What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Brian]

Continuing my Straussathon:



Up next: some tone poems from the Staatskapelle Dresden and Rudolf Kempe!

Boy, Strauss' orchestration of Funiculì, Funiculà could use some work 

[Subotnick]

Ok. Here goes. My first experience with the much talked about Santos! 



TTFN.
Me.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Ok. Here goes. My first experience with the much talked about Santos! 

Good luck! Don't know either work, yet. The First must be very approachable, the Fifth more forbidding...

[Subotnick]

Good luck! Don't know either work, yet. The First must be very approachable, the Fifth more forbidding...

The 1st movement of the first was fun and exciting!  As for the 5th symphony, I eat "forbidding" for breakfast... 

TTFN.
Me.

P.S.

I'll be listening to the symphonies in numerical order.

[Brian]

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The 1st movement of the first was fun and exciting!  As for the 5th symphony, I eat "forbidding" for breakfast... 

Well well, the man with ears of steel. 

[MN Dave]

[Fëanor]

Christos Hatziz, Awakening;  The St. Lawrence Quartet: EMI 5 58038 2

[Drasko]

[Kullervo]

[Bogey]

CD #1

[12tone.]

CD #1

How is it?  Worth getting?

[Brian]

M forever's glowing appraisal of this disc has surprised me into giving it another listen, with fresh ears. Having been bewitched by the same musicians' take on Metamorphosen twice already today, I am ready for more lovely music-making 

[Wanderer]

Christos Hatzis, Awakening;  The St. Lawrence Quartet: EMI 5 58038 2

How do you like it?

[Harry]

Good morning all!

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. (1727-1756)

Chamber music.
6 Sonatas for 2 Violins and B.C.
3 Polonaisses composto per il Cembalo.
Musica Alta Ripa.

There is not much known about the life of Goldberg, being so short. He was a extra ordinary skillful Harpsichord player, and was very famous for it. There is a account from the Berlin music critic Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg in 1749, that he heard people talking every day with astonishment about the rare capabilities encountered in their meeting with a tireless Goldberg. He created a impression of almost manic possession, and other sources corroborate this reading. Stubborn temperament, melancholy, and a headstrong oddball. His nickname was "Score-i-vore". Extreme in his emotions he is said to have torn up most of his compositions, although he studied under J.S. Bach. Odd this destructive vein in Goldberg, for listening at his compositions there is everything to be proud about, and nothing to worry. He was a really gifted musician and composer, with a somewhat extreme character.
His chamber music is of a high and intellectual standard that is hard to better, in its expression or scoring.
Musica Alta Ripa is a top ensemble that MDG has under his wings, and makes a excellent case for Goldberg as a composer, and a matching recording, very natural.

[Christo]

Ok. Here goes. My first experience with the much talked about Santos! 



TTFN.
Me.

The First is an incredibly mature work for a composer aged just 21-22 ! It shows a mastery of the form, great and sometimes very moving passages and as a whole compares well with the Second, Third and Fourth.

The Fifth `Virtus Lusitaniae' is indeed different. It's electrifying atmosphere is better caught in an older recording: Silva Pereira counducting the Portuguese Radio Orchestra, 1968, Portugalsom-CD.

The easiest gateway into the Fifth is the second movement, Zavala, with Braga Santos' impressions of a visit to the (then Portuguese colony of) Mozambique, with lots of African percussion.

[Subotnick]

Well well, the man with ears of steel. 

Just listened to the 5th for breakfast!  And forget numerical order. I've forgotten how to count. The movement I was going to point out Christo is the Zavala! Loved that percussion! 

And now I'm listening to Arthur Benjamin's Symphony No. 1 for the first of what I'm sure will be many times.



TTFN.
Me.

[val]

SCHUMANN:     "Waldszenen"

/ Karl Engel (VALOIS)
/ Clara Haskil (PHILIPS)

Engel is very slow, rhetoric, but the sound is good. On the contrary, Haskil, with a very bad sound, has the talent to characterize each of the little poems of this work.

But regarding the masterpiece of the cycle, "Vogel als Prophet" both Rubinstein (RCA) and Arrau (PHILIPS) seem out of reach, with their sublime versions.

[Wanderer]

[Harry]

Simon Le Duc. (1742-1777)
Complete Symphonic Works.

Symphony No. 1-3.
Orchestral Trio opus 2 No. 1-3
La Stagione Frankfurt, Michael Schneider.

"ll joue bien"-He plays well. It was thus that Leopold Mozart wrote of Monsieur Le Duc in his traveling notes from a Paris journey of 1763-64, and this was rare praise from his strict mouth. The Violinist he was referring was Simon Le Duc.
Werther this praise helped me in appreciating this composer is highly doubtful, I found him to be altogether very refreshing, this shaper of beautiful singing phrases on the strings, and a fine sense for proportion in his scoring, that brings out quite a few surprises. He was often called the "French Mozart", and in a sense that is not far from the truth.
Sturm und Drang it is then, and absolutely worthwhile your attention, although it is full price!