What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Scarpia]

Prokofiev, Symphony No 6, Ozawa, Berlin (first movement).

Got considerable enjoyment from it, but the recording is really weird sounding, inconsistent perspectives with some parts of the orchestra sounding distant, others close up.  Like a caricature of a bad DG recording.   And there's that clicking of the oboe keys.  Still, the music comes across as simply conceived but compelling.

[Coco]

[Conor71]

Now Playing:

[asin]B003647BUE[/asin]

Bach: Magnificat

[Conor71]

and?

Hehehe  - I quite enjoyed the Xenakis this time around (finding it quite amusing more than anything else!) and have listened to all of the first Disc quite easily!. The sounds Xenakis elicits from the various ensembles on the record are pretty interesting but Im not sure if I'd describe it as music, in the traditional sense anyway!  .
I am going to re-listen to these works later on today with some other modern stuff like Ligeti and Stockhausen and see how I get on with those - It definetely makes for a nice detour in my normal listening! .

[Brahmsian]

A primer for Friday night's concert:

Tchaikovsksy

Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op.64

Riccardo Muti
Philharmonia Orchestra
Brilliant Classics

[asin]B000B7VZTM[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

Now:

[asin]B000095SL0[/asin]

Really enjoying this recording so far. Listening to The Spring Running from The Jungle Book. This is a very vivid reading.

[Sid]

Last night, apart from listening to the Beethoven late quartets, I also listened to this somewhat lighter disc which I borrowed from the library:

RAWSTHORNE
Street Corner Overture (1944)
Madame Chrysantheme Ballet Suite (1957)
Practical Cats - An entertainment for speaker & orch. (1954) Words: T. S. Eliot (Simon Callow, narrator)
Theme, Variations & Finale (1967) *
Medieval Diptych, for baritone & orch (1962) (Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone)
Coronation Overture (1953) *

* World premiere recordings
Royal Liverpool PO/David Lloyd-Jones
Epoch/Dutton

This is an interesting disc, a good collection as any of Rawsthorne's music. What I like about him is that he's not long-winded, most of his works are short and sweet. So you get a whole lot of works on the one disc. This music is not far from the styles of Prokofiev and Hindemith, perhaps with a tiny touch of Schoenberg. My favourite work on the disc, and one which I have listened to a fair few times, is the Practical Cats suite. Narrator Simon Callow hams it up and the orchestral writing is colourful and complements the words very well. I thought I could even hear a fragment of Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory in there! The other work which grabbed my attention was the Medieval Diptych, a two part song-cycle for baritone and orchestra. Here, the atonal harmonies of Schoenberg could be detected a bit, but these works (according to the liner notes) were still pretty firmly tonal. The text is based on Latin sacred texts, but sung in English. This work starts out in darkness but ends in a flood of light. All in all a very enjoyable disc, worth getting your hands on especially for the two works using the voice...

[asin]B0013LELGO[/asin]

[Mirror Image]

RAWSTHORNE
Street Corner Overture (1944)
Madame Chrysantheme Ballet Suite (1957)
Practical Cats - An entertainment for speaker & orch. (1954) Words: T. S. Eliot (Simon Callow, narrator)
Theme, Variations & Finale (1967) *
Medieval Diptych, for baritone & orch (1962) (Jeremy Huw Williams, baritone)
Coronation Overture (1953) *

* World premiere recordings
Royal Liverpool PO/David Lloyd-Jones
Epoch/Dutton

This is an interesting disc, a good collection as any of Rawsthorne's music. What I like about him is that he's not long-winded, most of his works are short and sweet. So you get a whole lot of works on the one disc. This music is not far from the styles of Prokofiev and Hindemith, perhaps with a tiny touch of Schoenberg. My favourite work on the disc, and one which I have listened to a fair few times, is the Practical Cats suite. Narrator Simon Callow hams it up and the orchestral writing is colourful and complements the words very well. I thought I could even hear a fragment of Elgar's Land of Hope and Glory in there! The other work which grabbed my attention was the Medieval Diptych, a two part song-cycle for baritone and orchestra. Here, the atonal harmonies of Schoenberg could be detected a bit, but these works (according to the liner notes) were still pretty firmly tonal. The text is based on Latin sacred texts, but sung in English. This work starts out in darkness but ends in a flood of light. All in all a very enjoyable disc, worth getting your hands on especially for the two works using the voice...

[asin]B0013LELGO[/asin]

Looks interesting, Sid. As you know, I'm a fan of Rawsthorne. I'll have to check this disc out, but I'm still making my through the Naxos series. I've got just so much to listen to that my head is spinning. Ah the pleasures of having too many options.

By the way, I'm thinking of getting all of the Beethoven SQs myself at some point. I'm going to go with the Takacs Quartet sets on Decca, which have received high acclaim. I'm also going to be revisit Beethoven's symphonies and PCs, but this time with Harnoncourt at the helm. I really need to get more familiar with these works as it has been awhile since I heard them. Schubert, Schumann, and Haydn are also three composers I plan to dive more into in the coming weeks. Let's see if I can actually stick to this plan and not become distracted with another tempting Koechlin recording.

[Sid]

...By the way, I'm thinking of getting all of the Beethoven SQs myself at some point. I'm going to go with the Takacs Quartet sets on Decca, which have received high acclaim. I'm also going to be revisit Beethoven's symphonies and PCs, but this time with Harnoncourt at the helm. I really need to get more familiar with these works. Schubert, Schumann, and Haydn are also three composers I plan to dive more into in the coming weeks. Let's see if I can actually stick to this plan and not become distracted with another tempting Koechlin recording.

