What are you listening 2 now?

[Mandryka]

It's a box of chocolates.

[foxandpeng]

I wonder whether or not you might appreciate them more if you watched the opera first before revisiting them?  Or is opera currently "anathema" to you?

PD

Haha. You know me well. Opera has never really pushed any positive buttons for me, nor the majority of vocal classical music. Female sopranos in particular, leave me chillier than a penguin sandwich.

Plainsong works. Some sacred music. Masses, not at all. Opera, hasn't yet found a home in me yet, but who knows?

[prémont]

I don't use streaming services and don't plan to do so. There are enough complaints from musicians about being underpaid.

I share your opinion about streaming and shall also purchase the recording.

[Roasted Swan]

I can't stop playing the 'Uzbek Dance' from Khachaturian's 'Dance Suite' - always makes me sit up and smile:

The Dance Suite appeared on this disc too....

[Linz]

Nicolo Paganini Complete Chamber Music, CD3
Quartet for Violin, Viola, Guitar and Cello No. 3 in A major, MS 30/Op. 4 No. 3
Quartet for Violin, Viola, Guitar and Cello No. 7 in E major, MS 34
Quartet for Violin, Viola, Guitar and Cello No. 14 in A major, MS 41

[DavidW]

I don't use streaming services and don't plan to do so. There are enough complaints from musicians about being underpaid.

I was just talking with a friend at lunch about a former student who has been trying to build a career as a musician but just can't make it financially work because Spotify and Apple pay so very little. From what I know, it helps with recognition, but concerts are what sell.

I mean that former student would receive a monthly payout of $28 from Spotify despite good streaming numbers. That is well beyond meager.

[vandermolen]

Vaughan Williams: Sancta Civitas - arguably his greatest choral work. I haven't listened to it in ages:

[Pohjolas Daughter]

I was just talking with a friend at lunch about a former student who has been trying to build a career as a musician but just can't make it financially work because Spotify and Apple pay so very little. From what I know, it helps with recognition, but concerts are what sell.

I mean that former student would receive a monthly payout of $28 from Spotify despite good streaming numbers. That is well beyond meager.

  What kind of streaming numbers do you need to have to earn say at least a $1,000 a month?

PD

[Symphonic Addict]

Scott: Symphony No. 1 and Three Symphonic Dances (aka Symphony No. 2)

The first movement of the first symphony is aptly marked Allegro frivolo. However, the composer could have been more accurate to title the whole symphony like that epithet.

The Three Symphonic Dances is a tad more interesting, better orchestrated and more concise.

[Karl Henning]

That was a mistake, it was this that made me think of Bach's way of setting words and music - or maybe a bit of Mahler's (in the 8th)

@Traverso

Very nice!

[ShineyMcShineShine]

I was just talking with a friend at lunch about a former student who has been trying to build a career as a musician but just can't make it financially work because Spotify and Apple pay so very little. From what I know, it helps with recognition, but concerts are what sell.

I mean that former student would receive a monthly payout of $28 from Spotify despite good streaming numbers. That is well beyond meager.

Man Charged With $10 Million Streaming Music Scam Using AI-Generated Songs

[Karl Henning]

[Symphonic Addict]

Now this is great music. Both quartets can't be more different each other, and both sound unmistakably Arnoldian.




And more remarkable music:

Shostakovich: His two piano sonatas

[Symphonic Addict]

Shostakovich: His two piano sonatas

The first sonata in itself has all the elements to be considered like outstanding, but the second one is one or two steps forward in brilliance.

[JBS]

Haha. You know me well. Opera has never really pushed any positive buttons for me, nor the majority of vocal classical music. Female sopranos in particular, leave me chillier than a penguin sandwich.

Plainsong works. Some sacred music. Masses, not at all. Opera, hasn't yet found a home in me yet, but who knows?

Try Billy Budd. All male cast so you will endanger no penguins.

TD
The contents of this CD, although the concerto comes first

CD 8 of

[André]

I could say many things about this disc, so I will. First, I have listened to it 5 times in the last few days. Second, the reason for that is that the program is eminently well planned, with a clarinet trio, a clarinet quintet and a clarinet concerto. Another reason is that all three works are quite elusive. Fascinating but resolutely undemonstrative. They all end quietly, as if Denisov was allowing us a glimpse into his musical soul (he played the clarinet a lot himself), but nothing more. This is antimahlerian and anti-shostakovichian (these composers bare it all and don't we love it). Another thing I can say is that the performances are outstanding (look at the names of the artists !). And I could end by saying I'll be listening to this disc a few times again before I give it a well-deserved break.

Like I said, this is elusive music. It demands close attention and rewards repeated hearings. The concerto for example is everything a concerto is not: no tunes, no themes to speak of, just some musical gestures from the clarinet with an orchestral accompaniment that sometimes is reduced to a quiet timpani roll (it may seem uneventful but it's actually quite striking). The orchestral accompaniment raises above mf only once, for about a minute in the first movement. There are none of the dialogue, statement/counterstatement, strife and triumph usually heard in a concertante work.

Much the same can be said about the clarinet quintet, where the string quartet plays pianissimo for most of the time. The whole thing peters out quietly. If you so much as get lost in your thoughts you miss the whole thing. It is all very intriguing and mysterious. I was sometimes reminded of some of Bartok's 'night music' moments (slow movements of the piano concertos, MSPC, quartets) without the searing anguish they sometimes achieve.

[ShineyMcShineShine]

Maltempo means "bad weather".

Ah, como «no quiero salir porque hace mal tiempo».

[steve ridgway]

Scelsi: Kya

[JBS]

Having finished the Hogwood/AAM symphony set the other day, time to switch to a more intimate Mozart



K379 in G Major
K6.  in C Major
K547 in F Major
K378 in B Flat Major

This is the only set I have that includes all the sonatas, and not just the 16 "mature" sonatas. It's also the only PI set I have. (The others are Mutter/Orkis, Szeryng/Haebler, and Capuçon/Armstrong.)

[steve ridgway]

Penderecki: Magnificat