What are you listening to now?

[Todd]

Another listen, this time at irresponsibly loud volume.

[Brian]

Someone mentioned Beethoven's Triple Concerto recently. I haven't heard that piece in 3-4 years.

I think I'll try this new recording, with an irresistibly bizarre combination of soloists:



Baroque HIPster? check
Star young mainstreamer? check
Willfully bizarre iconoclast? check
And that's not even mentioning the conductor...

[Brian]

Someone mentioned Beethoven's Triple Concerto recently. I haven't heard that piece in 3-4 years.

I think I'll try this new recording, with an irresistibly bizarre combination of soloists:



Baroque HIPster? check
Star young mainstreamer? check
Willfully bizarre iconoclast? check
And that's not even mentioning the conductor...

Actually fairly mainstream - Carmignola sounds more modern, Lazic isn't being a weirdo, and the overall performance is one of those "period-influenced modern orchestra" performances with awesome horns and hard-stick timpani but not full-on HIPster. A good performance, for sure, but not as idiosyncratic as I hoped. The first movement is a little slow, but the finale has punch.

[Todd]

From the big box.  Excellent, nimble performances from young Kissin.  The works - Haydn PC 11, DSCH PC 1, Prokofiev Overture on Hebrew Themes - don't match the cover, but that's OK.  Great sound for late 80s recordings.

[SimonNZ]

on the radio:

Schoenberg's Transfigured Night - Bern Camerata, Thomas Zehetmair

Must be the sunniest Night I've yet heard. Not sure why, if they're going to reduce the size of the orchestra to such an extent, they didn't just perform the  sextet version.

[listener]

I thought that read 'Schoenberg versus Bartok'...
tonight some other American:  MacDOWELL: Piano Concertos 1 & 2
Vivian Rivkin, piano   Vienna State Opera O., Dean Dixon, cond.
with the large size edition of the score published by Dover on hand.  It's useful as the recording balances are somewhat wretched.
and 'Tex-Mex' music or band:  H. Owen REED: La Fiesta Mexicana, Morton GOULD: Santa Fé Saga, Clifton WILLIAMS: Symphonic Dance no.3 "Fiesta", Roger NIXON: Fiesta del Pacifico, Frank PERKINS (arr. Werle) Fandango
Dallas Wind Symphony   Howard Dunn cond.
the usual Reference Recordings great sound.

[Todd]

Disc 1 of some proper Russian Scriabin playing, albeit in aged sound.

[Mirror Image]

Test-drive Tuesday (this disc)

Just started this now. I'm a bit annoyed at the omission of the spoken intro.

Bartók
Duke Bluebeard's Castle
Walter Berry & Christa Ludwig
Kertész & LSO
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Many performances omit the spoken intro and this really has no relevance to actual performance at hand. Kertesz really nailed Bluebeard and it also doesn't hurt to have Berry and Ludwig as Bluebeard and Judith either. Of course, my favorite Bluebeard is Boulez's on Columbia. It used to be Kertesz until I really listened to what Boulez brought to the score in his early conducting days.

[kishnevi]

A live recording of a performance from Glyndebourne, with fantastic performances, from three of my favourite singers (Dawn Upshaw, David Daniels and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson), especially Daniels and Hunt Lieberson who are both quite sublime, William Christie presides over a superb performance.

Daniels I don't admire quite as much, but I put the question to the house: Did Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson ever make a bad recording?
And will gladly take the negative side.
TD
The penultimate CD of the Rubinstein gigabox (I will forgo the DVDs just now, since is a documentary and the other the video version of the Benefit for Israel , of which I played the CD version just last night.

These three final bonus CDs seem to be available only as part of the box. 

[Que]

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[Wanderer]

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[Florestan]

[Tsaraslondon]

Daniels I don't admire quite as much, but I put the question to the house: Did Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson ever make a bad recording?
And will gladly take the negative side.
TD

In answer to your (rhetorical) question about Hunt Lieberson, "None that I know of."

I wonder, though, what is your problem with Daniels, a singer, who, to my mind, has very similar qualities to Hunt Lieberson, and who also, as far as I am aware, has never made a bad record. I first heard him live at the Barbican in an all Vivaldi programme with Fabio Biondi, and fell completely under his spell. I was pretty much allergic to countertenors before I heard him, but here was a voice of surpassing beauty, full and rich that easily filled the hall, allied to a gift for communication, innate musicality and an emotional connection with the text which is second to none. I have heard him live several times now, in a wide range of different music, and he never disappoints.

[Tsaraslondon]

Terrific performances of this all Barber programme in demonstration-worthy sound.

[amw]

Those who have Qobuz can now listen to my favourite recording of Schubert's string quintet—albeit transferred at too high a speed (maybe the machine was set to 45 instead of 33?), resulting in the pitch being a sixth-tone (or thereabouts) too high. Also on Spotify!

[Florestan]

[amw]

Those who have Qobuz can now listen to my favourite recording of Schubert's string quintet—albeit transferred at too high a speed (maybe the machine was set to 45 instead of 33?), resulting in the pitch being a sixth-tone (or thereabouts) too high. Also on Spotify!

The pitch of that transfer was bothering me, and also I know the interpretation pretty well, so I'm listening to another one that I've probably only heard once or so. It's actually quite good.

Jansen does intensity pretty well, of course, but I'm actually most impressed by the Maintz/Thedéen combo.

edit: I don't know that anyone reads my Schubert Quintet posts these days, but where I'd place this in a lineup by preference: nowhere near the top three. Close to the "1st tier" (Leipzig/Sanderling, Arcanto/Marron, Fitzwilliam/van Kampen, Emerson/Rostropovich, etc). Probably in a narrow "1.5th tier" containing its closest interpretive relative, Auryn/Poltéra—a slightly softer and darker-hued, more lyrical reading—and Orpheus/Wispelwey. Above the 2nd tier containing the likes of Pavel Haas/Ishizaka (which, however, I do need to re-evaluate—it's the other close interpretive relative, on the more intense, less lyrical side of things), Kavafians et al., Raphael Ensemble, Brentano/Kannen and so on.

I'm not sure if this one will end up in the library, I'll do an a/b/c with Auryn and Pavel Haas before deciding.

[Camphy]

String Quartets 10 & 11 from this set:

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[Christo]

Really?! 

[Florestan]

Really?! 

Yes, and I quite liked them.

TD