What are you listening 3 now?

[Todd]

[ritter]

A rare appearance of organ music chez ritter, but it is appropriate for this day...

Olivier Messiaen plays his Messe de la Pentecôte on "his" Cavaillé-Coll / Merklín / Beuchet organ of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris.

[Todd]

Trying out this debut recording for ten fingers and two clown shoe laden feet clomping pedals.  Maybe his next recording will be better engineered.  Dude's got chops, but I am interested in piano playing more than seated dancing.

[Philo]

Bach's Flute Concerto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHXStpXu-yo

Schubert's Variations on Trockne Blumen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XvTUa3VKAY

Tchaikovsky's Concertstuck for Flute and Strings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEubAccp4WQ

Holst's A Fugal Concerto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DDP5lqdgIE

[AnotherSpin]

Listening now, and like it! Thank you.

[Justice Roberts]

Casella: Concerto for Orchestra, A notte alta & Symphonic Fragments from La Donna Serpente.

[Linz]

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No.9 in D minor, op.125 "Choral"
Wiener Philharmoniker, Karl bohm

[Philo]

Finnissy's Tussen Rede en Gevoel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGmjnZL9uuY

Henneman's Featherlight monkeys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07yoSIaMB08

Räihälä's Blaze:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDtVB5_anX0

Mercadante's Fantasia concertante on Themes from Orazi e Curiazi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XoWnzHoqW8 

[Todd]

[Philo]

Tulindberg's Violin Concerto 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk-qqkRp4nM

Bystrom's A Walk to Beethoven:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ539EmS8fU

Crusell's Concertante f. Clar. Horn, & Fag:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TbJ4QpyIxM

Crusell's Clarinet Quartet 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiScfDrelZE

[Que]

Lately going through some recordings of the amazing Schubert trios that I never heard pre-streaming...
Already heard some really good performances by Trio Wanderer, the Busch Trio, and now the Mozartean Players on period instruments.
These trios never get old...

[Daverz]

I can't seem to resist a Prokofiev 6:

♪ Playing Prokofiev: Symphony No. 6 - Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Dmitry Matvienko

Beautiful recording, particularly rich bass.

[Que]

Listening now, and like it! Thank you.

You're welcome!  For me this was a 1st as well. 

Händel wrote a huge amount of harpsichord music in his German and Italian years.
I'm taking the liberty to point you to what is probably the highlight of this output: the 1720 Suites.

 

[VonStupp]

Einojuhani Rautavaara
In the Beginning
Fantasia
Deux Sérénades
Lost Landscapes

Simone Lamsma, violin
Malmö SO - Robert Treviño


I am finding it better to take Rautavaara's works one at a time instead of as a program. A little Rautavaara goes a long way, and more is often too much to handle in a sitting.
VS

[André]

This 1951 recording of the Brahms has very tubby timpani and double basses. We can hear how powerful a bass foundation Scherchen laid out. Maybe it defeated the engineers ? The top of the aural spectrum is much more amenable, so it all sounds like a fiery top is coupled to a tubby bass. The ear adjusts of course.

When the conductor has the strings play slashing chords (in I and IV) they sound exactly right. And my ! I don't think I've heard the allegro portion of the finale sound so urgent, so passionate, even vicious. Not a single moment of relaxation, speed and sonic intensity tightening inexorably until the very last chord (satisfyingly triumphant). These last two minutes in the symphony must be heard to be believed.

Not that the result is entirely convincing musically. Astonishing to be sure but so totally at odds with 'tradition' that one might think the conductor was doing Berlioz, not Brahms. Curiously Charles Munch (a superlative Berlioz interpreter) in the 2nd symphony could get hyper emotional too - a live performance with the BSO in Paris lets one hear the most uncontrollable, out of control coda ever. How is this possible with Brahms, of all composers ?

In any case, there's no doubt I'll be keeping this one for the sheer fun of it.

The coupled Kalinnikov is very exciting too, except it's inferior enough sonically to disqualify it as a recommendation. Brahms collectors will be thrilled (I think ?) by this performance. BTW the Vienna State Opera Orchestra is the band from which the Wiener Philharmoniker drew its members. I suppose that in 1951 some damage was still felt within Austrian/German orchestras, but there's no denying the playing heard here is passionately committed.

