What are you listening 2 now?

[hopefullytrusting]

My next set of listening:
Joseph Haydn: Symphony 26
Joseph Martin Kraus: Symphonies in C minor AND C-sharp minor
Johann Gottfried Müthel: Minor Keyboard Concertos
Johann Baptist Wanhal: Minor Symphonies
Ernst Wilhelm Wolf: Fantasia and Theme with 13 Variations
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony 25
Carl Nielsen: Complete Symphonies

Easily my worst day of listening ever (important note: I've not listened to Nielsen, yet).

The only one I will come back to is the Wolf.

I will say I finally found a use for Mozart's symphonies - that shit puts me instantly, and I do mean instantly, to sleep. OH! MY! GOD! I've never been so bored in my life! If I ever struggle with getting to sleep, I now know a cure!

[Madiel]

will say I finally found a use for Mozart's symphonies - that shit puts me instantly, and I do mean instantly, to sleep. OH! MY! GOD! I've never been so bored in my life! If I ever struggle with getting to sleep, I now know a cure!

I know that no.25 is often lauded, but personally I've never quite understood why.

Also we can't comment on what performances you used... by no means am I going to insist you go back and listen to alternate versions, but I had occasion just yesterday to think about how I've heard some really dull Nielsen which I wouldn't have thought possible in comparison to other versions. It's annoying because the dull performances are from the most comprehensive Nielsen that includes more of the smaller orchestral works than any other set.

[hopefullytrusting]

I know that no.25 is often lauded, but personally I've never quite understood why.

Also we can't comment on what performances you used... by no means am I going to insist you go back and listen to alternate versions, but I had occasion just yesterday to think about how I've heard some really dull Nielsen which I wouldn't have thought possible in comparison to other versions. It's annoying because the dull performances are from the most comprehensive Nielsen that includes more of the smaller orchestral works than any other set.

I think everyone by now knows I have listened to all of the major Mozart conductors, but today listening to, easily, the best sounding live orchestra: the Frankfort Radio Symphony - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojDuSz7YxTw

[hopefullytrusting]

Currently trying to scrub Mozart Symphonies from my mind:

Starting with Penderecki's Threnody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8
Followed by Crumb's Black Angels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etHtCVeU4-I
Ending with Barrett's Tract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je4nRgN2tDo

God, this music is so soothing after Mozart! You really do come to appreciate the finer things in life.

[ChamberNut]

Currently trying to scrub Mozart Symphonies from my mind:

Starting with Penderecki's Threnody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8
Followed by Crumb's Black Angels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etHtCVeU4-I
Ending with Barrett's Tract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je4nRgN2tDo

God, this music is so soothing after Mozart! You really do come to appreciate the finer things in life.

Interesting palate cleansers. Usually it's the other way around. 

[Cato]

Bartok: Dance Suite / Kodaly: Variations on a Hungarian Folksong. Gyorgy Lehel/Budapest.

Bartok and Kodaly were still pretty big in the 1960's!  They should still be big!  And that recording is a classic!

Today, oh my goodness!  What a marvelous work!  Please give Alexander Nemtin a chance!  It is scandalous that his oeuvre is almost unknown, and that he is almost only a footnote to Scriabin's sketches for the Prefatory Action.

Of course, Serge Protopopov's works did not do well in the Communist era, not to mention some of those who escaped from Communism to other countries, e.g. Nikolai Tcherepnin, Nikolau Obukhov, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, et aL.

[Karl Henning]

[Madiel]

Interesting palate cleansers. Usually it's the other way around. 

Yeah, relaxing to a work mourning the victims of the first nuclear bomb did strike me as... unusual.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Glazunov: From The Middle Ages, Scènes de ballet - Lyadov: A Musical Snuffbox.

[hopefullytrusting]

Yeah, relaxing to a work mourning the victims of the first nuclear bomb did strike me as... unusual.

Yeah, that isn't how I view the music.

