What are you listening 2 now?

[SonicMan46]

Boccherini, Luigi (1743-1805) - String Quartets & Quintets - Luigi's major output (he wrote over 90 String Quartets and over 120 String Quintets, i.e. nearly 220 works for these string chamber pieces! List HERE).  Listening selectively (quartets yesterday & quintets today) - attached is what I own at the moment (39 quartets; 47 quintets, so up to 86 total; well, just over a third of the way -  ) The rest of the Quintets are performed by La Magnifica Communita on the Brilliant label.  Dave

   

[AnotherSpin]

16 Konzerte nach verschiedenen Meistern, Concertos Nos. 1 - 5, 7, 10

Edoardo Bellotti

[Wanderer]

A recent purchase and quite happy with it.



PS Not sure why people at Christophorus thought that a 19th c. painting of a boy with spaghetti was the perfect choice for the cover. It almost seems like "anything Italian" (even though the painter was German) was good enough...

Maybe to invoke the meta-image of the cimbalo strings as melodic lines, supple and delicious? 

[Harry]

Joseph Haydn.
Divertimenti for Baryton Trio.
Guido Balestracci, Baryton
Alessandro Tampieri, Viola.
Bruno Cocset, Cello.
Recorded: église Notre-Dame de Centeilles, 2010.

I remember well a box released on Brilliant with all the Baryton trios Haydn has written, that bored the hell out of me, and consequently gave them away to a person with more resilience. The present recording is a different cup of tea altogether, because the instruments sounds much better to start with, and the playing is lively, spirited and even virtuosic. And far better recorded too. This is a performance you can listen in one go, without inevitable falling asleep before the third movement of any given trio. That in itself is a great accomplishment. Just try the second movement "Allegro molto" of the Trio in D major, H.11/113 from 1773, and you probably know what I mean with the term lively. This ensemble has a excellent internal balance between them, and play as one body. Forward but not oppressive recording, even the tiniest details are perfectly to follow. Granted I still could not listen to more than one CD at a time, but will happily return to it, with a long enough interval of time to get over it.

[AnotherSpin]

16 Konzerte nach verschiedenen Meistern, Concertos Nos. 1 - 5, 7, 10

Edoardo Bellotti

Added: After posting this undeniably wonderful album in the thread, I started wondering — what does New Holland - Nuova Olanda actually have to do with it? I believe that name was once used for Australia? I did a bit of digging online — Qobuz doesn't provide much detail — and found out that the recordings for the album were actually made in northeastern Italy, in four locations in what used to be the province of Udine, now reorganized. It seems this might somehow be related to the production of tractors under the New Holland brand. I couldn't find any other connection, but maybe someone else is better informed or more persistent in their search?

By the way, @Harry, take note — the recording is very audiophile-grade. I'm curious how it would sound on your setup.

[Harry]

Added: After posting this undeniably wonderful album in the thread, I started wondering — what does New Holland - Nuova Olanda actually have to do with it? I believe that name was once used for Australia? I did a bit of digging online — Qobuz doesn't provide much detail — and found out that the recordings for the album were actually made in northeastern Italy, in four locations in what used to be the province of Udine, now reorganized. It seems this might somehow be related to the production of tractors under the New Holland brand. I couldn't find any other connection, but maybe someone else is better informed or more persistent in their search?

By the way, @Harry, take note — the recording is very audiophile-grade. I'm curious how it would sound on your setup.

I will find it, listen to it and report, thank you Sergei for telling me.

[Symphonic Addict]

Donizetti: String Quartets 16-18

Performed on period instruments, albeit here the sound is not as discouraging. The 18th SQ is his masterpiece in the form.




Dvorak: Symphony No. 2

It sounds more "Czech" than his first symphony and more accomplished in all senses IMO. In spite of its length, I think it manages to sustain its material quite well. Love this robust symphony!

[Lisztianwagner]

Alexander Zemlinsky
String Quartet No.2

Schoenberg Quartet

Arnold Schönberg
String Trio

Trio Zimmermann

[JBS]

Added: After posting this undeniably wonderful album in the thread, I started wondering — what does New Holland - Nuova Olanda actually have to do with it? I believe that name was once used for Australia? I did a bit of digging online — Qobuz doesn't provide much detail — and found out that the recordings for the album were actually made in northeastern Italy, in four locations in what used to be the province of Udine, now reorganized. It seems this might somehow be related to the production of tractors under the New Holland brand. I couldn't find any other connection, but maybe someone else is better informed or more persistent in their search?

