What are you listening 2 now?

[Nostromo]

I tried part of Vikingur Olafsson's new album in E (I expect he was forced to call it "opus 109" by nervous record company executives).

It was not good. I turned it off.

I subsequently found out that Mr Hurwitz' criticism of the part I listened to was very much in alignment with my own reaction.

I might try it again. Because I'm a big fan of Vikingur's first few albums. But I get an increasing sense that he is Over-Thinking Things to the point where Ideas get in the way of the music.

Norman Lebrecht didn't like it much, either. https://myscena.org/norman-lebrecht/lebrecht-weekly-vikingur-olafsson-opus-109-dg/

[Symphonic Addict]

Hartmann: 6th Symphony.



Inspired, as often I am, to play after reading a positive GMG post. A belter! A symphony with tensile strength of a coiled spring. Nielsen-esque use of percussion in a work that is capable of blowing any number of socks off!

Glad you liked it so much too. An absolutely tremendous symphony with zero dead spots. Gripping from start to finish.

[Symphonic Addict]

Barber: Essay No. 2 for orchestra

Such a glorious piece of music bearing a pretty generic title, but fortunately that's what matters the least. I hear a similarity with the style of Alwyn. There's this neo-romantic vibe to it that is so compelling.

[Symphonic Addict]

Ibert: Ouverture de fête

Wonderful. Even though its title refers to something jubilant (it was commissioned to celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the foundation of the Japanese empire), the middle section features a poignant lyricism of sorts; and there's a motif that also appears in Penderecki's Symphony No. 2, which makes me curious about it.

[Que]

   

This is a cheap reissue by Alpha of the Zig-Zag Territoires issue pictured on the right.
It comes with a booklet, even if with 2 pages of notes I still feel a bit short changed...
Anyway, this is all of little consequence in the new Age of Streaming..

Amazing recording!

[Harry]

Les Grandes Eaux Musicales de Versailles.
Chefs d'Oeuvre des Règnes de Louis XIII.
Le Concert des Nations, Jordi Savall.
Recorded between 1998 & 2004, Chateau de Cardona, Catalonia & a Saint Lambert des Bois et a St Michael en Thierache, France.

A Grand extravaganza ala Jordi Savall, with considerable help of fitting compositions by composers belonging to the Creme de la Creme in France. Superb music making, and well recorded. Playing this in the early morning wakes you up pretty quickly.

[71 dB]

Finally we have a great Ginastera Piano Quintet recording! Hilde Somer's old one is virtually unlistenable.

I have never listened to the music of Ginastera. I am listening to this Piano Quintet on Spotify. Sounds quite difficult music, at least when heard for the first time. In general I tend to struggle with music by composers born between about 1880 and 1930. These composers didn't typically have much romanticism in their music, but they didn't composer modern tonal music either. Instead their music tends to be atonal and abstract.

[Harry]

LA GUITARRA ESPAÑOLA.
SANTIAGO DE MURCIA (1682~1732)
William Carter, baroque guitar after Sellas, by Martin Haycock, 1991, with Susanne Heinrich, Bass viol by Merion Attwood, 1999, after 17th century English anonymous instrument.
Recorded at St Andrews Church, Toddington, UK, 2006.

A really outstanding performance and SOTA recording. William Carter I did not know, but stumbled over him while looking for Spanish guitar music on a Baroque instrument. He is a musician sensitive to the elegance and balance in the music he performs. From his hands flow the most beautiful harmonies, unhurried and with great attention to the Eb and Flow in the Murcia's compositions, pinpointing the many details, which makes his view rather complete in expression. I can hardly imagine better performances. The ambiance of the St Andrews Church in Toddington is perfect. Intimate and with just the right amount of reverb. Gorgeous.

[Madiel]

Holmboe: String quartets 9 & 10



The LP came out in 1973, so the quartets were pretty new music (1965-66 and 1969).

