What are you listening 2 now?

[Harry]

The organ information is included in the history page @AnotherSpin posted yesterday.

For convenience, here it is
https://www.cpfagagna.it/organi-storici/

I totally missed this, thanks!

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Reich Three Movements

[Linz]

George Frideric Handel  Teseo Act I - Act II - Act III (beginning)
Eirian James Teseo, Della Jones Medea, Julia Gooding Agilea, Derek lea Ragin Egeo, Catherine Napoli Clizia
Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski

[Lisztianwagner]

Dmitri Shostakovich
Piano Quintet

Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fitzwilliam Quartet

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 4 in E Flat Major, 1878/80 Version (1880 with Bruckner's 1886 revisions) - Ed. Leopold Nowak
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Herbert Kegel

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 7 in E Major, 1885 Version with some Modifications by Bruckner. Ed. Albert Gutmann
Berliner Philharmoniker, Eugen Jochum

[Daverz]

Sandwiching the Mozart between the two Haydn concertos seems rather cruel to Haydn.  You won't remember anything about the first concerto in the program after the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante starts.  However, Haydn's Violin Concerto in C holds up pretty well coming after it.

Very enjoyable, but it does sound like a lot of other contemporary neo-tonal music. 

 

[Karl Henning]

[Symphonic Addict]

Brun: String Quartet No. 1 in E-flat major

Quite beautiful, lyric, placid. There were moments where I was mildly reminded of Dvorak and Brahms. It succeeded my expectations, a very endearing quartet.

[JBS]

Starting off this set with music by Dvorak and Suk. The Suk Serenade is luscious.

[Symphonic Addict]

Berkeley: String Trio
McCabe: Piano Sonata 'Hommage to Tippett' (Piano Study No. 12)

Two rewarding pieces in their own terms.

[André]

I listened recently to Pietro Spada's version on Genuin and was quite suprised - and pleased - by its elegant, romantic, 3 Michelin stars take on the music. Which of course prompted me to compare it with other versions. I know Ogdon and Ohlsson's versions, but decided instead on Hamelin's more recent take on the work.

When it comes to works like this, no single view can encapsulate its soul and spirit completely. Hamelin himself has recorded it 3 times and I've heard him play it live as well. Other pianists have recorded it (and no doubt played publicly) more than once. Every time Hamelin tackles the work he has some new insights to share as well as some familiar gestures.

In the case of this Hyperion recording, the soloists' tone as well as the balance between him and the orchestra were the main points of interest.

Hamelin, for all his formidable technical armoury, doesn't claim a special spot on the aural stage. He doesn't just blend in either. He creates an original sound collaboration in which piano and orchestra alternate in setting the focus on specific paragraphs or whole movements.

In the first movement for example I found Hamelin almost more of a collaborator than a leader in establishing the aural landscape. Conversely, he takes the lead in establishing both the mood, contrapuntal development and sonority of the second and fifth movements.

In the central 23-minute Pezzo serioso, the work's kernel - itself made up of contrasting sections - Hamelin and Spada alternate in establishing the lead, each with his own view. Spada and the north-German orchestra have a more open, natural soundstage/engineering, establishing a 'piano with orchestra' image, whereas Hamelin's dense, glinting sound and the orchestra's more recessed image give it a 'piano vs orchestra', a dom/sub balance if that makes sense. In that movement's furiously agitated, relentless 'storm' episode, Hamelin's incredibly accurate pile-driving fingers create an indelible impression.

In short: I prefer both soloist and orchestra/engineering in movements 1 and 5 of the Genuin disc, but Hyperion's team in the central ones. It's wonderful to be able to appreciate different musical and technical accomplishments of such a difficult work.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Ravel L'Enfant et les sortilèges



From this set -

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Sibelius String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 4 and String Quartet in D minor, "Voces Intimae", Op. 56

[Linz]

Franz Schubert Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D.759
New Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

[JBS]

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Reich Different Trains



About Reich's Different Trains:

Different Trains, for String Quartet and pre-recorded performance tape, begins a new way of composing that has its roots in my early tape pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966). The basic idea is that carefully chosen speech recordings generate the musical materials for musical instruments.

The idea for the piece came from my childhood. When I was one year old my parents separated. My singer, song writer mother moved to Los Angeles and my attorney father stayed in New York. Since they arranged divided custody, I travelled back and forth by train frequently between New York and Los Angeles from 1939 to 1942 accompanied by my governess. While the trips were exciting and romantic at the time I now look back and think that, if I had been in Europe during this period, as a Jew I would have had to ride very different trains. With this in mind I wanted to make a piece that would accurately reflect the whole situation. In order to prepare the tape I did the following:

Record my governess Virginia, then in her seventies, reminiscing about our train trips together.
Record a retired Pullman porter, Lawrence Davis, then in his eighties, who used to ride lines between New York and Los Angeles, reminiscing about his life.
Collect recordings of Holocaust survivors Rachella, Paul and Rachel, all about my age and then living in America—speaking of their experiences.
Collect recorded American and European train sounds of the '30s and '40s.
In order to combine the taped speech with the string instruments I selected small speech samples that are more or less clearly pitched and then notated them as accurately as possible in musical notation.

The strings then literally imitate that speech melody. The speech samples as well as the train sounds were transferred to tape with the use of sampling keyboards and a computer. Three separate string quartets are also added to the pre-recorded tape and the final live quartet part is added in performance.

Different Trains is in three movements (played without pause), although that term is stretched here since tempos change frequently in each movement. They are:

America—Before the war
Europe—During the war
After the war
The piece thus presents both a documentary and a musical reality and begins a new musical direction. It is a direction that I expect will lead to a new kind of documentary music video theatre in the not too distant future.

— Steve Reich – 1988

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Glass Symphony No. 11

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

NP: Glass Piano Quintet "Annunciation"

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Last work for the night --- Feldman The Viola in My Life