What are you listening 3 now?

[71 dB]

Johann Kuhnau - Complete Sacred Works VII
Opella Musica
camerata lipsiensis
Gregor Meyer
CPO 555 399-2

[brewski]

Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra (Chailly / Concertgebouw)

[Madiel]

Alicia de Larrocha playing Mozart and Haydn (alternative covers depending on where the original album was released, I prefer the "Mostly Mozart" name for the series but streaming seems to go with the more prosaic version)



I've listened to Side A so far (the Haydn variations and one Mozart sonata) and I am really enjoying the playing. It's got lots of sparkle and character.

[Cato]

Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra (Chailly / Concertgebouw)

Excellent!

And with Webern's Im Sommerwind and the Passacaglia: a wonderful CD!


Currently listening again to this CD, which is also wonderful:

[Madiel]

Messiaen: Regard du Père (no.1)



It's time to tackle this properly. For one thing, the French titles are becoming less difficult for me and those Duolingo lessons should count for something when I'm not currently in Paris as planned... 

I'm not sure how much I will try each time at first, the observation that the shorter pieces occur in clumps of 3 might induce me to try them together. But for now, Regard du Père is quite beautiful.

[foxandpeng]

Hilding Rosenberg
Violin Concerto 2
Leon Spierer
Royal Stockhold PO
Arvids Jansons
Caprice

Rosenberg. Always helpful, insufficient attention given to his work.

[foxandpeng]

Georgs Pelecis
Spring Music
Summer Music
Autumn Music
Winter Music
Linda Leine

Meh. Is ok. Piano stuff.

*shrugs*

[Brian]

A lighthearted romp through Italian neoclassical music. Casella's name is the biggest on the cover but his work is the second-shortest of the four, a charming mini-ballet written for his daughter that includes quotes of the jig from Debussy's orchestral Images and the ending of Ravel's Mother Goose. The world premiere recording of Franco Donatoni's Music for Chamber Orchestra reveals a piece that lives up to his "Schoenberg gone neoclassical" self-description, plus a slapstick sense of humor that makes it an easier listen despite the Schoenberginess.

Ghedini's Concerto Grosso has solo roles for wind quintet, and it really does feel neoclassical or neobaroque, with a pared-down string orchestra around the five wind players. Thoroughly enjoyable from the start to the "alla giga" finale. Finally, we get Malipiero's 10-minute mini suite Oriente Immaginario, which repackages the orientalist musical cliches of Rimsky-Korsakov, Ippolitov-Ivanov, etc. in a more modern package. A delightful encore.

[Linz]

Joseph Haydn Symphonies CD 17
Symphony No. 58 in F major
Symphony No. 59 in A major
Symphony No. 60 in C major
Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, Adam Fischer

[(poco) Sforzando]

The composer being Mozart...

At least the photograph is of Lisiecki ...

[Bachthoven]

The composer being Mozart...

Ha, very true! When I posted that I was actually listening to Chopin's Nocturnes, which has a picture of Ivan Moravec on the cover—was thinking it could use a better cover, too!

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ha, very true! When I posted that I was actually listening to Chopin's Nocturnes, which has a picture of Ivan Moravec on the cover—was thinking it could use a better cover, too!

Yes, but Jan is far nicer-looking than Ivan. For one thing, he has hair.

[brewski]

Ligeti: Violin Concerto (AXIOM / Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor / Dylan Hamme, violin, recorded live in April 2024). From Juilliard's new music ensemble AXIOM comes a dashing reading of this concerto. Almost worth it for the ocarinas alone.

Juilliard has a great archive of performances, here. Definitely going to check out Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King, and Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites.

[Brian]

Keeping things Italian today... Malipiero's 17-minute cello concerto is a unique soundworld, very expressive, with the cellist playing almost constantly. I find the musical language hard to describe, although I know this is common for Malipiero! The lento slow movement is especially beautiful, clearly the heart of the piece. The finale unexpectedly introduces bass and snare drums, silent until now, in a combative grapple with the cellist. The cellist plays a solo cadenza interrupted by more drumming, and more than half of the finale is played before any other instrument enters! Thoroughly eccentric and engaging.

Ghedini's L'Olmenata is essentially a big tone poem depicting autumn in the elm grove, with two cello soloists. Ghedini opposed virtuoso fireworks and wrote the piece to be played by the orchestra's top two cellists, not touring soloists. Indeed, although the cellists enter at the start, they are not playing the whole time; their role is episodic, like the viola in Berlioz' Harold. The second movement, a hunt complete with hunting horns, is fun but seems to be taking place in some bad weather. The heart of the piece is a long adagio of near total stillness and calm. You feel like you could hear a leaf falling.

The finale doesn't seem much more active until quiet bass drum rolls begin to sound behind the cellos. (In his two-page essay explaining the piece, Ghedini says he didn't want to end the reverie too abruptly.) The falling melodic figures in the winds in this final movement more literally suggest falling leaves, as the violins and solo cellos swirl like high winds. The music fades to a quiet ending. Atmospheric, weird, unique.

Finally, we get a tiny encore: Alfredo Casella's Notturno e tarantella, a delightful little set of cello and orchestra pieces that complement each other and work well as a finale for the CD.



