What are you listening 2 now?

[steve ridgway]

I had a go at that album a couple of days ago, after you posted it previous time. To be honest, I didn't get very far - Xenakis remains completely impenetrable to me. I managed about 15 or 20 minutes before realising I just couldn't make myself continue. It struck me as music desperately trying to be progressive, yet somehow ending up rather dated. It reminded me of a soundtrack to an early-60s sci-fi film. Perhaps you could give me a tip on how one is meant to listen to it?

I play one piece at a time so it contrasts with other things I've been listening to and try to pay attention and just accept the sounds without fighting them. I have no idea if that's the correct method .

[AnotherSpin]

I play one piece at a time so it contrasts with other things I've been listening to and try to pay attention and just accept the sounds without fighting them. I have no idea if that's the correct method .

Thanks. Yes, I've noticed that you listen in snippets. It seems to me that any approach is valid if it works for the listener, except for those that depend on the mind's analytical abilities...

[Que]

Attractive playing and well recorded. The programming is a little bit odd: for the larger part lute music (as advertised), with a few madrigals (with lute accompaniment) performed by La Compagnia del Madrigale thrown in.

[AnotherSpin]

I've resumed listening to the Goldberg Variations each morning. Breakfast tastes richer, yet it is not the flavour that deepens, but the quiet joy of returning again and again to what never truly left. The music, familiar yet ever new, begins to expand within; both form and technique melt away as something prior emerges.

Minnaar plays with a rare calm, unhurried and unforced, as though attuned to a presence beyond time and place. His phrasing does not seek to impress or explain; it simply abides. In that abiding, one senses the echo of the Absolute, not as a concept but as the silence from which the notes emerge and into which they dissolve.

[Que]

A new ensemble I noticed on Spotify:



A mixed medium sized (11 singers) group from Seattle. The already made a couple of recordings. The selection form the Pterhouse Partbooks will definitely be on my playlist.

The performances are quite good, but rather slow. It's not flooring me, but this recording kept my attention for a single run....

[Que]

I've resumed listening to the Goldberg Variations each morning. Breakfast tastes richer, yet it is not the flavour that deepens, but the quiet joy of returning again and again to what never truly left. The music, familiar yet ever new, begins to expand within; both form and technique melt away as something prior emerges.

What a wonderful way to start the day!

Apart from Glen Gould, I have little familiarity with piano performances.
But my shortlist on harpsichord is: Christophe Rousset (Decca/L'Oiseaux Lyre), Céline Frisch (Alpha) and Ignacio Prego (Glossa).

[Que]

[AnotherSpin]

What a wonderful way to start the day!

Apart from Glen Gould, I have little familiarity with piano performances.
But my shortlist on harpsichord is: Christophe Rousset (Decca/L'Oiseaux Lyre), Céline Frisch (Alpha) and Ignacio Prego (Glossa).

Thank you for sharing. 

I probably wouldn't be able to single out any particular versions, whether on harpsichord or piano. 
I have the feeling that over the years I've listened to nearly every one that I could find, and at some point, a kind of qualitative shift occurred: all the approximations of the ideal eventually dissolved into it. 

Perhaps I imagined something, but still, I can now listen to almost any version with pleasure. Well, except for a few.

[pjme]

Thanks for citing this, which I'm listening to now. Even though I'm a big fan of Martinů, have never heard this piece, and it's marvelous. Ditto the pianist, also new to me. PS, the sound quality is excellent for a live recording 20 years ago.

For me the Fantasia concertante (concerto nr ) is an old friend. many years ago I bought a DGG LP for de Falla and found the Martinu! Martinu wrote it for Margit Weber, a Swiss pianist and paedagogue who premiered Stravinskys Movements and quite an impressive amount of other contemporary works (Tscherepnins 6 th concerto )



von Eckardstein made a huge impression in 2003 when winning the Queen Elisabeth competition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8rQ5SSNQYI&list=PL33CFDA8558EC56F6

https://concoursreineelisabeth.be/nl/laureaten/severin-von-eckardstein/148/

[prémont]

I probably wouldn't be able to single out any particular versions, whether on harpsichord or piano. 
I have the feeling that over the years I've listened to nearly every one that I could find, and at some point, a kind of qualitative shift occurred: all the approximations of the ideal eventually dissolved into it.

That is – if I understand you correctly – what has always happened to me when I have listened to 50- 100 or more versions of the same work. In addition to the difficulty of distinguishing them all from each other in ones memory, most of them are also of high artistic standard in their own way - every of them approaching the "ideal" in different ways, which makes it difficult to recommend one more than the other. And direct comparisons are becoming more and more meaningless.

[Todd]

[Que]

[Traverso]

Mozart

String Quintets

KV 516 & 614

The Solomon Quartet

[Florestan]

In rotation

[steve ridgway]

Mozart

String Quintets

KV 516 & 614

The Solomon Quartet

Ah, I thought the image would be from Imgur. They're no longer viewable here as a result of the UK government's attempts to police the internet .

[Madiel]

Beethoven: Cello Sonata in F, op.5/1

[steve ridgway]

Thanks. Yes, I've noticed that you listen in snippets. It seems to me that any approach is valid if it works for the listener, except for those that depend on the mind's analytical abilities...

My ideal is to relax and be absorbed in a random programme of unpredictable compositions without having to choose or analyse. Fortunately my ability to analyse music is extremely limited or I'd probably be carried away by compulsive linking of one piece to another until my mind finally broke .

[Harry]

Le Coeur et la Raison.

In the 17th century, an art song form flourished, particularly in France: the so-called air de cour. Numerous composers catered to the demands of the nobility, at whose courts the songs were performed by soloists with lute accompaniment. The beauty of the melodies was the highest criterion, the secular texts were almost exclusively concerned with interpersonal love. This was the reason why the popular songs were not allowed to be sung in churches and monasteries. The Franciscan monk François Berthod therefore transformed some of the texts into sacred songs so that nuns could also sing them. The album by the ensemble La Néréide features a selection of famous airs de cours and some sacred versions. The three sopranos are accompanied by instrumentalists in various combinations (lute, theorbo, viola da gamba, organ). Their program was created with an underlying story: a fictitious young noblewoman who lives in a church boarding school discovers wonderful secular songs while on vacation with her family and, together with her classmates, transforms them into sacred pieces so that she can sing them in a religious setting. A not entirely improbable fairy tale that makes the discovery of the songs quite exciting.

[Traverso]

Ah, I thought the image would be from Imgur. They're no longer viewable here as a result of the UK government's attempts to police the internet .

This was sent with Postimage, is it visible?

[Brian]

Stravinsky
Petrushka
Sacre
Ancerl

Desert island worthy for sure. A perfect combination of music, orchestral sound, and conductor.