What are you listening 2 now?

[AnotherSpin]

Initially the lack of string vibrato rather threw me, the music had such a different aspect/character to what I'd heard before, that I wasn't quite sure what to think. The choral singing was unequivocally gorgeous from first moment though, and as my ears adjusted to the new orchestral sound my feelings began to warm fairly quickly. Indeed by the first thunderingly apocalyptic crescendo of the 2nd movement I was fully won over by its virtues, the outburst on timpani et al was utterly terrifying/thrilling, never heard it better.
Star billing for all this unquestionably goes to Pynchon, whose direction is fresh, exciting and illuminating throughout. It's true I occasionally missed some of the string warmth that comes with vibrato, and am glad there are many other less Norrington-ian inclined performances around, but overall I find this a truly stimulating take on this wonder of a work to add to the repertoire.

Thanks for the recommendation. I saw this album among the new releases on Qobuz and thought:
a) it probably wouldn't be very interesting to hear yet another version of a well-known piece;
b) if it was really worth it, someone would point it out to me.

And that's exactly what happened, in full agreement with option (b). I'm listening with real pleasure right now. It's excellent. At first, as you also said, it sounded a bit too unusual, but soon that very unusualness started to work and turned into something unusually strong.

[hopefullytrusting]

Per Copilot:

Harold Shapero's Nine-Minute Overture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc-p9WobE9g

First, it is not nine minutes, so false advertising. Second, it is very overtureish, so I was not sold a complete bag of false goods, but Copilot suggested this composer when I was prompting about Piston, and I sort of see it, but this work is much lighter - closer to Copland in its vision of the United States, which is not a knock at all - I love Copland, and I am very much enjoying this piece, so I am happy to have come across it, but it is like Piston in name only - concise and precise, but unlike Piston, Shapero's naming scheme was only approximate!

The music itself is delightful, Pollyanna, so hits at the pure heart of one of the major exceptionalists conceits of the United States. If that was intentional, then there might be some irony, but the United States, more often than not, lacks a sense of irony hence, why they are always smiling. It is a well-composed, well-orchestra ditty just don't go into it expecting the Egmont, and you should be well-pleased.

Forgot to add, I love how it ends.

High recommendation if you want to enjoy some light fare.

[Todd]

[Florestan]

Pynchon

Looks like autocorrect did it again... 

[Mister Sharpe]

I waved my magic wand over a box of LPs this morning and up popped this (and who am I to quarrel with necromancy esp. at this time of year?) : 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Piston's Second Symphony is one of the great expressions of the American romantic-modern school, structurally very similar to the Barber Violin Concerto actually: two intensely emotional movements, the second highlighted by a long woodwind melody, followed by a fast, facile, structurally lightweight finale. Piston's Violin Concerto and later symphonies are somewhat sterner, more neoclassical and strict. He has a ballet, The Incredible Flutist, that's more populist in the Copland manner with a moment where the orchestra musicians are asked to hoot and holler.

Samuel Adler I'll go into more detail since I listened to his music very extensively before interviewing him. He went through many phases. He was early on a student of Hindemith, Copland, and Piston, and heavily influenced by all of them. The First Symphony has a Copland-ish optimism and those long melodies that suggest the American outdoors. It's not especially great, but the Second is quite interesting to me, written after the death of his father (also a composer of Jewish sacred music). Within just a few days of 11/22/1963, he wrote a short memorial piece for the Dallas Symphony to play, which I find quite bad, but his Elegy in memory of Marjorie Fulton (Lynn Harrell's mother) has become his most played and recorded piece.

Later, Adler went through a "wild child" phase that includes some really hairy, freaky stuff. In our conversation he called Symphony No. 6 (recorded by Serebrier) his "wild and crazy one" with a twinkle in his eye. Then followed quite a lot of Jewish sacred music, wind band music, a Viola Concerto much admired by Hurwitz, and even a Catholic mass for Notre Dame University. (He told me when they called him, he said, "Are you sure you don't have the wrong number?")

He's still active now but has turned to orchestrations and arrangements. He's assisted violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley in orchestration of a klezmer violin concerto, and finished orchestrating a Marcel Dupre piece for pops concerts. I think his approach to composition was to always be working on something - literally hundreds of pieces in his catalog - with some detriment in terms of the consistency of inspiration. This doesn't surprise me as when we spoke, he told me of his great admiration for how Hindemith could demonstrate the "ease" of composing by simply sitting down at the teacher's desk and writing out a perfect miniature in 10 minutes. So facility rather than felicity was important to him.

Thank you for all that. I will pull down my meager Piston section from the shelves today or tomorrow and indulge. I have The Incredible Flutist (Bernstein), Symphony 2 (MTT), Symphony 4 (Schwarz), and some violin concertos (Buswell). No Adler at the moment except the 2nd and 4th editions of his orcheastration text. That book must have made him quite a wealthy man, considering the number of editions and the current price.

"a Viola Concerto much admired by Hurwitz." This is not always an encouraging recommendation.
"a short memorial piece for the Dallas Symphony to play, which I find quite bad." This is a must-hear. Where do I find it?