Ghedini's note mentions his other descriptive, image-like concertos, so I found some. Sonata da Concerto is for flute, with a more modern, austere musical language that suits the flute well. After the flute says its piece in a slow introduction, the orchestra erupts in seeming anger. By the end of the movement, timpani and snare drum are banging away like gunshots in a Shostakovich symphony. The following adagio has a menacing, chugging accompaniment figure, but the tension finally gets relieved in the finale, a scurrying, joyful race to the finish with charming celesta part to go with the fluttering, birdlike flute.

The two other concertos on the disc are pictorial descriptions of springtime. L'alderina, for flute again, includes some cuckoo calls and farm sounds, a tender pavane with solo violin, and (again) celesta. The andante finale is particularly memorable and magical, as both violin and flute trade birdcalls and the rest of the orchestra fades to silence.

Il belprato, for violin and orchestra, is a little more neoclassical, with a hint of rustic country fiddling. The andante, for example, feels like a courtly baroque dance mixed with Stravinskian acid humor. It leads directly into a lively rondo, where the slower last episode doubles as introduction to the finale. Not nearly as accessibly "pretty" as L'alderina, but I think Stravinsky fans especially will find this a total delight.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ghedini's L'Olmenata is essentially a big tone poem depicting autumn in the elm grove,

I think I'll buy this. I don't know any Malipiero, but the Ghedini I've heard so far is very impressive and individual. Curiously, Brian, there is a well-known and excellent cookbook called "Northern Italian Cooking" by one Francesco Ghedini. I wonder if there is any relation.

[Lisztianwagner]

Frederick Delius
North Country Sketches
Idylle de Printemps

Frank Bridge
Enter Spring

Mark Elder & Hallé Orchestra

[Linz]

Johannes Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; Elisabeth Schwarzkopf; Christa Ludwig
Otto Klemperer; Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra

[Brian]

I think I'll buy this. I don't know any Malipiero, but the Ghedini I've heard so far is very impressive and individual. Curiously, Brian, there is a well-known and excellent cookbook called "Northern Italian Cooking" by one Francesco Ghedini. I wonder if there is any relation.

My intro to Malipiero (which I also recommend) was the disc of "Impressioni dal Vero" and "Pause del Silenzio." The Impressions are charming but spare, mostly scenes from nature or villages, almost like a less demonstrative, more subtle version of Respighi's Birds. Pause del Silenzio are weirder, more fragmentary and mosaic-like works.

[Symphonic Addict]

Keeping things Italian today... Malipiero's 17-minute cello concerto is a unique soundworld, very expressive, with the cellist playing almost constantly. I find the musical language hard to describe, although I know this is common for Malipiero! The lento slow movement is especially beautiful, clearly the heart of the piece. The finale unexpectedly introduces bass and snare drums, silent until now, in a combative grapple with the cellist. The cellist plays a solo cadenza interrupted by more drumming, and more than half of the finale is played before any other instrument enters! Thoroughly eccentric and engaging.

Ghedini's L'Olmenata is essentially a big tone poem depicting autumn in the elm grove, with two cello soloists. Ghedini opposed virtuoso fireworks and wrote the piece to be played by the orchestra's top two cellists, not touring soloists. Indeed, although the cellists enter at the start, they are not playing the whole time; their role is episodic, like the viola in Berlioz' Harold. The second movement, a hunt complete with hunting horns, is fun but seems to be taking place in some bad weather. The heart of the piece is a long adagio of near total stillness and calm. You feel like you could hear a leaf falling.

The finale doesn't seem much more active until quiet bass drum rolls begin to sound behind the cellos. (In his two-page essay explaining the piece, Ghedini says he didn't want to end the reverie too abruptly.) The falling melodic figures in the winds in this final movement more literally suggest falling leaves, as the violins and solo cellos swirl like high winds. The music fades to a quiet ending. Atmospheric, weird, unique.

Finally, we get a tiny encore: Alfredo Casella's Notturno e tarantella, a delightful little set of cello and orchestra pieces that complement each other and work well as a finale for the CD.



Ghedini's note mentions his other descriptive, image-like concertos, so I found some. Sonata da Concerto is for flute, with a more modern, austere musical language that suits the flute well. After the flute says its piece in a slow introduction, the orchestra erupts in seeming anger. By the end of the movement, timpani and snare drum are banging away like gunshots in a Shostakovich symphony. The following adagio has a menacing, chugging accompaniment figure, but the tension finally gets relieved in the finale, a scurrying, joyful race to the finish with charming celesta part to go with the fluttering, birdlike flute.

The two other concertos on the disc are pictorial descriptions of springtime. L'alderina, for flute again, includes some cuckoo calls and farm sounds, a tender pavane with solo violin, and (again) celesta. The andante finale is particularly memorable and magical, as both violin and flute trade birdcalls and the rest of the orchestra fades to silence.

Il belprato, for violin and orchestra, is a little more neoclassical, with a hint of rustic country fiddling. The andante, for example, feels like a courtly baroque dance mixed with Stravinskian acid humor. It leads directly into a lively rondo, where the slower last episode doubles as introduction to the finale. Not nearly as accessibly "pretty" as L'alderina, but I think Stravinsky fans especially will find this a total delight.

You were listening to the same Ghedini I heard a few days ago. Very interesting guy, I think he has one of the most individual voices among the Generazione dell'ottanta composers that include Respighi, Casella, Malipiero and Pizzetti. I was listening to his Concerto dell'albatro for piano trio, narrator and orchestra from a Naxos recording. Again, another quite singular piece, one that exhibits a doleful, austere character and handles tension quite well. Absolutely poetic and atmospheric. The narrator part may put many people off, but it actually worked for me.

[Todd]