What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Kullervo]

Tonight:

Pickard - The Flight of Icarus (Wigglesworth/San Francisco Symphony)
Langgaard - Symphony No. 4 "The Fall of the Leaf" (N. Järvi/Danish NRSO)
Tippett - Concerto for Double String Orchestra (Rattle/Birmingham)
Pfitzner - Three Preludes from Palestrina (Janowski/Suisse Romande)
Tippett - Symphony No. 4 (Davis,/LSO)
Revueltas - Sensemayá (Stokowski and His Orchestra)
Milhaud - L'homme et son desir (Milhaud/Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg)

[Wanderer]

A magnificent recording, refreshing playing and delightful music. I'm enjoying it almost as much as their (=Manze/Egarr) recording of Biber's Rozenkranz-Sonaten.
I'm considering Manze's recordings of Händel's op.6 Concerti grossi and Corelli's op.5 Violin Sonatas, any opinions on those?

[Que]

A magnificent recording, refreshing playing and delightful music. I'm enjoying it almost as much as their (=Manze/Egarr) recording of Biber's Rozenkranz-Sonaten.
I'm considering Manze's recordings of Händel's op.6 Concerti grossi and Corelli's op.5 Violin Sonatas, any opinions on those?

Much agree on his Biber. I got the Corelli as well and found it very enjoyable, but it the long run I'm looking or another take. Hard to decribe what I'm missing in the Manze, I'm looking for an interpretation that goes deeper and is more elegant, I guess... I have my eye on Montanari/Dantone on Arts.

Q

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

[prémont]

Hard to decribe what I'm missing in the Manze, I'm looking for an interpretation that goes deeper and is more elegant,

Difficult to deny Manze a certain degree of elegance, but the problem with many of the interpretations, I have heard, is IMO, that his horizon in some way is too small, -he deprives the music of its grandeur and transforms it into intimate miniatures.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Just for the record - Klemperer's Meistersinger Vorspiel is the best I have ever heard. It's the piece that made me a Wagner lover for life (age 14). Sublime.

[Wanderer]

A nice production with good singing throughout, but I was rather disappointed by the orchestra and Welser-Möst's conducting.

[Que]

Difficult to deny Manze a certain degree of elegance, but the problem with many of the interpretations, I have heard, is IMO, that his horizon in some way is too small, -he deprives the music of its grandeur and transforms it into intimate miniatures.

Seems spot-on Premont, that's exactly what I had in mind as well.

Now:



Q

[Christo]

As long as there's no recording available of any of the three symphonies by Heino Eller (1887-1970), his elegant Sinfonietta (1965) for strings will do. It's a sort of summing up of everything the old man - actually, Eller really served as the Grand Old Man of Estonian music for years, especially after so many had fled the Soviet occupation, with Eller left behind and serving as a teacher to dozens of Estonian composers of the postwar generation - had to say in his times, with a beautiful central cantilena that tells it all.

                   

[Harry]

I think this box of extraordinary value Tasos

[Harry]

A magnificent recording, refreshing playing and delightful music. I'm enjoying it almost as much as their (=Manze/Egarr) recording of Biber's Rozenkranz-Sonaten.
I'm considering Manze's recordings of Händel's op.6 Concerti grossi and Corelli's op.5 Violin Sonatas, any opinions on those?

Yes Tasos we knew that Biber was more than excellent.... , and the opus 6 by Handel plus Corelli's opus 5, I think unlike Que, of the same quality, and brimful with Manze's flexibility in phrasing and ornamentation. My full votes at least. No offense meant Que.

[Harry]

Difficult to deny Manze a certain degree of elegance, but the problem with many of the interpretations, I have heard, is IMO, that his horizon in some way is too small, -he deprives the music of its grandeur and transforms it into intimate miniatures.

Small I would not say, intimate is spot on, yes! And that he deprives the music of its grandeur, well frankly I don't think so, but maybe my ears are deceiving me in this.

[Drasko]

Revueltas - Sensemayá (Stokowski and His Orchestra)

That is merely a curiosity imo, Stokowski's absurdly fast tempo makes it more a caricature than an interpretation, sounding for the most time like just a noisy mess. Thankfully same disc also contains decent performance by Mata.


Finally got my hands on this, was curious about Knipper's fourth for a long time.

[Kullervo]

That is merely a curiosity imo, Stokowski's absurdly fast tempo makes it more a caricature than an interpretation, sounding for the most time like just a noisy mess. Thankfully same disc also contains decent performance by Mata.

Oh it was just a cursory listen, I haven't given the Revueltas set a good thorough listen yet. You're right, that recording is so muddled I couldn't pick out any details in the orchestration other than the loud percussion. 

[karlhenning]

Karl, you have got something to learn from this guy. 

You mean, Peter, that I need 220 more recordings of the Rakhmaninov Opus 30? 

