What are you listening 2 now?

[brewski]

Mendelssohn: Octet (Dover Quartet / Escher Quartet, recorded in Houston, TX in 2019, AUDIO ONLY). Terrific performance, full of vivacity. Haven't yet listened to the Enescu that follows.

[Madiel]

Haydn/Bavouzet: bits of disc 8



Adagio ma non troppo - a keyboard piece that is probably the first version of what became the slow movement of piano trio no.36

Sonata no.6 in C

Sonata no.7 in D - probably not authentic

Variations on 'Gott erhalte' - Haydn's own tune now best known as the German national anthem, this piano version is based on the movement from the op.76/3 quartet.

[Que]

I'm streamlining my collection a bit - trying to cull some of the excess. Got this as a bargain years ago... Since my Early Music section is bursting out of its seams, this was a candidate. And after all: do I really need two discs of adapted/embellished French plainchant?  But after dipping into it... I guess I do, even though listening will be on rare occassions. It is beautifully done, with elaborate notes on the provenance and particulars of each piece.

From the Middle Ages until the 19th century, plainchant was sung polyphonically all over Europe in a great variety of ways. It is no exaggeration to say that for centuries it epitomised the sound of church music for congregations. Faux-bourdon was a means of solemnising the Divine Office by embellishing the plainchant melody. This double CD featuring Dominique Vellard and the Ensemble Gilles Binchois is the result of four years' work – four years, during which several thousand manuscript and printed examples were identified. It offers a selection of this music that reflects the variety and diversity of four centuries of French polyphonic plainchant.

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

[Que]

Revisiting this new Huelgas recording. Impressive - one for the shopping list, I guess... 

Huelgas Ensemble present the big discovery of 2024: music by Blasius Amon. The Austrian composer (c. 1560-1590) began his musical career as a choirboy at the court chapel of Archduke Ferdinand II in Innsbruck, where he learned his trade from the Flemish Kapellmeister Alexander Utendal. His next mentor was Andrea Gabrieli, one of the masters of the Venetian School. Upon returning to Vienna, Amon joined the franciscan order. All these paths in life came together in his appointment as singing master at the franciscan monastery of Heiligenkreuz around 1585.

Amon hardly reached the age of 30, but during that short life, he distinguished himself internationally with an impressive volume of high-quality music that was in great demand on the music market. It was no surprise, then, that five collections consisting entirely of his own compositions were published in just ten years! Phalesius published the anthology Florilegium sacrarum in Antwerp in 1609, which also contains work by Amon. It is dominated by two styles: the Franco-Flemish technique of imitation and Venetian polychoral styl (pepredominance of warm harmonic chords, 'modern' tonality instead of church modes). Amon was a virtuoso master of the former, and the first German-speaking composer to employ the latter. 'Astonishingly original,' was Paul Van Nevel's impression. He has created an anthology with his Huelgas Ensemble that includes a seven-part Missa quatuor vocum pro defunctis and a selection of motets from the collection Sacrae cantiones (Vienna, 1590).

[Que]

Wonderful. And this recording fills a gap in my collection lute recordings, although Christopher Wilson's combined Dall'Aquila/ Da Crema recording (Naxos) is very nice as well.

[Karl Henning]

[Traverso]

Bach

[AnotherSpin]

[Que]

[vers la flamme]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concertos 19, 20, 23 and Rondo in D major. Alfred Brendel, Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

This 2CD is one of the first purchases I ever made after getting into classical music; I don't get back to it often, but it is sounding very good right now.

[Traverso]

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concertos 19, 20, 23 and Rondo in D major. Alfred Brendel, Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

This 2CD is one of the first purchases I ever made after getting into classical music; I don't get back to it often, but it is sounding very good right now.

Welcome back,believe or not,I was just thinking about your long absence.

[vers la flamme]

Welcome back,believe or not,I was just thinking about your long absence.

Very kind of you Traverso

[Hitch]

As a newcomer to the Ring, I have found this recording to be very useful: it combines an explanation of the motifs with a narration of the plot. Deryck Cooke's similar recording seems more detailed but I would recommend the Friedrich and Englert effort to people who are nervous about trying the Ring on for size. (Post duplicated in the "Wagner's Valhalla" thread.)

[Madiel]

Mozart: after a few concert arias and the Masonic Funeral Music (all of which were pretty good), it's time for...

Violin Sonata no.33 in E flat, K.481

[AnotherSpin]

[Lisztianwagner]

Karol Szymanowski
Symphony No.3

Simon Rattle & City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

[Traverso]

Tristan Murail

Les Travaux et les Jours (2003)

 

[Harry]

Emanuel Moor.
Sonatas for Cello and Piano, opus 22 & 55.
Suite for Four Celli. opus 95.
Recorded: 2007.
See front cover for details.

I am positively smitten by the gorgeous music of Emanuel Moor. A forgotten composer, sadly so. If anyone is undeserving of this fate it surely is Moor. Such quality of music is hard to come by.  Pablo Casals thought Moor to be a genius, as indeed he is. It is well played and recorded.

[Traverso]

Stravinsky


L'Oiseau de Feu
Le Chant du Rossignol

[VonStupp]

Benjamin Britten
Cantata Academica, op. 62
Missa Brevis in D, op. 63
Rejoice in the Lamb, op. 30
Hymn to St. Cecilia, op. 27
Gloriana: Choral Dances
Hymn to the Virgin

Jennifer Vyvyan, soprano
Helen Watts, contralto
Peter Pears, tenor
Owen Brannigan, bass

Westminster Cathedral Choir (Missa)
Purcell Singers (Rejoice)
London SO & Chorus - George Malcolm

I soloed one of the movements of Cantata Academica at a recital long ago, but have never heard the whole work. What a blast!

Too bad nobody seems to want to have anything to do with it on record - This one sounds superb regardless of its lack of popularity, and I am overjoyed at having become acquainted with it.
VS