What are you listening 2 now?

[Que]

It's hard to match the album by O'Dette, but I am always in for another recording of Kapsberger's lute music.

https://www.veterummusica.com/catalogue/toccatatouched/

[Roasted Swan]

Delius Cello Concerto a fine, indeed moving, if not note-perfect performance from du Pré.  What really impresses me is Sargent and the RPO who are complete and total empaths when it comes to Delius. Can't stop listening to this, 3rd time now.  This was the premiere recording of the Cello Concerto! I remember what Guardian music critic, BBC Proms announcer, and book author Tom Service said about Delius's string concertos (the occasion was the release of Chandos's set and it's the most apt of all that I've ever read about them) : "Contrary to popular critical opinion, these concertos aren't mindless overflowing of sentiment instead of structure; the reason they work is precisely because Delius's control of the shape of the pieces is unerringly sure. These works are, for me, the acme of a kind of concerto in which it's not a dialectic of opposition or argument that drives the drama, but a mutual sharing of melody, line, and sheer expressiveness."  Yeah, that! 

 

Tom Service is simply echoing a long-expressed argument famously put forward by Deryck Cook in the early 60's in an article "Delius and form - A Vindication" published (in 2 parts!) in the Musical Times which through a detailed analysis of the Violin Concerto showed how carefully Delius handles form without it being simply some visionary/impressionistic stream-of-conciousness splurge (my words - not Cook's!!)

[Cato]

For a soul downtrodden, weakened, querulous, hesitant, uncomprehending...

...there is always, always Beethoven awaiting you with a baptism of both cold and fiery water to bring you to thoughts of positivity!

[ritter]

Dimitri Vassilakis plays Boulez's Deuxième sonate.

[Madiel]

Mozart Contredanses. It turns out that K.534 and K.535 are almost absurdly short, and K.535a is considerably longer at a whole two-and-a-half minutes for a collection of 3 dances. Then K.535b is a fragment... but still longer than K.534.

I didn't even have time to brew a cup of tea.

EDIT: Oh wait, K.536 will be a whole 6 German dances!

[Traverso]

Vivaldi

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

William Walton.

[Karl Henning]

CD 2 of this set, which Capriccio seems to be allowing to go OOP already


Besides Stepan Razin and Krylov, the CD also contains the curiously titled Intermezzos from "Katerina Ismailova" (original 1934 version).

Love that disc! Which I reviewed for GMG. And yes, as the original version was officially titled Lady Macbeth.... One of the (Moscow, I think) opera houses did present it as Katerina Izmailova, but the composer only gave it that title when later revising the opera. 

[Mister Sharpe]

Tom Service is simply echoing a long-expressed argument famously put forward by Deryck Cook in the early 60's in an article "Delius and form - A Vindication" published (in 2 parts!) in the Musical Times which through a detailed analysis of the Violin Concerto showed how carefully Delius handles form without it being simply some visionary/impressionistic stream-of-conciousness splurge (my words - not Cook's!!)

Thanks!  I have access to that journal and am looking forward to reading it.  I may have done Service a dis-service; I think his comment was intended to be less musicology and more a very personal and subjective observation. Still, he surely must have been aware of the article you cite!  Appreciate ya'!   

[Henk]

For the first time a symphony by Mahler came alive to me.

[Karl Henning]

For the first a symphony by Mahler came alive to me.

Nice! I've not listened to much of Bychkov's work, but his recording of the Shostakovich Fifth was pretty aggressively promoted back during my time in Western New York. 

[Harry]

In the meantime...

"The music will arrive when it arrives.
I need not summon it, nor banish it.
I walk past, I smile — the sound is its own practice.
I listen to silence as to song,
and both are part of the same dance."

[Linz]

Joseph Haydn Symphonies Vol. 5 CD 2
Symphony No.41 in C major
Symphony No.58 in F major
The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood

[SonicMan46]

Last few days, more Dvorak - String Quartets w/ the Panocha Quartet - settled on this set after some culling.  Dave

[AnotherSpin]

[Karl Henning]

Last few days, more Dvorak - String Quartets w/ the Panocha Quartet - settled on this set after some culling.  Dave

Sweet! I'm listening to the d minor Quartet, Op. 34 right this moment, myself!

[Karl Henning]

In the meantime...

"The music will arrive when it arrives.
I need not summon it, nor banish it.
I walk past, I smile — the sound is its own practice.
I listen to silence as to song,
and both are part of the same dance."

Source?

[DavidW]

Nice! I've not listened to much of Bychkov's work, but his recording of the Shostakovich Fifth was pretty aggressively promoted back during my time in Western New York.

His Mahler recordings can sound clinical, but are still worth the attention of the dedicated Mahlerite.

[Spotted Horses]

I think I first listened to this release about 10 years ago, and it was revelatory. Returning, it still is.



Today I listened to the first selection, the Serenata Op 46bis. Five relatively brief movements for small orchestra. The first is a march, reminding me a bit of the grotesque marches that Mahler dropped into his symphonies. There are two sensuous slow movements, and two other fast movements which sparkle with ingenious orchestration, melody and harmony.

This is one of the recordings that led to my realization that there is a school of 20th century orchestral music from Italy, often edgy and neoclassical..

[Mister Sharpe]

I've heard Florence Price's two VCs before (Sirius XM's Symphony Hall plays them - as well as other works by her - with some frequency), but this is my first at-home listen. She wrote an octet for piano quintet and vocal ensemble that greatly interests me, "The Wind and the Sea" (I'm fascinated by and collect ocean-related works) in 1936, but it's now lost except for a single song.  I hope it will be re-discovered before my day is done, somehow, somewhere.