To be honest I'm finding no.9 slightly heavy going. Partly the audio transfer I'm listening to is just a little flat, partly my memory tells me the 9th is one of the knottier quartets anyway, and partly I'm just out of practice 

[Papy Oli]

Morning all 

Beethoven - Bagatelles Op.119 (Brendel)

[pjme]

I have never listened to the music of Ginastera.

Ginastera is a wildly uneven composer, IMHO. Surely, he manages to create wonderful textures (both orchestral/chamber music) and rythmically extremely exiting music.
The Toccata concertata from his 1st pianoconcerto achieved some notoriety in 1970 when Emerson, Lake & Palmer used it.
It is indeed a wild and crazy ride
This was the first recording

I like this (older) recording with Louis Ascot. This music keeps you young;

I love Ginasteras early works Panambi and Estancia, the second string quartet and a lot of his songs. The harpconcerto has also become a great favorite!

later works (Jubilus) seem rather empty and loud....

[pi2000]

Ingolf Wunder Chopin PC 1 Antoni Wit/Warsaw Philharmonic

[Madiel]

Stravinsky: Scenes de ballet



A quarter-hour or so of delightful neoclassical colour.

[71 dB]

Ginastera is a wildly uneven composer, IMHO. Surely, he manages to create wonderful textures (both orchestral/chamber music) and rythmically extremely exiting music.
The Toccata concertata from his 1st pianoconcerto achieved some notoriety in 1970 when Emerson, Lake & Palmer used it.
It is indeed a wild and crazy ride
This was the first recording

I like this (older) recording with Louis Ascot. This music keeps you young;

I love Ginasteras early works Panambi and Estancia, the second string quartet and a lot of his songs. The harpconcerto has also become a great favorite!

later works (Jubilus) seem rather empty and loud....

Thanks for these links % info! I checked Ascot (how can something be older than the first one?  ) Sure, this is crazy energetic/explosive music, but not much to my liking I have to say. Similar to Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony and I don't like that either.

[Madiel]

Ravel

The tiny and really rather peculiar Frontispice



The orchestration of Alborada del gracioso, which strikes me as one of the more successful orchestrations, certainly as played here with lots of atmosphere.

[Traverso]

Richard Strauss

Metamorphosen

[Madiel]

Ravel: the orchestral version of Le Tombeau de Couperin



(Album cover chosen to represent one of the myriad re-releases of Martinon's recordings. He's definitely a candidate for a version I'll buy one day.)

[ritter]

Ravel

The tiny and really rather peculiar Frontispice



...

Indeed, a really enigmatic piece for two pianos, 5 (!) hands.

I know you don't really care for this sort of thing, but it is worth pointing out that the only pucblished arrangements by Pierre Boulez of another composer's work are two intrumentations of Frontsipice, first for chamber ensemble and later for full orchestra. Robert Treviño recorede the latter with the Basque National Orchetsra on te comoanion CD to the one you posetd earlier...



...and here is the EIC perfoming the chamber version under Matthias Pintscher.

As much Boulez as Ravel, one could argue (in the sense that the scoring doen't sound particuarly Ravelian), but clearly a sign of love to the senior composer by one of his great interpreters.

[Todd]

Very well done, as expected.  The Debussy seems more refined than memories of the Belcea's earlier recording suggests, but I'd have to do an A/B to know for sure.  The Szymanowksi evokes the composers soundworld nicely, but memory suggests that the Camerata does an even better job.  Again, I'd have to A/B to know for sure.  Perhaps I will at some point, but there's no hurry.  This is eminently enjoyable on its own terms.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Ibert: Ouverture de fête

Wonderful. Even though its title refers to something jubilant (it was commissioned to celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the foundation of the Japanese empire), the middle section features a poignant lyricism of sorts; and there's a motif that also appears in Penderecki's Symphony No. 2, which makes me curious about it.

Nice. Several works in the compilation discs sound excellent.