What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[M forever]

I'm listening to M's secret pick for Mahler 3:



I'm impressed: a comparatively swift and (in the Calvino sense) light performance that brings out the lyrical aspects of the score. I see there's a Mahler 4 on disc from the same force and am tempted to explore.

There is also a recording of the 1st with the OSR and one of Das Lied von der Erde in the chamber version conducted by Jordan. I haven't heard any of these. But given how good the 3rd is, I am also tempted to check them out. Plenty of cheap copies are available online, but I am kind of on a "Mahler diet" right now, so maybe a little later...

[Christo]

Uhuh, I ordered that one too, and by the virtual nods I get from you, it seems to be pretty good huh, dude?

Nobody calls me dude! ~ But yes, the music is more than pleasant. And it makes clear, how much Braga Santos was indebted to his teacher, much more so than I was aware. Braga Santos is the better composer, but he was right in honouring Freitas Branco as his main influence. Many of us (I, at least) have probably been wrong in overstating his British indebtedness.

However much Braga Santos' style resembles E.J. Moeran's (during the 1940s they are musical twins), this CD proofs that he was solidly planted in Portuguese roots too. Quite intriguing. The story will be continued with the next releases in this Freitas Branco series.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Nobody calls me dude! ~ But yes, the music is more than pleasant. And it makes clear, how much Braga Santos was indebted to his teacher, much more so than I was aware. Braga Santos is the better composer, but he was right in honouring Freitas Branco as his main influence. Many of us (I, at least) have probably been wrong in overstating his British indebtedness.

However much Braga Santos' style resembles E.J. Moeran's (during the 1940s they are musical twins), this CD proofs that he was solidly planted in Portuguese roots too. Quite intriguing. The story will be continued with the next releases in this Freitas Branco series.

Should I listen to his Second Symphony in this performance?

[Christo]

Should I listen to his Second Symphony in this performance?

Jeffrey Vandermolen has it, and uttered words of praise. Ask him, I myself plan to wait for the Naxos release.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Jeffrey Vandermolen has it, and uttered words of praise. Ask him

Will do.

[lukeottevanger]

Just listened to the First Part - the work is extraordinary. It carves out its own special niche within the late romantic idiom. Never sentimental, very sensuous. Very imaginative handling of a very large orchestra.

I'm almost jealous of you, discovering this mighty piece for the first time! I've just put it on myself, to compensate (Craft recording, one of the best I've heard). The opening is simply the finest depiction of dusk I've ever heard - everything is sinking, motivically, harmonically, registrally, orchestrally, and yet Schoenberg keeps on finding new shades of colour and expression. Sets a very high tone for the rest of the work to live up to, but it does (and of course, the very end, with its bright-new-age sunrise is an inversion of this Romantic-dusk beginning, in more than one sense).

The orchestration which has already impressed you gets better and better as the piece goes on - Schoenberg returned to the piece to finish it off about 10 years after he'd left off, and the last-orchestrated bits have an incredible sparkle and inventiveness. Listen to the fool's song or the 'summer wind' music to hear what I mean. Though don't single them out - just listen to the whole thing!

Glad you're enjoying it. Yet more Good to come out of the mystery scores thread.  0:) 0:)

[lukeottevanger]

Yes, Johan, inquiring minds want to know!

Gurrelieder is my favorite Wagner of all time 

Yes, but you're understandably biased, as would anyone be if they got a personal mention in the libretto as you do:

...Den Sarg sah ich auf König's Schultern,
Henning stüzt' ihn...

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I'm almost jealous of you, discovering this mighty piece for the first time! I've just put it on myself, to compensate (Craft recording, one of the best I've heard). The opening is simply the finest depiction of dusk I've ever heard - everything is sinking, motivically, harmonically, registrally, orchestrally, and yet Schoenberg keeps on finding new shades of colour and expression. Sets a very high tone for the rest of the work to live up to, but it does (and of course, the very end, with its bright-new-age sunrise is an inversion of this Romantic-dusk beginning, in more than one sense).

The orchestration which has already impressed you gets better and better as the piece goes on - Schoenberg returned to the piece to finish it off about 10 years after he'd left off, and the last-orchestrated bits have an incredible sparkle and inventiveness. Listen to the fool's song or the 'summer wind' music to hear what I mean. Though don't single them out - just listen to the whole thing!

Glad you're enjoying it. Yet more Good to come out of the mystery scores thread.  0:) 0:)

I'm taking my time with this piece, Luke. There is so much richness... I want to listen to Part 1 again and then proceed with Part 2 and 3 possibly tomorrow.

I must say Schoenberg's whole development as a composer is very very impressive. I realise that fully only now. Almost shocking, just like Joyce's (with whom I have always connected him, think of the difference between Dubliners and Finnegans Wake). This work encourages me to study him thoroughly for the first time...

Yes, but you're understandably biased, as would anyone be if they got a personal mention in the libretto as you do:

...Den Sarg sah ich auf König's Schultern,
Henning stüzt' ihn...

Yes, saw that too!!

[rickardg]

William Alwyn
Orchestral Music
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra /David Lloyd-Jones

Not bad at all. The concerto grosso is enjoyable with winks at the baroque style (at least to my uninformed ears) and the Suite of Scottish Dances is colorful and folksy, if perhaps a bit lightweight. The highpoint of the disk is the beautiful Autumn Legends inspired by pre-Raphaelite paiting and poetry.

