What are you listening 2 now?

[AnotherSpin]

Laws with in built randomness - a brilliant way to produce ever changing, evolving complexity, surprising and beautiful appearances  .

Our perception shapes, making it such. Beautiful is within me, everything is within me, both beautiful and not beautiful, every thing I think about. The essence of beauty lies not in the object but in how it resonates within, in the layers of thought and feeling it evokes, if simpler.

[ritter]

Stravinsky's Canticum Sacrum and Boulez's Cummings ist der Dichter, live in Salzburg in July 1973. Bruno Maderna conducts the ORF Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of a Vienna,  with tenor Peter Baillié and baritone Ladislav Illavský as soloists in the Canticum.

[Spotted Horses]

Pejacevic, Symphony in f-sharp minor. Overheated post-romanticism, melodic with rich orchestration. Beautifully done.

[Lisztianwagner]

Richard Strauss
Metamorphosen

Herbert von Karajan & Berliner Philharmoniker

[nico1616]

First listen to this special work, which Händel called 'A Pastoral Ode'. It is a work from 1740, so from the time that Händel was leaving the composition of operas for oratorios. It was very popular in the composer's lifetime.
There is another commercial recording by Robert King, 25 minutes longer than this one, so I guess the Gardiner has some cuts. The Erato cast has Jennifer Smith and Patrizia Kwella, who I always love.

[Iota]

Listened to Berio's Six Encores on this disc as recommended by @Der lächelnde Schatten, and they are indeed lovely. Short character pieces with evocative titles, that explore the sonorities and colours of the piano beautifully.
Also listened to Sequenza IV, which inhabits much sterner harmonic territory, closer to the Piano Sonata. Full of twists and turns, and abrupt textural and dynamic contrasts, it's a highly engaging ten minutes or so of music, that never seems to lose its focus on its destination for a moment, throughout all its quicksilver shifts.

[Symphonic Addict]

[Mandryka]

@Traverso Some Xenakis quotes

The power of music is such that it transports you from one state to another. Like alcohol. Like love. If I wanted to learn how to compose music, maybe it was to acquire this power. The power of Dionysus. (Xenakis on Xenakis p.18)


Art, and, above all, music, has a fundamental function, which is to catalyze the sublimation that it can bring about through all means of expression. It must aim [...] to draw towards a total exaltation in which the individual mingles, losing his consciousness in a truth immediate, rare, enormous, and perfect. If a work of art succeeds in this undertaking even for a single moment, it attains its goal. (Music and Architecture p. 1)


The last time I heard any Xenakis it was in an Arditti concert a couple of years ago, they played the string trio Ikhoor. I found it as powerful an experience as any other string trio I know. I'd add that I find Tetras as powerful an experience as any other string quartet I've heard.

[JBS]

First listen to this special work, which Händel called 'A Pastoral Ode'. It is a work from 1740, so from the time that Händel was leaving the composition of operas for oratorios. It was very popular in the composer's lifetime.
There is another commercial recording by Robert King, 25 minutes longer than this one, so I guess the Gardiner has some cuts. The Erato cast has Jennifer Smith and Patrizia Kwella, who I always love.

It certainly helps that two thirds of the libretto is by Milton, and the other third is by Jennens (IIRC), who compiled the libretto for Messiah.

There are also recordings led by Willcocks, Nelson, Christie, and Martini (on Naxos), as well as a Berlin Classics recording that is sung in German. I think I have both Christie and Nelson. I don't remember their timings or if they made any cuts.

[Symphonic Addict]

Honegger: Symphonies 2 and 3

This has been repeated over and over again and with a fair reason: a magisterial recording. The 2nd movement of the Liturgique never sounded as miraculous as here, the same goes to the poignant ending.

[Symphonic Addict]

Persichetti: Piano Sonatas 8-12

These compact pieces pack a great deal of arresting ideas in their relatively short lengths.

