

Bach

My last purchase,just found in the mailbox 

[Traverso]

Bach

Vol.10 CD 5

[Que]

[...]at the bottom I own the 'Cello Box' with 3 discs of all those Boccherini concerti played by Julius Berger on presumably a restored Stad used by the composer himself - NOW, Enrico Brozni performs these same works w/ a period band (not sure about the details and not in my collection) - anyone familiar with him in these performances?  Dave

   

 

Not familiar with those, but of other HIP options my go-to is not Christophe Coin (Naïve Vivaldi Edition) but Roel Dieltiens (but perhaps not complete?):

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

I see Skoryk wrote nine violin concertos altogether. Lots on YT to investigate.

Some of the Concertos are very likable. I personally prefer this disc, Vol. 2, to the Vol. 1.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier - Suite & Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche. Eugene Ormandy & The Philadelphia Orchestra.

[Karl Henning]

Not familiar with those, but of other HIP options my go-to is not Christophe Coin (Naïve Vivaldi Edition) but Roel Dieltiens (but perhaps not complete?):

Superb!

[Karl Henning]

TD: