What are you listening 2 now?

[Number Six]

A Symphony for Saturday!



Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
Klaus Mäkelä, Oslo Philharmonic

Coffee, peanut butter toast, and some purty music. Not a bad way to start the morning.

[ritter]

Wolfgang Rihm's massive poème dansé Tutuguri. Patrice Bollon conducts the Stuttgart SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart (whose choir master, Rupert Huber, also appears as speaker).



Based by the poem Tutuguri, le rite du soleil noir (extracted from Antonin Artaud's Pour en finir avec le jugement de Dieu — "To Have Done With The Judgement of God"), this is one of Rihm's many works inspired by Artaud, and is IMHO a superb musical "reflection" of and on the French surrealist author-actor-painter's troubled but fascinating literary output.



At two hours, it's as if Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and much  of Varèse's work had somehow merged and expanded. And it's a must for anyone who likes OTT percussion writing.

Quite wonderful!

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

That really is a great set!

Yes, indeed. I've been enjoying all of these Herreweghe Bach recordings.

[Number Six]

Based on this photo, I am scared of Bollon. 

[ritter]

Based on this photo, I am scared of Bollon. 

Be afraid, be very afraid... but of Rihm, not Bollon (as it's the former in the photo).

[Number Six]

Be afraid, be very afraid... but of Rihm, not Bollon (as it's the former in the photo).

All composers and conductors are madmen - including the ladies. 

[Karl Henning]

[JBS]

CD 7 brings 34 lieder whose D numbers are mostly in the lower half of the 400s.

It's true that DFD recorded a lot of the lieder by the time he completed the 21 CDs worth of recordings--but he did confine himself to the ones written for male voice. Can anyone suggest a singer or a set that covers the lieder written for female voice, such as Gretchen am Spinnrade?

[Traverso]

Bartok

[Traverso]

CD 7 brings 34 lieder whose D numbers are mostly in the lower half of the 400s.

It's true that DFD recorded a lot of the lieder by the time he completed the 21 CDs worth of recordings--but he did confine himself to the ones written for male voice. Can anyone suggest a singer or a set that covers the lieder written for female voice, such as Gretchen am Spinnrade?

[JBS]

Thank you!
(Although for practical purposes, since it's OOP, it would be in the form of two issues of two CDs each that are also OOP but more available).

[André]

Swiss composer Fritz Brun's 8th symphony is 53 minutes long and was composed at the height of WWII. That might lead us to anticipate a Grand Statement on the horrors of war, fraught with angst and violence.

It seems rather that Switzerland's well-known neutrality made Brun quite impermeable to the situation in Europe at the time. The Allegro vivace first movement sounds (to my ears) wildly exuberant and not at all dark or sinister. The second is a lengthy set of variations on a Bernese folk song (Bern is the capital of Switzerland). Again, nothing to terrorize old ladies with the blue hair. Then a Notturno (Andante comodo) follows, quiet, amiable and somewhat dour, with its prominent low wind ruminations. The vast finale (Allegro non troppo) seems like a fine piece of music. It is well crafted but apart from the coda, somewhat faceless.

So, a goodish orchestral work that in the context seems quite purposeless. I don't know if Brun intended to convey anything particular here. If that's the case I didn't get it (happens sometime).

Othmar Schoeck's 3 songs orchestrated by Brun is another piece written at the height of a world war (WWI this time). It is beautiful, deeply felt and frankly should be much better known. Bernadett Fodor is the excellent alto soloist. The piano-accompanied original version is probably included in NCA's mammoth set of Schoeck songs, and FiDi must have recorded them as well but I think this is the only recording of the orchestral version.

I wouldn't recommend paying big bucks for this disc, but its inclusion in the cheapo 11-cd Brilliant set makes the Schoeck work a much more amenable proposition.

[André]

CD 7 brings 34 lieder whose D numbers are mostly in the lower half of the 400s.

It's true that DFD recorded a lot of the lieder by the time he completed the 21 CDs worth of recordings--but he did confine himself to the ones written for male voice. Can anyone suggest a singer or a set that covers the lieder written for female voice, such as Gretchen am Spinnrade?

There' a wonderful 2-cd compilation with Janet Baker on EMI.

[Karl Henning]

[Number Six]

Thank you!
(Although for practical purposes, since it's OOP, it would be in the form of two issues of two CDs each that are also OOP but more available).

But fatboy boxes look so good. 

[ChamberNut]

A Symphony for Saturday!



Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
Klaus Mäkelä, Oslo Philharmonic

Coffee, peanut butter toast, and some purty music. Not a bad way to start the morning.

The food colour seems to match the album cover. 

[JBS]

There' a wonderful 2-cd compilation with Janet Baker on EMI.

Also wishlisted. Although I already have Baker's Hyperion Schubert recital, and Janowitz has twice as much...

[Linz]

Richard Strauss Don Quixote op. 25,  festival overture op 61 & Dance of the Seven vails op 54, Lorne Munro, cello, William Lincer, violin, Edward Power Biggs, organ, New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein

[Traverso]

Thank you!
(Although for practical purposes, since it's OOP, it would be in the form of two issues of two CDs each that are also OOP but more available).

It is very pity that the box I have is harder to find, the two duos perhaps a bit easier.
Although certainly worth the effort to  search for it.There is no libretto included...

[SonicMan46]

Czerny, Carl (1791-1857) - Piano Concertos & Sonatas w/ Howard Shelley and Martin Jones (6 discs total) - a day's listening -    He composed 11 'Piano Sonatas' (Jones' recordings are filled-out w/ other works).  Dave

Carl Czerny was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose music spanned the late Classical and early Romantic eras. His vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works and his books of studies for the piano are still widely used in piano teaching. He was one of Ludwig van Beethoven's best-known pupils and would later on be one of the main teachers of Franz Liszt and many others to follow (see pic at bottom) (Source).