What are you listening 2 now?

[Mapman]

Brahms: Symphony #1
Karajan: Berlin

I played along with this today, and it was one of the most fun I've played recently. (For at least the clarinet part,) there aren't too many rests and it isn't technically difficult (although, as typical for Brahms, the rhythms can be tricky). And it's wonderful music!

[Mandryka]

More stimulating than Arodaky, a certainty of strenght, refound and celebrated.

That first Hantai recording is very colourful and exciting, as is the Vol 1 on MDG.

If you have access to it, I'd be interested to know what you make of Maria Vorobjova's Scarlatti recording - very different from Hantai and I rather like it.

[Henk]

That first Hantai recording is very colourful and exciting, as is the Vol 1 on MDG.

If you have access to it, I'd be interested to know what you make of Maria Vorobjova's Scarlatti recording - very different from Hantai and I rather like it.

Unfortunately I don't have. I searched for it on Bandcamp and I don't use Spotify or other streaming services in that category (keeping things simple for myself).
I have only yet a recording by Sudbin to compare which I remember as very good and a recording of Naxos by an Asian female pianist which I remember as not really in accordance with my preferences. So I'll give the Sudbin another spin.

Have you access to the Arodaky, this was also very different from Hantai and I would recommend it. It's more stately, revealing a religious root of Scarlatti's music I would say, and it charmed me well.

[Symphonic Addict]

Weinberg: Symphony No. 1

A quite strong first symphony even though it has echoes of Shostakovich. Each movement is impressive and wonderfully performed here.

[Karl Henning]

Schnittke, Symphony No 6 (first two movements)



Tadaaki Otaka, BBC Symphony of Wales.

This is the sort of music I tend to have trouble with, stuttering exposition of music that doesn't tend to develop any consistent rhythm or momentum.

I see your point, of course, yet its wild freedom in that way is really resonating with me this week.

[Symphonic Addict]

Moniuszko: String Quartets

Two short quartets that despite they're not particularly elaborate, they do manage to entertain.

[vers la flamme]

Morton Feldman: For Samuel Beckett. Roland Kluttig, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin

This sounds much more rhythmic than my other recording (on Kairos), less amorphous, less stillness. Also a much drier acoustic. Still a challenging piece, written very late in the composer's life.

[Lisztianwagner]

Béla Bartók
String Quartet No.5

Takács Quartet

[vers la flamme]

John Cage: Concerto for Prepared Piano & Chamber Orchestra. Stephen Drury, Charles Peltz, Callithumpian Consort of New England Conservatory

First listen in several years, it sounds excellent.

[Henk]

John Cage: Concerto for Prepared Piano & Chamber Orchestra. Stephen Drury, Charles Peltz, Callithumpian Consort of New England Conservatory

First listen in several years, it sounds excellent.

Didn't know he composed concertos. Can you describe what it's like?

[Symphonic Addict]

I didn't know that Jolivet composed a string quartet (from 1934). It's certainly the most interesting work on this CD. The other pieces didn't float my boat.

[Karl Henning]

John Cage: Concerto for Prepared Piano & Chamber Orchestra. Stephen Drury, Charles Peltz, Callithumpian Consort of New England Conservatory

First listen in several years, it sounds excellent.

Love that album!

[vers la flamme]

Didn't know he composed concertos. Can you describe what it's like?

There is not much in the way of melody, harmony, or conventional rhythm. The ensemble is a chamber orchestra augmented by certain nonmusical sound effects (I think there is a radio involved, but I could be wrong). Different combinations of textures are puzzled together bit by bit, as if blocks of sound are being shuffled around and mixed together in various ways. The prepared piano itself has a kind of soft percussive sonority; I always thought of it as a miniature one-man Gamelan orchestra. Very compelling piece, and one of the easier Cage works to come to terms with.

There is another, longer work on the album called Concert for Piano & Orchestra that I have yet to make any sense of whatsoever. I recall also liking Fourteen, a "number piece", which concludes this disc.

[vers la flamme]

Just a bit more Cage for me tonight:



John Cage: Variations I; Seven Haiku; Solo for Flute, Alto Flute & Piccolo. Eberhard Blum (flutes) & Nils Vigeland (piano)

I don't have the booklet in front of me unfortunately; packed it away with hundreds of other CDs. Would love to read a bit more about what's going on here. Edit to add: the last of these sounds just a bit like Japanese shakuhachi music.

[Henk]

There is not much in the way of melody, harmony, or conventional rhythm. The ensemble is a chamber orchestra augmented by certain nonmusical sound effects (I think there is a radio involved, but I could be wrong). Different combinations of textures are puzzled together bit by bit, as if blocks of sound are being shuffled around and mixed together in various ways. The prepared piano itself has a kind of soft percussive sonority; I always thought of it as a miniature one-man Gamelan orchestra. Very compelling piece, and one of the easier Cage works to come to terms with.

There is another, longer work on the album called Concert for Piano & Orchestra that I have yet to make any sense of whatsoever. I recall also liking Fourteen, a "number piece", which concludes this disc.

Thanks I was interested in all the pieces and assumed they all fall in the category concerto, unfamiliar I am with the precise meaning of concerto, a concert I would say is visiting the real performance.

[Linz]

Bruckner Symphony No. 6 in A Major, 1881 Version. Ed. Leopold Nowak, Eliahu Inbal, Radio-Sinfonie-Orchester
Frankfurt

[AnotherSpin]

In the days after the Stolyarsky School in Odessa is damaged by Russian missiles attack, a recording featuring two of the school's outstanding students.

[atardecer]

Debussy - Cello Sonata

Mischa Maisky - Cello
Martha Argerich - Piano

[Que]

Morning listening:

[Que]

In the days after the Stolyarsky School in Odessa is damaged by Russian missiles attack, a recording featuring two of the school's outstanding students.

I have this set that despite what it says on the cover, also features Igor giving a wonderful performance of the Bruch concerto no. 1 with his father conducting:



A favourite recording.