What are you listening to now?

[Wanderer]

.[asin]B00000E3QD[/asin]

[EigenUser]

Berlioz, Harold, Lennie from da big box.

This is a famous recording, much admired, but I found it disappointing. Partly the sonics are lousy, very flat. And partly the violist, the NYPO principal, never gets Harold out of bed. Ravel's Tzigane is on the same disc and comes off well. Still, one of the few clunkers I have found in da big box, after hearing 20 discs now.

PS, John listen to Gorecki, Nate listening to ten Holt? Our plan for world domination progresses fellow minimalists.

...and ummmm... I've always liked minimalism. Not nearly as much as you do, but I do like it. I even have a Reich record hanging on my wall (alongside Bartok, Gershwin, and Ligeti).

Composers on my wish-list to see performed live one day: Shostakovich, Schnittke, Lutoslawski, Bartok, Scelsi, Hartmann, the Second Viennese School, Feldman's Rothko Chapel, and Ligeti.

I'm making a point to see more concerts. Especially after seeing the horrified look on Bruce's (Brewski's) face when we met in NYC and I told him when the last concert I saw was . I've seen the Bartok CFO before. I've performed the Dance Suite and Shosti's 1st, so I don't know if that counts. And, I'll be attending two concerts in February/March with Ligeti -- one is an all-Ligeti program!

[amw]

Composers on my wish-list to see performed live one day: Shostakovich, Schnittke, Lutoslawski, Bartok, Scelsi, Hartmann, the Second Viennese School, Feldman's Rothko Chapel, and Ligeti.

Hmm. I'm hearing music by the first two in 2 days, the third early next year, the fourth in a week or two... + heard 3 works by Schoenberg this year and 2 by Ligeti... and I skipped out on half the interesting concerts due to lack of $$$. And NZ has a pretty limited classical music scene. Nonetheless all of those except probably Scelsi, Lutosławski and Hartmann get a lot of performances. Shostakovich is probably played more than Haydn these days, every hot conservatory graduate pianist wants to do the Ligeti Etudes and the Juilliard School did a whole festival centering around Schnittke last year (or this year? don't remember).

I'd like to hear performed live:
- Messiaen La Transfiguration
- STH Canto ostinato
- Stockhausen Mittwoch aus Licht (ended up emigrating from the UK 11 days before the world premiere...)
- Janáček Sinfonietta with the extra brass players standing on the balconies
- Ives 4, again, in a better performance
- Alkan Concerto for solo piano
- anything by Horațiu Rădulescu
- heaps of 8-channel electronic stuff that CDs can only reproduce in stereo

[Harry]

CD 2 from the Aeolus Bach box.

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2014/11/new-acquisition-bach-js-complete-organ_18.html?spref=tw

[The new erato]

- heaps of 8-channel electronic stuff that CDs can only reproduce in stereo

Or pray for multichannel SACD recordings.

Now: [asin]B000000AXI[/asin]

Defitely an "opera" for listeners averse to screaming sopranos. Beautiful.

[Harry]

Why not some Bach cantates I'd say! First listen, new Acquisition.

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2014/11/new-acquisition-bach-js-complete.html?spref=tw

[not edward]

This recording, which I'd only been vaguely aware of:

[asin]B00000DNQH[/asin]

Finally, a Natalia Gutman recording of the first Schnittke concerto in good sound. Electrifying solo playing and thoroughly sympathetic orchestral support.

[ZauberdrachenNr.7]

Karl Hartmann's Concerto funebre

[asin]B00HZVLX7Q[/asin]

[king ubu]

discs 42-44 of teh "All Baroque Box" - this:

[asin]B000094HLD[/asin]

[asin]B00205RKMO[/asin]

  I am soooo happy I found a cheap copy of this box

Too bad the big fat booklet does not include the liner notes - they'd be very helpful to this ignunt listener (and frankly at this point more important to me than having sung texts).

[Mookalafalas]

discs 42-44 of teh "All Baroque Box" - this:

[asin]B000094HLD[/asin]


Too bad the big fat booklet does not include the liner notes - they'd be very helpful to this ignunt listener (and frankly at this point more important to me than having sung texts).

I know what you mean. Myself, I don't have the time or patience to sit and follow the translations as i listen (although I would like to...).  I suppose you have the Vivarte box? The book that comes with that is amazing. Every disc gets its own essay, more or less.  Sever of the Labyrinth discs are in that, with a lot of background. 

[king ubu]

I know what you mean. Myself, I don't have the time or patience to sit and follow the translations as i listen (although I would like to...).  I suppose you have the Vivarte box? The book that comes with that is amazing. Every disc gets its own essay, more or less.  Sever of the Labyrinth discs are in that, with a lot of background.

Yup, that's why I'm aware of there being such notes in the first place! The Vivarte isn't my favourite all in all, but there's lots of territory covered that about which I'm totally ignorant (i.e. those two Weiss discs are wonderful! ... Yeah, I know, Naxos, but I think I'll stick to those two for a while, thank you!) - a few discs are duplicated between the two sets, and there's even one in the Vivarte that's not in the Van Nevel/Labyrinth. But then that later seems to be from a second before the big final sales began and it is presented in a nicer manner - all the more it's sad they didn't include the liners.

[J.A.W.]

Beethoven: Piano Sonata 23, Op.57 - Claudio Arrau - 11 CDs, Philips; disc 8 (boxed set released in 1991)

Now: Sonatas 28, Op.101 and 29, Op.106 from this set.

[Brian]

This symphony won the Bruckner Poll, and I honestly don't know if I've ever heard it before. So...

[Mirror Image]

This recording, which I'd only been vaguely aware of:

[asin]B00000DNQH[/asin]

Finally, a Natalia Gutman recording of the first Schnittke concerto in good sound. Electrifying solo playing and thoroughly sympathetic orchestral support.

I've seen this recording before but have often wondered how the performances were. Gutman's performance will have to really be amazing to topple my current favorite in the Schnittke Cello Concerto No. 1 - Ivashkin/Polyansky.

[Mirror Image]

Karl Hartmann's Concerto funebre

[asin]B00HZVLX7Q[/asin]

I personally can't say I was very thrilled with Shaham's performance in Hartmann's Concerto, especially when my favorites are Schneiderhan/Kubelik and Faust/Poppen. I felt Shaham's interpretation was quite timid and even well-mannered compared to the afore mentioned performances.

[Karl Henning]

Faust/Poppen rock!

[Harry]

My personal choice of best discovery and composer of 2014.

http://walboi.blogspot.nl/2014/11/pejacevic-dora-chamber-works-third.html?spref=tw

[Moonfish]

Once again the glorious Orfeo performed by the Jacobs gang!

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice       Fink/Cangemi/Kiehr/Freiburger Barockorchester/RIAS Kammerchor/Jacobs

[asin] B00005O7Z4[/asin]

[Moonfish]

Richard Strauss: Vier letzte Lieder           Schwarzkopf

from
[asin] B004HF0PAO[/asin]

[Ken B]

Once again the glorious Orfeo performed by the Jacobs gang!

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice       Fink/Cangemi/Kiehr/Freiburger Barockorchester/RIAS Kammerchor/Jacobs

[asin] B00005O7Z4[/asin]

I'm surprised you haven't tried their Parsifal.