What are you listening 2 now?

[AnotherSpin]

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Zuzana Růžičková - Bach Concertos After Vivaldi.

[JBS]

New arrival.
Fortepiano is described as a "Walther-replica".
The three sonatas were first published in 1781. Presumably the Chevalier intended to perform them himself, since the violin is prominent throughout.

[Symphonic Addict]

Martinu: The Spectre's Bride and Partita for strings, H. 212

The Spectre's Bride contains some stirring writing featuring an absorbing narrative. I've come to think that Czech speech has a quite alluring texture/timbre/sonority.

[steve ridgway]

Takemitsu - Folios For Guitar

[steve ridgway]

Takemitsu - All In Twilight (Four Pieces For Guitar)

[steve ridgway]

Penderecki - Symphony No. 3

[Spotted Horses]

A bit peculiar that, despite being a huge admirer of Bacewicz, I just now realized that there is another string quartet cycle by the Lutoslawski Quartet. I've always listened to the Silesian Quartet on Chandos.



String Quartet No 1 sparkles, with the outer movements in a prickly Neo-baroque/Neo-classical style. Only the middle movement left me somewhat baffled.

[Que]

Happy to see the forum back in working order! 

Yesterday I din't get much listening in.

Since I visited Brussels on Friday and Saturday and saw an exact period copy - presumably made in Jeroen Bosch' own workshop - of his Triptych of the Temptation of St. Anthony. I started with this recording that has a fragment from the right panel on the cover:



After that a new addition to my collection:



Not part of the regular repertoire of the ensemble Amarcord, but praised by Amazon's Gio and rightly so. De la Rue's Missa Incessament is not included in the De la Rue recordings by either Beauty Farm (2 discs), Capilla Flamenca (3 discs), Cappella Pratensis or Ensemble Clément Janequin, so a perfect fit. 


And this morning a purchase from Brussels:



This recording is not only highly recommended for the performance of Pierre de Manchicourt's Missa de Requiem, but also for the beautiful performances of songs and laments by Nicolas Gombert, Thomas Crecquillon, Cornelis Canis (d'Hondt), Jean Richafort, Nicolas Payen.

[Traverso]

Bach

Triosonaten für orgel

[Harry]

Happy to see the forum back in working order! 
 
And this morning a purchase from Brussels:



This recording is not only highly recommended for the performance of Pierre de Manchicourt's Missa de Requiem, but also for the beautiful performances of songs and laments by Nicolas Gombert, Thomas Crecquillon, Cornelis Canis (d'Hondt), Antoine Févin, Jean Richafort, Nicolas Payen and Emanuel Adriaenssen (a new name to me).

Not to long ago I played this Requiem for an Emperor, and it is indeed very good..........

[Que]

Not to long I played this Requiem for an Emperor, and it is indeed very good..........

Absolutely wonderful!!

As a personal indulgence I got it on disc, and I was surprised to discover how this rather new recording is already running out of print. Must have been issued at a very low volume....

[Daverz]

A bit peculiar that, despite being a huge admirer of Bacewicz, I just now realized that there is another string quartet cycle by the Lutoslawski Quartet. I've always listened to the Silesian Quartet on Chandos.

There was also an earlier(?) cycle by the Amar Corde String Quartet

[pjme]

Pour le quatorze juillet:

And, earlier this morning Debussy quatuor à cordes / Brodsky quartet

[Harry]

Pierre de la Rue
Missa "Incessament" – Mon povre cueur lamente
Also featuring the motet Sic deus dilexit and Gregorian chants from the Moosburger Graduale.
Ensemble Amarcord
Recorded in the Stiftskirche Wechselburg, Saxony (Germany), during two sessions in September 2002 and April 2003.
Streaming quality: 44.1kHz / 16-bit.

In this finely woven musical tapestry, the Ensemble Amarcord offers a deeply coherent and affecting reconstruction, illuminating the intricate art of Pierre de la Rue's polyphonic language. The Missa Incessament, based on his own chanson Mon povre cueur lamente, is transformed here into a meditation on grief, memory, and devotion—subtle, unfolding like medieval stained glass under shifting light.

