What are you listening 2 now?

[nico1616]

After Bernstein (DG) and Klemperer, this Walter surely can compete.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

A first listen:

A really fine concerto. What did you think of it? I might have to revisit this work myself. These are the two recordings I own of it:

[Spotted Horses]

Tangentially, I have been passively enjoying your survey of the Holmboe quartets, which I need to revisit myself soon.

Sounds like a Vulcan mind-meld sort of thing.

[Spotted Horses]

You've cued me to listen to the Stamitz Quartet in this 'un.

I listened to the Panocha and Pavel Haas recordings of Dvorak's 13th quartet (first 30 seconds, or so). I liked what DavidW seems to have hated, the cello line is played boldly in the Pavel Haas quartet, coming to the forefront of the musical texture. I have the Stamitz Quartet set on CD, along with the Prager, but never made it though them.

[Karl Henning]

A really fine concerto. What did you think of it? I might have to revisit this work myself. These are the two recordings I own of it:

Charming!

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Charming!

Cheers for the nod to the Hahn, Karl --- I'm piggybacking off your idea:

Now playing Hahn Piano Concerto

[Linz]

Johann Sebastian Bach CD2
Claudio Arrau

[Iota]

Roberto Gerhard: Libra; Gemini; Leo
Nona Liddell (violin), John Constable (piano)
London Sinfonietta, David Atherton

Entrancing music, Gerhard creates such bewitching mosaics of colour and intensity, every moment seems important. Mainly serialist, but it feels a very 'human' kind of serialism, the fingerprints of vibrant life are in every bar.
Libra is a sextet, Gemini a duo for violin and piano (superbly done by that pair), and Leo for larger ensemble. Gerhard's strengths feel writ large in all. I'm very taken.

[Lisztianwagner]

Johannes Brahms
Intermezzi Op.117
6 Piano Pieces Op.118

Pianist: Julius Katchen

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, 1872/77 Mixed Versions. Ed. Robert Haas
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Riccardo Chailly

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Here's one for @Cato

Now playing Hartmann Sinfonia Tragica



K. A. Hartmann's symphony cycle is one of the more unjustly ignored of the 20th Century. He's a major composer in my view. Sinfonia Tragica dates from earlier in career before he decided to begin numbering his symphonies. If I'm not mistaken, one of the movements of Sinfonia Tragica was reused in his 3rd symphony, but I can't remember which movement at the moment. His music inhabits a world that melds Bartók with Berg but with a couple of dashes of Mahler and sprinklings of Stravinsky and Hindemith. It is this unique synthesis that Hartmann was able to forge an identifiable sound-world of his own.

[Karl Henning]

Here's one for @Cato

Now playing Hartmann Sinfonia Tragica



K. A. Hartmann's symphony cycle is one of the more unjustly ignored of the 20th Century. He's a major composer in my view. Sinfonia Tragica dates from earlier in career before he decided to begin numbering his symphonies. If I'm not mistaken, one of the movements of Sinfonia Tragica was reused in his 3rd symphony, but I can't remember which movement at the moment. His music inhabits a world that melds Bartók with Berg but with a couple of dashes of Mahler and sprinklings of Stravinsky and Hindemith. It is this unique synthesis that Hartmann was able to forge an identifiable sound-world of his own.

Fabulous piece!

[Linz]

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No.9 in D minor "Choral" op.125
Clara Ebers soprano, Gertude Pitzinger contralto, Walther Ludwig tenor Ferdinand Frantz bass
Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Eugen Jochum
The Ruin of Athens' Overture, op.113
The Creatures of Prometheus' Overture, op.43
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Eugen Jochum

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Fabulous piece!

I concur! I don't think there's a Hartmann work that I don't at least enjoy on some level.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Hindemith Nobilissima Visione

[Cato]

Here's one for @Cato

Now playing Hartmann Sinfonia Tragica



K. A. Hartmann's symphony cycle is one of the more unjustly ignored of the 20th Century. He's a major composer in my view. Sinfonia Tragica dates from earlier in career before he decided to begin numbering his symphonies. If I'm not mistaken, one of the movements of Sinfonia Tragica was reused in his 3rd symphony, but I can't remember which movement at the moment. His music inhabits a world that melds Bartók with Berg but with a couple of dashes of Mahler and sprinklings of Stravinsky and Hindemith. It is this unique synthesis that Hartmann was able to forge an identifiable sound-world of his own.

Yes, Karl Amadeus Hartmann is an all-around fave!