By the way, @Harry, take note — the recording is very audiophile-grade. I'm curious how it would sound on your setup.

Dutch or Flemish organ builders, perhaps?

[AnotherSpin]

Dutch or Flemish organ builders, perhaps?

Here is the information I found: https://www.cpfagagna.it/organi-storici/

[JBS]

Here is the information I found: https://www.cpfagagna.it/organi-storici/

Grazie! To my great surprise my knowledge of Italian was good enough to understand it.

But it seems the only connection to the Low Countries lies in the fact that the current organ of S. Maria Assunta, which was built c 1780 and restored in the 1970s, replaced an organ dating from the 1560s/70s by a Flemish organ builder named Arnoldo. The organ builders seem to have been otherwise all Italian.

[JBS]

TD

[prémont]

16 Konzerte nach verschiedenen Meistern, Concertos Nos. 1 - 5, 7, 10

Edoardo Bellotti

Sadly an agressive brain tumor cut Edoardo Bellotti's life short February 27. this year. He was 67 years old. RIP.

[AnotherSpin]

Sadly an agressive brain tumor cut Edoardo Bellotti's life short February 27. this year. He was 67 years old. RIP.

I didn't know about that, thanks for the information. I listened to several of his recordings today.

[DavidW]

Inspired by @Harry

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 5 in B Fat Major, 1878 Version Ed. Leopold Nowak
New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

[Selig]

Added: After posting this undeniably wonderful album in the thread, I started wondering — what does New Holland - Nuova Olanda actually have to do with it? I believe that name was once used for Australia? I did a bit of digging online — Qobuz doesn't provide much detail — and found out that the recordings for the album were actually made in northeastern Italy, in four locations in what used to be the province of Udine, now reorganized. It seems this might somehow be related to the production of tractors under the New Holland brand. I couldn't find any other connection, but maybe someone else is better informed or more persistent in their search?

Thanks for this obscure research challenge 

Here is a map of Friuli from 1778:
https://sanderusmaps.com/our-catalogue/antique-maps/europe/italy/friuli-by-paolo-santini?srsltid=AfmBOorQynfJqZO6CscZcdAJUOs4OGvPBO909gR65k5X-bVTIMqkfYU1

If you zoom in on Fagagna (northwest of Udine, or above the "EN" in VENETO), you can actually see La Nuova Olanda marked on the map! Close to it you'll see Madrisio, Villalta, and Ciconico, where the organs are located.

So what exactly was Nuova Olanda? It was an "experimental" factory built in connection to a peat bog, a venture by the entrepreneurial Count Fabio Asquini (1726–1818) who had the idea to use peat as fuel (as a cheaper alternative to wood). It was quite successful for a limited time, and attracted a lot of attention.

Why did he name it Nuova Olanda? He had gotten the idea to explore the use of peat thanks to the writings of his great uncle Nicolò Madrisio (1656-1729), who described the land burning during his travels in Holland. Additionally, the bog was at the lowest part of the territory, and he thought the name Holland meant lowland (hol land = hollow land, which Wikipedia describes as "A popular but erroneous folk etymology").

I guess the name stuck around (locally) as a nickname for the lowland around Fagagna.

source: Cultura in Friuli 5. "Il conte Fabio Asquini, imprenditore friulano del '700"

[ritter]

That information on La Nuova Olanda was a pleasant surprise. Thanks @AnotherSpin and @Selig for bringing it to our attention and for the clarifications. 

[André]

A wonderful, protean work. Cast in 5 movements played without interruption, it takes the listener through vast musical landscapes through an arc-like structure. Its centrepiece is the huge 3rd movement, 'Pezzo serioso', in which Busoni seems to link Liszt with Scriabin. Sometimes a piano concerto, sometimes a symphony with obbligato keyboard, sometimes a mystical post-romantic beethovenian Choral Fantasy - its form changes many times over its almost 80 minutes' duration.

In this recording Massa has inserted in the 4th movement a cadenza that Busoni had composed for the version for two pianos and choir published in 1908. Massa plays a beautiful-sounding Bechstein instrument - proudly resonant and slightly percussive in tone, the effect being of a full, noble but perfectly clear sound.

[JBS]

In honor of @Gurn Blanston
Beethoven Op 125 for Sunday


Symphony no 9 in d minor

London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Soloists
Heather Harper
Helen Watts
Alexander Young
Donald McIntyre

Recorded 23 September 1967
Fairfield Hall Croydon

Filled out by "private recording" of the Coriolan Overture from RAH February 1974