What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Harry]

Johann Strauss.
"Eine Nacht in Venedig"
Soloists: Carlo Bini, Wolfgang Brendel, Jeannetta Scovotti, Karl Donch, Elisabeth Steiner, Frieder Stricker, Elke Schary.
Choir of the Hungarian Radio, and the Hungarian State Orchestra, Ernst Marzendorfer.
Date of recording unknown.

Not bad at all, and reasonably recorded. All are unknown names to me.

Ernst Märzendorfer was born in Oberndorf, Salzburg. He studied with Clemens Krauss at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and became the first conductor of the Graz Opera in 1945. In 1951 and 1952 he was invited to the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and from 1953 to 1958, he was the principal conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, conducting several tours with the orchestra, including a highly acclaimed American tour. In 1954 he became a guest conductor at the Salzburg Festival, and was appointed musical director of the Festival in Hellbrunn in 1976, where he conducted, among many other productions, twenty different stage works of Offenbach during the Salzburg Festival. Operettas include Die lustige Witwe and Der Zigeunerbaron in Italy. In 1961 he became permanent conductor at the State Opera in Vienna, and for many years since 1964, he has served as a regular conductor at the Berlin State Opera. Among innumerable concerts and opera engagements in Europe, North and South America, he conducted the première performances of Capriccio by Richard Strauss in New York, Der Rosenkavalier and Siegfried in Rome, Rheingold in Naples, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Parsifal in Berlin, and the first performance of Richard Strauss's last opera Des Esels Schatten in Salzburg. His numerous recordings and television productions of complete works include L'elisir d'amore of Donizetti, Johann Strauss's Eine Nacht in Venedig, Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots, and the first recording worldwide of the 107 Symphonies of Haydn, with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Professional highpoints of his conducting career include memorable performances of Pfitzner's Palestrina at the Vienna State Opera, Handel's Messiah at the Festival in Bratislava, the première in Vienna of the first version of Richard Strauss's Macbeth, a tour of Japan with the NHK Orchestra, Gluck's Telemaco in the Vienna Concert House and in Salzburg, Orfeo at the Dubrovnik Festival, Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo of Cavalieri, and Stravinsky's Persephone at the Salzburg Festival, the Vienna State Opera premières of Stravinsky's Les noces and the world premières of Henze's Tancredi and Idiot also in Vienna. A new production of Richard Strauss's Alpensymphonie in the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and in Lisbon is one in a continuing chain of important events, including world premières with the Vienna State Opera, of which Ernst Märzendorfer was nominated as an Honorary member in March 1999.

[FideLeo]

That rises the question: who are the hipsters that you were referring to?

Original hipsters who identify themselves with cultish behaviours and collections.  There are fans who specialise in listing and collecting requiem recordings; their activities as collectors are genre-specific, spanning from Ockeghem to [some 21st century composer who just wrote a requiem mass].

Wow, interesting stuff. Eustache du Caurroy is a new name to me! French late Renaissance is still uncharted territory for me.

Eustache du Caurroy a new name to you?  Then, as a fan of Jordi Savall, you will not want to miss his recording of Caurroy's XXIII fantasias.  

[karlhenning]

Henning
stars & guitars, Opus 95
Peter H. Bloom, bass flute
Mary Jane Rupert, harp

[Sergeant Rock]

Webern this afternoon, beginning with In Sommerwind:



Sarge

[karlhenning]

Cool, Sarge!  A budget reissue, is it?

I got my older issue used, so I don't feel undercut 

[Sergeant Rock]

Cool, Sarge!  A budget reissue, is it?

It is. Sinopoli's Schönberg CDs are also budget priced now. Pays to have patience.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

Mozart‡
Adagio in F for three basset horns, K.580a

(* raises a glass to Gurn *)

[karlhenning]

Mozart‡
Adagio in C for clarinet & three basset horns, K.580a Anh.94

(* raises another glass to Gurn *)

[Lilas Pastia]

If I clarify by saying that by "hipsters" I don't mean musicians that do HIP, nor
classical music listeners that favour HIP...  

anyway voici another album dedicated to another discovery in early music of...
Requiem!... by Eustache du Caurroy:

I'm not sure this is the recording I have listened to a few years ago. the Requiem has been recorded a few times. It is a very impressive work, where severity becomes starkness and grief turns into desolation. All set within very bare musical means.