As for the Kalinnikov performance (also recorded in 1951) I guess the same qualifications can be made, but the orchestral culture is very different. This is curdled milk, hard cheese and strong beer music-making - what one can hear from it anyway.

[AnotherSpin]

You're welcome!  For me this was a 1st as well. 

Händel wrote a huge amount of harpsichord music in his German and Italian years.
I'm taking the liberty to point you to what is probably the highlight of this output: the 1720 Suites.

 

Thank you for the recommendation. I have heard Scott Ross's recording of the Handel suites before, though apparently not attentively enough to retain much of a lasting impression, so a fresh listen seems overdue. Borgstede is a new name for me, which is always a welcome.

I know the suites well from piano recordings, and some of them were genuinely captivating, Keith Jarrett's reading among them, back in the day. But now that my interest has shifted toward historically appropriate instruments, I find myself rediscovering rather a lot.

[AnotherSpin]

This 1951 recording of the Brahms has very tubby timpani and double basses. We can hear how powerful a bass foundation Scherchen laid out. Maybe it defeated the engineers ? The top of the aural spectrum is much more amenable, so it all sounds like a fiery top is coupled to a tubby bass. The ear adjusts of course.

When the conductor has the strings play slashing chords (in I and IV) they sound exactly right. And my ! I don't think I've heard the allegro portion of the finale sound so urgent, so passionate, even vicious. Not a single moment of relaxation, speed and sonic intensity tightening inexorably until the very last chord (satisfyingly triumphant). These last two minutes in the symphony must be heard to be believed.

Not that the result is entirely convincing musically. Astonishing to be sure but so totally at odds with 'tradition' that one might think the conductor was doing Berlioz, not Brahms. Curiously Charles Munch (a superlative Berlioz interpreter) in the 2nd symphony could get hyper emotional too - a live performance with the BSO in Paris lets one hear the most uncontrollable, out of control coda ever. How is this possible with Brahms, of all composers ?

In any case, there's no doubt I'll be keeping this one for the sheer fun of it.

The coupled Kalinnikov is very exciting too, except it's inferior enough sonically to disqualify it as a recommendation. Brahms collectors will be thrilled (I think ?) by this performance. BTW the Vienna State Opera Orchestra is the band from which the Wiener Philharmoniker drew its members. I suppose that in 1951 some damage was still felt within Austrian/German orchestras, but there's no denying the playing heard here is passionately committed.

As for the Kalinnikov performance (also recorded in 1951) I guess the same qualifications can be made, but the orchestral culture is very different. This is curdled milk, hard cheese and strong beer music-making - what one can hear from it anyway.

When I come across a 1951 recording of a symphony by some obscure Soviet composer, performed dutifully by Austrian or Czech musicians, I find it difficult to attribute this to pure musical enthusiasm. The arrangement seems rather transparent: we record your symphony, God forgive us, and in return you leave us alone and allow us to play our own repertoire as well. A perfectly opportunistic transaction.

Not everyone perhaps remembers that Vienna remained under Soviet military occupation until 1955, and that Soviet troops stayed in Czechoslovakia until 1991. In that light, a certain willingness to accommodate the musical tastes of one's occupiers becomes, shall we say, entirely understandable, if not especially pretty.

[Que]

   

Revisiting this set is quite a treat. The Missa de septum doloribus is a later mass by De la Rue, rich in texture. Here performed with plain-chant to beautiful effect. The excellent recording (2001/02) is not closely miked as sometimes these days (Beauty Farm) - so you can hear the actual space (chapel) and the voices are blended.

[Que]

Thank you for the recommendation. I have heard Scott Ross's recording of the Handel suites before, though apparently not attentively enough to retain much of a lasting impression, so a fresh listen seems overdue. Borgstede is a new name for me, which is always a welcome.

I know the suites well from piano recordings, and some of them were genuinely captivating, Keith Jarrett's reading among them, back in the day. But now that my interest has shifted toward historically appropriate instruments, I find myself rediscovering rather a lot.

Always exciting to rediscover the familiar in a new way! 

PS Hope you and those close to you are OK after recent attacks on Odesa.

[Que]

Since I skipped the plain-chant, time for one more: