What are you listening 2 now?

[Daverz]

Mahler 9 - Czech Philharmonic, Vaclav Neumann (Canyon Classics or Exton, rec. 1995). 



Sehr schön.  I believe this was Neumann's 3rd recording of the 9th, and his second with the Czech Philharmonic.

[AnotherSpin]

Francisco Correa de Arauxo - Facultad Orgánica (1626)

Andrés Cea


Osho: If one can sing a little, if one can share one's joy a little, if one can express one's being a little, that's enough; in fact more than enough.

[hopefullytrusting]

Jean Barraque's Sonata for Solo Violin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UObvuIt_raw

The more art I come into contact with the less I get. All I am left with is unanswered questions, as the author/composer cannot supply them to me in a manner that would satisfy my curiosity, as I don't think they can explain it. Neuroscientifically, I know, there is an explanation, but we don't know it yet, and when we do know it - I am unsure what I will do about it then. I don't want to know the magic behind a magic trick. I like the feeling of wonder, even if it is one based solely on the suspension of disbelief.

Some, especially critics and other creative types, have tried to sell me on there being something different - that is a position I know to be hogwash, one laden with an insipid spiritualism - just as ethics/morality is useless in a world which is determined by probability, and probability is a nice word to land on when listening to Barraque.  

[hopefullytrusting]

My own mentioning of Solti caused me to want to listen to his first orchestral recording which was Beethoven's Egmont with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich in 1947: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Oh my, this is my favorite overture, and for such an old recording - it is so smooth, and he already has supreme command over the transitions, which are all seamless - I feel that is a place in which this overture can easily fall apart - on the top end, sonically - it does get a little flat and shrill, but that is obviously do the age of the recording and, for me, none of the power is lost - you can still feel Solti powering through, as he strives to get all the instruments to fulfill their potentialities.

I also think this one of the most difficult pieces to mess up, as even a bad Egmont recording will still sound like the Egmont, and it has such a distinctive melody - in fact, it is one of the few that have stuck with me - it is also one of the longest pieces that I know - in my own limited capacities - know backwards and forwards. It was not Symphony No. 5 that drew me to Beethoven - it was the Egmont that I listened to over and over again, in fact, it is the Egmont I often suggest to heavy metal fans who want to begin stretching their wings in the classical direction.

[steve ridgway]

First listen to Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress

Abandoned as I wasn't making any attempt to follow the story and the music didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary .

[steve ridgway]

Berio - Sequenza I

That's better .

[ritter]

First listen to Stravinsky - The Rake's Progress

Abandoned as I wasn't making any attempt to follow the story and the music didn't strike me as anything out of the ordinary .

One of my least favourite works by Stravisnky. It bores me to tears (Auden and Kallman's libretto notwithstanding).

Of course, it's purely anecdotal , but Pierre Boulez (in a private letter) called the work "unbelievably ugly"    (he had an axe to grind at the time, of course).

[Madiel]

For me, I love where gen ai is right now - I don't want it to get better, as I think it is well-balanced, currently, as it still feels a bit human, just a human with a processing capacity that no human could comprehend, and it is useful for the things it excels at - like with language, it is excellent - "flit of fancy" - no way I would have come to that on my own, or rill, amongst others - these are, in manner, brutish examples. I also use it regarding things like finding frequencies (example, top 3 words in business book titles - business, success, power - I could double-check that, but that feels right given my own experience).

Where AI is at right now is it's basically an exceptionally precocious example of a young child who repeats words and phrases back to you and watches to see whether you react positively to what it's saying.

Because that's all it's doing. It's not "searching" in the sense of looking for accurate information. It's just working out that people seem to have said certain things more often, and if you accept what it says then all is well and good. The reason it changes the answer (such as adding another Scarlatti) when you challenge it is because you've just told it that what it said the first time wasn't satisfactory. So it makes a new attempt to please you. If you kept telling it you weren't happy with its list of Scarlattis, it would probably end up inventing fictitious ones in an attempt to make you happier.  EDIT: One of the biggest problems is it's not inclined to say "I don't know the answer".

