What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[sidoze]

Rachmaninoff's Moments Musicaux - Pogorelich - a performance of 1 that's achingly beautiful

[Solitary Wanderer]

Excellent pairing here  

[Renfield]

Non, although I am a cheap git who hates buying anything even approaching full-price IMO Jochum is at his best in general in the 9th, but I have a strong bias towards him in most of the others.

I want ........ I want .........

You know, the "funny" thing is how I managed to scratch the first CD of that issue while rearranging the Bruckner part of my collection, earlier tonight.

And my CDs are otherwise so immaculate!


Anyway, currently listening to:



The 4th one. Because I need a sort of internal "melodic" peace that only it, and the Brahms D Minor concerto can give me. *rubs temples*

[Peregrine]

Excellent pairing here  

Agreed. Brilliant disc.

[prémont]

Dutch Organs from 1511-1896.

Box with 20 cd's.

Volume VI.

Works from Babou/Fischer/Couperin/Cabezon/Phillips/Kerll/Locatelli/.

Players, Leen de Broekert/Marcel Verheggen/Conny van der Maten/Pieter Dirksen/Geert Bierling/

As I said before, this for me is the most important release from the year 2007. Never in all my listening life have I ever been so excited about a release as this Organ box, and therefore it is extremely important to me. I could not have wished for a better list of composers nor so good a team of players that cooperated on this gigantic undertaking that took 20 years to complete, the work of a single man called Okke Dijkhuizen. All those beautiful restaurated old organs, all brought back to their original state when possible, and the heap of unknown organ composition brought back to life again. In a well documented book, the history of every single organ, with full color pictures, and the dates of all the restauration works, it is a treasure that I cannot rate to high.

Thanks to Harry I have just acquired this box, and I started listening to it at once, and I must confirm every word Harry writes. This is in short a must for lovers of historical organs as well as organ music generally. A marvellous achievement.

[not edward]

Agreed. Brilliant disc.

I'll third that.

Just finished Chailly's Mahler 3. OK, I've not been buying much of late, but this is the best new-to-me recording I've heard in quite a while.

[Lethevich]

Sleep time - I'm going to play Rothko Chapel (not on repeat) as I go under.

[Mark]

Du Pre/Barbirolli/LSO - Elgar's Cello Concerto.

I need a classic tonight. It's been a stressful day.

[BachQ]

Dvorak Piano Concerto (Richter / Kleiber).

Some $0.02 reviews:

In Dvorak's Piano Concerto, Richter emphasizes the gentler, lyrical aspects of the music, although there is plenty of power when it's required. The unusually assertive orchestral support under Kleiber is a strong asset. Richter's Schubert was usually very gentle, but here he seizes on the outgoing aspects of the music and plays more aggressively than usual--although there is no lack of song when it's required. Neither performance is "definitive"; both leave plenty of room for other approaches. But both are so engrossing that, as they play, one can't imagine another interpretation. There was room for more music on this disc, but what's here is choice.

     -----     Leslie Gerber


         

The legendary pianist Sviatoslav Richter offers one of the most compelling, lyrical performances of Dvorak's piano concerto in this excellent recording with Carlos Kleiber leading the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. This concerto is a precursor to the great "symphonic" concertos composed by Brahms for the piano. Both the orchestra and Richter give warm, vibrant performances of the score. But here Richter also emphasizes the lyrical qualities of Dvorak's music, playing with much passion and empathy. Richter's performance of Schubert's "Wanderer" fantasy may not please everyone, since this is among the most dramatic, indeed fiery, performances I've heard. But it is such a compelling performance, that it deserves to be heard by those interested in a more poetic interpretation. The sound quality for the Dvorak piano concerto is fine; but less so for the Schubert fantasy. Still this is a CD I strongly recommend to those interested in the careers of Richter and Kleiber

     -----     By  John Kwok (New York, NY)


The rather undiscriminating enthusiasm that greets everything Richter did actually does him a disservice I believe. He was a complex personality and a complex artist. His active repertory was large, for which I am as grateful as other folk because whether he was at his best or at his most perverse we can always rely on Richter for a thinking artist's approach to whatever he chose to record. In the last resort there are not all that many pieces I would rather hear played by him than by anybody else, and when I would it's sometimes because I have hardly ever heard them done by anybody else, like this Dvorak concerto. Anyway this has to be a fine performance by any rational assessment. I have heard it said that the piano part seems to be written for a player with two right hands. These days my own piano technique is more suggestive of two left feet, so I have not tried to verify the claim. It's not a work I return to very often, but there is no mistaking the care and affection that has gone into the way Richter handles it, and he certainly persuades me that it deserves better than the critical superciliousness that it is often treated to. The Wanderer Fantasy is another proposition entirely, a truly great and profoundly original piece of music. Here I am happy to agree that we find Richter at his best and that in a work of major stature. This is a big-toned Richter, although you will hear the familiar self-communing pianissimo in the variations. His approach is basically straightforward, like Pollini's, only with far greater warmth and humanity about it. This time there is nobody I would actually prefer to Richter, but the performance that seems to me fully the equal of his is from the 20-year-old Kissin, who also has the benefit of more up-to-date sound. Kissin gives a more romantic account of the first section with more give and take in the tempo. After that it's all a matter of details when one tries to compare them. To appreciate Richter at his true greatest, as in say Schumann's C major Fantasy or the Britten concerto or some of his Chopin and much of his Debussy or on this disc I suggest that we need to think more critically about things like his travesty, albeit a thoughtful one, of the Appassionata and ask ourselves whether there are not really a number of different Richters. I think that his final greatness really lies in his profound humanity not in some supposed demigod status. Anyway I am only too happy to join in recommending this disc.

     -----     David Bryson (Glossop Derbyshire England)        

[Mark]

D, bless you.

[bhodges]

Just finished Chailly's Mahler 3. OK, I've not been buying much of late, but this is the best new-to-me recording I've heard in quite a while.

IMHO it is arguably the best of Chailly's entire Mahler cycle, and that is saying something, since there are some high watermarks throughout the series. 

--Bruce

[Peregrine]

[Renfield]

And I need to go to sleep; I am tired.

But before I do go to sleep for tonight, I'll make a point of listening through my adored Tannhäuser overture, from this sublime CD:



I love that disc. 0:)

[sidoze]

Shostakovich sym 10 - NYPO/Mitropoulos - live 1/10/55 Athens 

[Mark]

Du Pre/Barenboim/New Philharmonia - Saint-Saens' Cello Concerto No. 1.

Rather embarrassed to confess this is the first time I've heard this recording. I've been missing out ...

[Solitary Wanderer]

Disc.10.

Drum Roll & London

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Such a sympathetic Hindemithian (Mathis der Maler).

[Bonehelm]

Shostakovich's 2nd PC - 2nd movement

Absolutely beautiful music.

[Danny]

Beethoven Symphony No 4 and No 7 conducted by George Szell.

[wilhelm]