What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[kishnevi]

Just finished:
Mozart: Requiem--Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Guilini cond., Donath, Ludwig, Tear, Lloyd soloists   
with CD filled out by
Mozart: Exultate Jubilate, Erika Koeth, soprano, Berlin Philharmonic, Berislav Klobucar

The Requiem is good enough, but nothing stood out for me.  It's the filler that motivated me to comment on this one--and not in a good way.  Ms. Koeth, whom I have not encountered before,  is the sort of singer who puts the vibrate in vibrato.  In fact, she does it in such a pronounced fashion that the best comparison I can make is to Florence Foster Jenkins--without the latter's intonation problems, fortunately.  But as it is, this is a performance I never want to listen to again.

[Scarpia]

It's a close-up of Brendel's face and those are his spectacles; same at the opposite side of the box... BTW, this is probably the most impressive bargain that I have bought ever. Sofar excellent Mozart, superb Beethoven and, now, a very persuasive Schubert. All better than his recordings on Philips that I bought 15 or 20 years ago.

Since last night, listened to for the third time in a row:

CD25:

Franz Schubert - Impromptus D899, Moments musicaux D780, Drei klavierstücke D946
Recorded: 1962, Vienna
Total time: 75'04
Licensed from Vox, a division of SPJ Music Inc.

How would you categorize the sound quality of the recordings in this issue?

[Brahmsian]

Berlioz

Le Carnaval romain

Symphonie fantastique

Sir Colin Davis
London Symphony Orchestra
Philips Classics (Eloquence)

[Coopmv]

Now playing CD7 - works of Jacob Obrecht and Heinrich Issac from this set ...

[Coopmv]

Berlioz

Le Carnaval romain

Symphonie fantastique

Sir Colin Davis
London Symphony Orchestra
Philips Classics (Eloquence)

This is a great recording IMO.  I actually may have it on LP.

[Brahmsian]

This is a great recording IMO.  I actually may have it on LP.

I love it.  It's my favorite version of Symphonie fantastique

[Coopmv]

I love it.  It's my favorite version of Symphonie fantastique

I have Colin Davis' latest version of this work. 

[Brahmsian]

Brahms

14 Folk Songs for Choir a Cappella, WoO34
12 German Folk Songs for Choir a Cappella, WoO35

Amadeus-Chor
Nicol Matt, conducting
Brilliant Classics

[Coopmv]

Brahms

14 Folk Songs for Choir a Cappella, WoO34
12 German Folk Songs for Choir a Cappella, WoO35

Amadeus-Chor
Nicol Matt, conducting
Brilliant Classics

Did you pay 24,99 € for this set?

[Brahmsian]

Did you pay 24,99 € for this set?

I did Stuart.  An incredible deal (I think Brian paid 20 euros for his).  What has impressed me the most is the absolutely gorgeous vocal music of Brahms, most of which I'd never yet heard.  The a cappella choir works and works for female chorus in particular are just so beautiful.

The set has it's flaws, but at the price and the quality that is in this box, it is the steal of the millenium! 

[Coopmv]

I did Stuart.  An incredible deal (I think Brian paid 20 euros for his).  What has impressed me the most is the absolutely gorgeous vocal music of Brahms, most of which I'd never yet heard.  The a cappella choir works and works for female chorus in particular are just so beautiful.

The set has it's flaws, but at the price and the quality that is in this box, it is the steal of the millenium! 

I was joking about liquidation sales at that French etailer with Brian.  I looked at the competing DG set and realized that I had most of the CD's except the lieder but I have never been a fan of Jesse Norman.

[Coopmv]

Now playing this CD, which arrived from Amazon a few days ago ...

[Brian]

SIBELIUS | Symphony No 6
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Lorin Maazel

Hadn't listened to this symphony in a full three months, and hadn't listened to any Sibelius symphony in three weeks. I was holding off on the Sixth especially because I had gotten pretty sick of it for quite a while. Even when it snuck into my head my little brain-radio would feel revolted and start playing anything to get it back out again. But, um, I just played it twice in a row! That's a good sign.

I did Stuart.  An incredible deal (I think Brian paid 20 euros for his).

Agree with your assessment, BTW. Even the symphonies are perfectly acceptable performances, but there is some really great playing in the piano and chamber music (+ the overtures and Hungarian Dances).

I only listened to a little bit of the choral music, Liebeslieder Waltzes according to my journal. Found them a bit dull. What music (or which disc) do you recommend as a starter?

[Que]

Another item from this boxed set with performances by Chiara Banchini and her Ensemble 415.



Beware: the version included in this box set does not, in contrast with the original issue (pictured above), the libretto! I got this set as an incredible bargain, but I'm still furious!

Anyway, good morning!

Q

[George]

Now playing the 1942 recordings of Op. 109 and 111 from the above CD. On CD, these performances are only available here.

[Sergeant Rock]

I only listened to a little bit of the choral music, Liebeslieder Waltzes according to my journal. Found them a bit dull. What music (or which disc) do you recommend as a starter?

Start with the 13th Canon (based on Schubert's Lied "Der Leiermann") from 13 Kanons op.113. It is essential Brahms, and essental listening, I think. ("He was effectively writing Romanticism's epitaph"--MacDonald.) The text isn't the one Schubert used but a Rückert poem:

Monotonous is love's sorrow,
A song with but one note;
Yet aways when I heard it,
I had to hum along.


Malcolm MacDonald, in his book, Brahms, says of the piece:

"The canon seems to me to escapulate many of the significant things about Brahms as a composer. It shows him as standing in an intensely personal relationship to the music of the past. On the one hand he has become an absolute master of the forms of strict contrapuntal writing; on the other he forges deliberate links with his predecessors, and invests their vision with a new, and personal interpretation.... Above all this little work is symbolic. The ancient form, the Schubert tune. the Romantic melancholy combine to provide a powerful symbol of musical continuity. The Rückert text is important too. By setting it, Brahms was making an ironic comment on his own personal life, as one who had hummed along to the chorus of love but always stood apart from it."

I also love the Gesänge für Frauenchor, 2 Hörner und Harfe op.17. Give that a try.

Sarge

[Coopmv]

More early music ...  Now playing this CD that arrived from Amazon late last week ...

[Coopmv]

Now playing CD1 from this set, another recent purchase from MDT.  This is my 3rd version of Handel Samson ...

[Coopmv]

Now playing CD2 from this set ...

[listener]

WIDOR  STILL and WIDOR
"shall thy bounds be set"

WIDOR  Organ Symphonies 5 (with that Toccata), 10 "Romane"
Daniel Chorzempa,  St.Sernin, Toulouse
STILL  From the Black Belt    Darker America
Music for Westchester S.O.    Siegfried Landau, cond.
Ulysses KAY   6 Dances for String Orchestra   
Westphalian S.O., Recklinghausen          Paul Freeman, cond.