What are you listening 2 now?

[Traverso]

North German Organ Music







  Roskilde

  Ludgeri Church

[ChamberNut]

Because the legitimate piano duet works occupy only a couple of discs. Unlike the people of the 19th century, I can easily import an orchestra or chamber group into my house for listening.

These are legitimate though. They are all Brahms own. I myself have purchased every disc in this series individually (except the last one), years before the box set released.  The individual piano duet for the Hungarian Dances is available regardless.

[Madiel]

hese are legitimate though. They are all Brahms ow

I am not questioning their legitimacy in that sense, but their utility. They were created for the very practical reason that it was the only way many people in the 19th century would hear the music, not because Brahms was inordinately fond of the format. There are only a couple of discs of works that were actually conceived for the piano duet format, and the rest are arrangements of works that I can readily hear in the format they were actually conceived for. The whole reason for saying I want a piano duet version of the Hungarian Dances, while listening to an orchestral version, is that the orchestral version is an afterthought (and indeed only 3 dances were orchestrated by Brahms).

I am not going to buy a box set of 18 discs when there are only a couple that I would really want. Especially not when, as you point out, separate Naxos discs remain readily available.

[AnotherSpin]

Have you read Slavoj Žižek on Edgar Allan Poe's The Purloined Letter?

No, is it good?

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker. Gennady Rozhdestvensky & Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

North German Organ Music

Lovely recording!

[Mandryka]

No, is it good?

Well it's difficult -- it's written journalistically, so it appears clear, until you think about it analytically. Lacanian. I don't claim to understand it well enough to consider it critically, though I think Zizek is probably a very serious academic.

I raised it because it's about the quest for meaning. The way people try to find meaning by attributing a significance to coincidence.  This is the book I'm thinking of

https://www.routledge.com/Enjoy-Your-Symptom-Jacques-Lacan-in-Hollywood-and-Out/Zizek/p/book/9780415928120?srsltid=AfmBOopZO7XYcjD3t0-Q0uIC11STLd82_jrlqLeEayJ_8lNDtbRAiEwU

[Karl Henning]

Sergei Prokofiev
Symphony 4
Neeme Jarvi
Scottish National Orchestra

I like Prokofiev's symphonies under Jarvi.

Overall it's a very fine set. I once drew the ire of a former friend by finding fault with the first mvt of the Seventh of this very set.

TD, Cross-post:

Seryozha Prokofiev
Symphony № 4 in C (revised), Op. 112
Phila Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy

[AnotherSpin]

Well it's difficult -- it's written journalistically, so it appears clear, until you think about it analytically. Lacanian. I don't claim to understand it well enough to consider it critically, though I think Zizek is probably a very serious academic.

I raised it because it's about the quest for meaning. The way people try to find meaning by attributing a significance to coincidence.  This is the book I'm thinking of

https://www.routledge.com/Enjoy-Your-Symptom-Jacques-Lacan-in-Hollywood-and-Out/Zizek/p/book/9780415928120?srsltid=AfmBOopZO7XYcjD3t0-Q0uIC11STLd82_jrlqLeEayJ_8lNDtbRAiEwU

Thanks, I think I have this book — somewhere in our city apartment, which I hardly ever visit anymore. Spending the night downtown near the seaport under almost daily air raids is, at the end, not exactly the pinnacle of domestic coziness.

I don't really get Žižek. I've made multiple attempts to read his books, interviews (just the other day, I went through his take on the war in Ukraine) — and almost always, it ends in confusion. On the one hand, there are these little fireworks of insight scattered around. But I either don't understand what exactly he's trying to say, or if it does seem clear, I still get the feeling there's some secret bonus meaning lurking underneath, a second or even third layer. And that's the problem, I don't particularly want to go digging for it. My days of enjoying complex intellectual puzzles are behind me.

My worldview is getting simpler by the year — it's starting to resemble how I saw things as a kid. It's like I'm aging in reverse, shedding layers of overcomplication, heading straight for a blissful, toddler-like clarity. And in this grand journey back to simplicity, people like Žižek are just background noise.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Tchaikovsky
String Sextet in D, Op. 70, "Souvenir de Florence"
Borodin Quartet et. al.

From this set -

[Harry]

Darius Milhaud 1892-1974
Complete Violin Sonatas · Complete Viola Sonatas.
Gran Duo Italiano
Mauro Tortorelli, Violin and Viola.
Angela Meluso, Piano.
Recording: October 2015, Studio I Musicanti, Rome, Italy.

