What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Drasko]

[Cato]

Stravinsky, conducting his own works. Don't have the album cover but I bought this two-volume set 5 years ago. It's titled Historical Recordings. The sound quality is pretty good for an older recording. Most of Stravinsky's chamber works are there.

Stravinsky did not like "interpretation" by conductors: I suppose somebody (a Ph.D. candidate) has listened to all of Stravinsky's recordings and compared them to the scores to see if the composer followed his own score to the letter.

I (vaguely) recall reading a review or two from the 1960's where the writer not so delicately points out the areas where Stravinsky was interpreting his own score.

But I thought: "So what?  It's his work!"   

[karlhenning]

Langgaard
Tonebilleder BVN 133 (1917)
Gitta-Maria Sjöberg
Danish National Radio Symphony
Rozhdestvensky

[asin]B000000B0N[/asin]

[DavidW]

Mozart Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard KV 306, 378, 481-- Kuijken/Devos.  Fantastic way to start the day!

[karlhenning]

Stravinsky did not like "interpretation" by conductors: I suppose somebody (a Ph.D. candidate) has listened to all of Stravinsky's recordings and compared them to the scores to see if the composer followed his own score to the letter.

To my mind the most "notorious" instance (and I've probably mentioned this before) was the closing Alleluia of the Symphony of Psalms.  When Stravinsky "revised" the score in America (and as with so many of his revisions, part of the motivation was probably to have the work protected by US copyright), he specified a slower tempo for the closing Alleluia . . . a stroke of genius, truly, for it takes what was already an exquisite passage, and emphasizes yet better its strong ties to the 'timelessness' of the Russian Orthodox liturgical choral tradition.

Where the "notoriety" comes in, is . . . that he afterwards made a high profile visit to Toronto, they performed the Symphony of Psalms with the composer conducting, they filmed the event (and offhand I believe it is this performance which is documented in the Stravinsky's Own box) and . . . whether it was conducting habit or otherwise inattention, or lack of rehearsal time, or whatever . . . he did not conduct his own revised, slower tempo in the close of the last movement on that occasion.  And of course, because it is THE recording the composer himself made, in the minds of many this is the DEFINITIVE performance.

Now, I don't have any serious quarrel with Igor Fyodorovich over the event . . . he didn't have anything to prove any more, really . . . I take it as one data point in my prickly skepticism that there can be any such thing as a DEFINITIVE performance, even in a case where the composer is at the podium.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Langgaard
Tonebilleder BVN 133 (1917)
Gitta-Maria Sjöberg
Danish National Radio Symphony
Rozhdestvensky

Beautiful, aren't they?

[karlhenning]

Beautiful, aren't they?

Lovely!  They make an interesting (and characteristic) contrast with the Main Piece on the disc, as they are by comparison completely "relaxed" and traditional in idiom;  very artfully done.

And now, for the first Langgaard I ever heard!

My man Rued
Sfærernes Musik (Music of the Spheres) BVN 128 (1916-18)
Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra & Choir
Rozhdestvensky

Fascinating to revisit the liner notes on this:  one of the few works to be published in the composer's lifetime!

[asin]B000000B0N[/asin]

[Luke]

. Even before Glass, Walton was influenced by Brahms' concertos when writing his own, particularly in his orchestration.

Agree with the general idea of this post but - did Walton say that? I'd be stunned. Walton's orchestration has so little in common with that of Brahms, and that is particularly true of the the sultry Mediterranean sonorities of his Violin Concerto I'd think.

[Luke]

Karl, the score to Langgaard's Music of the Sphere's is on IMSLP, too, amazingly enough. Hunt it down!!

It'll be worth it - it's really rather blown me away. Aside from the DShostakovich Preludes & Fugues, I am struggling to think of a large scale 20th century piano work as good as this. Once I have gotten around to the piano concertos, I'll make a thread for the composer

    So glad you think so! Will happily take part in any Stevenson thread.

[karlhenning]

Karl, the score to Langgaard's Music of the Sphere's is on IMSLP, too, amazingly enough. Hunt it down!!

Sacrée vache, so it is, thanks!

[karlhenning]

Comparative spherifying:

Langgaard
Sfærernes Musik (Music of the Spheres) BVN 128 (1916-18)
Edith Guillaume, soprano
Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra & Choir
Frandsen

[SonicMan46]

Now:



Excellent recording. Dumbarton Oaks is exquisitely played.

MI - certainly agree, I have that same disc.  For those who may be interested and are not aware of the history of this work,  Dumbarton Oaks was composed in the late 1930s, and was commissioned by Robert Woods Bliss from Washington, D.C. for his 30th wedding anniversary (story HERE).

The Bliss Estate (house & gardens), i.e. Dumbarton Oaks, is now a museum w/ gardens - beautiful place to visit in the heart of Georgetown - information HERE - on my next trip to D.C., we may do a return visit ourselves! 

[karlhenning]

(* clears throat *)

Игорь Фëдорович [ Igor Fyodorovich (Stravinsky) ]
ΑΓΩΝ
"Los Angeles Festival Symphony Orchestra"
The composer conducting
Recorded in Hollywood, 18 June 1957

[not edward]

Busoni: Sarabande und Cortege (SWR/Gielen). Easily the best modern performance of this I know; only the 1941 live Mitropolous is worth comparing with it. Now if only someone could be persuaded to let Gielen record Doktor Faust.

[Sergeant Rock]

Listening to Ernst von Dohnányi's Symphony #1 D minor




Sarge

[Florestan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcwTljrOOf8

[karlhenning]

Encore une fois

Игорь Фëдорович [ Igor Fyodorovich (Stravinsky) ]
ΑΓΩΝ
"Los Angeles Festival Symphony Orchestra"
The composer conducting
Recorded in Hollywood, 18 June 1957

[karlhenning]

(That would be recorded the day after the concert première of the work, BTW.)

[mc ukrneal]

I like that disc - the music doesn't sound heavy like in many performances, such as the Amadeus Quartet (and friends). I recall Santa Fe Listener left a 3 star review on it last time I checked (calling it Divertimento Brahms or suchlike), but it seems to have gone.

I like the idea of Divertimento Brahms. If someone wrote that, I'd snap it up! 

[Sergeant Rock]

Brahms 4, Eschenbach conducting the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra




Sarge