What are you listening 2 now?

[Linz]

Franz Schubert Mass No, 2 in G major D 167
Mass No. 6 in E flat major D 950
Ildko Raimonddi soprano Elisabeth Lang alto, Helmut Lippert tenor, Helmut Wildhaber tenor, Klaus Mertens bass, Franz-josef Selig bass
Hugo-Distler Chor, Wiener Akademie, Martin Haselböck

[Mandryka]

Well that's it, I am now clear that Alma's songs are better than Gustav's

[brewski]

Berio: Sinfonia (ADDA Simfònica Alicante / London Voices / Josep Vicent, conductor, live recording from June 2024). A lot of beautiful transparency in this reading, with some parts audible that I don't recall before, such as the harpsichord.

[DavidW]

Sublime, I also can't believe how well La Mer works on piano trio, but all the works are enchanting. This album is highly recommended.

[JBS]

Well that's it, I am now clear that Alma's songs are better than Gustav's

88 keys was just not big enough for his palette

TD

[hopefullytrusting]

Alison Luthmers plays Roman's Assaggis for Solo Violin



I had never heard of this composer prior to coming across this disc on Presto, but their solo violin works are easily in the same league as Biber and Tartini (I need more listens to see if I'd put them in the same tier as Bach, whose solo violin works I rank as supreme).

The production value is high, the sound is clear and crisp. The playing - obviously top notch. High recommend for solo violin lovers.

[Symphonic Addict]

Prokofiev: Symphonies 6 and 7
Martinu: Suite concertante for violin and orchestra, H. 276 (two versions) and Concerto-Rhapsody for violin and orchestra

Many of those who claim that the 6th is Prokofiev's most accomplished symphony seem to be right. A staggering masterpiece. The 7th is not too far behind in inspiration, just that in a different fashion. Prokofiev's symphony cycle is one of the very best of the first half of the 20th century. A tentative order of favorites would be:

6, 5, 2, 7, 4 op. 112, 3, 4 op. 47 and 1.

I had never heard these concertante pieces by Martinu, save for the Concerto-Rhapsody in the version with viola. Both Suites concertantes are significantly different each other, being the first version superior, more inventive and fresh-sounding than the another one, and it's an absolutely riveting work. It really took me by surprise.

[DavidW]

[JBS]

Alison Luthmers plays Roman's Assaggis for Solo Violin



I had never heard of this composer prior to coming across this disc on Presto, but their solo violin works are easily in the same league as Biber and Tartini (I need more listens to see if I'd put them in the same tier as Bach, whose solo violin works I rank as supreme).

The production value is high, the sound is clear and crisp. The playing - obviously top notch. High recommend for solo violin lovers.

Good to see you!

I have Fabio Biondi's recording of these Assagi on Naive. I too had never heard of Roman, and I didn't know about this recording.

I'd rate the Assagi as better than Biber, but nothing matches Bach.

[JBS]

TD

Keeping on with Papa

[Daverz]

I had never heard these concertante pieces by Martinu, save for the Concerto-Rhapsody in the version with viola. Both Suites concertantes are significantly different each other, being the first version superior, more inventive and fresh-sounding than the another one, and it's an absolutely riveting work. It really took me by surprise.

I think I prefer Matoušek in the Violin Concerto No. 1 even to the classic Josef Suk with Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Phil.  Matoušek sounds more romantic and characterful than Suk, a reaction which surprised me.

[Symphonic Addict]

I think I prefer Matoušek in the Violin Concerto No. 1 even to the classic Josef Suk with Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Phil.  Matoušek sounds more romantic and characterful than Suk, a reaction which surprised me.

These recordings featuring Matousek are exemplary, so your perception of the Violin Concerto No. 1 sounds apt.

[steve ridgway]

Birtwistle - Gawain's Journey

[AnotherSpin]

Matthias Weckmann: Complete Organ Works
Bernard Foccroulle

Quiet and peaceful music. A consolation after yet another night of attacks on civilian targets in Odesa: a burned supermarket, shattered apartment windows, damaged cars. No reported casualties.

What is, is. The world appears and disappears.

[Que]

A consolation after yet another night of attacks on civilian targets in Odesa: a burned supermarket, shattered apartment windows, damaged cars. No reported casualties.

