What are you listening 2 now?

[aligreto]

JS Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1-4 [Britten]





By any standards these presentations, particularly Nos. 1-3 are pedantic and simply unexciting, even sometimes boring to my ears. They reflect an old school, somewhat saccharine approach to Bach's music which, thankfully, has changed over the subsequent decades. The orchestral textures can be cumbersome to my ears. There is no joy, an essential in any Bach presentation, in this music making due to the heavy handed approach to the music. Tempi, to be fair, can oftentimes be appropriate; still there is no spark which ignites the performances.
Concerto No. 4 is my favourite Brandenburg Concerto and, also to be fair, this is a good presentation of it. My main grievance here, however, is the use of flutes as opposed to recorders. The difference between the textures and sonorities of these two instruments are, to me, incomparable in this work.

[Brahmsian]

Composer : Edward Elgar
Recording : Cello Concerto (Lloyd Webber - 1997)
Performers : Yan Pascal Tortelier, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Julian Lloyd Webber (cello)

Are you going through BBC Magazine freebie recordings? I do have one that I thoroughly enjoy. It is Shostakovich 11th Symphony with Kirill Karabits conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

[Brahmsian]

No. I do have lots of the BBC freebies, but I usually listen to whatever my music player randomly decides to play: apart from Benjamin Britten day (and maybe Vaughan Williams day), I don't usually specify what I want to listen to at all.

Interesting! I could see myself doing that one day for a period of time. Perhaps once I am caught up on listening to my recordings I haven't listened to yet.

[Harry]

The The Von Koch is really fine, one of my favourite 'new' symphonies of the last decade.

I once had the von Koch in my order list, for a good price, until JPC in the middle of the week decided to bring it back to full price, while no expiry date was mentioned. When however I looked into my basket, the price had gone up from 7,99€ to 19,99€ in just one day. So I am still on the lookout for a better price.

[Florestan]

I usually listen to whatever my music player randomly decides to play:

Interesting! I could see myself doing that one day for a period of time.

Certainly an interesting idea but one that I could never be able to put in practice. I am the most anarchic and disorganised listener: I may decide right now that tonight I will listen to X and until night comes I might change my mind three times to Y, Z and W, only to find me at night listening to Q. Or, I start listening to a big box from disc one onwards with the firm idea in my mind to go through all of them in order. After disc four at most I change course and switch to something else. In short, I listen to whatever tickles my fancy at the moment. I could never listen only, or even mostly, to what a machine wants me to listen to.

That being said, kudos to absolutelybaching for having the iron will and the strong discipline required for that.

[Keemun]

Nice collection of British cello and piano miniatures.

[aligreto]

JS Bach: Flute Sonatas [Feinstein]





Partita for solo flute BWV 1013
Sonata for flute & harpsichord BWV 1030
Sonata for flute & harpsichord BWV 1032

[Mapman]

Nielsen: Symphony #5
Bernstein: New York

A fabulous performance of one of my favorite symphonies. We are lucky to have many fine recordings of this work!

[ritter]

It's been a while since I last listened to André Jolivet...



CD4: Cinq Danses rituelles, Concerto for Bassoon, Strings, Harp and Piano (both works conducted by the composer), Suite liturgique, and Mélodies intimes.

[Florestan]

[Lisztianwagner]

More Mozart:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphonies No. 36 & 38

Herbert von Karajan & Berliner Philharmoniker

[VonStupp]

Antonín Dvořák
Piano Quintet 1 in A Major, op. 5
Piano Quintet 2 in A Major, op. 81

Jan Panenka, piano
Panocha Quartet

As a mostly orchestral listener, Piano trios, quartets, and quintets, along with chamber wind music, was my 'in' to the chamber music scene.

In the case of the piano quintet, I find it a bit like a concerto. I imagine it is an engineering balancing-act nightmare to get it right on recordings.

In general, the dance/trio movement of a multi-movement work is usually the least effective for me; I usually find them imbalanced (where one part is great, but the other uninteresting) or just plain dull overall and overly repetitive. But Dvořák's 2nd Quintet may have my favorite of that sort of movement in recent memory.

VS



Schiff and Panocha are a bit breezier than the one I listened to earlier with Panenka on piano.

[aligreto]

Barber: Finishing this CD under the capable baton of Alsop





Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance: The textures and sonorities in this work are very intriguing for me. They lend to a wonderfully atmospheric and engaging atmosphere throughout the presentation. The sense of both tension, drama and power are well developed throughout the work. I find that the musical language of the work is very engaging. There is a wide gamut of emotions displayed in this fine work.

Commando March: This is a relatively short work which I do not find to be particularly engaging. I am thinking of Raiders of the Lost Arc as I listen to it.

[Harry]

Jean Sibelius.
Piano Music.
Eero Heinonen, Piano.

This is really very good, Passion in moderation and a maximum of expression.

[pjme]

It's been a while since I last listened to André Jolivet[/

CD4: Cinq Danses rituelles, Concerto for Bassoon, Strings, Harp and Piano (both works conducted by the composer), Suite liturgique, and Mélodies intimes.

That is a great collection. However, it would be good to have some alternatives. I recently bought Antal Dorati's version of Jolivet's symphony nr. 3 (from the Dorati asso.) which is good but also dating from the seventies.
I wish his two cello concerti, the concerto for ondes Martenot and several vocal works (Songe à nouveau rêvé, Le coeur de la matière, Jeanne d'Arc...) would get  (new) recordings.
Isabelle Faust's version of the violin concerto is impressive and Pascal Gallet's take on the (frenetic) piano concerto is very good.

Pascal Gallet in Brasil 13 years ago and less "nervous" than in Mexico...

february 2020

[JBS]

Are you going through BBC Magazine freebie recordings? I do have one that I thoroughly enjoy. It is Shostakovich 11th Symphony with Kirill Karabits conducting the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

I don't think of them as freebie because normally they're the only reason I buy the magazine.
The magazine is the freebie that comes with the CD. (It doesn't help that the only place to get it--Barnes and Noble--stocks it about 2 months after it appearance in the UK. For instance the issue currently being sold has for its CD Christmas carols.)

TD

[Florestan]

The magazine is the freebie that comes with the CD.

Nice perspective. 

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Interesting, PD. My copy has Pina Carmirelli with again Philippe Muller (cello). Not released on CD.

I tried to find your recording to listen to on youtube, but no luck; however, I did enjoy the one that I heard. 

I haven't tried hard to google your LP...well, at least yet.  Do you recall if it was very expensive?

PD

[DavidW]

Last night I tried out my new dac with the Fischer Mahler 9 (my favorite is Chailly but this is one of the best sounding recordings I've heard), Gorecki's 3rd (one of my favorite recordings).

This morning I listened to the Bruckner 4.  I used to have this Skrowaczewski box set on cd until I foolishly ditched my cd collection.  I now finally have it again.

[aligreto]

Vaughan Williams: Tuba Concerto [Harrild/Thomson]





This is, for me, a fine work. The opening movement has a quirky element to it. The slow movement is particularly delightful, I find, with its sense of melancholy and poignancy. It is never brooding however. There is a great sense of both tension and excitement in the final movement.