What are you listening 2 now?

[Linz]

Johann Sebastian Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part I (Conclusion)
The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part II (Beginning)
Scott Ross

[JBS]

Straight from the mail to the CD player

First impression: more intense than manic, perhaps like a requiem, the ending a bit more serene and less exhausted than other performances I remember.

Someone uploaded it as a playlist on Youtube but apparently included some sort of spam video in the middle:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiJoIqmkWRPZ60Uoe3W_xpiZEmlcs5KYz&si=2r6fLPbFthHAQXsw6th

[Wanderer]

[JBS]

[brewski]

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra (WDR Symphony Orchestra / Cristian Măcelaru, from November 2024). Among recent versions, irresistible.

[Selig]

[JBS]

Spending the evening with a lot of piano music by Schumann: the last 3 CDs of this, originally recorded for Vox in the 1970s by Peter Frankl.



Three Sonatas for the Young, Bunte Blatter, Albumblatter, Six Concert Studies on Paganini Caprices, Variations on a Beethoven Theme, and what might be called a bunch of miscellaneous works.

[hopefullytrusting]

Brand new composer for me today: York Bowen.

Megan Yip (Cello) and Muse Ye (Piano) playing his Cello Sonata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Tjex0BwJ8

I'll be honest I was looking to see if there was an interview with Lia Kohl on YouTube - there was - couldn't get through it as the hosts were talking far too much, and this video was in the sidebar, and it looked attractive, so I clicked on it, and it opens one one of the most beautiful sounds ever - drawn out bass notes from the cello, so lush, so rich, so thick you can wrap yourself in it. This is a cello sonata with meat on it - there is no bareness here, no sparseness - York might have been born in modernism, but this is clearly a throwback to a more romantic time, but it doesn't feel romantic - it feels homey, like it emerged from the backwoods, out of the ruins of a ghostly salon - something Fitzgerald would have imagined and written about.

But it is romantic in scope, in its grandeur - it exceeds its grasp and reaches for more. The piano is accompanies, but there are moments when it takes the lead, and I would normally find that bothersome, but York has composed it in such a fashion that not only does it not bother me - it feels good, it feels right. I know I cannot commit myself to it truly, but I hope to find something like this everyday. The piece has finished, but that opening - it is lingering.

Simply wonderful. Highest recommendation.

[JBS]

Brand new composer for me today: York Bowen.

Megan Yip (Cello) and Muse Ye (Piano) playing his Cello Sonata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Tjex0BwJ8

I'll be honest I was looking to see if there was an interview with Lia Kohl on YouTube - there was - couldn't get through it as the hosts were talking far too much, and this video was in the sidebar, and it looked attractive, so I clicked on it, and it opens one one of the most beautiful sounds ever - drawn out bass notes from the cello, so lush, so rich, so thick you can wrap yourself in it. This is a cello sonata with meat on it - there is no bareness here, no sparseness - York might have been born in modernism, but this is clearly a throwback to a more romantic time, but it doesn't feel romantic - it feels homey, like it emerged from the backwoods, out of the ruins of a ghostly salon - something Fitzgerald would have imagined and written about.

But it is romantic in scope, in its grandeur - it exceeds its grasp and reaches for more. The piano is accompanies, but there are moments when it takes the lead, and I would normally find that bothersome, but York has composed it in such a fashion that not only does it not bother me - it feels good, it feels right. I know I cannot commit myself to it truly, but I hope to find something like this everyday. The piece has finished, but that opening - it is lingering.

Simply wonderful. Highest recommendation.

Bowen's dates are 1884-1961, so he's really a younger contemporary of Vaughan Williams and Bridge.
Your description of the cello sonata reminds me of his piano sonatas, so you might enjoy them.

[steve ridgway]

Waking up with Messiaen - Réveil Des Oiseaux For Piano And Orchestra

[Madiel]

Vivaldi: Dorilla in Tempe



The surviving version of this opera is from a later revival, where 8 of the arias (out of 19) are by other composers rather than Vivaldi. They don't particularly stick out, though I quite liked the ones by Hasse.

Plotwise, it's nothing special. There's the usual cases of people loving the wrong people, but in a pastoral setting. The shepherd that saves Dorilla is actually the god Apollo in disguise, though just why he's in disguise isn't really explained. And the mess is nicely resolved at the end when Apollo reveals himself, announces that actually Dorilla doesn't need to marry him, and the number of humans involved in the love plots turns out to be an even number.

Performance wise... it's not terrible but it wasn't often that I felt that engaged to be honest. There is a touch of Fasolis' aggression and so not as much light and shade as I'd like. One of the biggest problems I had is that Romina Basso in the title role really overdoes the ornamentation of the da capo section of each aria. Lucia Cirillo (as Filindo) has some of the same tendency plus she's also aggressive and shrill - which to some extent fits the limits of her character's story, but it gets wearying. There are other touches of milking the music a bit too much, and I suspect a lot of it is due to Fasolis rather than individual singers.

It's also a little strange that the recording dates show a huge gap, with some in May 2014 and some in July 2017. I didn't detect any obvious switches in sound, but it does make me wonder whether something went a bit wrong with the original sessions.

So yeah, not one of the better opera experiences thus far (that's 11 operas now). At least this one's on the shorter side!

[hopefullytrusting]

Thanks to Copilot - closing out the early morning - currently 1:46 AM - with Clementi's Piano Sonata Op. 1 No. 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtfqMRCSFxs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9yySAvZLv0


This is the exactly kind of music I am looking for when it comes to the piano sonata - concise and precise aka the school of Domenico Scarlatti - and this feels like the next logical extension moving from the Baroque into the Classical, away from the harpsichord to the piano, so there is an added layer of texture, which makes the works less clear overall because that is what texture does, but Clementi does strive to control for that while still exploring the reaches of the instrument. This is a perfect demonstration of the power of constraints - a true rhetor of the keyboard, not as incisive, but likely more persuasive (which, of course, is not the point of rhetoric).

I am very excited to continue down this path, and I think this is more fitting.

Highest recommendation.

[Que]

Generally, I'm not a fan of Obsidienne but their performance of the Barcelona Mass struck a cord with me.
Discovered in Barcelona, but IMO very much an early polyphonic French mass.
And it is the performance of the mass I like here, don't care much for the fillers: a Cantiga de Santa Maria (not into bagpipes...) and the famous El Cant de la Sibilla (a Gregorian chant, boring performance..).

Performancewise there are surprisingly few options, but Ensemble Gilles Binchois recently recorded it. Imight revisit that.

[Florestan]

The shepherd that saves Dorilla is actually the god Apollo in disguise, though just why he's in disguise isn't really explained

In order save her, maybe? 

[AnotherSpin]

Francisco Correa De Arauxo: Facultad Orgánica I

José Enrique Ayarra

[AnotherSpin]

Waking up with Messiaen - Réveil Des Oiseaux For Piano And Orchestra

This was my first Messiaen LP, back in the 1970s or 1980s.

[Madiel]

In order save her, maybe? 

Only if there's an oracle with a REALLY perverse sense of humour.

[Que]

Lovely! 

https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Aug/Lescurel_love_RIC366.htm

[Wanderer]

One does have to wonder why...

I think I explained why. The sonatas aren't random, they're a poetic response to Goethe's tripartite arc. Maybe you were expecting an answer different/more straightforward than Romantic, musical and literary, symbolism.

[AnotherSpin]

Francisco Correa De Arauxo: Facultad Orgánica II

José Enrique Ayarra