What are you listening 2 now?

[Madiel]

Medtner: Piano sonata in F minor, op.5



There's a fair chance I'll buy this set soon...

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Pancho Vladigerov. Jewish Poem, Op.47 ; Elemental Dance, Op. 53 ; Six Liric Songs for High Voice and Orchestra, etc.

[Brian]

First listen to Mendelssohn's sacred choral music. I am not much for sacred music or sung music, but I do like Mendelssohn's craftsmanship in his less famous pieces, and I'm a sucker for a photograph of Lake Bled. 

[Brian]

The thread has become unpinned. Not that it has much danger of dropping far down the page.

Fixed!
It was only done to make me look useful. 

[Madiel]

First listen to Mendelssohn's sacred choral music. I am not much for sacred music or sung music, but I do like Mendelssohn's craftsmanship in his less famous pieces, and I'm a sucker for a photograph of Lake Bled. 

I was unusually taken with the sacred choral music when I did a Mendelssohn chronology. No photos of Lake Bled involved with the recordings I tried.

[Que]

[Karl Henning]

Toch: Symphony No. 7

I'm drawn by the apparently sober and ambiguous countenance his last symphony shows. It's not music of much conflict, it feels rather enigmatic instead. The 2nd movement and parts of the 3rd one have a vibe that made me think of Nielsen's Sinfonia semplice, there is that intriguing element of strangeness which I find very fascinating.

Nice. I should revisit that piece!

[Karl Henning]

Elsewhere, a friend commented on "long titles coming back into style."

**chortle**

[Karl Henning]

Mozart: String quartet no.21 in D major, K.575

Love it!

[Wanderer]

[Wanderer]

Medtner: Piano sonata in F minor, op.5



There's a fair chance I'll buy this set soon...

If you do, I am certain you will not regret it.

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 9 in D Minor. 1894 Original Version. Ed. Leopold Nowak
Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Claudio Abbado

[AnotherSpin]

Tomás Luis de Victoria

Musica Ficta and Raúl Mallavibarrena

[Spotted Horses]

Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," Op 27, No 2. Annie Fischer.



In the first, moonshine, movement a dissonance between the melody and accompanying arpeggios pops out of the texture more strongly than I remember hearing before. Annie Fischer's finale is especially frenzied. Maybe I will listen to Pollini, Arrau or Pommier as a contrast tomorrow.

[AnotherSpin]

[Linz]

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1 in D Major
Concertgebouworkest, Riccardo Chailly

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 8 in C Minor, 1890 Version. Ed. Leopold Nowak
Berliner Philharmoniker, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

[hopefullytrusting]

Decided to take a plunge with the composer most frequently mentioned alongside Scarlatti: Soler

Sara Johnson Huidobro plays Sonata R. 10 on Harpsichord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRlHgP89P10

A work like this is always going to be more impressive on a harpsichord than a piano - simply the nature of the best - keeping lines clean - is simply more complicated and difficult, simply given their mechanisms, but, for my ears - which are perhaps too modern - sonatas like this always sound better on a piano, as if they were composed for it, but I'm pretty sure that neither Scarlatti or Soler interacted or played with anything that sounds quite like a contemporary piano. For me, the sound is so much fuller, and that is what I want - I don't want the piece to just be crisp, I want it to snap, and a harpsichord can't snap, at least none of the ones I've heard - they clang, they pling - it naturally stretches out the note, allowing it to exist just a hair longer than it should.

The performance is immaculate, well-recorded, well-shot, and we get, on average, good shots of the hands. The music is very Scarlatti-like, architecturally sound with nothing out of place - I love that kind of intentionality. This was an era when composers were sure of themselves, same with the poets because, being premodern, they thought they knew the truth - the thought wrong, but believing you know or have insight that others lack allows one command and control.

High recommendation.

[Linz]

Sergiu Celibidache CD 9
Zoltán Kodály Dances of Galanta
Maurice Ravel  Suite 'Ma Mere l'Oye
London Symphony Orchestra, Sergiu Celibidache

[JBS]

Decided to take a plunge with the composer most frequently mentioned alongside Scarlatti: Soler

Sara Johnson Huidobro plays Sonata R. 10 on Harpsichord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRlHgP89P10

A work like this is always going to be more impressive on a harpsichord than a piano - simply the nature of the best - keeping lines clean - is simply more complicated and difficult, simply given their mechanisms, but, for my ears - which are perhaps too modern - sonatas like this always sound better on a piano, as if they were composed for it, but I'm pretty sure that neither Scarlatti or Soler interacted or played with anything that sounds quite like a contemporary piano. For me, the sound is so much fuller, and that is what I want - I don't want the piece to just be crisp, I want it to snap, and a harpsichord can't snap, at least none of the ones I've heard - they clang, they pling - it naturally stretches out the note, allowing it to exist just a hair longer than it should.

The performance is immaculate, well-recorded, well-shot, and we get, on average, good shots of the hands. The music is very Scarlatti-like, architecturally sound with nothing out of place - I love that kind of intentionality. This was an era when composers were sure of themselves, same with the poets because, being premodern, they thought they knew the truth - the thought wrong, but believing you know or have insight that others lack allows one command and control.

High recommendation.

 Given Soler's connections with the royal court, it's almost certain he had experience with the earliest type of fortepiano

From Wikipedia

Cristofori's instrument spread quite slowly at first, probably because, being more elaborate and harder to build than a harpsichord, it was very expensive. For a time, the piano was the instrument of royalty, with Cristofori-built or -styled instruments played in the courts of Portugal and Spain. Several were owned by Queen Maria Barbara of Spain, who was the pupil of the composer Domenico Scarlatti. One of the first private individuals to own a piano was the castrato Farinelli, who inherited one from Maria Barbara on her death.

Soler arrived at the Escorial and the royal court about 6 years before Maria Barbara's death.
He himself died in 1783, so probably at least knew about the instrument's development in other countries.