Recent posts

#1

The Diner / Re: What are you currently rea...

Last post by Florestan - Today at 04:31:27 AM

There's no doubt that Proust writes wonderfully descriptive prose. His extended observations of laggard cornflowers, primroses, forget-me-nots, strawberry-flowers and the fleecy clouds and crimson sunsets, mean that it is satisfying in the same way that Mme Bovary is satisfying, or Hardy is satisfying.

It would just be nice if something meaningful actually happened.

Indeed, Proust was a wonderful writer of short poetic prose and essays. He should have stuck to it. 

#2

The Diner / Re: What are you currently rea...

Last post by Florestan - Today at 04:28:16 AM

Seriously: I'm going to need you to PM what you mean by this.

@Mandryka  probably means the barely disguised scene of lesbian sex between Vinteuil's daughter and another woman, which takes place in the presence of a portrait of Vinteuil. It's in Swann. (See, I do remember a bit...    )

#3

Great Recordings and Reviews / Re: Chopin Recordings

Last post by Atriod - Today at 04:21:26 AM

Amusing comments from Lim in the booklet

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/32/000169823.pdf

Great liner notes! Always nice to read clearly articulated thoughts from the artist and not the usual generic composer bios "Beethoven was going deaf, he was melancholy and listening to Linkin Park in his room all day."

Also takes some guts to name the pianists that inspired you for each piece and say why as that will inevitably draw comparisons.

The real interesting Yunchan Lim for me (I haven't heard his TEs by the way) has been the Annees

https://open.spotify.com/album/54b0CU6yO7OlQef9W4dWb4?si=jpncm3kYTNu9qsDxwPBJHg

Yes I liked this and the Moonlight Sonata on that disc very much, if I had to pick one Lim disc to buy I'd likely buy this one over the Liszt Transcendental Etudes. The Annees was sort of like Zoltán Kocsis' in that it was direct and phrasing bordering on slightly hard. But it was never bombastic.

#4

The Diner / Re: What are you currently rea...

Last post by foxandpeng - Today at 04:16:25 AM

There's no doubt that Proust writes wonderfully descriptive prose. His extended observations of laggard cornflowers, primroses, forget-me-nots, strawberry-flowers and the fleecy clouds and crimson sunsets, mean that it is satisfying in the same way that Mme Bovary is satisfying, or Hardy is satisfying.

It would just be nice if something meaningful actually happened.

#5

The Diner / Re: What are you currently rea...

Last post by SimonNZ - Today at 04:14:36 AM

Re Elstir, I like the bit of mashed potatoe in the Vermeer.

The key moment involves two ladies and a photo. You guys are clearly reading it for ideas, I'm reading it for the sex.

Seriously: I'm going to need you to PM what you mean by this.

#6

The Diner / Re: What are you currently rea...

Last post by Mandryka - Today at 04:02:36 AM

Re Elstir, I like the bit of mashed potatoe in the Vermeer.

The key moment involves two ladies and a photo. You guys are clearly reading it for ideas, I'm reading it for the sex.

#7

The Diner / Re: What are you currently rea...

Last post by SimonNZ - Today at 03:59:30 AM

Interesting. What I remember most vividly of all - amongst many vivid scenes in the second volume - is the descriptions of Elstir's paintings.

[Alban BergViolin ConcertoAntje Weithass (violin)Steven Sloane & Stavanger Symfoniorkester]

#8

General Classical Music Discussion / Re: What are you listening 2 n...

Last post by Lisztianwagner - Today at 03:59:30 AM

On youtube:
Alban Berg
Violin Concerto

Antje Weithass (violin)
Steven Sloane & Stavanger Symfoniorkester

#9

General Classical Music Discussion / Re: What are you listening 2 n...

Last post by Mandryka - Today at 03:57:00 AM

Van Kuijk Quartet at St Lukes Old Street, mozart and haydn. Slightly worried because I've never seen a good concert here, it's jinxed. I've got an aisle seat so I can make a quick exit if needs must. Average age of audience is 102. Someone's brought her great grandkids, one is plaing with a filthy teddy.  Here we go.

#10

The Diner / Re: What are you currently rea...

Last post by ritter - Today at 03:43:04 AM

... I'm afraid that paragraph's significance would have escaped me anyway. 

...but not it's (poetic) beauty...

Okay. I'm going to need you to PM me which one that is as well.

I think the second volume is the most page turning and easiest to love and has at least a half dozen of the most important scenes. But I don't immediately know which one you mean.

Since it is not a spoiler by any means, here it is:

"...Et, comme la durée moyenne de la vie — la longévité relative — est beaucoup plus grande pour les souvenirs des sensations poétiques que pour ceux des souffrances du cœur, depuis si longtemps que se sont évanouis les chagrins que j'avais alors à cause de Gilberte, il leur a survécu le plaisir que j'éprouve, chaque fois que je veux lire, en une sorte de cadran solaire, les minutes qu'il y a entre midi un quart et une heure, au mois de mai, à me revoir causant ainsi avec Mme  Swann, sous son ombrelle, comme sous le reflet d'un berceau de glycines."

"And as the average span of life, the relative longevity of our memories of poetical sensations is much greater than that of our memories of what the heart has suffered, long after the sorrows that I once felt on Gilberte's account have faded and vanished, there has survived them the pleasure that I still derive—whenever I close my eyes and read, as it were upon the face of a sundial, the minutes that are recorded between a quarter past twelve and one o'clock in the month of May—from seeing myself once again strolling and talking thus with Mme. Swann beneath her parasol, as though in the coloured shade of a wistaria bower."