What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Wanderer]

#7 is very very good, #8 is a loser I am afraid.

No comments for the Ninth?

On the contrary, I believe Harnoncourt's No.8 is very good. I remember we were discussing it once with M at the old place.



I'll be eagerly awaiting the second installment of this cycle. Whatever one may think about Mahler's contributions (which are very subtle) this is terrific Schumann. The disc also includes the Genoveva overture.



Both Harnoncourt and Welser-Möst give thrilling performances of Schmidt's apocalyptic utterance. I think I'll need to get Langgaard's Antikrist next...

[Que]

Disc 8: sonatas nos. 43, 44, 47, 57; Arietta no. 2 HobXVII:2, and Adagio HobXVII:9.
Played on a fortepiano (hammerflügel) made by Louis Dulcken in Munich, 1793.

Q

[Harry]

Disc 8: sonatas nos. 43, 44, 47, 57; Arietta no. 2 HobXVII:2, and Adagio HobXVII:9.
Played on a fortepiano (hammerflügel) made by Louis Dulcken in Munich, 1793.

Q

Good morning Q, still at the box!
But it is marvelous isn't it?
Not a weak point to be found, and for me easily the best interpretation so far.
Had years ago a Hungaroton set, but was never issued on cd. They played the early sonatas also on a Harpsichord, or Fortepiano.

[Que]

Good morning Q, still at the box!
But it is marvelous isn't it?
Not a weak point to be found, and for me easily the best interpretation so far.
Had years ago a Hungaroton set, but was never issued on cd. They played the early sonatas also on a Harpsichord, or Fortepiano.

Yes Sir! And a very good morning to you too, Harry.
I have the habit of digesting large box sets at a steady pace, to prevent a superficial "run through" - especially if the music is new to me, as in this case.
If the set is very large (like the Scarlatti by Scott Ross) I take breaks of weeks, or even months, in between.

The Haydn set by Schornsheim is really superb.
And I'm enjoying it enormously - my esteem for Haydn's music grows with every new disc.
Everybody here already has it? Recommended!

Q

[val]

Good morning to all.

ROUSSEL: 3rd Symphony.

Bernstein with the NYP has a enthusiasm and energy that are contagious. A version full of life, intense.

Janowski with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France has not the passion of Bernstein, more artificial perhaps, but, using a fast tempo, is very powerful and with a remarkable sense of the colour.

The two best versions of this extraordinary masterpiece, even superior to Munch.

[Wanderer]

Good morning, everyone! 

That Haydn box set must be quite good, I've seen it being mentioned and praised here for quite some time...

[sound67]

GIAN CARLO MENOTTI: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A minor; Cantilena E Scherzo for Harp and String Quartet
Ittai Shapira, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, Thomas Sanderling; Gillian Tingay, Vanbrugh Quartet (ASV)

Menotti's Violin Concerto is less cohesive than that of his partner Samuel Barber, but there are many similatrities, too: both works are predominantly lyrical, almost bordering on "kitsch" - but in a good way. Menotti's work has two great tunes in its long (13mins) first movement, the remaining two are less impressive thematically. On the whole it's a sweet, entertaining but not terribly distingusihed piece. This new recording from Russia is tauter than Jennifer Koh's on Chandos, with more focus on the brilliant violin part, and with "meatier" orchestral accompaniment.

Thomas

[Que]

Excellent!

Q

[Wanderer]

Excellent!

Indeed, it is. Enjoy! 

[Que]

Indeed, it is. Enjoy! 

I am enjoying it! What's in your CD player?
It seems still a bit early for hefty stuff like Franz Schmidt?

Q

[Harry]

Good morning, everyone! 

That Haydn box set must be quite good, I've seen it being mentioned and praised here for quite some time...

Well it really is Tasos.
And goodmorning to you my friend.

[Harry]

Telemann.

Trumpet Concertos, complete.
Volume III.

Otto Sauter & Franz Wagnermeyer & Kenji Tamiya, Trumpets.
Kurpfalzisches Kammerorchester/Nicol Matt.

Very entertaining and therefore fine music, well written, and recorded.

[Wanderer]

I am enjoying it! What's in your CD player?
It seems still a bit early for hefty stuff like Franz Schmidt?

Q

Not a problem, I got up quite early anyway. Currently playing Harnoncourt's version of Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln. I'm going to even things out later with the newly arrived Hamelin's Haydn album. 


