Records recently heard

Since they seem to do this sort of thing over in the rubbish tip section, why can't we? I'm currently listening to this:



Very Mozartish (stylish and elegant). And Frau Meyer plays a mean clarinet.

 

I'm a big fan of Clarinet works myself. Weber's Clarinet Concerto is fabulous (I have the Emma Johnson on ASV CDDCA747), and I think the Pletnev/Michael Collins transcription of Beethoven's Violin Concerto to clarinet is a real treat (DG 457 652-2).

 

Reginald Goodall's 'Parsifal' with the Welsh National Opera. An amateur reviewer said it makes most other versions sound like a 'plastic chicken' and I rather agree.

 

This must be the greatest violin record of all times. Forget Horowitz, Rubensteen and other star violinists of the past. This surely beats them all!

 

For the information of this self-styled "Incredible Genius", Horowitz was a pianist. And assuming that his spelling is as bad as his musician knowledge base, so was Anton Rubinstein. Thus the depicted violinist, whoever she may be, has little competition from his cited artists.

Nevertheless, if the tastes of the Incredible Genius run towards violinists of the female, recently post-pubertal variety, he should trade in his well-handled Vanessa Mae CD collection and consider one Nicola Benedetti, who will charm him with her musical abilities as well as with her photograph on the booklet. In spite of her name she is Scottish and is a genuine musical talent of sufficient merit to obtain a DG contract.

 

So, you're about to double up on your name and become "bats"?

 

CD recently heard

The small Danish and - dare I say - idealistic CD-firm "Classico" (in the spirit of BIS, but smaller) has edited more than 600 CDs in many different genres.

Among the editions in the baroque category are Knud Vads Bach-organ integral and Ulrik Spang-Hanssens fantastic Buxtehude-organ integral. Unfortunately only a smaller part of the CDs are available outside Denmark.

The latest release is a CD containing five sonatas for violin and continuo by Händel. Played on period instruments
by E Zeuthen Schneider, Ulrik Spang-Hanssen and Viggo Mangor.

It is ravishing and charming , played with all the sweetness and beauty you expect from a baroque violin.
Furthermore each sonata opens with a short improvised
prelude, a praxis claimed to be common in the baroque
age, and they use embellishments in slow movements to great effect.

Regards,

 

As I type I'm listening to the fourth symphony of Portuguese symphonist Joly Braga Santos (1924-1988). It's got quite a melange of detectable influences, with modal harmony a la Vaughan Williams and a rather episodic structure a la Bruckner - the very beginning of the symphony, for example, opens with the classic Brucknerian shimmering strings underpinning the woodwind, then breaks into a broad VW-type melody. It also has an occasional Russian flavour, with the opening of the Scherzo all Borodin-esque gossamer lightness, and even an occasional hint of Shostakovich in some of the more acerbic passages; then we veer back across the Atlantic for the last movement which mysteriously turns into Copland. On the whole, perhaps not very strongly distinctive music, but tuneful, eminently agreeable and well worth hearing. Good recording (Marco Polo) and first-class playing by the NSOI.

 

Thanks for the tip, Pete. I've often wondered what this composer sounds like. Now I have your description to go by, I think he can be added to the "to be investigated" list

 

My Linda Brava tip was a joke.
This isn't:

"Mathis der Maler" symphony is very nice but IMHO has much common with muzak. That makes it so easy to listen.
Hindemith and R.Strauss have a reputation of creating technically brilliant but hollow music.

 

A reputation amongst whom, out of interest? I must say describing in particular the composer of Rosenkavalier, Salome, Don Quixote, Metamorphosen etc etc as 'technically brilliant but hollow' strikes me as especially odd.

NickM, I'd say the Santos is definitely worth keeping half an eye out for, though of course there's always much more music out there than one can listen to, and doubtless you can think of plenty of other things at least as worthy of your time. Suffice it to say though that I'll be buying more Santos if it comes my way

 

Hollowness may be a good thing - at least the inside isn't rotten.

 

Still listening to a lot of this:
Alpha 512

« All'Improvviso »
Ciaccone, Bergamasche e un po' di Folie...

Le programme associe L'Arpeggiata et le clarinettiste de jazz Gianluigi Trovesi. Ensemble, ils partent à la recherche de l'essence de l'improvisation, indissociable de la réalisation de l'ostinato baroque mais aussi du travail du musicien de jazz.


4 étoiles du Monde de la Musique

- Timbre platine Opéra Int.


