What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[SonicMan46]

Well a couple of more 'new' additions for the afternoon:

Onslow, Georges (1784-1853) - String Quartets, Op.4/1-Op.10/1-Op.46/3 w/ Manderling Quartett - just adding to my SQ collection of this re-discovered composer- 

Schulhoff, Erwin (1894-1942) - String Quartets, Nos. 1/2 w/ Aviv Quartet - interesting early 20th string writing from someone w/ many influences - just own one other piece of this composer - he died in a concentration camp in the early part of WWII - sad - 

 

[CD]

[Mirror Image]

First listening:


Listening to Symphony No. 1 right now and it's great! I haven't heard much Milhaud, but I read that his symphonies are nothing like his other orchestral works.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

This marks the beginning of my new obssession. [Bartok's] definitely a Metal dude (laughing)!

Wait, I think we've been down this road before. Bartok came BEFORE metal so if there are any similarities in the music it means that "metal musician X" is actually one ear-splittin' BARTOKIAN dude!!!

[George]

Carnaval

[Mirror Image]

Now:


Listening to Symphony No. 2 right now. Even though a lot of Milhaud's music uses polytonal lines, he uses this technique in a really unique, accessible way. Great music.

[Sid]

After listening to some of these works for a while, I'm finally getting my head around them. The second sonata is very spiky and stop and start. The last movement is the one I can hear the structure in the most, it has a bit of a bravura beginning (but in the C20th sense, of course), then some more choppy fast/loud - slow/quiet bits, then some regrouping and less contrast, and finally a slow and quiet ending, which sounds like a mirror image of the earlier material. It's a bit like the opposite of a traditional finale, because the climax comes first and is followed by what one may call a development of the ideas from the whole sonata. The first sonata I have not delved into much, but the third formation (a type of movement) of the third sonata is beginning to make sense structurally too. There is much stop and start (again), fragments of phrases and quite pregnant pauses (I wonder if it's ending, then it goes on). Towards the end of the 15 minute movement, there are some loud chords (tone clusters?) without the use of the sustanin pedal (the sounds are allowed to decay and fade out naturally). These more emphatic and stark notes lend the end of the work a feeling of finality, basically that it's all over (which is ironic, as at the date of the recording - 1995 - the third sonata was still a work in progress & I'm not sure if it's still incomplete now?). Turkish pianist Idil Biret plays with an ear to the dynamic contrasts and there is a bit of (measured?) flamboyance to her performance.

[Mirror Image]

Now:


Listening to Symphony No. 5 right now. These are symphonies I think I'll have to listen to repeatedly. They are really enjoyable.

[listener]

Shura Cherkassky  1984
BACH-BUSONI    Chaconne from the Partita in d for Violin
BERG   Sonata   op. 1
LISZT  Funérailles
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata in E^b,  op. 27/1

[Scarpia]

Wait, I think we've been down this road before. Bartok came BEFORE metal so if there are any similarities in the music it means that "metal musician X" is actually one ear-splittin' BARTOKIAN dude!!!

You're missing the point.  Just as Beethoven invented the modern piano in his mind when he write the Hammerklavier, Wagner, Mahler, perhaps Bartok, must have conceived a Stratocaster and a Marshal stack when they wrote all that music for stodgy old orchestras.

[val]

VIVALDI:         La Fida Ninfa                          / Piau, Mingardo, Spinosi  (2008)

Perhaps Vivaldi's best opera, with a very beautiful melodic inspiration. It is the only one that I saw on stage., many years ago,

The interpreters, in special Sandrine Piau are superlative.

[mc ukrneal]

Very enjopyable...

EDIT: Voices are superb!

[AndyD.]

You're missing the point.  Just as Beethoven invented the modern piano in his mind when he write the Hammerklavier, Wagner, Mahler, perhaps Bartok, must have conceived a Stratocaster and a Marshal stack when they wrote all that music for stodgy old orchestras.

I think I'd throw Bruckner in there as well .

Bartok String Quartet #4 (Takacs)

Wow.

[Conor71]

Bach: St. John Passion, BWV 245
Some more Sacred Bach from the awesome Gardiner Box-Set .

[karlhenning]

And a used edition of this SQ score book:

Outstanding! That has been a treasured element in my music library for, well, a quarter of a century, now.

[AndyD.]

Outstanding! That has been a treasured element in my music library for, well, a quarter of a century, now.

I had to dig, but I found it "very good" on ebay. Also really enjoying this site, which features interactive studies of the Bartok quartets just scroll down a little for the launch guide):

http://www.carnegiehall.org/article/explore_and_learn/art_performanceguide_index.html

[Keemun]

[AndyD.]

Oh you be jahmmin'.

[karlhenning]

What a weird duck Boulez can be. He's got a stick reverse up his G-I tract over Shostakovich; yet he deigns to conduct Bruckner.

Well, his character is no better than it has to be, I suppose; but he sure is a man of sharp prejudices.

[AndyD.]

What a weird duck Boulez can be. He's got a stick reverse up his G-I tract over Shostakovich; yet he deigns to conduct Bruckner.

Well, his character is no better than it has to be, I suppose; but he sure is a man of sharp prejudices.

You know, this might not interest you, but he was a very interesting conductor on the Bayreuth Ring dvd of the '70's.

Bartok String Quartet #6 (Takacs)