Concerning the Sinfonia Tragica (yes, again, a wonderful work!): according to a German website about Hartmann, the Adagio of the Sinfonia Tragica became the basis for the Adagio in the Symphony #3, i.e. the original Sinfonia Tragica's Adagio  acted as a "quasi-theme" for a "variation" in the later Third Symphony.

I have scores of the numbered symphonies, but do not have a score for the Sinfonia Tragica, so I cannot give you any more insight from the music itself.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Yes, Karl Amadeus Hartmann is an all-around fave!

Concerning the Sinfonia Tragica (yes, again, a wonderful work!): according to a German website about Hartmann, the Adagio of the Sinfonia Tragica became the basis for the Adagio in the Symphony #3, i.e. the original Sinfonia Tragica's Adagio  acted as a "quasi-theme" for a "variation" in the later Third Symphony.

I have scores of the numbered symphonies, but do not have a score for the Sinfonia Tragica, so I cannot give you any more insight from the music itself.

Thanks for the information, @Cato. I'm not a newcomer to K. A. Hartmann's music, but if I were, what would you say are some of the unique characteristics of his music that make him stand out from say Hindemith and later on Henze?

[Cato]

Thanks for the information, @Cato. I'm not a newcomer to K. A. Hartmann's music, but if I were, what would you say are some of the unique characteristics of his music that make him stand out from say Hindemith and later on Henze?

Interesting: there is a book called Hindemith, Hartmann, and Henze by a musicologist named Guy Rickards, which examines that question.

Hartmann was 10 years younger than Hindemith, but Henze was a generation younger than Hartmann.

As a result, Hindemith - after a "wild" period (e.g. Moerder, Hoffnung der Frauen ), which still uses key signatures, despite heavy chromaticism - can be understood as somewhat (or very) Neo-Classical, and we can understand his music as a continuation of Brahms, Bruckner, and Mahler, but in a more Bachian vein.  e.g. The Third Piano Sonata - despite some rather dissonant passages - is wonderful, with a fugue in the last movement, and a very lyrical slow movement.

Hartmann, to my ears, is deliberately provocative with his use of dissonance, somewhat like pre-Soviet Prokofiev, and with driving rhythms, juxtapositions, and free chromaticism.  I think he takes a route which parallels Schoenberg's, similar, yet different.  With Hartmann, the music is often anguished, angry, or lamenting, shaking its fist in protest, which is quite comprehensible, given that he came of age during the Nazi period, and then saw Communism take over 1/3rd of Germany.

I do not think you can find a work of Hindemith's parallel with Hartmann's Sixth Symphony!, which is not a criticism of Hindemith, whose music had a different purpose.

Nevertheless, I think one can find at least some of Hartmann's roots in Bruckner, Mahler, and Schoenberg. 

Henze was eclectic, of course, with his music ranging all over the place: if he did not subscribe to Socialist Realism in his early days, he does seem to embrace a conservative, quasi-Neo-Romanticism - at least in vocal works - before the idea caught on later in the century.  Being eclectic, one also hears influences from e.g. Varese in other works, and Hindemith and Hartmann in others.

I recall listening to the DGG set of Symphonies 1-5 when they came out in the late '60's or early 70's, and heard a kind of Neo-Classicism in them: I was also not impressed by any of them.  They seemed as drab as Henze's work-shirt, which he wore for the album cover photo, undoubtedly to show solidarity with (East) German workers.

Some of the later works, e.g. the Requiem, were more interesting.  The Requiem might channel a little of Hartmann's fist-shaking, but certainly it follows Henze's refusal to be classified as following one style or the other.

[VonStupp]

Benjamin Britten
Young Apollo, op. 16
Canadian Carnival, op. 19
Sinfonia da Requiem, op. 20
Scottish Ballad, op. 26
Occasional Overture, op. 36
Quatre Chansons Françaises

Jill Gomez, soprano
Felix Kok, violin
Peter Donohoe, piano
Philip Fowke, piano
CBSO - Simon Rattle

Invention and inspiration galore.
VS

From CD 2:

[DavidW]

I listened to the Panocha and Pavel Haas recordings of Dvorak's 13th quartet (first 30 seconds, or so). I liked what DavidW seems to have hated, the cello line is played boldly in the Pavel Haas quartet, coming to the forefront of the musical texture. I have the Stamitz Quartet set on CD, along with the Prager, but never made it though them.

I was debating whether or not to post my negative impressions. I'm now glad I did! My yuck was your yum, and it might have been a while before you found that recording if I had not said anything about it.