What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Bulldog]

Here is just one.  There are also many booklets that came with baroque recordings that quoted the 1759 date.  I do not care to split hair with you but certainly accept the consensus view, your objection notwithstanding.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_music

What consensus view?  Even your link offers two dates - 1750 and 1760, but no 1759.  The point is that musical styles just don't end on a certain day; they gradually decline.  So forget about this "official" nonsense.

[listener]

Janina Fialkowska will play both concertos on the same program, three performances, so I'm getting them back into my memory.   When she was here in1978 she played only no.2, thirty years on it appears that she does not find them to be as difficult.
so today
CHOPIN    Études  opp. 10 & 25   François-René Duchable, piano
Piano Concerto 1, 'La ci darem...' variations, and Andante Spinato and Grande Polonaise
Alexis Weissenberg, piano.

and a reminder

By Anne Midgette
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 21, 2010

Monday, Feb. 22, is Frédéric Chopin's 200th birthday. That is, it's Fryderyk Chopin's birthday; the Polish-born, Paris-dwelling composer's name is more commonly spelled these days with Ys. And that's his birth date according to a baptismal certificate; the composer said he was born on March 1. Even 200 years after his birth, things that appear simple about Chopin are actually more complicated than they seem.

Including, and above all, his music. Chopin's piano pieces -- all of his pieces involve the piano: no symphonies or operas here -- are lyrical and lovely, poetic and, therefore, seen as accessible. Yet they can also be harmonically intricate, technically challenging.

His 24 Op. 10 and Op. 25 Etudes, far from being simple "studies" for students, are so difficult that the great pianist and Chopin specialist Artur Rubinstein avoided playing some of them. And they can be elliptical to the point of impenetrability (take the final movement of the Second Sonata: a whirling cloud of sound less than two minutes long). Taken together, Chopin's pieces represent a towering hurdle, the benchmark against which a classical pianist is measured -- in part because of the difficulty of finding a way to plumb the music's depths while sounding simple.

link  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/18/AR2010021806498.html

[mahler10th]

JANACEK | Glagolitic Mass
Czech Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra
Karel Ancerl
I listen to this about every three weeks, and since the last time was January 30 and I started feeling the hankering this afternoon, well, here we are. A great mass for Sundays. 

Aye, I was listening to that earlier on too.  A mass for the secular.  You can tell it's Janacek from the opening notes.  Great stuff.

[Coopmv]

What consensus view?  Even your link offers two dates - 1750 and 1760, but no 1759.  The point is that musical styles just don't end on a certain day; they gradually decline.  So forget about this "official" nonsense.

Why don't you take a hike?  You and I will NEVER agree on anything.  The link was just meant to show you there is a generally accepted date for the end of the baroque period to refute your assertion that there is no date.  End of story.

[knight66]

Wiki quote.....approximately extending from 1600 to 1750.

This was not like the end of the First World War with a specific date when peace broke out.

Music evolved.

Mike

[knight66]

Sometimes it evolved, sometimes it changed. Change was influenced by what went before; even where the change was in reaction against existing music. Evolve, change, develop......but what did not happen was a sudden corporate decision to stop one mode of music and to inaugurate a new one. Some composers did influence one another and bring forward specific ideas, but the naming of an era in music was something musicologists did in retrospect.

Mike

[Antoine Marchand]

Really a case be six on one side and half a dozen on the other.   

... and a gratuitous insult in addition. 

[Moldyoldie]

Schubert: Fantasia for piano in C major ("Wanderer")
Schumann: Fantasy for piano in C major
Maurizio Pollini, piano
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON

What a beautiful finale to the Schumann!  A very fine alternative to Richter's, my personal favorite.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I neglect Howells too much, mainly due to his strong choral music which overshadows all the rest. It's unjust because so much of what he writes is superb - I recall enjoying the concerto for string orchestra, and so far the first movement is living up to this recollection. At times it conjurs up a feeling of Vaughan Williams at his most passionate, but there are more angular edges and the work remains rather earthbound where so much of VW's music tends to take wing at some point. VW also didn't write string music on quite this scale, so it's fascinating to continue to compare the two, but may not do Howells full justice. The comparison may also imply the Howells work as slightly unsuccessful, but I'm enjoying it thoroughly.

