What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Bulldog]

Bach's organ works from Margaret Phillips on the Regent label - so far, four 2-cd volumes.  Uplifiting performances with plenty of rhythmic flair.  Not among the best in my collection, but worthy of space in the music library.

[Kullervo]

Walton - Symphony No. 1 (Ashkenazy/Royal Phil), Violin Concerto (Previn/LSO/K.W. Chung)

Sensors are detecting hints of Sibelius in the first.

[Keemun]

And I will be sampling that recording (at a low bit-rate) later tonight. Symphony No. 2.

Enjoy!

~~~~~
Now listening to Sibelius: Symphony No. 4 (Segerstam/Helsinki PO)

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Never noted before how Brahmsian the Finale: Allegro con spirito starts out.

Karl I'm surprised it took you so long  the heavy influence of Brahms' 2nd (also D major!) is much to be felt in this symphony, esp. in the finale.

[Brian]

TCHAIKOVSKY | Piano Concerto No 2
Konstantin Scherbakov, piano
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra; Dmitry Yablonsky

My first listen to this piece in almost seven months! I have to write a 1500 word paper today from scratch, so there's going to be a lot of listening going on.  Suggestions?

[Brian]

Karl I'm surprised it took you so long  the heavy influence of Brahms' 2nd (also D major!) is much to be felt in this symphony, esp. in the finale.

But at the same time, that third movement is really Dvorak's own, and I feel like there are some dance-like interludes in the finale, like the second theme, which are distinctly his; slap-happy Brahms (if that is how one characterizes the finale of his Second) is still a whole lot more serious, "weightier" than this. The codas are very similar in a lot of ways, but the ways in which Dvorak does take a different approach are telling.

It's also interesting to me how the finale of his Sixth has, roughly, a "theme" for each big orchestra section - the first one is owned by the strings, the second by the winds, and eventually the brass come to dominate the third.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

But at the same time, that third movement is really Dvorak's own,

Yes indeed; it's a furiant, a Czech dance form.

Really great symphony anyway - I think it stands alongside the 7th as D's best.

[Brian]

Really great symphony anyway - I think it stands alongside the 7th as D's best.

Well I am glad to agree with you that his best is not, as so many say, the Ninth. Perhaps that symphony is overrated here in the States because we're flattered by the subtitle?

The other day, on the train to school, I spent a little over twenty minutes breaking down the first movement of #7, tracking all the main motifs back to their origins and going through it phrase-by-phrase looking at how he sustains the movement's tension for so long. I was continually amazed by how much of the movement is built on that weird F-D-Bflat in the first few seconds.

[Bulldog]

Well I am glad to agree with you that his best is not, as so many say, the Ninth. Perhaps that symphony is overrated here in the States because we're flattered by the subtitle?

I doubt it.  Dvorak's 9th is, by far, his most popular symphony in both the States and Europe.

[karlhenning]

I doubt it.  Dvorak's 9th is, by far, his most popular symphony in both the States and Europe.

I don't trouble myself over whether the Ninth is Dvořák's best;  I just know that I've always liked it, from the first I heard it.

(And, actually, I was probably playing it as early as I ever heard it.)

[pjme]

On "France Musique" : André Mathieu's 4th pianoconcerto. A galaconcert in honour of 400 years Quebec.
As far as I could tell, Alain Lefèbre played ALL the notes,runs, trills and arpeggios and the French National orchestra( Jean Philippe Tremblay conducting) swooned, crooned,sighed ,marched and thundered it's implaccable way through even more thrills and arpeggios. Rachmaninoff is the main influence in this hyper-manic blockbuster- but Kachaturian, Respighi,Scriabin, Liszt and Chopin all ( seated in Heaven's frontrow) nodded in a slightly amused way . ( one can propably add some Debussy and the odd dash of Bartok aswell..)

Anyway, I won't buy the disc ( Analekta - more than 2000 CD's sold), but for late Romantic-super-virtuoso -pyrotechnics -piano fanatics it is propably a must.

Read all about the rediscovery & reconstruction of this score at http://www.analekta.com/en/press/news.aspx?ID=120

P

[Brian]

I don't trouble myself over whether the Ninth is Dvořák's best;  I just know that I've always liked it, from the first I heard it.

(And, actually, I was probably playing it as early as I ever heard it.)

I'm of two minds; I love the first two movements, but the piece is never really one I think about listening to when it's time to put on some Dvořák.

Which it is not at the moment, incidentally:
SCHUMANN | Fantasie in C
Sviatoslav Richter

Maybe it's not so surprising that the Seventh isn't more popular in concert halls. It is a pretty darn weird piece...

[karlhenning]

Stefan Wolpe
Trio in Two Parts for Flute, Cello & Piano (1964)
Harvey Sollberger, fl
Fred Sherry, vc
Chas Wuorinen, pf

[Keemun]

Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (final version) (Vanska/Lahti SO)

[M forever]

Harvey Sollberger, fl

Harvey used to conduct the La Jolla Symphony in which I played for several years. We also went drinking a few times.

[Keemun]

Finishing my Sibelius symphony cycle with this:

[Ric]

Listening to these recordings I can't understand why someone said that Schumann didn't know how orchestrate.

[M forever]

He didn't - these symphonies were actually composed by his wife Clara and just published under his name because women weren't taken seriously as composers back then.

[Ric]

He didn't - these symphonies were actually composed by his wife Clara and just published under his name because women weren't taken seriously as composers back then.

are you saying it seriously?

[adamdavid80]

He didn't - these symphonies were actually composed by his wife Clara and just published under his name because women weren't taken seriously as composers back then.

Are you saying sarah pain composed Schumann's symphonies???