What are you listening 2 now?

[Bachtoven]

[JBS]

Listening to this tonight, I realized the "Hunt" Quartet is one of my favorite Mozart pieces.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Carlo Zecchi.

[Que]

Morning listening. Continuing my lute music journey with another treasured recording from my collection:

 

Andrea Damiani plays Italian lute music from the 15-16th century from a manuscript, originally from the library of the dukes of Urbino.

[Que]

[Daverz]

Robert Kahn: Clarinet Trio



Beautiful work.  Yet another discovery from a composer suppressed by the Nazis.

Neilsen: Clarinet Concerto



Sorry, can't remember which GMGer named this as their favorite recording of the Nielsen Concerto.

[Mandryka]

Is  優 an ambiguous word with two senses - gentleness and melancholy? Or does it signify a single complex mental/physical state which is the combination of gentleness and melancholy?  Wonderful if the latter, that in Japanese there's a single word for this strange and nuanced yet familiar aspect of human nature.

You won't be surprised to learn that now it's been put into my head, Kaori Uemura's  music making sounds to me like the perfect incarnation of  優 !

[DaveF]

Nielsen: Clarinet Concerto



Sorry, can't remember which GMGer named this as their favorite recording of the Nielsen Concerto.

(Even worth it for the somewhat less-than-distinguished fill-ups.)

[Harry]

CPE Bach.
Harpsichord Concertos.
Wq 38;30;37.
Les Amis de Philippe, Ludger Remy.
Recorded in 1993-94, Sendesaal Radio Bremen.
TT= 64:55.

As the first volume in this series this second instalment is as valuable to me as the previous CD. The level of quality in this performance is very high, plus I love the fact that the Harpsichord is the solo instrument, instead of the Pianoforte.
Good sound.

[Florestan]

[Harry]

CPE Bach.
Cello concertos.
Wq 170-172.
Tim Hugh, Cello.
Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Richard Studt.
Recorded in 1995, at the Coade Hall, Bryanston School, Blandford Forum England.
TT=70:32.

The performance is not how this music should sound. The interpretation is thoroughly romantic in expression, especially in the slow movements. The Baroque element is barely in focus, and simply gives the wrong swing to the music. The virtuosic element is not in its place and time. Does not mean that it is not okay to do it this way, but its not to my liking. Sound is okay.

[pjme]

Ustvolskaya: Symphonic Poem No. 1 (1959) - Reinbert de Leeuw / (orchestra not named), live recording in Utrecht, 2010). New to me, after seeing reports of the piece performed yesterday by Jurowski and the London Philharmonic.

Quite interesting, almost folksy in places, with a whiff of Shostakovich. More conventional and tonal than the other works by her I've heard, which are quite austere and forbidding.

-Bruce

It is the Dutch Radio PhO.

From the Guardian:

Vladimir Jurowski's programme for his latest London Philharmonic concert was a typically uncompromising one. In the broader context of the themes of home, belonging and exile that dominate the orchestra's current season, he focused on the mid-20th century, specifically on works composed around the second world war. Hindemith's Violin Concerto, written in 1939 after its composer fled Nazi Germany, was flanked by the dark, post-war uncertainties of Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony (1946) and Galina Ustvolskaya's Symphonic Poem No 1 (1958).

Ustvolskaya studied with Shostakovich, and her work, like his, was frequently propelled by a search for individualism and integrity amid Soviet proscriptions and orthodoxies. By 1958, she hadn't quite found the abrasive personal voice that the authorities later deemed suspect, though Symphonic Poem No 1 at once parodies the fixities of official optimism and gazes back to the hieratic chants, bells and rituals of the Russian church. Jurowski's performance, with its gathering tensions and bitter nostalgia, was a forceful reminder that we don't hear her music as often as we should.

His interpretation of Prokofiev's Sixth, meanwhile, was similarly unsparing, the ambivalent mood established at the outset in the contrast between the brass stabs with which it opens and the looping string theme that vainly tries to assuage the immediate sense of unease. A real chill emanated from the mechanistic oscillations of the first movement's development, and the wrenching dissonances that repeatedly threaten to overwhelm the later movements were crushing in their power. There were moments of considerable beauty, though, in the grieving, consoling woodwind, as well as great brilliance in the finale before its mood irrevocably darkens towards the end.

Excellent concert!

