What are you listening to now?

[Madiel]

#morninglistening to #Mendelssohn's #Paulus w/#HelmuthRilling & #GächingerKantorei on @HaensslerMusic

: http://a-fwd.to/4w86qG0

Terrific singers; excellent performance!! Easily the best St. Paul Oratorio.

#choralworks Reference #Elija (#SymphonyNo2 not quite top notch) #Psalms
#classicalm... https://ift.tt/2MMnsgp

Ohhh.... I haven't completed my Mendelssohn chronology exploration yet, but this set has exactly the body of work I am currently most interested in.

[André]

Potboiler time:




As a collection, this can't be beat. I still find Mengelberg's 1812 and a few Francescas (Munch RPO, Ovchinnikov, Markevitch Berlin) even more inspired, but none played with such jaw-dropping virtuosity and collective musicality. The Philadelphians of the time were simply unassailable.

[André]

Morton Gould and the mighty Chicagoans:




There is a sense of the hothouse - almost a turkish bath. Conductor and orchestra sail through the music as if heeding a missionary calling. Very exciting and the antithesis of literalness.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Dvorak, Serenade for Winds (and cello & double bass), Orpheus CO. No mere background music, this. Cleverly crafted, loaded with surprises, plus a gypsy-tinged finale, it begs to be front-n-center.

And a shout out to the fantastic early DDD (1985) sound! Gettin' it right!



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[Harry]

Morton Gould and the mighty Chicagoans:




There is a sense of the hothouse - almost a turkish bath. Conductor and orchestra sail through the music as if heeding a missionary calling. Very exciting and the antithesis of literalness.

+1

[vandermolen]

Stanford 5 is a wonderful work and most definitely worth having in your collection.

+1 it's the only one I enjoy apart from No.3.

[Florestan]

There's a clarinet concerto?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinet_Concerto_(Francaix)

https://www.youtube.com/v/Lg6xnmR-Ju0

Tbh, when I listened to it I was driving for more than 6 hours, tired and annoyed by the heavy traffic so my negative reaction might have had something to do with all that. A re-listen will follow soon.

[Florestan]

Absolutely!  That's why I had the cheek to do this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/vI2K5V7C49I

That was great fun! Bravo!

[Biffo]

Potboiler time:




As a collection, this can't be beat. I still find Mengelberg's 1812 and a few Francescas (Munch RPO, Ovchinnikov, Markevitch Berlin) even more inspired, but none played with such jaw-dropping virtuosity and collective musicality. The Philadelphians of the time were simply unassailable.

I like all the works on this disc except Francesca da Rimini, which isn't really a potboiler. I don't play the 1812 very often but the Capriccio is an old favourite. This looks a very tempting disc.

[Karl Henning]

That was great fun! Bravo!

Very glad you enjoyed it.  Of course, I had great source material 

[Karl Henning]

Thread Duty:

http://www.youtube.com/v/PukHe2RswrY

[Harry]

Jacques Arcadelt. Madrigali-CD II.
Cappella Mediterranea, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon.

Arcadelt is a great composer, if you did not know that you will hear this quickly when listening to these wonderful madrigali he composed. And then to think he wrote more than 200 of them, and only 20 are recorded. Their beauty and amazing variation in expression is something to marvel at. They are diverse and musically rich in their polyphonic colours and a counterpoint that brings out in the full intellect and spirit in overflowing sensuousness. We may never know all the madrigali he wrote, but we can immerse ourselves in this gorgeous splendour of the 20 on this CD. To my ears they belong to the very best composed in this genre.
The performances are perfect, especially the vibrato free singing of both soprano's Mariana Flores and Julie Roset. "Vostra fui e saro, mentre ch'io viva" holds a beautiful duet, ravishing in expression and beauty.
The recording is indeed very good as is the complete performance. I also enjoyed the informative booklet a recommended read. Based on the literature list I ordered a few books about Arcadelt and his compositions, that will give me great pleasure, I am sure.