The architecture of de la Rue's counterpoint—densely imitative, yet luminously expressive—is here made clear to the ear without losing its mystery. The Amarcord ensemble, entirely male as was historically appropriate for such liturgical contexts, offers an interpretation both reverent and richly coloured, with each voice uniquely etched, yet in seamless blend.

A line from the chanson—"Mon povre cueur lamente / Et se deult incessamment" ("My poor heart laments / And grieves incessantly")—finds a shadowed echo throughout the Mass setting, revealing a composer of deep emotional refinement and spiritual gravity.

The inclusion of Gregorian chants from the Moosburger Graduale enriches the program, providing a context of sacred timelessness in which de la Rue's motets and Mass feel not only composed, but prayed.

The venue—Stiftskirche Wechselburg—adds its own solemn presence. Its resonant yet controlled acoustics help capture what must be one of the more accurate aural guesses of what this music might have once sounded like in a Flemish cathedral or a Burgundian chapel. Raumklang's engineering, always discreet and immersive, serves the ensemble's delicate blend and textual clarity to near perfection.

A disc for quiet contemplation, best approached with evening light and a still heart. Or, as the poet once wrote:
"Let my voice move like prayer through the cloister of time..."

[vandermolen]

Shostakovich Symphony No.1 RPO Horenstein
A marvellous performance and I'm looking forward to hearing the Nielsen as Horenstein's Unicirn LP/CD was one of the best - especially the anarchic drum cadenza:

[VonStupp]

FJ Haydn
Symphony 85 in B-flat Major 'The Queen'
Symphony 86 in D Major
Symphony 87 in A Major
Austro-Hungarian HO - Ádám Fischer

VS

[pjme]

[Harry]

Ernst Bloch – Schelomo & Suite for Viola (arranged for cello)
Parry Karp, cello
BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Kenneth Woods
Recorded July 29–30, 2024, at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
96kHz/24bit FLAC (Streaming)

At once a rediscovery and a reillumination, this release unites one of Bloch's best-known orchestral utterances—Schelomo—with the world-premiere recording of the Suite for Viola and Orchestra (1919), here heard in a masterfully judged arrangement for cello by Adolph Baller and Gábor Rejtő.
Bloch's Schelomo (1916) remains his most evocative Hebraic work, a tone poem for cello and orchestra, written at the peak of his early period of Jewish expressionism. Here, Solomon is not the wise old monarch of biblical lore, but a weary, disillusioned voice, contemplating the futility of life—"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Karp's cello enters with a kind of haunted gravitas, whispering its lament as the orchestra answers in long, slowly unfurling phrases, setting off emotional swells that never quite settle into repose. It's as if the cello walks alone through a half-lit room where the corners remain cloaked in shadow, while the orchestra bathes the centre in subdued, fractured sunrays. Woods and the BBC orchestra of Wales deliver this landscape with organic cohesion, every detail growing out of the last like vines along an ancient stone wall.
The Suite for Viola and Orchestra—lesser known, but by no means lesser—is a philosophical companion piece to Schelomo. Originally written in 1919 for viola, its arrangement for cello proves more than idiomatic; it seems reborn. The opening Lento is unsettling, as cello and orchestra spar in a murky dialogue, conflict and reconciliation taking turns. There's a haunting quality, a sense of wandering through a forest so thick you begin to doubt the sun ever existed. Yet, a shaft of light emerges toward the end, subtle but unmistakable.
In the third movement (Lento), that light becomes wonderment. The cello does not just sing; it thinks, pauses, and dreams. One is reminded of Bloch's own desire to express "the soul of the Jew," not through imitation but by reaching into the depths of an archetypal human yearning. The final Molto vivo brings with it a resurgence of energy—this is no longer the introspection of Solomon but something nearer to liberation. Threads long tangled now weave into a single, radiant line.
If Bloch's world often seems one of inner turmoil, this performance gives us something rare: a glimpse of transcendence earned, not given. I found myself caught between thought and emotion, both imprisoned and liberated by the sheer force of the music's architecture. It deserves your attention—if not incessantly, then certainly repeatedly.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

PERSICHETTI: SYMPHONIES NOS. 3, 4, & 7. Albany Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller.