What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Keemun]

  0:)

[SonicMan46]

Just returned from a nice 3-day weekend in the NC Mountains (Asheville area & Biltmore Estate) - mail 'held over' for that time just arrived w/ 2 boxes  - orders Caiman & BRO, so should be a long week of musical listening for me!

Boccherini, Luigi - Flute Quintets, Op. 19 w/ Auser Musici - part of the many recordings that I was considering (mentioned in that thread), all of which received excellent reviews in the recent issue of Fanfare; have not have the pleasure of hearing these works, but do own a later opus number (Op. 55) by the same composer (shown below, right), which is also excellent; check out part of the review in Fanfare HERE - 

 

[Don]

It's been a long time since I listened to this set, but I'd describe it as being anything but dour.  I like the transparency of the registration, which made the fascinating counterpoint very clear.

We also don't agree about Feltsman's Bach, but the main thing is that we do agree about Bach.

[scarpia]

We also don't agree about Feltsman's Bach, but the main thing is that we do agree about Bach.

Does that mean you claim I like Feltsman's Bach?  The only recent mention I find of Feltsman's Bach on the board is a disparaging comment from you.  I have no idea who Feltsman is or what his Bach sounds like.

[Philoctetes]

Does that mean you claim I like Feltsman's Bach?  The only recent mention I find of Feltsman's Bach on the board is a disparaging comment from you.  I have no idea who Feltsman is or what his Bach sounds like.

I'd say Feltman is well worth listening too. It's a very strange reading.

[Don]

Does that mean you claim I like Feltsman's Bach?  The only recent mention I find of Feltsman's Bach on the board is a disparaging comment from you.  I have no idea who Feltsman is or what his Bach sounds like.

Sorry about that.  I had you confused with another member.

[PaulR]

Shostakovich: 1st Violin Concerto in A Minor Venegrov/Rostropovich/LSO

Haven't heard this in a while...

[Keemun]

After an extended break from Sibelius, I'm listening to Symphony No. 6 from this:

[Kullervo]

Bruckner - Symphony No. 4 (Jochum, Berliner Philharmoniker)

[FideLeo]

[Bogey]

Just listened to Dohnányi/Cleveland last night.  Your thoughts.

[bhodges]

Various tracks by pianist Marc-André Hamelin on YouTube, including these two gems which he wrote himself.  He is one of the few pianists I know of who are carrying on an all but vanished tradition of pianists who write virtuoso miniatures to showcase their own talents. 

Hamelin: Valse Irritation d'après Nokia (:53)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QK3GS8_3rs&feature=related

Hamelin: Etude No. 6, Omaggio a D. Scarlatti (3:19)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA-0dMs1wbs

--Bruce

[FideLeo]

Just listened to Dohnányi/Cleveland last night.  Your thoughts.

Common criticism I heard is that H over-tweaked the score, but I happen to like what I heard.   VPO can sound much greyer in other hands.

[Lilas Pastia]

Tchaikovsky: Symphony no 6, LSO, Horenstein (1967). This Disky recording is filled with Romeo and Juliet, with the RPO under Sargent (1962). The Horenstein-led Pathétique is a solid, lucid account, very much a 'symphonic' approach as opposed to a descriptive, event by event one (à la Bernstein). It does not preclude his reading to bew full of very individual phrasing touches. Rock steady measured tempos in the agitated episodes of I and III serve to highlight and italicize as much as fevered, frenzied ones could do. Even more so, in fact. Although the sound is more than 40 year old, it's clean and spacious, with excellent instrumental presence. I've never heard the bass pizzicati that end the work so well defined - ppp, but very sonorous at the same time. Truly sterling work from all involved. The LSO is a bit trumpet heavy - either it's their playing, or the conductor's balances. I didn't detect knob tweaking - the sound seems natural all the way through.  Sargent's R&J is slow, uneventful, but not unexciting. Slightly distant recording, but excellent playing and some characterful touches that had my brows twitching here and there.

More Havergal Brian: Symphonies 11, 12, 13 and 19. One listen to each is clearly not enough. I noticed that a lot of what I hear has the same characteristics as those works by Myaskovsky and Hovhanness. Once you have heard a few of these works, you notice how clearly different from anything else they are, but also they tend to sound alike. Not in a negative sense (that would be the case if they were uninteresting). But clearly, Brian was always working along his chosen path without deviating from it. And it's one that I have never heard explored before (like the other composers I've mentioned). So, in a sense, if one dislikes the style, the sound, the ethos, it's no use keeping on. I feel like I have to hear all I can because clearly there will be gems in the lot, but I don't know yet where they will be. Which is another way of saying they're uneven in interest. Among that quartet of symphonies, No 12 was the one that really had me sit up and take notice. It's a sad symphony. Not tragic, not desperate, not gloomy (think of Pettersson), just filled with a sadness that borders on desolation. It's short (11 minutes) and the mood lightens up as it progresses, but it takes a prize for establishing such a potent atmosphere in just a couple of bars.

[PaulR]

Ries: Symphony #1 Griffiths/Zurich Chamber Orchestra

[bhodges]

Paul Lansky: Artifice (1976) - His very first "speech" piece.  Available here via UbuWeb.

I first encountered Lansky from his piece Idle Chatter, on a Wergo CD of electronic music, and have liked most of what I've heard.  He experiments a lot with fragments of speech, altered in unusual ways, sort of riffing on Steve Reich's early work.

And more from UbuWeb:

Alvin Lucier: I Am Sitting in a Room (1969) (Lucier)
Kurt Schwitters: Ursonate (1922-32) (Schwitters)
B. A. Zimmermann: Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu (1968) (Gielen / Rundfunks-Sinfonie-Orchester Köln)

--Bruce

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Prokofiev, seventh sonata.

Raekallio roars through the last movement precipitato, clocking in at 2:57! You feel the rush.

[Florestan]

Good morning all!

Erik Satie

Pieces froides
Danses de travers
Gymnopedies
Preludes du Nazareen
Gnossiennes

Laurent Gianini-Rima

There is something magical about those pieces: extremely monotonous as they are, they're never boring, on the contrary, they have an almost hypnotical quality. And believe me or not, some of them sound like piano transcriptions of Romanian folksongs.

J. S. Bach

The Well-Tempered Clavier

Edwin Fischer

Good mono sound, excellent performance.

[lisa needs braces]

Some Dvorak. His second piano quintet and his fifth symphony (well, the last movement anyway!)

[ezodisy]

Raekallio roars through the last movement precipitato, clocking in at 2:57! You feel the rush.

I haven't heard this one but will say that speed IMO is not the decisive factor for an overwhelming performance. It is more about dynamics, coupled IMO with a varied tempo more than a relentless one, which gives it a huge crushing feeling (as opposed to rushing one). Anyway I don't remember how fast young Ashkenazy was--the one on Testament--but it's like lightning if you like that sort of thing.

Chopin PC 2 - Pollini '68