That's the program he superimposed upon it; I reject that.

[Madiel]

Yeah, that isn't how I view the music.

That's the program he superimposed upon it; I reject that.

Ah. You're of the "bugger authorial intent" school of interpretation. Very well then.

[Number Six]

Haydn: String Quartet Op. 54, No. 1
Juilliard String Quartet

[Number Six]

Ah. You're of the "bugger authorial intent" school of interpretation. Very well then.

I was once participating in an Olivia Neutron-Bomb album-by-album thread over at Hoffville.

When we got to Physical, I wrote several paragraphs about how the song "Silvery Rain" was all about a struggling relationship, etc etc.

People were quick to inform me: Nope, it's not a metaphor. It's actually about dolphins and acid rain.

Dang it. I was so proud of my analysis.

[foxandpeng]

Kalevi Aho
Symphony 7 'Hyonteissinfonia'
Osmo Vanska
Lahti Symphony Orchestra
BIS

First listen to Aho's Insect Symphony 🙂

[Madiel]

I was once participating in an Olivia Neutron-Bomb album-by-album thread over at Hoffville.

When we got to Physical, I wrote several paragraphs about how the song "Silvery Rain" was all about a struggling relationship, etc etc.

People were quick to inform me: Nope, it's not a metaphor. It's actually about dolphins and acid rain.

Dang it. I was so proud of my analysis.

Well this is why cultural and historical context can be so interesting. Because there was a time when acid rain was very much A Thing. And it's now disappeared as an issue, I once listened to a podcast that explained why but I forget the explanation.

I have at least 2 different interpretations of Peter Gabriel's song "Red Rain" but I don't think either of them matched his, which I found disappointing. Fantastic song regardless.

[foxandpeng]

Kalevi Aho
Symphony 7 'Hyonteissinfonia'
Osmo Vanska
Lahti Symphony Orchestra
BIS

First listen to Aho's Insect Symphony 🙂

Yeah. Not bad. #14 and #7 both need more listens, but worthwhile so far 🙂

[JBS]

Ah. You're of the "bugger authorial intent" school of interpretation. Very well then.

But Philo is right: the Hiroshima connection was something Penderecki came up with only after hearing an actual performance

Originally called 8'37",[13] the piece applies the sonoristic technique which tends to focus on specific characteristics and qualities of timbre, texture, articulation, dynamics, and motion in an attempt to create freer form, and rigors of specific counterpoint to an ensemble of strings treated to unconventional scoring. Penderecki's stated intent with the composition was to "develop a new musical language".[14] Penderecki later said, "It existed only in my imagination, in a somewhat abstract way." When he heard an actual performance, "I was struck by the emotional charge of the work ... I searched for associations and, in the end, I decided to dedicate it to the Hiroshima victims".[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody_to_the_Victims_of_Hiroshima

TD
Puccini's version of the California Gold Rush, with Birgit Nilsson, Joao Gibin, and Andrea Mongelli as Minnie, Johnson and Rance.

[VonStupp]

George Lloyd
Symphony 4 'The Arctic'
John Socman: Overture
Albany SO & BBC PO - George Lloyd

A positive symphonic thought on the part of Lloyd considering the 4th's wartime date and his experiences. I appreciate the composer's optimistic outlook.
VS

[Madiel]

But Philo is right: the Hiroshima connection was something Penderecki came up with only after hearing an actual performancehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody_to_the_Victims_of_Hiroshima

My comment wasn't intended as a criticism. People have different views on this that inform their listening, reading etc. and that's fine.

While it's certainly interesting to know that in this case the title came wholly after the composition, composer's choosing titles are in my view trying to influence the way their work is received. There are plenty of examples of composers changing their mind about these things, including the less poetic question of whether or not to call something a 'symphony'.

[Linz]

John Marsh Contemporaries of Mozart Vol. 2 CD 6, Symphonies, London Mozart Players, Matthias Bamert