What are you listening to now?

[bhodges]

Komsi is singing it in London next year, with a different fiddle player, I can't remember who (I have my ticket!)

Great! Who knows, I may see you there. Full disclosure: the article I'm writing is the programme notes for that very concert. 

PS, the scheduled violinist is Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who is highly regarded (I have not yet heard her). She recently suffered tendonitis that caused her to cancel her November and December concerts, so hoping she will be recovered by February.

--Bruce

[Mandryka]

Blandine Verlet plays Bach's French Suites, just the first couple of suites. These have never been off LP commercially and I got my transfer from symphonyshare, I have to say I think there's a lot to enjoy in it: colourful, lyrical, expressive. It doesn't seem as free with the music as her other Philips recordings. Even if I'm wrong about that, the performances seem to me musically satisfying and natural.

Re the discussion of Adlam, you know his harpsichord recording of the Bach partitas used to available as a free download somewhere on the web. Shame he never used a clav.

[The new erato]

--- the early sonatas are every bit as good as the mature ones

I won't try to dissuade they that they aren't, you're your own judge, but while there is no doubt that they contain arresting moments, in my ears they have far from the consistent quality of the later sonatas. Of course, coming from Mozart, they are all worth hearing.

[Brian]

How much of the Big Reiner Box can I stream in one day??



R. Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra (later, GMG-prize-winning version)
Smetana - Bartered Bride overture
Dvorak - Carnival
Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Byron Janis)
Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Emil Gilels)
Rachmaninov - Isle of the Dead
Mahler - Four

[The new erato]

One of the eternal glories of recorded sound:

[asin]B014YN0ME2[/asin]

op 130 by the Busch quartet. If this were the only record in existence, it alone would justify buying a quality playback system. Nay; the Cavatina alone would justify that. The most deeply felt, and rightly played, music, ever.

[jlaurson]

Thanks for this recommendation! The best disk of Mozart's violin sonatas played on modern instruments that I have heard, it's one by Mitsuko Uchida and Mark Steinberg. An utterly delightful, somber and well balanced single disk.


W.A.Mozart, Sonatas for Violin and Piano,
Mark Steinberg & Mitsuko Uchida
Philips

Fully agreed! Was my runner-up in the BEST OF 2005 list, a decade ago. [Sh*#. We're all old.]

http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2005/12/best-recordings-of-2005.html

[Karl Henning]

Hey! Getting older is the good alternative!

[Karl Henning]

Thread Duty:

Сергей Сергеевич [ Sergei Sergeyevich (Prokofiev) ]
Waltz from «Сказ о каменном цветке», соч. 118 [ The Tale of the Stone Flower, Opus 118 ]
Miša Maiskis, vc
& the magnificent Martha Argerich

[prémont]

Re the discussion of Adlam, you know his harpsichord recording of the Bach partitas used to available as a free download somewhere on the web. Shame he never used a clav.

They can be listened to here:

http://www.baroquemusiclibrary.com/

[Brahmsian]

Indeed a beauty.

Thread duty 

Scènes de ballet
Bluebird
Le Baiser de la Fée
Stravinsky

The hits just keep on coming.    That is perhaps my favourite disc now, in that entire Sony Stravinsky box. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Re the discussion of Adlam, you know his harpsichord recording of the Bach partitas used to available as a free download somewhere on the web. Shame he never used a clav.

He did do a Bach disk with the clavichord, but it wasn't the partitas:

[asin]B00005TNZP[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

The hits just keep on coming.    That is perhaps my favourite disc now, in that entire Sony Stravinsky box. 

'Tis a beauteous disc!

[North Star]

The hits just keep on coming.    That is perhaps my favourite disc now, in that entire Sony Stravinsky box. 

Hah! Yes, good stuff.

Thread duty - First-Listen Friday

Rakhmaninov
The Miserly Knight, Op. 24
Sergei Aleksashkin, Sergei Larin, Vladimir Chernov, Ian Caley, Anatoli Kotscherga
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Neeme Järvi
[asin]B00KZ73VDG[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

Cracking cast there, Karlo!

[North Star]

Cracking cast there, Karlo!

Yes indeed! And the music is good so far, too.

[ritter]

New arrival!  First listen:

[asin]B016PF6TA8[/asin]
From disc 1, the 1950 Eroica with the Concertgebouw...wunderbar!

[SimonNZ]

New arrival!  First listen:

From disc 1, the 1950 Eroica with the Concertgebouw...wunderbar!

Wonderful! (Do they reproduce the original sleeves for each of the discs?)




playing now:



Handel's Messiah - Paul McCreesh, cond.

[ritter]

Wonderful! (Do they reproduce the original sleeves for each of the discs?)

Nice LP sleeve! But no, unfortunately the discs in the new set come all in cardboard sleeves that replicate the cover of the box...

[Sergeant Rock]

Mozart Violin Sonatas K. 377, 303 & 304 played by Steinberg and Uchida




Sarge

[Brian]

How much of the Big Reiner Box can I stream in one day??



R. Strauss - Also sprach Zarathustra (later, GMG-prize-winning version)
Smetana - Bartered Bride overture
Dvorak - Carnival
Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Byron Janis)
Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 2 (with Emil Gilels)
Rachmaninov - Isle of the Dead
Mahler - Four

Following Mahler's Fourth with Josef Strauss's waltz Dorfschwalben aus Osterreich - you may not like Viennese waltzes, but the transition from the end of M4 to the soft woodwind birdcalls of this Strauss piece is one of those rare flawless moments where it seems like one piece was destined by the heavens to follow another.

And, of course, Mahler isn't really THAT far away from the world of the Strauss family.

Up next, also Reiner: Haydn 88 and 95!