What's playing today ?

I wish I had your time to listen! I've managed The Gondoliers and am half way through HMS Pinafore, though I diverted to Leonard Cohen mid-way. Hardly Classical!

 

Last night - Mahler 5th sym, with Wyn Morris and the 'Symphonica of London" or somesuch.

My gosh! - what a great performance!! Sure blew the cobwebs away I must look out for more of Wyn Morris's work.

 

Took EMI's bargain sets of Rosenkavalier and Don Giovanni away on holiday, plus Schubert String quartets, some jazz compilations and Eliza Carthy's album recommended elsewhere.

 

Just switched the system off (don't valves make a great noise when cooling down?)

Been listening to...

Stravinksy 3 pieces for Solo Clarinet (Sabine Meyer) on 'Blues for Sabine' then...

...had an hour or so of William Byrd Motets for 4 & 5 voices (Oxford Camerata on Naxos). Harmonic and musical structure at its absolute purest. Beautiful.

 

Not my usual fare, but listened last night to a disc of Polish 20th century string quartets (!) - Penderecki, Bacewicz and a previously unknown-to-me Alexander Lason.

Absolutely fascinating stuff! - listened to it 3 times ....

 

Re-listening to Bruckner's 8th, Karajan because I could not find the Bohm record. Really fantastic music.

 

Waiting for the third Emerson Quartet concert at the Wigmore Hall, interspersed with Takacs at Lunchtime. Luxury!

Lunchtime was Mozart K421 and Dvorak Op96 'American'; the three Emerson concerts each include some Bach, part arr Mozart; one of the Beethoven Rasumovsky quartets and a modern quartet.

 

Bine Bryndorf's last Buxtehude CD (and Bruckner: I cannot seem to stop). Bryndorf quite surprised me because of the magnificent registration she chose: makes you wonder about 'historically informed practice' habits, really.

 

I've been getting into the music of Rued Langgaard recently. Little known outside of Scandinavia, I think, but he wrote some quite wonderful music.

His symphonies and string quartets in particular have been gracing my CD player. I now have a disc of violin sonatas on order as well.

Big boned and romantic. I am sure he was regarded as a musical dinosaur in his time (early 20C- died 1952) - but now we can look back and appreciate his music for the well-crafted, emotionally varied and hugely enjoyable art that is really is.

 

Yeah Langgaard, very interesting fellow. I only know the Music of the Spheres, but I would imagine the chamber music, being pared down, is also worth a listen. The Music of the Spheres has an amazing pictorial physicality about it – it really conjures images before you. Fantastically original use of the orchestra – a very personal view of how the orchestra sounds. And to think that this was composed around 1917!

It prefigures so much that was to come later – I can even hear some John Adams and Peteris Vasks, to say nothing of Rautavaara who seems to have ripped off Langgaard wholesale. To be honest his compositional technique is limited, but he uses those restricted resources to impressive effect.

The recording on Chandos is spectacular to say the least. Anyone at all interested in 20th century music should hear it.

 

Recommended by Eisenach:



Gorgeous record.

 

Thanks for the recommendation - I've just ordered it from Amazon Market Place.

 

a bit behind the pace, but the star of the show at a recent small gathering (of several of ZG/ACTalk/hifiwigwam who live in Edinburgh) to listen to the AS Transcend into WB Arcs, via various combinations, was

the Perlman/Ashkenazy 1973 performance/recording of Beethoven's Kreutzer, Spring Sonatas.

This was new to a number of us.

I've recently gone mad collecting all sorts of organ music, having had the pleasure of attending an organ/soprano/trumpet concert in Prague.

The Art of Fugue (Bach) played by Walcha has been getting some play time, on and off - there's a lot there

also the Fantasia (537 & 542) played by Jirina Pokorna, bought in Prague

and special mention for

The Prague Trio of Basset-horns (no, not hounds ...)

(Shame no one at the soiree liked by Robert Cray CD)

 

Mitislav Rostropovich "Artist Portrait" Warner Classics. A very soothing piece. Well recorded as well.


rollo

 

Radio Massacre International on 6music now.

 

Vivaldi's Maestro de Concerti played by Taverner Players, dir. Andrew Parrott 1988. Very great, full of ideas. What a talented man Vivaldi was.

 

Still Bruckner's 8th, finally in Wand's Lubeck recording - it arrived today.

 

Lübeck Cathedral has fine acoustics and an extremely long echo, or decay time, I have a great organ record that is recorded there.

 

yes, the acoustics are long, but the sound is somewhat muddled. What is more, the sound is muddled but the trumpets are shrill and aggressive. (This does not concern the recording of Bruckner, but Bat's remark: the organ is extremely strong -I mean the big one, not the more recent, which I have never listened to-, almost too loud for my taste, and polyphony is quite impossible there; but then I like polyphony in smallish organs).

But I think I am getting very confused about Bruckner's 8th - I seem to prefer Bohm's versions. I have three of them. As to Wand, I find his third version (the one before the last) the best of all - contrary to all people.

I had Tintner's, which is interesting because it is the first version. But I did not like his conducting, although the idea of separating the first and second violins work very well.

More to that, the Nowak and Hass editions do not really change much to the overall sense of the music: they are, I think, equivalent. The first version is quite different, but I wish there was a more objective version, less 'mystical' than Tintner's.

I'll keep reporting, but Bohm's versions are really, I think, the best introduction to the work. One of them has a problem in the last movement (the brasses, at the beginning, are out of tempo), but the fastest one (released in 'Great Conductors of the 20th Century) and the DGG one are marvelous: cantabile but 'nicht schleppend'. And, of course, there is Wand's last, which almost smells of death (which I don't like but still impresses me a great deal).

What do you all think? Would a Bruckner thread interest people? Or am I again delving into obscure and yawning subjects?

 

Today i "played" for about six hours in "my" great big concert hall the following pieces:

Georg Friedrich Händel
Suite No. 1 F-major HWV 348
Johann Sebastian Bach
Kantate "Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen" BWV 51 for soprano, trumpet, strings and Basso continuo
Antonio Vivaldi
Concert RV 443 for flute, strings and Basso continuo
Johann Georg Pisendel
Sonata c-minor for oboe and strings
Arcangelo Corelli
Concerto grosso g-Minor op. 6 Nr. 8 "Weihnachtskonzert"

Well my solists, conductor and flutetist Antonini and soprano Lisa Larsson, repeated constantly different passages but nevertheless it was simply great and absolutetely realistic.

That was enough for the rest of the day.