I've been delving into the Beethoven late quartets during the past few weeks/months & they're amazing works. Not only a wealth of ideas and innovation in terms of technique, but also some of the most profound emotions that can be garnered from this medium. Basically, anybody who was significant in musical terms that heard them - such as Schubert, Wagner and Stravinsky to name three - held them in very high regard.

& Schubert, Schumann & Haydn are also great in many ways. I'd also recommend Monteverdi while you're at it...

[Mirror Image]

I've been delving into the Beethoven late quartets during the past few weeks/months & they're amazing works. Not only a wealth of ideas and innovation in terms of technique, but also some of the most profound emotions that can be garnered from this medium. Basically, anybody who was significant in musical terms that heard them - such as Schubert, Wagner and Stravinsky to name three - held them in very high regard.

& Schubert, Schumann & Haydn are also great in many ways. I'd also recommend Monteverdi while you're at it...

Well if Schubert, Wagner, and Stravinsky held them in high regard then by all means I've got to hear them! I don't really care who held them in high regard, Sid. That's totally irrelevant to me as a listener. What is relevant is whether they're going to move me or not.

Edit: Don't think I'm being rude to you, because this is not my intention, but when it comes to listening everything is irrelevant except what I'm hearing at that moment.

[Sid]

Well if Schubert, Wagner, and Stravinsky held them in high regard then by all means I've got to hear them! I don't really care who held them in high regard, Sid. That's totally irrelevant to me as a listener. What is relevant is whether they're going to move me or not.

Yeah, but don't you think if works like Beethoven's late quartets did "move" guys like Schubert, Wagner & Stravinsky on a whole variety of levels - in terms of emotion but also technique and innovation - they aren't going to "move" most people with an interest in classical music? I mean these guys were all geniuses of their art in their own right, they were receptive and perceptive to this type of music to degrees way beyond most other people. For me personally, what they had to say about their reactions to this music is useful, because they help me understand Beethoven a bit more - and these are his most complex works (along with the Hammerklavier Sonata and 9th symphony)...

[Mirror Image]

Yeah, but don't you think if works like Beethoven's late quartets did "move" guys like Schubert, Wagner & Stravinsky on a whole variety of levels - in terms of emotion but also technique and innovation - they aren't going to "move" most people with an interest in classical music? I mean these guys were all geniuses of their art in their own right, they were receptive and perceptive to this type of music to degrees way beyond most other people. For me personally, what they had to say about their reactions to this music is useful, because they help me understand Beethoven a bit more - and these are his most complex works (along with the Hammerklavier Sonata and 9th symphony)...

Well I'm not Schubert, Wagner, nor am I Stravinsky. Last time I checked neither is anybody else. Where I'm getting at is in the process of listening it doesn't matter who thought what was important or influential. What matters is what I'm hearing at that moment. There's only one thing that matters at that moment and it is the music.

[Sid]

...What matters is what I'm hearing at that moment. There's only one thing that matters at that moment and it is the music.

Fair enough...

Similar to what you are saying - I was in a bookshop on the weekend & picked up a book on Beethoven. Checked the index for a reference to the late quartets & they were only mentioned once. I flipped to the page & the author said that the late quartets are easily amongst the greatest written in the genre - if not the greatest - but that's just about all he said. He added that the listener just has to approach them on his/her own terms & appreciate them in their own way, there's no use in the author in wasting dozens of paragraphs or pages on these complex and dense works - it's better for the listener just to listen to them and let them sink in (a process of osmosis?). Some music is beyond words, and if there is any music like that, Beethoven's late opuses are it. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed reading analyses of these works, they have enhanced my understanding of some aspects of these works, but the emotional aspects are what always grabbed me the most, from first listen (of course, technique & emotion are also inseperable).

A good movie to watch - the soundtrack is chock full of Beethoven's late quartets - is The Soloist, starring Robert Downey Jnr. & Jamie Foxx. A very moving film, not least because of Beethoven's very human and timeless music. & some critics of Beethoven's time said these works were virtually impenetrable and understandable only by a select few. I say pfffft to that!!!

[Coco]

Hehehe  - I quite enjoyed the Xenakis this time around (finding it quite amusing more than anything else!) and have listened to all of the first Disc quite easily!. The sounds Xenakis elicits from the various ensembles on the record are pretty interesting but Im not sure if I'd describe it as music, in the traditional sense anyway!  .

[zorzynek]

It's been a while. Anyone remembers me?



4th was just ok. I guess I expected more. 5th sonata was a bit hysteric. I don't like hysteric. I can't cope with Scriabin's school of Russian hysteric piano.  6th sonata is really good.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Joseph Marx is an Austrian composer (1882-1962). I heard a few items of this CD on a Spanish radio programme, devoted to forgotten composers (Los Raros), and I'm really smitten... The 'Herbstchor an Pan' (Autumn Chorus to Pan) is an ecstatic piece in the Delian mould and the three orchestral songs I heard are as beautiful and exquisite as any by Korngold. I already knew Marx's 'Romantic Piano Concerto', but I now know I'm going to explore some more...

[DavidW]

MI the Takacs set is an excellent cycle, my favorite modern one!

Sid, I also loved the beautiful choice of Beethoven music in The Soloist.

[Sergeant Rock]

Arrived this morning. Taking it out for its first test drive:




Sarge

[Brian]

Hindemith Conducts Hindemith
Mathis der Maler with the BPO

[Brahmsian]

Good morning!  Trying to start off the day with ultra-sublimeness, and this works perfectly! 

Mozart

String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K.575 "Prussian Quartet No. 1"
String Quartet No. 22 in B flat major, K.589 "Prussian Quartet No. 2"
String Quartet No. 23 in F major, K.590 "Prussian Quartet No. 3"

Alban Berg Quartett
Teldec