What are you listening 2 now?

[Que]

Written for Venice, but in predominantly Neapolitan style. A nice trifle for those who love Italian Baroque.

[Traverso]

Recordings from 1956 with music by Albeniz, Granados, Mompou & de Falla

CD 9

[Iota]

Debussy: Images for orchestra
Luxembourg Radio Orchestra, Louis de Froment (conductor)

Gorgeous. The music often has a restless energy to it like a child in a sweetshop running round overwhelmed by sensation, trying to taste every single thing in sight, leaving the listener, like the child, destabilised in the most hypnotic way.

[foxandpeng]

Howard Hanson
Complete Symphonies
Gerard Schwarz
Seattle SO
Naxos

Extraordinarily early start this morning has meant that I've had opportunity to listen to all seven symphonies one after the other. Really positive and enjoyable experience to begin my Friday!

[Roasted Swan]

Debussy: Images for orchestra
Luxembourg Radio Orchestra, Louis de Froment (conductor)

Gorgeous. The music often has a restless energy to it like a child in a sweetshop running round overwhelmed by sensation, trying to taste every single thing in sight, leaving the listener, like the child, destabilised in the most hypnotic way.

Those old Vox/Luxembourg recordings can be a bit rough sometimes but conversely there is a really authentic feel and sound to their playing as well.  I enjoy them a lot when I'm not in the mood for modern polished perfection.

[JBS]

Actually, according to the website you're one volume behind 

Though they can't quite decide if the latest one is 73 or 74 (and if it's 74, what happened to 73?)

Plus another one is coming up according to the Facebook page.

I'm faced with the reality that getting physical copies of a lot of earlier volumes is liable to be very difficult and expensive, unless they reissue them in a giant box at the end. Sigh.

I can't deny that one of the attractions is just the visual design. Though that wouldn't matter if the performances were poor.

[Momentary panic...
Checks Amazon and Presto listings...
Sigh of relief...]

The one being issued next month is Volume 73, while Arsilda, which is Volume 74, was already released.

I'll post the new one in the New Releases thread.

[Harry]

GEORGE ENESCU
The Unknown Enescu, Volume Two
Romanian Rhapsody No. 1 in A major, Op. 11 No. 1 – Impressions roumaines for solo violin – Sonata Torso (1911) – Impromptu concertant in G-flat major (1903) – Regrets (1898; compl. Lupu, 2018) – Suite No. 1 in G minor, Dans le style ancien, Op. 3: Adagio (1897; arr. Sandu Albu, 1929) – Valse lente L'Enjôleuse (1902) – Caprice Roumain (1925–49; compl. Cornel Ţăranu, 1994–96).

Sherban Lupu, Violin – Ian Hobson, Piano – Viorela Ciucur, Piano – Sinfonia da Camera, Ian Hobson

Recorded live 2004 (Romanian Rhapsody No. 1) in the Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, Illinois; 2001 (Caprice Roumain) in the Foellinger Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, Urbana, Illinois; and 2022 in the George Enescu Auditorium, University of Music, Bucharest (other works)
Streaming: FLAC 44.1kHz/16 bit
Label: Toccata – PDF booklet attached

Having recently heard the first volume of this series, I approached Volume Two with anticipation—and am pleased to report that here, both music and sound score far higher, the latter a full hundred percent in my book. A minor quibble: in some pieces the violin sits a touch too forward in the balance.

What we have here is Enescu in many guises—youthful and refined, folkloric and fiery—his roots never far from the surface. The Romanian Rhapsody bursts with colour and rhythmic swagger, while the smaller-scale works often carry the intimacy of a salon touched by the perfume of the countryside. Caprice Roumain and Impressions roumaines are steeped in idiomatic flair, and in Regrets one hears a wistful backward glance, drawn with delicate understatement.

Sherban Lupu is nothing short of ideal in this repertoire, his playing as natural and unforced as if he had been born with these melodies in his blood. Ian Hobson proves equally adept both at the piano and on the podium, drawing spirited and shapely playing from the Sinfonia da Camera.

There is more to this disc than first meets the ear. Beneath the folkloric sparkle lies the craftsmanship of a composer who could weave complexity into joy, and melancholy into grace. A pleasure from start to finish—never a dull moment.

[Que]

This is really good, actually! I'm a bit surprised since my admiration for Letzbor has cooled down a bit over the years, with his style gradually "hardening". But this might supercede my Frederico Guglielmo recording (Brilliant). Oh, and these pieces are highly recommended! Ample proof that Telemann was not all "bluff and fluster"! 

[Harry]

This is really good, actually! I'm a bit surprised since my admiration for Letzbor has cooled down a bit over the years, with his style gradually "hardening". But this might supercede my Frederico Guglielmo recording (Brilliant). Oh, and these pieces are highly recommended! Ample proof that Telemann was not all "bluff and fluster"! 