[(poco) Sforzando]

Per Copilot:

Harold Shapero's Nine-Minute Overture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc-p9WobE9g

First, it is not nine minutes, so false advertising. Second, it is very overtureish, so I was not sold a complete bag of false goods, but Copilot suggested this composer when I was prompting about Piston, and I sort of see it, but this work is much lighter - closer to Copland in its vision of the United States, which is not a knock at all - I love Copland, and I am very much enjoying this piece, so I am happy to have come across it, but it is like Piston in name only - concise and precise, but unlike Piston, Shapero's naming scheme was only approximate!

The music itself is delightful, Pollyanna, so hits at the pure heart of one of the major exceptionalists conceits of the United States. If that was intentional, then there might be some irony, but the United States, more often than not, lacks a sense of irony hence, why they are always smiling. It is a well-composed, well-orchestra ditty just don't go into it expecting the Egmont, and you should be well-pleased.

Forgot to add, I love how it ends.

High recommendation if you want to enjoy some light fare.

It is 9:15 on the disc from which it is taken. That is close enough in my book. The main work on the Previn CD is Shapero's Symphony for Classical Orchestra, a work I really love, with one of the finest adagios by an American composer I know. But I prefer the Bernstein recording; somehow in the slow movement Previn doesn't quite get the rhythms and accents right in the tutti passage following the section for timpani and bassoons. 

[Linz]

Guido Cantelli CD 4
Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90
Philharmonia Orchestra, Guido Cantelli

[JBS]

[Linz]

Anton Bruckner Te Deum
Anna Tomowa-Sintow; Agnes Baltsa; Peter Schreier; José van Dam; Berliner Philharmoniker; Herbert von Karajan; Wiener Singverein

[Christo]

Several versions - I own four or five - of Respighi's 1930 "concerto for orchestra" for the jubilee of the Boston SO or Metamorphoseon, or Modi XII  (in the shape of a theme and twelve variations). I think the finest concerto for orchestra I know, next to Kodály's.

[Linz]

Sergiu Celibidache CD 4
Johannes Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor, OP. 68
Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor
London Symphony Orchestra, Sergiu Celbidache

[ritter]

Several versions - I own four or five - of Respighi's 1930 "concerto for orchestra" for the jubilee of the Boston SO or Metamorphoseon, or Modi XII  (in the shape of a theme and twelve variations). I think the finest concerto for orchestra I know, next to Kodály's.

I remain ambivalent re. Respighi, but did find Metamorphoseon really interesting when I first listened to it not too long ago.

Good evening to you, Johan.

[Karl Henning]

I remember when I first started listening to Bacewicz I was mainly attracted to the Neo-classical/Neo-baroque works of the first half of her career, and I was somewhat baffled by the later works, which are more experimental, playing with sonorities and putting music together from snatches of melody. But lately I have started to find the late works uniquely attractive. For instance, the String Quartet No 7.

Not an uncommon developmental arc in the 20^th c.

[Brian]

Second ever listening to the Troilus and Cressida suite.

[Karl Henning]

"a Viola Concerto much admired by Hurwitz." This is not always an encouraging recommendation.

As with a meteorologist, there may be the odd instance of his chancing to be right.

[hopefullytrusting]

My last piece before I transition to work and then a movie: Shapero's Piano Sonata No. 1 played by Michael Boriskin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYGrrrhyvqo

It opens full-speeding ahead - it feels almost toccata-like in its perpetual momentum, and it has this Scarlatti-like flatness to the notes, but it is clearly neoclassical, as none of the notes are tonic - everything is slightly shifted askew, so it prickles the fuzzies in your ear. Keeping with the form, the second section is different than the first, significantly, but the notes are still off, but they aren't uncanny - they don't feel strange, rather, they feel awkward, as if someone is using an out of tune piano on purpose. The composer is like - close enough, close enough, and the notes drift closer and closer to resolution, but they never resolve, but you aren't left waiting or wanting.

As with all sonatas, it seems, eventually there is a section that requires headphones given how soft they are playing, and that definitely could fit the personality of some, but I don't know Shapero well enough to say one way or the other. It is Scarlatti-like throughout, which I enjoy - I view him as the true master of the sonata, none of that overblown - near masturbatory - romanticism. Some pieces should be long, some should be short, but I can think of no sonata that would be improved by making it longer, but every sonata I've heard, save those already short, would be improved significantly by having someone edit it.

High recommendation.

[Mister Sharpe]

Koechlin: Quelques chorals pour des fêtes populaires. So, what does a composer, universally regarded as an offbeat one, do when faced with creating a celebratory - read fanfare-like - work whose broad outlines are more or less defined (confined) by custom if not habit? On that point, Koechlin freely shared his modus operandi: "On peut concevoir, on peut même écrire ... des chorals libres, avec des dissonances non préparées, des notes de passage aux temps forts, des appogiatures, du chromatisme, voire des accords polytonaux, inanalysables par les moyens habituels de l'harmonie..." And thus he created a set of chorals that seems of two worlds, distinctly harkening back to medieval times and yet curiously sounding in advance of our own day. Put another way, they seem eternal. And forever exciting. 



 

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Alpaerts: James Ensor Suite; Meulemans: Plinius' Fontein; D'Hoedt: Chroniques Breves De la Vie Bourgeoise.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I remain ambivalent re. Respighi, but did find Metamorphoseon really interesting when I first listened to it not too long ago.

Good evening to you, Johan.

I have the version by Neschling, which is quite good. However, as for Belkis Queen of Sheba, I could give butkus.