Edit: The piano concerto is nice life-affirming stuff. Not as pictoral as some, not quite as grand as John Ireland's one, not as four-square as Stanford. Good middling stuff, and not as trifling as I had expected.

Thanks, Sarah. Nice write-up! I have a few things by Howells. Must listen to them.

[Gurn Blanston]

As ludicrous as it is to define an end to a musical era, I will just drop this little tit-bit of info and then move along to thread duty; 1759, while impossibly precise, is the year of death of Handel (April 14, 1759). Clearly the people who propose that date feel as though he was the only composer of any significance still plying the trade, and that with his passing, there was no longer anyone writing or playing anything polyphonic. Although Haydn was still around for a while, surely HE was Baroque (I've read it here twice lately, must be true... ).



----------------
Listening to:
La Petite Bande \ Kuijken - Hob 01 102 Symphony in Bb 2nd mvmt - Adagio

Splendid set, this was the 5th and final disk towards giving me the complete cycle. It was worth the 6 month effort of assembling the individual disks.

[Antoine Marchand]

Listening to:
La Petite Bande \ Kuijken - Hob 01 102 Symphony in Bb 2nd mvmt - Adagio

Splendid set, this was the 5th and final disk towards giving me the complete cycle. It was worth the 6 month effort of assembling the individual disks.

I own two of those discs dedicated to the London Symphonies, Gurn. Both of them are excellent, but I have not completed the set because I have been considering during two or three years ( ) to purchase the set remastered in Japan. I have heard wonderful things about its sound quality, but I hate to duplicate discs.

[Tom 1960]

Anton Bruckner - Symphony #8
Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conductor

[Coopmv]

Anton Bruckner - Symphony #8
Vienna Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conductor

I have this DVD set, which I think pre-dated the CD set by a few years.  The DVD is great ...

[Tom 1960]

I have this DVD set, which I think pre-dated the CD set by a few years.  The DVD is great ...

Excellent! Thanks for mentioning it. I see Netflix has it available. Now adding it to my queue. 

[Gurn Blanston]

I own two of those discs dedicated to the London Symphonies, Gurn. Both of them are excellent, but I have not completed the set because I have been considering during two or three years ( ) to purchase the set remastered in Japan. I have heard wonderful things about its sound quality, but I hate to duplicate discs.

Yes, that's where I was a few months ago; I had 2 disks and wanted the set. I decided to shop for the singles instead of going the box set route, just because I enjoy a challenge...  



----------------
Listening to:
La Petite Bande \ Kuijken - Hob 01 103 Symphony in Eb 2nd mvmt - Andante piú tosto allegro (Disk 5)

[Bulldog]

Why don't you take a hike?  You and I will NEVER agree on anything. 

I'm here for the long-term, and we do agree from time to time. 

[Coopmv]

Disc 2 - 74:04
Concerti grossi op.6
nos. 7-11
HWV 325-329

I have the following set, which is exactly identical to your set minus the Water Music.  IMO, this is one of the best versions of Handel Concerti Grossi Op. 6 performed on modern instruments.  It gave the ASMIF, an expert ensemble when it comes to Handel's works, a run for the money.  The gold standard of this work IMO is still the version by Pinnock and the English Concert recorded back in the early to mid 80's.

[Coopmv]

CD1 from this set, another new acquisition.  I probably have the "New World" by Colin Davis and the RCO on LP ...

[DavidRoss]

I'm here for the long-term, and we do agree from time to time.

I value your geniality, your wit, your graciousness, and your consistently informed, thoughtful comments on great music and recordings, Don. You're one of the reasons I keep coming back...and I'm sure most others here feel the same way.  Thanks for sticking around and sharing your experienced perspective so unselfishly.

Whoops! Thread duty:  Zelenka Trio Sonatas, Holliger, Bourgue, Zehetmair, et al.  Delightful.

[Scarpia]

I have this DVD set, which I think pre-dated the CD set by a few years.  The DVD is great ...

That one is '77, I believe, a reunion concert for Karajan and the VPO after a break when he left the Vienna State Opera.  There is also a video for the '89.  The '77 video is an actual concert, the '88 is essentially a recording session with video cameras.  The '77 set is from a time when Karajan was having terrible back troubles, and you can see the pain he was ignoring to conduct that concert only by a sort of grimace visible as he first mounts the podium.