What are you listening 2 now?

[SonicMan46]

Beethove, LV - String Quartets w/ the Takács Quartet - the box below comes with 9 discs (7 are the standard CDs, 1 DVD, & 1 BDAudio); playing the latter now on my BD machine > audio to den stereo; of course, this is not SACD but BD Audio at 48 kHz/24-bit - not sure I can hear a difference, but entering the area of 'audio voodoo' -     Dave

 

[hopefullytrusting]

Maybe not today, but this week - interesting pianists:

Johanna De Cloitre: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIVUyu7v48U
Bengt Forsberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If-AhIA6jbY
Bruce Hungerford: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KPpELQLZVQ
Danilo Mascetti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIGb5qIrqn4
Karol Szreter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai8KutwVTzA

[Lisztianwagner]

Gustav Holst
The Hymn of Jesus

London Symphony Chorus
Richard Hickox & London Symphony Orchestra

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, 1887/90 Mixed Versions. Ed. Robert Haas
NDR Sinfonieorchester, Günter Wand

[Selig]

A recent-ish set with baroque cello and gut strings

[prémont]

A recent-ish set with baroque cello and gut strings

Not that new, since I got it a couple of years ago. Have only listened to it once because I, in the meantime, have got quite a number of recordings of these works. My impression was that it's a solid and musically satisfying performance.

[Linz]

Antonin Dvořák Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 'From the New World'
 Staatskapelle Berlin, Otmar Suitner

[Mister Sharpe]

I bought this disc for the two Proust-inspired works on it (the composer himself is modest about the success of these), but stayed for the First Sonata for Cello & Piano and the Second Sonata for Piano & Cello. Both are sprightly, sometimes witty, the second being freer from French fin de siècle influences and is the more impressive work. Joseph Fennimore (no relation to Delius' Fennimore & Gerda), is a prolific contemporary composer (Eastman grad, yay!) who has done everything and large slices of it including conducting, radio work (on NPR), teaching and coaching. Usually I remember where and when I bought each and every one of my CDs but memory fails me on this one; it's marked KOPN which is a community radio station that plays everything (rock, folk, country, jazz, international...), along with lots of chatter, but very little classical which likely explains, at least, WHY I have it! 



   

[brewski]

Shostakovich: Suite from The Gadfly (Rumon Gamba / Munich Radio Orchestra, live recording from April 2025)

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony no. 8 in C Minor, 1887 Original Version. Ed. Leopold Nowak
Bruckner Orchester Linz, Dennis Russell Davies

[Mister Sharpe]

One of my favorite Delius works (yes, it's difficult to choose among them) is the Dance Rhapsody No. 1 and this is my favorite recording of it. This is true, even though it reminds me I might be neurasthenic (and very forgetful, too):  so slowly does Norman DelMar* take this piece that I'm lulled into a kind of pastoral reverie and then, when the orchestra comes in with a BANG - the start of the dance! (A full minute and 45 seconds into the work)- I jump a mile in terror. I'm always fooled!  So full of the countryside do Delius' melodies seem, so bouyant and sprightly are the dances, yet there are hauntingly melancholic moments as well mixed amongst 'em ... perhaps because on those enduring hills and meadows we have such a short time to dance. * Del Mar: 14.44; Hickox: 11.38; Beecham: 11.31; Groves: 11.50; Mackerras: 13.06   

[André]

Beethoven opus 54, my final ranking. The list only comprises the ones I intend to revisit.

1. Eduardo Del Pueyo/ Sergey Schepkin / Wilhelm Backhaus
2. Evgeny Mogilevsky / Maurizio Pollini
3. Tengku Irfan
4. Polina Sasko
5. Maroussa Gentet / Peter Bradley-Fulgoni
6. Elisa Cecino (brilliant and eloquently flowing)
7. Michael Brown (very poetic)
8. Seokyoung Hong/ Drew Petersen / Annie Fischer
9. Tatiana Kolesova (Competent but a bit heavy handed and unpolished)
10. Nicholas Walker
11. Haonan Xu ( some wrong notes but a beautiful artistic vision)
12. Lou Mac Ott
13. Ivo Pogorelich
14. Alexander Kobrin

Your list brings back a familiar name: Evgeny Mogilevsky. Way back in the mid seventies I bought his recording of Rachmaninov's 3rd concerto (with Kondrashin). Maybe because it was my first recording of the work I've always treasured it, even after reading in the Penguin Guide that it could be easily passed over (only one *).

Which brings the question: who was, and whatever happened to Mogilevsky ?  As for the implied second question, 'How trustworthy are critical recommendations', this is a matter for another debate.

[André]

This recording was my very first of Knoxville: Summer of 1915; the work completely bowled me over with the intensity of its dichotomies: personal/familial and local/celestial as well as the struggle - universal - to discover oneself. Could it be this country's most important work? We're not in the habit of viewing it as such and yet, I believe a strong case can and should be made for it. I've since gone on to favor Steber's and Price's performances; have still to hear McNair's. Half of September is history now, but we've yet to wave Summer good-bye: we reached 96 F (35.5 C) today - droughty in large parts of the state - and people move about as lethargically, lazily, as in the song. 

Knoxville, Summer of 1915 is a work that holds me in its thralls from the very beginning, every time. It's so magical, so 'Van Gogh hot Summer starry night'. Its context opens possibilities to all kinds of interpretations, from the 10-year old kid (boy or girl) just recently allowed to be out on the porch after dark to the yearning teen eagerly watching every move by neighbours and people strolling on the unpaved street.

In a sense classical American music can be summarized as everything between Knoxville and Bernstein's Candide Overture. They encompass the gamut of atmospheres and sentiments from innocence to worldliness, from yearning to unbridled exuberance.

[JBS]

Your list brings back a familiar name: Evgeny Mogilevsky. Way back in the mid seventies I bought his recording of Rachmaninov's 3rd concerto (with Kondrashin). Maybe because it was my first recording of the work I've always treasured it, even after reading in the Penguin Guide that it could be easily passed over (only one *).

Which brings the question: who was, and whatever happened to Mogilevsky ?  As for the implied second question, 'How trustworthy are critical recommendations', this is a matter for another debate.

Wikipedia here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Mogilevsky

It seems he switched to teaching in the early 1990s.
He passed away in January 2023.

[hopefullytrusting]

Might be my next scientific experiment: Rachmaninoff's Op. 33 No. 9 (my favorite etude)

Daniel Vodenitcarov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ps5gIbpTc

[DavidW]

Not as aggressive as other modern performances, keeping a fine balance between drama and lyricism, the melodical contour never blurred. Good stuff. @DavidW & @Que : give them a try!

Yes I should give that a listen, I like that ensemble for those very reasons you said, dramatic performances but not overly aggressive nor overly polished. A couple of other recordings of theirs that I like:

[JBS]

Another round of Bellini tonight


La Sonnambula. A live recording from 1994 featuring Patrizia Ciofi

[steve ridgway]

@steve ridgway @Cato

Sounds fine. I'm just reluctant to start exploring another composer now, have plenty to listen to already.

[steve ridgway]

Takemitsu - Rain Spell

[Que]