What are you listening 2 now?

[Harry]

Seventeenth Century Music And Dance From The Viennese Court.
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer.
Ars Antiqua Austria, Gunar Letzbor
Recording location: Marienkapelle at the St. Florian Monastery, Austria, November 20-23, 1997.

A somewhat older recording but one of the best Letzbor delivered, not only in performance but also in its excellent sound. Biber and Schmelzer sound so fresh as a daisy in spring, as if I listen to new and unknown music. Elegant and a sophisticated interpretations, with pristine Violin and Recorder playing, in which every tiny detail is heard. Non of the gyropractics Letzbor is usually applying, but a well balanced superb approach. Blimey, this is some serious listening quality.

[Traverso]

 

[pjme]

Lots of snow over the Low Countries this morning....!
Several years ago Braga Santos was regularly discussed on GMG.  Here is a reminder.

[Harry]

Forgotten Virtuosi.
Violin showpieces from the early 17th century.
Jonathan Talbott - Renaissance violin, Tormod Dalen - bass violin, Maxine Eilander - harp, Andrew Maginley - theorbo and guitar, Stephen Taylor - organ.
Works by Cipriano de Rore (1516-1565) , Thomas Baltzar (1630-1663), Johann Schop (1590-1667) , Steffan Nau (1596-1647) , Etienne Nau, (c.1597- 1647)  Dario Castello (1600-1658) , William Brade (1560-1630) , Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594) , Biagio Marini (1597-1665).
See back cover for compositions.
Recorded, 2007, Doopsgezinde Kerk, Joure, the Netherlands.

This is a disc one cannot avoid acquiring, an essential purchase so to say. The composers are not the ones you meet frequently, and neither are you hearing such a virtuoso like Jonathan Talbot, aided by equally talented musicians. From start to end this a joy bringer. Recorded in SOTA sound, this one scores high on my list of worthwhile interpretations. And where do you meet such composers as Thomas Baltzar, Steffan Nau,  Johann Schop, or Etienne Nau.

[VonStupp]

Jean Sibelius
Kuolema, JS 113
King Christian II, op. 27
Overture in A minor, JS 144
Twelfth Night: Two Songs, op. 60

Pia Pajala, soprano
Waltteri Torikka, baritone
Turku PO - Leif Segerstam

VS

[AnotherSpin]

Long drive today in heavy rain, with Solti's Die Walküre blasting through the car sound system. Volume pushed well past normal. Outside, rain fell in dense sheets, the highway dissolving into a blurred river of black asphalt and red taillights.

This recording is still unreal. Huge, pristine, almost brutal in its clarity. The bass presses into the ribs like something alive. Brass cuts through with surgical force, strings crack like whips, voices arrive with both weight and focus. At that level it stops being hi-fi and turns into a full-on aural assault.

At some point it feels less like opera and more like a mythic prototype of heavy metal. Solti does not shape phrases so much as unleash them. Crescendos build like an advancing army, dynamics explode without apology. It is overwhelming in the best possible way.

Operatic art at peak ferocity, that unrepeatable energy translated into Wagnerian terms. Classical music stops being polite and becomes physical.

No breaks, no mercy, just total immersion on a rain-soaked road, the car charging forward like a Valkyrie's horse. One of those moments when opera becomes a bodily experience and the drive itself feels choreographed by the music.

[Harry]

Long drive today in heavy rain, with Solti's Die Walküre blasting through the car sound system. Volume pushed well past normal. Outside, rain fell in dense sheets, the highway dissolving into a blurred river of black asphalt and red taillights.

This recording is still unreal. Huge, pristine, almost brutal in its clarity. The bass presses into the ribs like something alive. Brass cuts through with surgical force, strings crack like whips, voices arrive with both weight and focus. At that level it stops being hi-fi and turns into a full-on aural assault.

At some point it feels less like opera and more like a mythic prototype of heavy metal. Solti does not shape phrases so much as unleash them. Crescendos build like an advancing army, dynamics explode without apology. It is overwhelming in the best possible way.

Operatic art at peak ferocity, that unrepeatable energy translated into Wagnerian terms. Classical music stops being polite and becomes physical.

No breaks, no mercy, just total immersion on a rain-soaked road, the car charging forward like a Valkyrie's horse. One of those moments when opera becomes a bodily experience and the drive itself feels choreographed by the music.

I wish you strength, this would drive me to utter madness, Wagner vocal works are a no go zone for me, a minefield so you will. How you can bare this is beyond my understanding.    

[Florestan]

Kinderszenen.

I'm in full post-Christmas-and-NYE depression, so Schumann's achingly nostalgic music fits my mood as a glove. Der Dichter spricht, the most melancholy remembrance of, and farewell to, childhood's innocence and happiness ever created by an artist in any medium, brought tears to my eyes --- as it does every time I listen to it.

[AnotherSpin]

I wish you strength, this would drive me to utter madness, Wagner vocal works are a no go zone for me, a minefield so you will. How you can bare this is beyond my understanding.    