[Karl Henning]

Now playing Delius The Song of the High Hills

While I have not become an absolute Delius fan, the Barbirolli doorstop has opened my eyes to the virtues of Delius' music.

TD: a superb performance of a cracjing piece by my friend Houston.

[SimonNZ]

[Traverso]

@Traverso Some Xenakis quotes

The power of music is such that it transports you from one state to another. Like alcohol. Like love. If I wanted to learn how to compose music, maybe it was to acquire this power. The power of Dionysus. (Xenakis on Xenakis p.18)


Art, and, above all, music, has a fundamental function, which is to catalyze the sublimation that it can bring about through all means of expression. It must aim [...] to draw towards a total exaltation in which the individual mingles, losing his consciousness in a truth immediate, rare, enormous, and perfect. If a work of art succeeds in this undertaking even for a single moment, it attains its goal. (Music and Architecture p. 1)


The last time I heard any Xenakis it was in an Arditti concert a couple of years ago, they played the string trio Ikhoor. I found it as powerful an experience as any other string trio I know. I'd add that I find Tetras as powerful an experience as any other string quartet I've heard.

Intriguing thoughts that urge you to listen not only to Xenakis but also to the music we claim to know. Can we listen to what we know? The same is true for the musician who must concentrate and lose himself at the same time. These are the moments that matter and give meaning to life,not as an idea but as a living thing.

[AnotherSpin]

@Traverso Some Xenakis quotes

The power of music is such that it transports you from one state to another. Like alcohol. Like love. If I wanted to learn how to compose music, maybe it was to acquire this power. The power of Dionysus. (Xenakis on Xenakis p.18)


Art, and, above all, music, has a fundamental function, which is to catalyze the sublimation that it can bring about through all means of expression. It must aim [...] to draw towards a total exaltation in which the individual mingles, losing his consciousness in a truth immediate, rare, enormous, and perfect. If a work of art succeeds in this undertaking even for a single moment, it attains its goal. (Music and Architecture p. 1)


The last time I heard any Xenakis it was in an Arditti concert a couple of years ago, they played the string trio Ikhoor. I found it as powerful an experience as any other string trio I know. I'd add that I find Tetras as powerful an experience as any other string quartet I've heard.

1. States unceasingly come and go, while we — our true Selves — remain unchanged, like love.

2. Indeed.

[Symphonic Addict]

One can't tire of listening to this composer's music.

[André]

This is a remastered verson of previous lp/cd incarnations. One immediately notices a fuller bass range - sounding somewhat artificial though (I guess you can't have everything). The LP and first CD releases were bass light and made Cleveland's/Szell's interpretation sound somewhat flippant for such a doom-laden, tragic work. Not so anymore, thanks to the remastering. It'll never be a demonstration item, but at least it  sounds like a good radio broadcast of what is a truly great performance - live from Severance Hall before a very quiet audience  - Szell must have given them the death stare before the first beat.

The true value of Szell's Mahler is how he uncannily relates him to the viennese and german classics - Beethoven, but also Brahms, Schumann and Schubert. Instead of underlining the weltschmerz, neurosis and angst of Mahler's idiom (Sinopoli, Tennstedt, Bernstein - all of them relying on sound and tempo fluctuations), Szell subjects the verticality (the timbres) of Mahler's orchestration to his ironclad strictness of tempo - the 'horizontal' element of musical dimension.

What we get is a 'clean' Mahler, stripped of his overcoat, coat, undercoat, dress shirt, pantaloons etc - you get the drift. And it happens so fast ! Because of his x-ray take on the score Szell convincingly/winningly takes us through this mammoth score some 7-10 minutes faster than most recordings. I think Mahler would have loved it.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Andrés Segovia.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

One can't tire of listening to this composer's music.

Nice!

[JBS]

The Debussy half of this Vox duo.



The only reason to complain about this recording is its lack of length--not even 44 minutes.