[Biffo]

(1) Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue with Daniel Wayenberg (piano) (2) Milhaud: La Creation du monde - Orchestre de la Societe des Concerts du Conservatoire conducted by Georges Pretre

Later, Holst: Egdon Heath - Boult/LPO - I was reading a review of Sir Simon Rattle's opening concert of the new LSO season and he included this work. Prompted me to listen to a Holst work I haven't heard very often. Very atmospheric, matches the weather today.

[Harry]

Carlo Ambrogio Lonati. (c.1645-c.1710) Sonatas for Violin and BC (1701)
Accademia per Musica, Christoph Timpe.

I admit that I did not have any knowledge of this composer, and so it was for me a new discovery, and a pleasant one at that. And, a few surprises this music has to offer! His sonatas may not be as sophisticated as those of Locatelli, but they are despite their roughness, especially in the bass lines, masterworks on par with Locatelli in fact. He is largely forgotten, and no works have survived apart from these sonatas. It must be said also that one clearly hears why Lonati was respected in his trade. Even the great Bach was duly impressed and incorporated in his sonatas much of what he learned from the manuscripts shown to him by Pisendel. Lonati frequently used "scordatura" which makes these sonatas even more interesting to me. On this disc that would be No,XI in D major, and No.X in G major, both wonderful works. To my ears these sonatas surpass everything I have heard so far from Lonati's time. The versatility in these works is nothing short of amazing. His work was copied quite frequently as examples of the perfect art. Veracini was almost jubilant about his musical qualities. And me too, I admit.
Very little is known about this maestro, but then again his music speaks volumes. Fine performances and a clear recording, be it a little hard on the ears.

[Cato]

Too many months have gone by, since I last listened to Narcissus and Echo: this undeservedly obscure work, by the tragically ignored Nicolai Tcherepnin, has fascinated me ever more through the last five years or so.

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Vandermolen has asked what the music is like: Tcherepnin has his own sound, but the opening is very atmospheric, a combination of Liadov's The Enchanted Lake and Schoenberg's Farben from the Five Orchestral Pieces.  Rimsky-Korsakov's orientalism is also at times in the mix, and one even hears presages of Prokofiev's Chout.  ( Nicolai Tcherepnin was one of Prokofiev's early teachers.)

Tcherepnin also uses a wordless chorus to great effect: Ravel might have been influenced by this ballet, when he composed Daphnis and Chloe, but I have no idea whether Ravel knew of this work.

Highly recommended!

[Florestan]

Very glad you enjoyed it.  Of course, I had great source material 

Sure, some of the best available but the mixing is all yours. 

[Biffo]

Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 in D minor - Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paavo Berglund

[Traverso]

Bach

CD 1

Just arrived 

[Roasted Swan]

I like all the works on this disc except Francesca da Rimini, which isn't really a potboiler. I don't play the 1812 very often but the Capriccio is an old favourite. This looks a very tempting disc.

These performances are all included in the SONY box of all 7 Symphonies + Manfred remastered in 24 bit sound.  They have come up very well but none of the symphonies would be my go to recording.  But I do like a lot 1812 done in this edition with a choir book-ending the work. 

[Draško]

Tcherepnin also uses a wordless chorus to great effect: Ravel might have been influenced by this ballet, when he composed Daphnis and Chloe, but I have no idea whether Ravel knew of this work.

It could have been the other way around. Diaghilev had commissioned from Ravel a Greek themed ballet some two years earlier but as Ravel was pretty slow Diaghilev got impatient and commissioned another one from Tcherepnin who was at the time employed as a conductor at The Ballets Russes. Tcherepnin was much quicker and Narcisse et Echo was premiered in 1911 while Daphnis et Chloe will be finally finished by the end of the same year and premiered the next.

Now, Ravel could have seen the Narcisse performed in the summer of 1911 (but he was already two years in the writing of Daphnis), and Tcherepnin as a conductor of The Ballets Russes probably have seen early versions of Daphnis. Who was influenced by who I don't know, but there are similarities definitely, the same huge orchestral forces plus wordless choir, the same length and the very similar soundworld.

Tcherepnin though definitely had a knack for pastiche. His previous ballet Le Pavillon d'Armide was a huge success for The Ballets Russes. It is an incredibly gorgeous Tchaikovsky at his most rococo pastiche. Anyone who is a fan of Tchaikovsky ballets should hear it.