Schubert: 3 Klavierstücke D.948 and Sonata D. 840 (unfinished, also called 'Reliquie'). Ludwig Semerjian on a 1824 conrad graf fortepiano. This is very different from Brendel's unsettling, jazzy take on the work (which has been my benchmark for many years). But  Schubert's mucic  is an amazingly 'adaptable' commodity and Semerjian shows tons of personality here. The fortepiano sound is dullish (limited treble extension) but it's both powerful and intimate.

[karlhenning]

Mozart‡
Eight canons for winds, K.508a
Clarinet Quintet in A, K.581

(* puts the kettle back on in preparation for further tea-raising to Gurn *)

[Harry]

Franz Lehar.
"Der Sterngucker". (The Stargazer)
Operetta in Three acts.
After the libretto by Fritz Lohner & Arthur Maria Willner.
Soloists: Lothar Odinius, Claudia Rohrbach, Hanna Dora Sturdottir, Robert Worle, Markus Kohler.
Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss, Johannes Goritzki.
Recorded 2001.

A modern recording and a surprise for it is quite well sung, remembering the CPO recordings that landed in the bin. Mostly the soprano's are at fault, and occasionally a tenor that thinks himself a Helden Tenor, quite inappropriate I might say. Nothing ails this recordings, its simply well done, and recorded. And of course marvelous music, though I seem to be the only one on GMG that enjoys operetta, or maybe the only one that says so.

[Drasko]

Schubert[/b]: 3 Klavierstücke D.946

Perhaps bit unexpectedly tremendous reading of Drei Klavierstucke D946 comes from Pollini. His best Schubert recording for me.

[karlhenning]

Mozart‡
Clarinet Trio in E-flat (Kegelstatt), K.498

(* thinks he may just have drunk Gurn under the tea-cozy *)

[karlhenning]

. . . It sounds like snake oil to me, but it's interesting to hear about it anyway.

[Gurn Blanston]

Mozart‡
Clarinet Trio in E-flat (Kegelstatt), K.498

(* thinks he may just have drunk Gurn under the tea-cozy *)

Not likely, amigo, By sheer coincidence I was listening to that same work not an hour ago (Wolfgang Meyer on Classical Clarinet, with Quatuor Mosaiques).  'Mozart' did have such a nice way with clarinet, especially teamed up with viola.


Thread duty:
Camerata Berolinensis - Hob 05_04 Trio in Eb for 2 Violins & Cello 1st mvmt - Allegro

If you haven't heard Haydn's string trios, and you think they were just practice for his quartets, that is SO not true. Excellent music, very well played. Try it and see.

[DavidW]

I think that if Haydn wanted practice with string quartets, he would simply write string quartets!   I don't think it would be too far fetched to see the string trios as fulfilling another purpose.

[Scarpia]

I think that if Haydn wanted practice with string quartets, he would simply write string quartets!   I don't think it would be too far fetched to see the string trios as fulfilling another purpose.

The quartets fill 23 cds, so I'd say there was considerable practice involved.

[DavidW]

The quartets fill 23 cds, so I'd say there was considerable practice involved.

Yup, his mature style started with Op 33, and there are 36 (by the Hob catalogue) string quartets preceding that zenith, that's quite a bit of practice!

[owlice]

Schubert Sonata in B-flat major, D.960, Uchida

I love this work.

[haydnguy]

Got this at the local used CD store for $3 in 'like new' condition.

Dvorak
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor, Op. 104
Herbert
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra No. 2 in E minor, Op. 30

Yo-Yo Ma, cello
New York Philharmonic
Kurt Masur

Just finishing up the Dvorak now, but Yo-Yo Ma's playing is wonderful as is the orchestra's. Definitely a good buy at that price!