Glad to hear that hopefully there were no casualties and that you are still safe.

[Mandryka]

Such lovely music - a mass and a handful of motets.

[Florestan]

Are they the complete concertos?

Hans Graf has also a nice cycle of Mozart's symphonies.

[Harry]

Arnold Bax (1883–1953)
Spring Fire – Complete Music for Cello and Piano
Alexander Baillie, cello · John Thwaites, piano
Recorded: The Bradshaw Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, 2023
Streaming: 192kHz/24 bit
See back cover for full details.

In a world increasingly impatient with beauty, the music of Arnold Bax remains a quiet sanctuary—never plain, never fashionable, yet always intensely felt. This latest offering from SOMM brings together his complete music for cello and piano, interpreted with sincerity and deep understanding by Alexander Baillie and John Thwaites.

We begin with the Folk-Tale (1918), a brief but potent miniature in which the cello sighs in long, haunted lines over shadowy chords from the piano. It opens like a field shrouded in dusk. The wind has ceased, and something of the soul remains suspended in the air. Written in the immediate aftermath of the Great War, it is a musical epitaph to a vanished world—its elegiac restraint not far from the stillness of Edward Thomas or the melancholic clarity of Ivor Gurney. The cello does not plead, but rather remembers, and memory can be the loneliest thing.

The Sonata for Cello and Piano (1923) is the structural and emotional anchor of the programme—a work of bitter introspection, tangled lyricism, and thorny harmonic texture.  The instruments argue their positions, drifting between moments of unresolved disquiet and rare intervals of accord. The slow movement (Poco lento) is pure English landscape—wild heath, windswept hills, and distant bells—while the finale (Molto vivace ma non troppo) clears the clouds with an almost defiant vitality. One hears a determination not to retreat into despair, but to give it voice and thereby render it bearable.

The Sonatina (1930s) is slighter in scope but no less telling. Here, Bax leans closer to his Celtic muse, his love of Ravelian colour, and even a touch of wry wit. It feels more intimate, more domestic, as if overheard in a quiet room. The central Andante flows like slow water—graceful, unhurried, reflective.

Finally, the Legend-Sonata (1943), written during the Second World War, has a taut nobility—less impressionistic, more sculpted, as if Bax, now older and more withdrawn from public life, had decided to refine rather than expand. There are no wasted gestures here, only distilled emotion. The second movement (Lento espressivo) stands as one of Bax's most heartfelt utterances, where the cello speaks as if from the threshold of grief, but with dignity intact.

The recording captures the interplay between Baillie's burnished tone and Thwaites' sensitive pianism with great fidelity. The acoustic breathes naturally, as if recorded in a high-windowed studio kissed by late afternoon light. The flow of emotions never feels forced. Rather, one is drawn inward, gently, toward a music that still believes in the private, poetic truth of things.

In all, this is a deeply satisfying traversal of Bax's cello works—introspective, lyrical, occasionally defiant, and always sincere. A must-have for admirers of British music, and for anyone who still seeks moments of quiet revelation amidst the noise.

I always think of a few of my favourite WW1 poets, Wilfred Owen, or Siegfried Sassoon, and remember a poem that would fit my thoughts and the music, at least the first three compositions

"Greater Love" by Wilfred Owen

Red lips are not so red
As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.
Kindness of wooed and wooer
Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude
Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce love they bear
Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.
 

[brewski]

Ligeti: Etudes (Han Chen, piano). Recalling when these etudes first appeared, and how astonishing they were. They remain astonishing (and difficult), but now many pianists have tackled them, and Chen not only does a beautiful job technically but finds the poetry.

[Mister Sharpe]

Arnold Bax (1883–1953)
Spring Fire – Complete Music for Cello and Piano
Alexander Baillie, cello · John Thwaites, piano
Recorded: The Bradshaw Hall, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, 2023
Streaming: 192kHz/24 bit
See back cover for full details.

Some of the finest Bax-related writing I've ever read. Thanks, Harry, you convinced me I need this disc. I'd disagree only with Bax as a "quiet sanctuary." He can be, certainly. But he can also be a stormy tumult.