What are you listening 2 now?

[AnotherSpin]

I like Lenny because he's Lenny. You dislike him for the same reason!

?

[Todd]

[ritter]

Pier Paolo Vincenzi plays piano music by Francesco Cilea.

CD3 of this set:

[Selig]

Taking a break from the cello...



 

[prémont]

Taking a break from the cello...



 

Rübsam's recording of the suites 4-6 is even better.

[Linz]

Antonin Dvořák String Quartet No.8 in E major, op.80 B.57
String Quartet No.9 in D minor, op.34 B.75
Prager Streichquartett

[Mister Sharpe]

?

I believe what you judge as Lenny's eccentricities I read (usually) as exciting examples of his excellence. Neither of us is alone in these views, btw, but most listeners will pick and choose among his recorded work.  We two are alike in adopting a zero-sum, love it or leave it approach to his career: I love it, you don't. And though I don't share your opinion, I do understand it.   

[Mister Sharpe]

Here's a performance I like (still, not my favorite, saving that for savoring) - very fresh and crystalline, delightfully detailed. I think I remember some reviewers disparaging it for what they often charge Ashkenazy with - being too broad, expansive. (He recorded another 2nd in Boston, also for Decca, and I haven't heard that one, def. on the To Do List).

[Karl Henning]

I like Lenny because he's Lenny. You dislike him, I think, for the same reason!

Lenny isn't for everyone, and that's okay. New York loved him for decades, that must do.
I haven't yet "digitized" the Lenny/Vienna/Sibelius box-let, and I'm unsure where to hunt for the physical box at the moment, so:

Jean Sibelius
Symphony № 2 in D, Op. 43
NY Phil
Lenny

[Symphonic Addict]

Arnold: Fantasy for piano and orchestra on a theme of John Field

Extraordinary music, and certainly the kind of my most beloved preferences because of the brilliant juxtaposition of varied moods that traverse the piece and because it doesn't sound predictable. One of his masterpieces in my view.

[Symphonic Addict]

Boris Tchaikovsky: Theme and Eight variations for orchestra

The more I discover his works, the more fascinated. The innocent theme changes into some striking forms.

[Symphonic Addict]

Cowell: Variations for orchestra

Such a cool work. The variation for percussion alone was one of the most interesting ones. I wish some label would record all of his symphonies someday.

[Mister Sharpe]

Cowell: Variations for orchestra

Such a cool work. The variation for percussion alone was one of the most interesting ones. I wish some label would record all of his symphonies someday.

Of course, Howard Hanson's name caught my eye and I was curious. On this disk is a Hanson premiere, Before the Dawn and so for me it becomes a must.

[JBS]

Bellini Norma

A radio broadcast from Turin 1971 with a live audience. Montserrat Caballe and Fiorenza Cossotto are the female leads, with Georges Pretre conducting. Despite the date it's in mono.

[Symphonic Addict]

Gudmundsen-Holmgreen: For Cello and Orchestra

Not the most attractive piece of music I'm afraid, rather dispersed and loose. The other work on the CD, Concerto grosso for string quartet and orchestra, has a lot more to offer and I was expecting something in a similar complex architecture, but it didn't happen.

[steve ridgway]

Stravinsky - Symphony In C

[steve ridgway]

Crumb - Celestial Mechanics (Makrokosmos IV): Cosmic Dances For Amplified Piano, Four Hands

[hopefullytrusting]

Need to get at least a little classical in before the day's end:

Marian Filar playing Mozart, Brahms, Kabalevsky, and Chopin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSd1FmuVazc

And another testament as to why YouTube is so vitally important - getting to hear Filar, in fairly crisp sound, playing Mozart and Brahms, is something that is only possible today, and only because of the hard work of channel creator to digitize what he found and/or uncovered.

Filar survived seven different concentration camps - an extraordinary life.

[AnotherSpin]

I believe what you judge as Lenny's eccentricities I read (usually) as exciting examples of his excellence. Neither of us is alone in these views, btw, but most listeners will pick and choose among his recorded work.  We two are alike in adopting a zero-sum, love it or leave it approach to his career: I love it, you don't. And though I don't share your opinion, I do understand it.   

Thanks, I get where you're coming from. Honestly, I'd never really asked myself why Bernstein and conductors in the same vein don't appeal to me. But let me try to put it simply.

His style, expressive, theatrical, often exaggerated, doesn't feel rooted in the deeper tradition of European music. It comes across as if he isn't truly speaking that language, only imitating it without understanding its inner logic. Bernstein and the rest don't live the music, they act it out. They don't express, they perform. They don't speak, they gesture.

Instead of opening up the structure of a piece, they impose a ready-made drama on it, turning music into a show rather than an inner experience. The result feels flashy, more like decoration than interpretation, a translation where nuance and depth go missing.

Where someone like Furtwängler or Klemperer lets musical ideas grow naturally, Bernstein tends to go for effect, for applause. It's clever, even entertaining, but it can sound shallow, a sign of an age where style replaces substance.

And in the end it's that lack of real cultural grounding. Without it, the music can feel hollow, as if it's putting on a mask rather than speaking with a living voice.

[steve ridgway]

Berio - "Points On The Curve To Find..." For Piano And 22 Instrumentalists