What are you listening to now?

[milk]

Great recording! 

I'd forgotten about Marais for a while and now I want to compare a bit. I bought this a while back and it's a beautiful sounding recording with wonderful performances. Pandolfo...I have to check what he's done lately.

[aligreto]

Schutz: Magnificat [Rilling]





The vocals have weight but are very transparent with clearly audible lines. This is a fine performance with very sympathetic instrumental accompaniment which is well balanced with the vocal element.

[Mandryka]

Knut Jacques plays Chopin's second sonata. I feel that this piano has been very sympathetically restored, and the resulting performances sound much less « modern style » than in The Real Chopin. Having said that, I'm not convinced that Jacques comes up with a particularly perceptive  interpretation, but it's not music I'm terribly familiar with, so I could be missing things.

[aligreto]

Mendelssohn: Organ Sonatas Nos. 2 & 3 [Dallmann]

[Todd]

Another listen.  This marks the first time I've ever listened to a Saint-Saens disc two days in a row.

[aligreto]

More Mendelssohn: Elijah [Sargent]





LP 1 of this 2 LP set.

[Traverso]

Ligety

The exciting piano etudes.

Works for Piano

Études ( Premier Livre)
Études (Deuxième Livre)
Musica Ricercata
Études pour Piano (extrait du Troisième Livre)

Pierre Laurent Aimard,Piano

[Todd]

Another go.

[Traverso]

I would be curious to know how Kubelik does in this music.

I send you a PM 

[Rosalba]

Philip Glass - Glassworks (complete - Philip Glass ensemble)



I enjoy this whenever I decide to listen to it.
There's something very satisfying about its inevitability.

[aligreto]

Berlioz: Te Deum [Beecham]





This is a solemn and devotional work which carries a lot of weight in the body of the music and this performance aptly reflects this in its powerful and atmospheric portrayal.

[aligreto]

I send you a PM 

Thank you in advance.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Beethoven String Quartets 1, 2, 3. Endellion.



I don't find these early quartets terribly engaging. In the first three, I find the first and second (slow) movements ok, but each has a short scherzo in which nothing seems to grab my ear. As to the finales, too many notes, too, too many notes. There also seems to be an emphasis on virtuosity which I find off-putting.

The slow movements are probably the best parts. The first has a ghostly slow movement, pointed out by Brian, which is said to have been inspired by the tomb scene in Romeo and Juliette. The second is a quirky one with a fast section inserted into the middle. The third has a rich texture with particularly satisfying voice leading.

My plan is to listen through this set pretty much without dwelling, then repeat with another cycle, maybe Takacs or Prakaz.

[aligreto]

Britten:





Festival Te Deum
Te Deum in C major

Both works are given vibrant and engaging performances from all concerned.

[The new erato]

Prazak, Scarpia. Now listening to Liszt Masses from DG's Liszt Collection. Uncharted territory for me.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Prazak, Scarpia.

Noted.

[GioCar]

Indeed. A wonderful work. I've had the chance to see it live twice (once conducted by the compose in London in the mid-90s, and then some 10 years ago here in Madrid), and it makes a great impression.

I hope that Boulez's original version, from 1948, is recovered some time soon. It was completely different AFAIK, as it was incidental music to René Char's radio  play of the same title. The cantata, such as we know it, uses poems which actually are not from Le soleil des eaux, but rather from Char's collections Fureur et mystère and Les matinaux. I presume a recording of the original broadcast should be in the archives if the ORTF or the Institut National de l'Audioviduel.

Char's radio play was published in 1949 in a lavish edition illustrated by Georges Braque:



Unfortunately, since AFAIK all 200 copies are signed both by the poet and the painter, they cost a small fortune...

Good day, Gio!

Good evening Rafael.
Rather interesting your remarks on the history of that piece. AFAIK it has been revised three times since the original 1948 version. An excellent short introduction to it is also to be found in the Ircam database http://brahms.ircam.fr/works/work/6982/

[steve ridgway]

Not too impressed by the sentimental strings of Requiem but it was listenable, now on November Steps which is much more interesting with the Japanese instruments. Although it's getting towards the end now and about time the orchestra came back in for some contrast .

[asin]B000I8OFYG[/asin]

Oh, not until the last 90 seconds .

[ritter]

Good evening Rafael.
Rather interesting your remarks on the history of that piece. AFAIK it has been revised three times since the original 1948 version. An excellent short introduction to it is also to be found in the Ircam database http://brahms.ircam.fr/works/work/6982/

That's a most interesting article, Gio. Thanks for the link. 

So, we have all three versions of the cantata available on CD (i.e., Soleil des eaux 2, 3 & 4, as the IRCAM article names them), and only the original incidental music version remains unavailable.

Soleil des eaux "2":
[asin]B00005M0QU[/asin]
Soleil des eaux "3":


Soleil des eaux "4":

This is the recording included in the "Oeuvres Complètes" box on DG.

[GioCar]

Now streaming from Qobuz

Liszt: Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam", transcription for Piano (by Busoni). From the new Levit album.

[asin]B07FJ9ZNPL[/asin]

Deepening myself in the deepest romanticism