What are you listening 2 now?

[Karl Henning]

Alfred Prinz plays Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, K 622, with the VPO conducted by Karl Böhm.



A classic... 

Nice! Good evening, Rafael!

[ritter]

Nice! Good evening, Rafael!

Good evening, Karl!

[Lisztianwagner]

On youtube:

Charles Koechlin
Le Livre de la Jungle

Iris Vermillion, Johan Botha, Ralf Lukas
David Zinman & Radio-Sinfonieorchester Berlin

[andolink]

The level of inventiveness on display in these pieces far exceeds that of pretty much all of Buxtehude's contemporaries, IMO.

Dietrich Buxtehude: Trio Sonatas, Op. 1
Arcangelo

[ritter]

And now, Maurice Emmanuel's delightful Suite française, op. 26. Emmanuel Villaume conducts the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra.

[vandermolen]

You like iit better than Lydia Mordkovitch, to whose recording I'll listen again shortly? First, Haydn's Philosopher again.

Oh, I like them both Karl but the Alto CD made a great impression on me and I found sections of it very moving.

[vandermolen]

Paul Ben-Haim Symphony No.2
RPO
Kenneth Alwyn

[Symphonic Addict]

An impressive score with impressionistic influences. Amazingly, Halffter wrote this film music when he was 21.

[Todd]

[Brian]

An impressive score with impressionistic influences. Amazingly, Halffter wrote this film music when he was 21.

Thanks for the reminder. I bought this but need to listen!

[Mapman]

Halvorsen: Symphony #2 "Fatum"
Ole Kristian Ruud: Trondheim

A nice Romantic symphony. It's quite conservative for its time (1920s), but still enjoyable. It reminded me a bit of earlier Tchaikovsky.

[Symphonic Addict]

Halvorsen: Symphony #2 "Fatum"
Ole Kristian Ruud: Trondheim

A nice Romantic symphony. It's quite conservative for its time (1920s), but still enjoyable. It reminded me a bit of earlier Tchaikovsky.

When I heard that recording, I found the music dull. The Chandos recordings with Järvi at the helm make a better case for this composer in my view.

[Symphonic Addict]

The Piano Concerto reminded me of Schmidt but without the chromatic distinctiveness and the Violin Concerto has a similarity with Strauss's style. A very fine disc.

[JBS]

Sibelius. Tapiola. Karajan. 80's Karajan that is.

Yes, it's good. Though to be completely honest I think Kamu's chillier blizzard creeped me out more.

But Karajan definitely gets the music. He gets those long notes, and there was one section in particular where the strings were buzzing away in a very eerie fashion, refusing to move.

This exercise is dangerous because now I'm back to those dreams of someone doing a really good Sibelius orchestral works set, that isn't just symphonies plus a few fillers, and isn't BIS' hyper-complete, let's record every damn sketch and arrangement we can find that ends up being poor value. There's a market for a set of around 10 discs covering the symphonies, the tone poems, the Violin Concerto and a bunch of smaller orchestral works... and that market is me, dammit. Even though I own a recording of most things (still wanting to pick up a few small works).

EDIT: There are around 50 recordings of Tapiola out there...

BIS's 15 CD abridgement of the Complete Sibelius can still be found, although I realize you might find the current prices too high


I do have to laugh at myself with this set: up to that point I bought nothing bigger than triple-CDs or double CDs. I was hugely impressed with myself for buying an enormous set with 15 CDs.

[Symphonic Addict]

The chamber music with piano by Heinrich Hofmann (1842-1902) is decidedly delectable. His gift for lovely melodies is nothing short of wondrous. The 8 works presented here have no waste, not even the shorter ones.

[JBS]

"I don't remember much" was a pretty generous description.

TD: Mozart symphony no.14



To be followed by a Menuetto in A, K.61g/i, as an "appendix". I haven't yet been able to find an explanation as to why Tate adds this to the recording, i.e. any evidence that it needs to be associated with the symphony.

EDIT: The symphony itself has a kind of extra sophistication, possibly stemming from the 1st movement being "Allegro moderato" rather than a faster tempo. Also, I seem to rather like it when Mozart is in A major.

SECOND EDIT: Ah, I've found one faint suggestion that there's an "original" crossed-out Menuet for the symphony that Mozart replaced in the final version. So that may be the explanation. EDIT: Except that K.61g/i and the crossed-out Menuet for symphony no.14 might well be different things. More checking to see if EMI have stuffed up the labelling...

FINAL EDIT: Yes, the labelling is wrong. What Tate recorded is the discarded Menuet from the 14th symphony. It is not K.61g at all.

I checked the Hogwood/AAM set. It includes K.61g as an "Anhang" to the 14th Symphony. The liner notes don't seem to say anything about K.61g and almost nothing about the symphony itself. (My copy was from Amazon Italy, so the booklet is in Italian only.)

[Daverz]

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4, a lot...

Kondrashin in Moscow

Petrenko

Rozhdestvensky with the BBC Philharmonic

My main problem with this symphony is that I tend to get lost in the huge and episodic first movement.

The Kondrashin is the most characterized.  Each episode unfolds in almost a visual fashion.  As discussed previously, the master tape has some damage, but the vibrancy still comes through.  I haven't yet compared with Kondrashin's later live recordings with the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Concertgebeouw.

The Petrenko is technically the best recording here, and the Liverpool orchestra plays powerfully and virtuosically.  Very impressive, but I'm not sure it helps me navigate the very episodic nature of the music any better.

The Rozhdestvensky is a live recording in vibrant stereo (a few coughs here and there).  It's amusing how the audience murmurs after the first movement, and then even more loudly after the second movement.  They do go wild at the end.  You rarely hear more than throat clearing and chair creaking between movements in most live recordings.

[Que]

Streaming this morning:

[Roasted Swan]

Oh, I like them both Karl but the Alto CD made a great impression on me and I found sections of it very moving.

I agree - both versions are fine but the KOCH disc (which I've got in its original version)



I just prefer.  Its a more "austere" version in a way that I think works rather well.  All the couplings on the KOCH disc are superb too - not sure how many have made it to the Alto reissue.  But they show what a subtle composer Respighi could be.  Cappelletti's playing is that little bit cleaner and more rapier-like which again I think suits the music well.

[Que]

After O'Dette, Spotify coughed up this, probably because I've listend to recordings by lutenist Massimo Lonardi before.



Animal themes are a regular occurrence in Renaissance and Baroque music. I quite like it!
This is a mix of lute solos and accompanied (Italian) songs. The succes of a recital like this depends entirely on whether I like the singer, and here I am really happy with soprano Renata Fusco. Coincidentally they did another recording on the record label NovAntiqua that I discussed with Harry only yesterday!