[Harry]

Kurt Atterberg.
SQ, opus 11, and Opus 2/opus 39.
Ture Rangström.
SQ, una notturno nella Maniera di E.Th. A, Hoffmann.
Stenhammar Quartet.
Recorded in 2009, Petrus Church, Stockholm.
TT= 61:56.

This music is a favourite of mine. Over the years I have played it many times and never ever got tired of it. Both composers delivered fabulous SQ's, and it never ceases to amaze me how much soul is in it. It pours out of every sinewy note, and drives a constant message of harmony and balance in thinking and purpose. Marvelous, every time again when I listen to it. Very good sound!

[Roasted Swan]

Kurt Atterberg.
SQ, opus 11, and Opus 2/opus 39.
Ture Rangström.
SQ, una notturno nella Maniera di E.Th. A, Hoffmann.
Stenhammar Quartet.
Recorded in 2009, Petrus Church, Stockholm.
TT= 61:56.

This music is a favourite of mine. Over the years I have played it many times and never ever got tired of it. Both composers delivered fabulous SQ's, and it never ceases to amaze me how much soul is in it. It pours out of every sinewy note, and drives a constant message of harmony and balance in thinking and purpose. Marvelous, every time again when I listen to it. Very good sound!

100% agreement - tremendous music and brilliantly played and recorded!

[Lisztianwagner]

William Alwyn
Symphony No.4

Richard Hickox & London Symphony Orchestra

[Harry]

J.S. Bach.
Complete Organ Works.
Volume IV. (2CD'S)
BWV-532/768/529/725/543/582/645-650/596/562/720/721/544.
Bram Beekman, Organ.
Instrument: Schnitger/Hinz organ, Martini Kerk, Groningen.
Pitch: Halve tone above a'= 440 Hz.
Temperament: Hinsz, variation on a Temperament from Neidhardt.
Recorded in 1992. TT= 148 minutes.

These are fine recordings, and they begin to grow on me, because they are totally different in expression as I am used to with these organ works. It is an unhurried approach, straightforward without much ado. But there is a gentleness and balance in Beekman's interpretation that is quite endearing, and wholly satisfying. And this organ is a beauty, in whatever form it is presented. You are easily transported back in the times of Bach, and hear what a fine pair of organ builders were at work in the town of my birth. The sound is most excellent.

[Cato]

William Alwyn
Symphony No.4

Richard Hickox & London Symphony Orchestra

Mr. Alwyn looks like a classic and very droll Englishman in that picture! 

I will need to investigate him!


Today, thanks to Dayton's full-time Classical Radio Station:

Mozart: Symphony No 30 in D K202

Sir Colin Davis, Dresden State Orchestra.

Excellent performance: Sir Colin Davis was BIG back in the good old days.  His performances of symphonies by e.g. Sibelius were considered top-notch.

Also, another legend:  Alicia de Larrocha

Ravel: Valses Nobles et Sentimentales


And if you think you do not - or would not - like a work with 24-notes per octave (i.e. 1/4-tones), check out the Christopher Columbus Prelude by Julian Carrillo.

Ethereal and mysterious: I came across this performance a few days ago.

[Traverso]

J.S. Bach.
Complete Organ Works.
Volume IV. (2CD'S)
BWV-532/768/529/725/543/582/645-650/596/562/720/721/544.
Bram Beekman, Organ.
Instrument: Schnitger/Hinz organ, Martini Kerk, Groningen.
Pitch: Halve tone above a'= 440 Hz.
Temperament: Hinsz, variation on a Temperament from Neidhardt.
Recorded in 1992. TT= 148 minutes.

These are fine recordings, and they begin to grow on me, because they are totally different in expression as I am used to with these organ works. It is an unhurried approach, straightforward without much ado. But there is a gentleness and balance in Beekman's interpretation that is quite endearing, and wholly satisfying. And this organ is a beauty, in whatever form it is presented. You are easily transported back in the times of Bach, and hear what a fine pair of organ builders were at work in the town of my birth. The sound is most excellent.

Glad to see that you enjoy it so much.

[Traverso]

Bach

I listen to the whole recording of course.....I love to listen to "Herr Gott ,dich loben wir" BWV 725 and Marie Claire-Alain plays it just fine.

[Cato]

Bach

I listen to the whole recording of course.....I love to listen to "Herr Gott ,dich loben wir" BWV 725 and Marie Claire-Alain plays it just fine.

The works of Marie-Claire's brother, Jehan Alain, are not to be missed!

e.g.