Thank you)

I love Wagner, and I've been listening to him since my school years, back in the 1970s. I'm hardly a die-hard Wagner fan, but his music has been with me all these years. And it's not just the music, I've read various texts of his, and much of it resonates with me quite well.

Today I listened to Solti in the new remaster, and it sounded even more convincing than ever.

[Harry]

Music from the Court of Burgundy.
Works by:  Anonymous, Johannes Ciconia, (1370-1412), Jean Pullois, (1425-1478), Johannes Ghiselin, (1455-1507), Heinrich Isaac, (1450-1517), Antoine Busnois, (1430-1492), Alexander Agricola, (1446-1506) Grimace, (14th century), Nicholas Pykini, (c.1364-c.1389), Jean Gilles, (1668-1705), Josquin Desprez, (1440-1521), Jean Pinarol, (1467-1541).
Ensemble Ciaramella.
Recorded in the Alfred Newman Hall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. 2008.

A nice surprise. An American based ensemble performing on a high level, with authentic instruments, and well tuned. The sopranos and tenors are well within the same parameters, and the choice of composers is an excellent thought out concept. The winds sound authentic and are perfectly on pitch. Recording is pristine. No sharpness in the wind instruments. First listen to this ensemble.

[SonicMan46]

Locatelli - Concertos Nos. 1-4 from L'Arte del Violino, Op. 3.
Elizabeth Wallfisch, violin
The Raglan Baroque Players
Nicholas Kraemer
Elite Classics

I bought this 3 CD set of which this is CD 1 long ago cheap. It was quite disappointing. Now I revisited it and I still don't like it. Everything just feels wrong. The music is performed as if the composer was Paganini. The recorded sound is harsh and just ugly. Too much high frequencies, not enough low frequencies. A good example that if it is cheap it is probably bad. 

Hi Poju - I had the Wallfisch recordings way back but replaced them 10 years ago (according to Amazon's records) with the second pic below, i.e. Ruhadze (now that Vol. 3 has much more for a total of 5 CDs).  Dave

 

[Florestan]

The music is performed as if the composer was Paganini.

Well, in his time he was a sort of Paganini, performing lots of unusual and difficult feats on the violin. He even composed 24 Caprices. 

(Unlike Paganini, he was a cultured and widely-read man, as well as a discriminating art collector. One of the most interesting personalities of the 18th Century.)

[Traverso]

Delibes

[Florestan]

Ruhadze (now that Vol. 3 has much more for a total of 5 CDs).  Dave

 

You should consider the whole Edition, Dave, it's a treasure trove. 

[SonicMan46]

Bach, CPE - Keyboard Music w/ Ana-Marija Markovina on piano (26 CDs) - bought this box from Amazon 10 years ago; also own about a dozen discs of these works on other instruments (mainly harpsichord, but also tangent piano and clavichord).  Dave

[prémont]

Which versions of the Op. 109 have seemed the most interesting to you at this stage?

I have listened first and foremost to individual recordings, i.e. not part of complete sets, but I am at the same time going through the complete sets I own, but this is a long-time undertaking.

Some of the interesting op. 109's were:

Emil Gryesten
Dainius Vaičekonis
Tomoko Ogasawara
Fou Ts'ong
Sunwook Kim
Katie Mahan
Ishay Shaer

But there are others I haven't listened to yet.

[Florestan]

Emil Gryesten
Dainius Vaičekonis
Tomoko Ogasawara
Fou Ts'ong
Sunwook Kim
Katie Mahan
Ishay Shaer

Except Fou Ts'ong, I've never heard of anybody else, let alone listened to their recordings. 

[Harry]

Hi Poju - I had the Wallfisch recordings way back but replaced them 10 years ago (according to Amazon's records) with the second pic below, i.e. Ruhadze (now that Vol. 3 has much more for a total of 5 CDs).  Dave

 

The Wallfish recordings are okay, it is well recorded too. Hyperion is not likely to butcher up the sound, and they did not. Kraemer plays Locatelli as it becomes the status of this composer, he was like Paganini a virtuoso prone to show his talent, nothing wrong with that. Whether you like it is a totally different issue.

[71 dB]

Well, in his time he was a sort of Paganini, performing lots of unusual and difficult feats on the violin. He even composed 24 Caprices. 

(Unlike Paganini, he was a cultured and widely-read man, as well as a discriminating art collector. One of the most interesting personalities of the 18th Century.)

I'm not much into "Paganini style." The Locatelli I really like is 2 CDs of Concerti Grossi Op. 1 on Naxos (Capella Istropolitana/Jaroslav Kreček).

[prémont]

Except Fou Ts'ong, I've never heard of anybody else, let alone listened to their recordings. 

Before I started this journey through recordings of LvB's piano sonatas I had of these only heard of Fou Ts'ong, Sunwok Kim and Emil Gryesten. Gryesten is Danish.