[karlhenning]

Well, the whole thing is rather...ponderous, even turgid at times...but if you can just turn off your mind and drift along with it, and accept the tuneless singing as if it were an artifact of the age, like a Greek chorus, then the virtues appear as delightful surprises--and they are more abundant than Rossini's calculus would predict.  The trouble is that once I've attained the appropriately vacant, dreamy state of mind, I tend to fall asleep.  Of course, this serves to remind me of yet another facet of Little Dicky's far-reaching "genius," for when experienced in the proper theatrical environment designed by the Master himself at Bayreuth, drowsiness is dispelled by the painful discomfort of the hard wooden seats.

Very sensible, and I appreciate the road-map, Dave!

[prémont]

You mean, Poul, that I need 220 more recordings of the Rakhmaninov Opus 30? 

No. I exclusively referred to his 14 Rings.

(OBS: I have corrected your typo)

[DavidRoss]

Very sensible, and I appreciate the road-map, Dave!

You're welcome, Karl.     It's sort of like slogging through swamps and thickets of briars and seemingly endless dull pastures with garish bill boards just to reach a delightful chalkstream with a lovely view: not a trip you might care to make often, but one sufficiently rewarding to make the slog seem worth it--unless, of course, the promotional brochures have misled you to expect something like the Grand Canyon or Yosemite Valley.

Earlier this morning:


Now:


EDIT: Incidentally, Karl, I just discovered a nice addition to BBC Radio 3's site, a section devoted to the Ring.  Haven't explored it yet, but did discover this helpful synopsis:

Authorities are anxious to trace: a devious dwarf wanted on charges of sexual harassment and world domination; a partially-sighted God observed handling stolen goods, also sought by the CSA; a large murderer, believed to be using the alias 'F. Dragon'; a rampaging pyromaniac; any suppliers of narcotic apples; two incestuous siblings; a petulant teenager carrying a sword, possibly damaged; a forthright lady in armour with a vicious gang, warning, this is no man; one master forger; a talking bird; three aquatic prostitutes; three scheming royals. Members of the public should not approach these individuals who are considered extremely dangerous.

[prémont]

Small I would not say, intimate is spot on, yes! And that he deprives the music of its grandeur, well frankly I don't think so, but maybe my ears are deceiving me in this.

I do not mean "grandeur" in the romantic sense, and maybe I overstated my argument above, but if you compare Manze with artists like John Holloway and Sigiswald Kuijken (as to style) Manze´s style seems to me peculiarly small-scaled. And in small-scale works like Bibers Sonata Representativa I do not think, he will become surpassed. But I doubt, if he ever will be able to make a competitive recording of Bachs solo works.

[bhodges]

From a five-CD set of live recordings from the Holland Festival from 1947-1997, the disc of "Great Opera Stars."  Quite an entertaining assortment, much from operas I don't often listen to, and ditto the performers--e.g., I don't have many Callas recordings, and I tend to forget that in his younger days, Pavarotti really was a phenomenon.  The recordings are of amazingly high quality given the dates.



Rossini: La Cenerentola: Finale (Giulietta Simionato / Giulini / La Scala, recorded in The Hague 30/06/54)

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera: "Teco io sto...M'ami...O qual soave brivido" (Gré Browenstijn / Giuseppe Zampieri / Molinari-Pradelli / Netherlands Opera, 25/06/58)

Verdi: Ernani: "Surta e la notte...Ernani! involami...Tutto sprezzo che d'Ernani" (Maria Callas / Rescigno / Concertgebouw, 11/07/59) - Wow!

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro: Finale (Giuseppe Taddei, Graziella Sciutti, Hermann Prey and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf / Giulini / Residentie, 23/06/61) - Another wow!

Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia: "Dunque io son?" (Teresa Berganza and Renato Capecchi / Giulini / Residentie, 19/06/62)

Verdi: Falstaff: "Siam pentiti e contriti...Reverenza!" and Finale (Fernando Corena, Fedora Barbieri, Ilva Ligabue, Mirella Freni, Luigi Alva, Renato Capecchi, Fernanda Cadoni, Florindo Andreolli and Enrico Campo / Giulini / Concertgebouw, 20/06/63)

Bellini: I Capuleti e i Montecchi: "E'serbata a questo acciaro...L'amo, e m'è si cara" (Luciano Pavarotti / Abbado / Residentie, 30/06/66)

Monteverdi: L'Orfeo: "Ahi, caso acerbo...Tu sei morta!" (Oralla Dominguez and Barry McDaniel / Maderna / Utrecht Symphony Orchestra, 17/06/67)

R. Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten: "Zum Lebenswasser...Wehe, mein Mann!" (Alessandra Marc / de Waart / Concertgebouw, 09/06/90)

--Bruce