[Christo]

Yes, saw that too!!

But how did you overlook your own refererence?? As in Waldemar's song:

                  zertrümmre deiner Engel Wacht
                  und sprenge mit meiner wilden Jagd
                  den Herrenberg hinauf!.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

But how did you overlook your own refererence?? As in Waldemar's song:

                  zertrümmre deiner Engel Wacht
                  und sprenge mit meiner wilden Jagd
                  den Herrenberg hinauf!.

Herrenberg as Himmelreich - yes, it makes sense... 

[Christo]

Herrenberg as Himmelreich - yes, it makes sense... 

Or indeed the wood dove's song:

             Den Harry sah ich
             auf Knights Schultern,
             Henning stürzt' ihn;
             finster war die Nacht,
             eine einzige Fackel
             auf dem Herrenberge;
             die Königin fing sie,
             wie ein Otterfänger
             rachebegierigen Sinns.
             Tränen,
             die sie nicht weinen wollte,
             funkelten im Auge.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

It's getting better and better!

And who can forget the immortal line:

Aber stolzer auch sass neben Gott nicht Christo

[lukeottevanger]

I'm starting to feel rather left out....

(Luke Ot-Tove-nger)

(edit - just saw that Christo's managed to crowbar my name in there somehow - things aren't so bad after all...)

Just finished listening to the Craft recording (still ringing in my ears). Hadn't felt as let down by his last two soloists before - the fool and the speaker. These roles are as vital as Waldemar, Tove and the Wood Dove IMO, possibly even more so, as they represent the work's subversive, ironic side, I think, and today I'm feeling that Craft's recording gets them quite wrong....

[Harry]

The boys from Holland are on a ramble......

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I'm starting to feel rather left out....

(Luke Ot-Tove-nger)

Just finished listening to the Craft recording (still ringing in my ears). Hadn't felt as let down by his last two soloists before - the fool and the speaker. These roles are as vital as Waldemar, Tove and the Wood Dove IMO, possibly even more so, as they represent the work's subversive, ironic side, I think, and today I'm feeling that Craft's recording gets them quite wrong....

There WAS an Otterfänger in one of Christo's spurious quotes!

I hope Gielen has better soloists at the end. What's wrong with those in the Craft recording?

Blast - one of your edits again! 

[karlhenning]

Nobody calls me dude!

Our apologies, Jeffrey 

[karlhenning]

Yes, but you're understandably biased, as would anyone be if they got a personal mention in the libretto as you do:

...Den Sarg sah ich auf König's Schultern,
Henning stüzt' ihn...

You're one of a very few to notice, and you make me blush, friend 

[karlhenning]

Dmitri Dmitriyevich
Viola Sonata, Opus 147
arr. for viola & string orchestra by Vladimir Mendelssohn
Yuri Bashmet & Kremerata Baltica

[lukeottevanger]

I hope Gielen has better soloists at the end. What's wrong with those in the Craft recording?

1 - Fool - IMO the fool needs a much more sardonic tone, complete with Mime-like ungainly hiccuping leaps - Craft's for the most part just sounds like a standard tenor: though his singing itself is nice enough it completely misses the implications of the music and the line of the plot as a whole - that everyone except Waldemar is getting rather tired with all this Romantic heroism and haunting stuff and yearns for a bit of context, and a bit of rest! (Listen to Waldemar's last outburst, straight after this - with the most unbelievable orchestral subtlety Schoenberg manages to bleach out the sound underneath him, so that we can't help but feel that whilst Waldemar still 'means it' everyone else, even the orchestra, is stepping back somewhat, deserting him as light seeps back into the darkness.) Craft also takes the score rather slowly in the fool's solo, underplaying the literally fantastic elements of the orchestration in favour of those which are more like the rest of the score, so that we don't hear the solo as coming from 'another place' as I think we ought to. A faster, more manic reading is what's needed here - this is extreme stuff (as the score shows at this point - look back at the mystery score thread) and the music needs to boil over at the end in incredible high spirits at incredibly high speed, complete with blistering trumpet solo (which also makes the dissolve back into darkness again seem even more noticeable). This is how I've heard it in other recordings, and it fits both words and the underlying sense of the music here.

2 - speaker. I simply prefer something a bit more subtle, a bit more full of hushed wonder. Craft's speaker is accurate in terms of pitch (Schoenberg indicates it in a sprechgesang-like manner), and not everyone is in this section, although to be honest it doesn't matter that much. He also gets better as the music progresses, but it's a weak start - he's too perky! - and I find it hard to warm to him after that. Also, Craft seems to miss the continuity in the marvellous orchestral textures underneath this part - the motivic links from section to section, and particularly the flow from tempo to tempo, which Schoenberg manages with a sort of pre-Carter metric modulation technique at times (obviously simpler than Carter but the same in principle). The effect Schoenberg aims for, acheived in other recordings, is of a fantastic fluidity, as a high-speed orchestral outburst melts into a wistful chamber-like texture, the one at a quarter the speed of the other, but with a coherence between the various tempi. I don't hear it in Craft, and it's a loss. But maybe I'll listen again later and find it again - I've never missed it before in this recording.

Blast - one of your edits again! 

Annoying, isn't it!