That was my impression too, when listening some time ago, This guy has a fabulous control of his instrument, a bit rigid sometimes, but never uninteresting.

[Que]

More Telemann! 



Featuring two unusual instruments: my beloved chalumeau and what is advertised on the cover as a "salterio" but what I think is probably a hammered dulcimer (there is some ambiguity in different languages).

This is all great fun, love it...

https://www.classicalacarte.net/Production/Production_05_17/CPO5550312_40_5_fanfare.htm

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Albéniz: Orchestral Music.  Enrique Bátiz · Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra

[Harry]

John Ireland (1879–1962)

Satyricon (1946) – Overture
A Downland Suite (1932) – for Brass Band
Mai-Dun (1920–21) – Symphonic Rhapsody for Orchestra
The Forgotten Rite (1913) – Prelude for Orchestra
A London Overture (1936) – for Orchestra
The Holy Boy (1913) – A Carol of the Nativity
Epic March (1941–42)

Sinfonia of London – John Wilson
Recorded: Church of S. Augustine, Kilburn, London, 2021
Streaming: FLAC 96kHz/24-bit recording. SACD
Label: Chandos – PDF file attached to this recording

Ireland never wastes a note, yet every bar breathes generosity. His music lives in a rare borderland where intellect and heart shake hands as equals. Satyricon sets the tone — urbane, deft, and rhythmically spring-loaded — an overture whose very architecture seems to grin with pleasure. By the time we arrive at Epic March, Ireland is in full regalia, summoning grandeur without a hint of pomposity, a stately promenade lined with polished detail.

The beating heart here is Mai-Dun, a symphonic rhapsody whose name recalls an ancient hill fort, and whose music rises like sunlit stone from the English soil. It is clear-headed, never cloying, yet warmed by a private fire; Ireland persuades rather than pleads, the mark of an assured craftsman. And The Forgotten Rite — ah, here is the other Ireland: enigmatic, ritualistic, a dreamer pacing through mist-lit ruins where the air seems thick with memory.

John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London dress this music in a cut that flatters every line: elegance with a gleam of muscle underneath. Chandos has captured them with generous space and satisfying depth — a soundstage into which one might step and feel the carpet underfoot.

Some still grumble about Wilson's supposed polish, as if finish were a crime. I say, better a fine wine in a clean glass than good claret in a tin mug. And here, the vintage is very good indeed.

[Linz]

Dietrich Buxtehude Complete Organ Music, CD5
Simone Stella

[71 dB]

J.S.Bach - Cantatas BWV 46-48
Helmuth Rilling

[Symphonic Addict]

Reger: Piano Concerto and Symphonic Rhapsody for violin and orchestra (von Reuter, Stein, Bamberger Symphoniker)

The Piano Concerto is quite angry, bold, gripping. Granted, it may sound a tad dense in the more hectic passages, but honestly I don't care, I like it as it is. 

I think it's the first time I come across the Symphonic Rhapsody and it has no waste either. In fact, I found it formidable, with a right amount of lyricism and muscle.

[AnotherSpin]

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Symphony No. 6 in A Major, 1881 Version. Ed. Robert Haas
London  Symphony Orchestra, Jascha Horenstein

[Mandryka]

Leipziger Choräle, Ewald Kooiman

Truth is always there, we are surrounded by it, but we are so perturbed inside that we cannot reflect it. The full moon is there, the stars are there, but the lake is so disturbed, there are so many waves, that it cannot reflect the full moon. It cannot rejoice in the full moon, it cannot rejoice in the stars. It remains blind to the sky that is just there. All that is needed is that the lake should become a little silent.
- Osho

This reminds me of a post by someone who's not around any longer sadly, @mjwal -- it was this post which introduced me to Muffat's concertos, it's music I love.

. . . Another early to mid-Baroque favourite is Georg Muffat, and the pre-eminent recording of his wonderful Armonico Tributo is by Chiara Banchini and Ensemble 415 (HMF). There is also a very fine Nobilis Juventus by Duftschmid conducting a group called Armonico Tributo. There are some fine words commenting on this recording on Amazon.com that I cannot improve on: "Emotions ruffle the elegant surface of these instrumental suites by Georg Muffat - caprice, melancholy, martial fervor, amorous longing - and like ripples on a moonlit pond, they shimmer and are gone." . . .

[Henk]

New release. My first encounter with Ginastera. Sounds great.

[Linz]

Joseph Haydn Symphonies, Volume II
Symphony No. 17 in F Major
Symphony No. 19 in D Major
Symphony No. 20 in C Major
Symphony No. 25 in C Major
The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood