What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Harry]

Handel, some more chamber wind/violin music this AM; now Couperin - Brilliant box (7-CDs) - check MusicWeb Review for a listing of the works included, and comments on the performances & recordings - can't really listen to this entire box in one sitting, but quite enjoyable when 'rationed out'!  

That box is fabulous, and I listen to it, in one go, and another one, and another....

[Solitary Wanderer]

[Brian]

JAN LADISLAV DUSSEK | Sonatas for fortepiano Op 35
Andreas Staier

What a wonderful way to begin a day! Two minutes into the first sonata I can tell these will quickly become favorites. Beautifully sunny pieces played on a great-sounding fortepiano. HIP keyboard is fast becoming my newest temptation...

[bhodges]

Haydn: Symphony No. 93 (Harnoncourt/Concertgebouw) - Delightful, and Teldec's sound, ditto.

Langgaard: Sfaerernes Musik (Music of the Spheres) (Frandsen/Danish Radio Choir and Sym. Orch., live recording, 20 March 1980) - Stumbled across this at Academy and recalled some interesting comments.  I can't believe this music was written in 1918; it sounds much more contemporary.

It's about ten minutes before the end, and finally the soprano enters (Edith Guillaume), very otherworldly.  Again, I can't quite reconcile the piece with the date of its composition.  The other two works in this set are the 4th and 6th symphonies, also live recordings (from 1981 and 1977, respectively). 

--Bruce

[Solitary Wanderer]

[sidoze]

http://www.youtube.com/v/2PzGf-_zKuM

thanks. here's another Bach-Busoni piece played by a wonderful Hungarian pianist who shouldn't be forgotten

http://www.youtube.com/v/h427L7297xM

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Langgaard: Sfaerernes Musik (Music of the Spheres) (Frandsen/Danish Radio Choir and Sym. Orch., live recording, 20 March 1980) - Stumbled across this at Academy and recalled some interesting comments.  I can't believe this music was written in 1918; it sounds much more contemporary.

It's about ten minutes before the end, and finally the soprano enters (Edith Guillaume), very otherworldly.  Again, I can't quite reconcile the piece with the date of its composition.  The other two works in this set are the 4th and 6th symphonies, also live recordings (from 1981 and 1977, respectively).

I don't know those performances. I have the 'Music of the Spheres' with Rozhdestvensky on Chandos, and the of the 4th and 6th also on Chandos with Järvi. 'Music of the Spheres'- incredible, visionary piece, isn't it? Even Ligeti was impressed when he saw the score in 1960s. Symphonies 4 and 6 are also among the cream of the sixteen (others, for me, are 10, 13, 14 and 16).

[bhodges]

I don't know those performances. I have the 'Music of the Spheres' with Rozhdestvensky on Chandos, and the of the 4th and 6th also on Chandos with Järvi. 'Music of the Spheres'- incredible, visionary piece, isn't it? Even Ligeti was impressed when he saw the score in 1960s. Symphonies 4 and 6 are also among the cream of the sixteen (others, for me, are 10, 13, 14 and 16).

Incredible and visionary, indeed.  (I will no doubt get the Chandos soon, just to hear another version of it.)  Here is the only pic of the cover I could find--sorry it's so small.

--Bruce

[Brian]

Consecutively:

SCHUBERT | Unfinished Symphony
Vienna Philharmonic, Carlos Kleiber

SCHUBERT | Unfinished Symphony
Royal Concertgebouw, Nikolaus Harnoncourt

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Incredible and visionary, indeed.  (I will no doubt get the Chandos soon, just to hear another version of it.)  Here is the only pic of the cover I could find--sorry it's so small.

Thanks. By the way - Langgaard's development wasn't linear. If you subscribe to the idea of progress in the arts, Langgaard's work is positively scandalous. Almost nothing he wrote later went as far as 'Music of the Spheres'. In a sense he is almost 'post-modern' in his stylistic diversity. So the other symphonies I mentioned as my favourites are more late-romantic in tone, but in a very pure and fresh way - no cloying chromaticism. It boils down to this - I simply love his very individual voice, whatever 'language' he is speaking. So I keep my modernist orthodoxy, and my Adorno, safely away...

[ChamberNut]

This afternoon's listening:

Schubert - Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D.759 Unfinished
Schubert - Symphony No. 9 in C major, D.944 The Great
Berliner Philharmoniker
HVK

EMI Classics

***************************************

Golijov - Oceana

Luciana Souza, vocals
Gwinnett Young Singers
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Robert Spano, conducting

Golijov - Tenebrae

Kronos Quartet

DG Label

[Kullervo]

[SonicMan46]

That box is fabulous, and I listen to it, in one go, and another one, and another....

Harry - LOL!    Actually, I listened to 4 of the discs - just delightful - but then took my wife out to dinner!    Dave

[BachQ]

Bruckner 9 (Boulez / VPO)
Brahms PC 1 (Weissenberg)
Bruckner 8 (Chailly/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra)

[hautbois]

Bruckner 8 (Chailly/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra)[/b][/i]

Ain't this fabulous!

Howard

[Sef]

Listening to this in the car on my way to and from picking up my daughter from Orchestra practise. Don't think she appreciated it, but it reminds me of the old country - so there.

[Ephemerid]

Papa Haydn: Symphony No. 94 (the second movement still cracks me up)

Capella Istropolitana (Naxos)

[Dana]

Listening to this in the car on my way to and from picking up my daughter from Orchestra practise. Don't think she appreciated it, but it reminds me of the old country - so there.

You tell your daughter.

[Brian]

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV | Night on Mount Triglav
Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Bystrick Rezucha

This man knew how to orchestrate a good thirty-minute tone poem!

[Brian]

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV | Scheherazade
Czech Philharmonic, Zdenek Chalabala

When I was growing up my parents had two CDs of this work (one with the Slovak Philharmonic and Bystrick Rezucha, the other with Bernard Haitink and Concertgebouw). The concept of having two recordings of one piece really, really confused me. Why would they do that? I used to think, and naturally I would listen to the two and try to figure out which was better.* But even then, with those recordings being my only exposure to the music, neither satisfied me! Through whatever aspect of my listening (imagination? arrogance?) I saw manifold ways that they both could be better. But I never found a third recording of the work to compare them to - until today. Lilas Pastia praised this performance earlier in the thread, and after a quick Google search I found it. It's extraordinary - and that bassoon solo in the second movement! Wow    Now, at last, in antiquated mono sound, I am hearing Scheherazade the way (mostly) that I always imagined it to be.

Rimsky-Korsakov was an incredible orchestral composer, no? We should not allow the exceeding fame and popularity of Scheherazade cloud the fact that it is exceptionally well-made and wonderful in just about every way.

*Of course, now I am the guy with six recordings of Tchaikovsky's Fifth, four of which you can hear in the Unofficial Mystery Orchestra thread in the Great Recordings forum! Some intriguing fare...check it out.