(How do you do pictures?)

 

Really not classical, so this mignt not be the right place for it but food of love enough and worth listening to:
Alpha 507: Son de los diablos - tonadas afro-hispanas del Perù.
For once south american music outside the subway to the train station

 

My latest discovery:

http://www.opuscds.com/cd/29223

I would buy this if it just had Lilburn's "Drysdale" overture on it, because that work has a wonderful, yearning tune which I had to hear every day for a while after I discovered it. To think that it was performed once and then forgotten for nearly 50 years!

There are other interesting and attractive pieces on the disc - I particularly like Maria Grenfell's "Stealing Tutunui". Most of them have tunes (gasp) and are colourfully orchestrated (you can hear snippets via the link). The recording is one of the best I have heard from a New Zealand label - on a par with the Naxos disc of the three Lilburn symphonies which I recommended a while ago.

The MMT (Morrison Music Trust) label does now have UK distribution, as listeners to Radio 3's CD Review programme may have heard a few weeks ago, but the linked New Zealand site is very good for antipodean music, and New Zealand CD prices are generally fairer than UK ones (but then, whose aren't?).

 

Della Ciaja

Azzolino Bernardino Della Ciaja (1671-1755)
Six sonatas for harpsichord opus 4. ca 1727.

As young I read about Della Ciajas fantastic sonatas, but the scores were unattainable and no recording was made.

Each sonate consists of a toccata and a canzone (an augmented fugue-type), and for conclusion two shorter concertizing or divertizing movements. The fascination with these sonatas is first and foremost the toccatas and the canzones which are brilliant, exuberant and sparkling music with free fantasy and surprising melodic turns in abundance, recalling the free style of John Bull, the stylus phantasticus of Northern Germany, the great harpsichord suites of Händel, the most inventive violin concertos of Vivaldi and not least the fabulous toccatas of Alessandro Scarlatti (not Domenico). Most sonatas are in major mode,
and tragic mood doesn't prevail.

The last years have caused some recordings of the sonatas.
The recording by Attilio Cremonesi (PAN Classics 510 114)is just as phantastic as the style demands, stressing the eccentric originality of the music. I know another recording by the swiss harpsichordist Martin Derungs, which is a bit more controlled, but still rather sparkling. I don't know the recording of Yves Rechsteiner. Only Cremonesi is available at the moment (fx at JPC).

 

http://www.monteverdiproductions.co.uk/newreleases.asp

So, this third volume (actually Vol.24) arrived the other day. This has cantatas for the Third and Fourth Sundays after Easter. None of these are among the better known cantatas, but Gardiner again turns in excellent, thoughtful and well-performed performances. The soloists and English Baroque Soloists are excellent, and the Monteverdis are on top form.

The audience is very quiet - did Gardiner have them anaesthetised? He does admit to having recorded the cantatas twice, once in rehearsal in an empty church, as an insurance against a loud coughing fit or bad weather, and then in actual performance. I think RdS would enjoy the old organ at Altenburg, not to mention the organist's sleeve note on the problems with the thing.

I've signed up for the whole series - I think I'm going to enjoy these.

The subscription price for each volume is £15. I saw one of the volumes in a shop the other day - at CHF69 (£30.70). Either the Swiss are super rip-off merchants or Gardiner's series is the bargain of the century.

 

Bearing in mind what an august day today is.

Richard Wagner
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
cond. Eugen Jochum (DG)

What a rousing music drama. Magnificent choral writing.

 

Currently listening to the 3rd Symphony 'Ilya Muromets' of the Ukrainian Reinhold Gliere (1875-1956) in Sir Edward Downes's magnificent performance on Chandos. The relationship between Gliere's 2nd and 3rd symphony is an interesting one - the stylistic development between the early-ish 2nd and the fully mature 3rd is perhaps not surprising, but the extent of the gulf might be. The 3rd symphony is a sprawling epic, weighing in at 78'03'' on the Chandos recording, and is massively, luxuriantly OTT in a superheated Scriabin / post-Wagner kind of a way, with an indulgently oversized orchestra and a searing, almost hysterical sense of drama; by comparison, the 2nd symphony is a model of understatement, more reminiscent of the old-skool and highly tuneful Russian nationalistic style as represented by Balakirev and Borodin (the slow movement of Gliere 2 in particular really is crying out for some Classic FM exposure, and if that sounds derogatory it really isn't supposed to ).

Edit: oooh look, the pricetags are included in the Amazon-sourced pictures