Just beautiful. The performance is fierce but precise, and gets the mood that Milhaus wrote in the music. I always get a sense of abandonment and despair, mixed with inevitability, and resignation when listening to his compositions. These early works already show all the characteristics of his progressive, open-minded style, Polytonality, Polyrhythm, and the use of traditional compositional patterns. The recording is clear and detailed.

[Brian]

After the Antar discussion, one thing led to another in my mind...



Yesterday afternoon I tried "Pan Voyevoda," and today it's "Christmas Eve". These performances sound really, really good.

[VonStupp]

WA Mozart
Overtures
Staatskapelle Dresden - Hans Vonk

A favorite recording of Mozart's overtures, if one is in the mood for such things.
VS

[SonicMan46]

Mendelssohn, Felix - Works for Cello & Piano w/ the musicians on the cover art below - modern vs. fortepiano, plus special cellos.  Fiorentini performs on the Stauffer - ex Cristiani Stradivari cello (1700) - story HERE, if interested. Poltéra also uses a Stradivari cello called Mara from 1711 and a Francois Tourte bow, c. 1825; Brautigam on a McNulty reproduction of an 1830 Pleyel piano.  Dave

P.S. on the Brautigam recording, cover art a watercolor by Felix Mendelssohn, 1837.

 

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP:

Debussy
Le Martyre de saint Sébastien
Catherine Gayer (soprano), Hanna Aurbacher (alto), Brigitte Messthaler (alto)
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, SWR Vokalensemble, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR
Gielen

From this set -

[Harry]

BACH, Johann Sebastian (1685—1750)
Leipziger Choräle (II).
Masaaki Suzuki, playing the Arp Schnitger Organ of Martinikerk, Groningen, The Netherlands.
Pitch: a' = 465 Hz.
Tuning: after Hinz, Variant of Neidhardt.
Recording: 20th—24th November 2023 at Martinikerk, Groningen, The Netherlands.


This is absolute bliss, performance and recording wise.

[foxandpeng]

Overall it's a very fine set. I once drew the ire of a former friend by finding fault with the first mvt of the Seventh of this very set.

TD, Cross-post:

Seryozha Prokofiev
Symphony № 4 in C (revised), Op. 112
Phila Orchestra
Eugene Ormandy

Hehe. People need to get out more.

[Mandryka]

Thanks, I think I have this book — somewhere in our city apartment, which I hardly ever visit anymore. Spending the night downtown near the seaport under almost daily air raids is, at the end, not exactly the pinnacle of domestic coziness.

I don't really get Žižek. I've made multiple attempts to read his books, interviews (just the other day, I went through his take on the war in Ukraine) — and almost always, it ends in confusion. On the one hand, there are these little fireworks of insight scattered around. But I either don't understand what exactly he's trying to say, or if it does seem clear, I still get the feeling there's some secret bonus meaning lurking underneath, a second or even third layer. And that's the problem, I don't particularly want to go digging for it. My days of enjoying complex intellectual puzzles are behind me.

My worldview is getting simpler by the year — it's starting to resemble how I saw things as a kid. It's like I'm aging in reverse, shedding layers of overcomplication, heading straight for a blissful, toddler-like clarity. And in this grand journey back to simplicity, people like Žižek are just background noise.

You're becoming like Milan Kundera. Lightness of being. Laughter and forgetting.

[AnotherSpin]

You're becoming like Milan Kundera. Lightness of being. Laughter and forgetting.

:-) Lightness of my being is, in fact, quite bearable.

[Harry]

Francesco Antonio Bonporti, 1672-1749.
Sonatas Op.1 for 2 Violins and B.c. (1696).
LABIRINTI ARMONICI.
Andrea Ferroni, Violin.
Josef Höhn, Violin.
Ivo Brigadoi, Cello.
Marian Polin, harpsichord and organ.
Recording: 13-15 April 2018, St Peter Church, Lana (Bolzano), Italy.

A series in four volumes with music by Bonporti. How lucky can one get? I was not aware of the existence of the ensemble and their recordings. A great surprise, most welcome, for they deliver music by a composer who was neglected and forgotten by all. And thus the quality shows in every note, every harmony, every melody. Bonporti is highly rated by me, so my pleasure is equally divided, in terms of his music and the quality of performance.
This ensemble does Bonporti proud, for they take this composer serious and acknowledge his mastery. I look forward to the other releases in this series. Well recorded too.