And a good day to you too, Harry! 

[Que]

Not a problem, I got up quite early anyway. Currently playing Harnoncourt's version of Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln. I'm going to even things out later with the newly arrived Hamelin's Haydn album. 


And a good day to you too, Harry! 

Wanderer, I admire your iron stomach.
In my case, I can't digest anything but baroque after I wake up and very rarely listen to anything other than baroque and classical before lunch! 

Currently listening to this:



See for comments my post on the HIP Mozart thread

Q

[sound67]

CYRIL SCOTT: Festival Overture; Violin Concerto; Aubade; Three Symphonic Dances
Olivier Charlier, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins (Chandos)

The longest piece on this CD, Vol.3 in Chandos' series of Cyril Scott's orchestral works, is also the weakest: the barely known Violin Concerto of 1925 comes off as shapeless and thematically unimpressive as it meanders from one episode to another. The style is somewhere between late romanticism and impressionism, though the latter dominates - as in many of Scott's "mature" works. Less mature, perhaps, but infinitely more enjoyable are the Three Symphonic Dances of 1902, a reworking of Scott's 2nd Symphony. Straightforward, accessible, with brilliant orchestral colors - and more "English" than any other work of this composer that I know of.

Sublime is "Aubade", a central work in the composer's oeuvre - and one which shows that he was perhaps most at home as a composer of single-movement shorter orchestral works - not the only parallel between him and his Francophone compatriot Frederick Delius. Its range of colors is amazing, and while it is, arguably, more Debussy-an than need be it does not disintegrate into rhapsodic shapelessness. I first heard this work on a disastrous Marco Polo CD, performed by Peter Marchbank and a South African Broadcasting Corporation Symphony Orchestra deeply in over their collective heads. It was this crappy recording of Scott's works that had made me put his oeuvre aside for at least a decade. Also nice on the new CD is a beautiful tone-poem on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck, irritatingly entitled "Festival Overture" - the composer reworked the piece for a competition years after he had written it and chose this title to make it more atractive to the judges.

Superbly accomplished performances and translucent recorded sound throughout.

Thomas

[Harry]

George Philipp Telemann.

Complete Trumpet concertos.
Volume IV.

Otto Sauter & Franz Wagnermeyer, Trumpets.
Kammer Orchester Mannheim.Nicol Matt.



Fine Concerti, all along, and surprisingly well played I must add. Overall the tempi could have been brisker, but on the other side every detail was there to be heard. The solo players were not always in tune, but they did their utmost best I am sure. Throughout the Orchestra was right on pitch, and the playing sensitive, and well motivated. All in all a worthwhile acquisition for little money. Some of the concerti are topnotch, but in some there was a little routine, but that is only to be suspected from a composer that composed over 2000 works, and re used as many others, his own music, and sometimes forgot that completely. But workmanship always gave him the right notes, and it never sounds boring.

[Harry]

Allan Pettersson.

Symphony No. 10.



Radio Philharmonie Hannover des NDR/Alun Francis.

Highly disturbing music, as always with this composer, but also highly rewarding.
Further on in his Symphonies he gets more chaotic and lets the music drift, making it hard for you to focus.
Yet, this makes it also attractive, to find your own focus.
Take for instance five measures after No. 53, when the dramatic intensity culminates to almost unbearable heights. Heartbreak measures they are.
Then after No. 69, the resentment cools off, and all the emotion and movement reach the climax of utter silence, within and outside.
The fighting is finally over.

[Harry]

Arcangelo Corelli.

Opera Omnia.

Sonate da Camera a tre, opus II, Rome 1685. 9-12.
Dedicated to Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili.

Sonate a Quattro for Trumpet, 2 violins & B.C. WoO 4.

Trio Sonatas WoO 5-8.

Musica Amphion/Pieter-Jan Belder.

I can be very short about these recordings. "Most excellent".

[Wanderer]

Right now, Schubert's D958 Sonata. Andsnes is great in all these sonatas. The idea of combining each on disc with a number of lieder is proved inspired and most effective.

[Harry]

Arcangelo Corelli.

Sonate da Chiesa a tre,1-9 opus III, Rome 1689.
Dedicated to Duke Francesco II of Modena.

Musica Amphion/Pieter-Jan Belder.

Delicious music, and so well executed to boot.
Good recordings too!