What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Harry]

This is a very fine disc, purchased from the Buy Me list of Hyperion. I always liked the works of Boris, due to a Naxos disc I bought aeon's ago.
The works are well performed and recorded, especially the Sinfonietta for String Orchestra lingers long afterwards in my mind.
Recommended.

[Florestan]

Mahler

Symphony No. 5

Solti / CSO

[jlaurson]

Meeeeoooooow!



J.S. Bach
Matthew Passion
Riccardo Chailly
Leipzig Gewandhaus
Chum, Mueller-Brachmann,
Landshamer, Chappuis,
Schmitt, Quasthoff
Haeger
Thomaner Choir
(i.e. boys voices)

Speedy, so fleet, so very elegant... I am tempted to suggest Italianate beauty and a rhythm so fluid and it feels like a gently-bubbling parlando, inexorably sweeping the listener along with the beauty of Bach.

Much is won in this immediately touching opening, but some is lost, too. The function of a dialogue between the choruses, for example, is reduced to a string of musical accents. It no longer supports, much less suggests the text. Take Eunoch von Guttenberg's recording (Farao) for the other extreme: A grand and humbling rendition that explicitly intimates the text through the music, even if that means taking interpretive liberties.

The choruses, with extreme but not gimmicky dynamic gradations, are as sweet as I have ever heard. Not the most moving, visceral experience, but perhaps the most beautiful I've heard.

The text isn't always taking a second seat. At least that what one of the slowest renditions of this most touching of Jesus' parts—"Nehmet, esset, das ist mein Leib"—suggest.

[Florestan]

[karlhenning]

...along with the exquisite Scriabin of Lettberg.

Hi Tasos - I've gone through this set several times now - just about perfect (if not!) - glad that you are enjoying her as much as I have (and, I think, many others who have bought this superb collection!) - Dave 

It's high time I pulled the trigger on this one, gents . . . and (apart from your reminder here) one catalyst was (curiously) listening to a Chick Corea piano solo disc in which he 'jazzifies' (in his own inimitable way) two of the Opus 11 Preludes . . . .

[karlhenning]

Also, greatly though I enjoy the Alkan disc I recently snaffled . . . as I considered expanding my Alkan holdings, a voice inside me asked, Is it right, when you do not yet have all the Skryabin sonatas? . . .

[SonicMan46]

This is a very fine disc, purchased from the Buy Me list of Hyperion. I always liked the works of Boris, due to a Naxos disc I bought aeon's ago.
The works are well performed and recorded, especially the Sinfonietta for String Orchestra lingers long afterwards in my mind.
Recommended.

Harry - glad that you're enjoying the disc below; put in an order at BRO ($7) for it myself - actually will be my first experience w/ his music!    Dave

[George]

Morning, friends!

Bartok
String Quartet 1
Vegh Quartet
Naive

Beautiful reading of this quartet.

[Todd]

Always reliable in Czech music, Mackerras's new disc of Dvorak tone poems is superb.  (The Golden Spinning Wheel is a reissue from an earlier disc with Dvorak's Sixth.)  He gets the tempi right, the energy right, the Dvorak sound right.  It helps that he is using the Czech Philharmonic.  Great sound.  A self-recommending disc that joins Kubelik in this repertoire for me.

[Antoine Marchand]

Weird days in Chile. 

During the morning several aftershocks, two of them between 6 and 7 degrees in the Richter scale.

One hour ago the new President Sebastián Piñera assumed in Valparaíso, while the people evacuated part of the city because of an alert of tsunami.

Now listening to:

Beethoven - Op. 18 N°4; Op. 131
Alban Berg Quartet
Recorded "live" at the Mozart Saal, Konzerthaus, Vienna VI.1989
Emi Classics

[Opus106]

Weird days in Chile. 

During the morning several aftershocks, two of them between 6 and 7 degrees in the Richter scale.

One hour ago the new President Sebastián Piñera assumed in Valparaíso, while the people evacuated part of the city because of an alert of tsunami.

Oh, my! 6 and 7!

[Harry]

Robin Milford.
Fishing by Moonlight.
Orchestral Works.

Guildhall Strings, Robert Salter.

I would not be surprised if you would not have heard of this composer. He sort of fell between his famous peers into nothingness, although his works are of considerable quality as this CD proves abundantly. Finely structured works, with lots of beautiful turns and twists. Every one of the works on this CD is a enjoyable experience, so much so that I played it three times in succession. Well recorded and performed this BUY ME CD from Hyperion is worth the money I paid for it.

[DavidRoss]

I love much of the music in this...grand and lovely.  It's easy to see what Bruckner aspired to, and why.

[Que]

Weird days in Chile. 

During the morning several aftershocks, two of them between 6 and 7 degrees in the Richter scale.

One hour ago the new President Sebastián Piñera assumed in Valparaíso, while the people evacuated part of the city because of an alert of tsunami.

Glad to see that you are still safe & sound!

Listening:



Q

[listener]

more BARBER  - Capricorn Concerto,  Essay #1
COPLAND  Saga of the Prairies (aka Music for Radio & Prairie Journal), Outdoor Overture
IVES:  3rd Orchestral Set: Overture

ARENSKY   Piano Music   Preludes opp. 63, Études op.74,   Essais sur des rythmes oubliés, op.28, Arabesques op.67,   3 Morceaux  op. 42
Anthony Goldstone, piano

[mc ukrneal]

ARENSKY   Piano Music   Preludes opp. 63, 74,   Essais sur des rythmes oubliés, op.28, Arabesques op.67,   3 Morceaux  op. 42
Anthony Goldstone, piano

How is this disc? Divine Art appears to be in the process of re-releasing some of these issues that were originally on Olympia.  I'll keep my eye out for this one! I really enjoy Arensky.  Lyapunov is coming out soon, and I am interested in that one too.

[listener]

How is this disc? Divine Art appears to be in the process of re-releasing some of these issues that were originally on Olympia.  I'll keep my eye out for this one! I really enjoy Arensky.  Lyapunov is coming out soon, and I am interested in that one too.

39 tracks in just over an hour, I was tempted to write "salon miniatures", but remembered Chopin's Preludes and Études are not very long either.    Easy on the ears, with a bit more exoticism in the Essais, and pianists who know the Études or hear them better than I do might find depths that a casual hearer would be unaware of.
The whole programme sounds well-played.

[mahler10th]

BADINGS
Symphony #12
This is the best 'new' thing I've heard for ages.

[George]

Bach
WTC BK 1, CD 1
Koroliov
Tacet

Impressive!

[greg]

Taking a quick listen to Bertini's Mahler 9 Adagio. Of course, my favorite recording is Karajan's live, but this is almost as good- I think what I like about it is the very slightly faster tempo here.

But... the tempo of the second theme is way too slow, the horns don't quite come alive when needed to, and I can't hear that climbing bass line at the start of the second theme.

Probably the best recording I could think of in any way would be if you take the Karajan live, sped it up just slightly to get Bertini's tempo, and then during the ending during the 7th to last bar during that 4-note phrase, make notes 2 and 4 out of that phrase staccato, just how I've heard Abbado do.