I've recently seen a cogent explanation of why it's unlikely to really improve (for example GPT-5 failed to really advance much on GPT-4), which is that the methodology relies on having vast amounts of data to go on, and the data requirements have reached the point where the amount required is greater than the amount of data humans have created. We are also now hitting a situation where a heck of a lot of "new" webpages are being written by AI, which will lead to AI training on AI-produced content.

It's only good for things that "feel right" by our own experience. And that's the problem. It's primed to give you what feels right, not what's true. Too many people confuse the two.

[Wanderer]

[Que]

Nice, I like it! 

https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-12320/

Gio (Amazon)
Virtually all music from the late Medieval - early Renaissance is either three or four part composition, and whatever anyone tells you, performance by voices one-on-a-part was the norm and is the most satisfactory. This is particularly true in chansons, which are sung poetry above all. You've got to hear words! even if you don't understand the language. The Orlando Consort, an ensemble of four male singers, always delivers the poetry with emotive clarity. They also have a rare mastery of the rhythmic devices that make this music challenging and interesting. Hocket is an example. Hocket is the inclusion of silences in the melodic lines - not mere rests! melodic silences, often lasting only a fraction of a beat. When hockets are alternated in lines of polyphony, the notes seem to be tossed like balls between the singers, and the lines of melody interpenetrate each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Hocket requires intense togetherness and reckless confidence. The Orlandos also have superb tuning, the best of any vocal ensemble singing early music; there are special challenges in this repertoire that they have to overcome. The pre-Dufay selections on this disk, for instance, require Pythagorean tuning, while the later pieces sound best with Mean tuning; the former requires perfect fourths and sixths, while the latter demands perfect thirds, lower than modern piano tunings, and proportionate fifths. Modern tempered tuning just won't work. Of course, all the technique in creation wouldn't matter if the singers didn't have lovely voices, because, like everything in the Age of Beauty, music was above all intended to be beautiful. This is a beautiful little package of words, pictures, and music. It would make a stunning Valentine.

[Madiel]

Medtner: Sonata-Triad, op.11



Rightly or wrongly, Idagio treats this as one work so that's how I'll be experiencing it right now. Though the first sonata is currently feeling more than substantial enough to stand on its own.

EDIT: All three pieces are darn good.

[Traverso]

Bach

The Eighteen Chorale Preludes - conclusion BWV 656-667 ( with sung chorales)

The Amsterdam Baroque Choir

 

[Madiel]

Ravel piano concertos and the Faure Fantasie.

The original LP cover, and the Decca Eloquence iteration that I have (which also has Franck from a fractionally earlier LP). I'm pretty sure it's the first Alicia de Larrocha album I owned. I think there are a lot of reissues of this one.

[Todd]

K570.

[Mandryka]

Astonishing, magnificent, Brahms op. 76 n. 1 from Giacomo Carnevali

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc_Kli5BtxA

[Iota]

Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66 (Transcr. Pletnev as Concert Suite for Piano)
Daniil Trifonov (piano)

Speechless. Just fabulous.

[Wanderer]

Medtner: Sonata-Triad, op.11



Rightly or wrongly, Idagio treats this as one work so that's how I'll be experiencing it right now. Though the first sonata is currently feeling more than substantial enough to stand on its own.

EDIT: All three pieces are darn good.

It's three distinct sonatas. The given title is "Sonaten-Triade", plural (the German "Triade" perhaps also evoking each sonata being a voice in a musical triad). They were inspired by Goethe's Trilogie der Leidenschaft; three sonatas, interdependent but distinct, that unfold from a single poetic conception.

[Cato]

You remind me of the Columbia recording from the late 1960's or early '70's with George Szell and The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of Der Ring highlights.

It caused a sensation and many were wondering if Szell and the orchestra would record a complete Ring cycle to join those of Solti and Karajan in the stereo era.

Unfortunately, George Szell died before that could have happened.

[Madiel]

It's three distinct sonatas. The given title is "Sonaten-Triade", plural (the German "Triade" perhaps also evoking each sonata being a voice in a musical triad). They were inspired by Goethe's Trilogie der Leidenschaft; three sonatas, interdependent but distinct, that unfold from a single poetic conception.

I did say "first sonata".

[Wanderer]

I did say "first sonata".

You also said "rightly or wrongly".
It's the idagio mistake I was addressing so that you (and others) would have no lingering doubts and a little extra context.