What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Stanfordian]

Offenbach
'Les Contes d’Hoffmann'
Olympia, Giulietta – Kerstin Avemo
Antonia, Giulietta – Mandy Fredrich
La Muse, Nicklausse, La Voix de la tombe – Rachel Frenkel
Hoffmann – Daniel Johansson
Lindorf, Coppélius, Miracle, Dapertutto, Luther – Michael Volle
Spalanzani – Bengt-Ola Morgny
Crespel – Ketil Hugaas
Andrès, Cochenille, Frantz – Christophe Mortagne
Nathanaël – Hoël Troadec
Hermann – Josef Kovačič
Wilhelm – Petr Svoboda
Stella (non singing part) – Pär (Pelle) Karlsson
Prague Philharmonic Choir,
Wiener Symphoniker / Johannes Debus
Stage Director – Stefan Herheim
Recorded Live July 2015 Festspielhaus, Bregenz Festival
C Major Blu-ray

I simply love this production by Stefan Herheim

[teamsaint]

Colori D’amore
Simone Kermes.
Le Musiche Nove/Osele.

Forgotten baroque masterpieces.

Beautiful singing, and playing.

[BBMmk2]

Vaughan Williams
Fantasia on a Theme by ThomasTallis
Symphony No.3, “Pastoral “
Five Variants on “Dives & Lazarus”
Overture The Wasps
Hallé Orchestra
Sir Mark Elder

[Joseph K]

Xenakis: Pléïades

DeciBells

Relatively new issue - I don't have the Strasbourg Percussion Ensemble so can't compare with that but excellent recording - and committed playing by this Swiss group. Terrible value-for-money, I suppose - 48'24" for 1 CD - but, hey, never mind the width, feel the quality. Thrilling music.

I've decided to give this piece a listen myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqtFGaHcWRk

(Les Percussions de Strasbourg)

[pastoralguy]

Beethoven. Piano Concerto No.5. The Emperor.

Walter Gieseking, piano

Reichsender Berlin Orchestra, conducted by Arthur Rother.

Recorded in Stereo Autumn 1944.

[HighlandDougie]

Tippett: The Rose Lake

London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (from the Barbican concert of 23 April 2018)

A concert I wish that I had attended - but I suspect that it sounds better in this BBC recording than it would have done in the hall. Perfect music for watching the light fade in a cloudless sky (and a performance which illustrates just how well the orchestra plays for SR).

[Petrushka]

Tippett: The Rose Lake

London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (from the Barbican concert of 23 April 2018)

A concert I wish that I had attended - but I suspect that it sounds better in this BBC recording than it would have done in the hall. Perfect music for watching the light fade in a cloudless sky (and a performance which illustrates just how well the orchestra plays for SR).

I attended that concert, HD, and it sounded fine from my seat in the front row of the circle. However, the memory I took away most from this excellent performance was the visual one of the extraordinary agility of the percussionists darting around at the back of the stage as they played the rototoms. Amazing!

[Richard Barrett]

Tippett: The Rose Lake

London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle (from the Barbican concert of 23 April 2018)

A concert I wish that I had attended - but I suspect that it sounds better in this BBC recording than it would have done in the hall. Perfect music for watching the light fade in a cloudless sky (and a performance which illustrates just how well the orchestra plays for SR).

How did you get hold of that recording, HD?

[Alison]

Messiaen: Vingt Regards

Martin Helmchen

Very fine playing of a work I love and have always been careful not to ‘overdo’.

[Bryn]

How did you get hold of that recording, HD?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01kb0

I think the performance was actually given the previous evening:

https://lso.co.uk/whats-on/icalrepeat.detail/2018/04/22/775/-/tippett-s-the-rose-lake.html

[HighlandDougie]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b01kb0

I think the performance was actually given the previous evening:

https://lso.co.uk/whats-on/icalrepea...rose-lake.html

Yup. Date I gave was the broadcast. Concert was - as is usual with the LSO - on the Sunday, i.e. 22 April 2018. Very envious, Petrushka! Well worth the trip to London.

[jayne lee wilson]

"Gesualdo"
ECM New Series CD 2015. Estonian PO Chamber Choir/Tallinn CO/Tōnu Kaljuste.

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa - Moro Lasso; O crux benedictus. (arr. for string orchestra by Tōnu Kaljuste).

Brett Dean Carlo.

Erkki-Sven Tüür
L'ombra della croce; Psalmody.

Lovely sequence of Gesualdo realisations interspersed with modern choral/orchestral works based upon their themes, ending with Tüür's Psalmody, which comes across as a rather Reichian Chorale-Variations, lifting the contemplative mood with a gradually brightening orchestral light and energy.

[Stanfordian]

Howells
String Quartet No. 3 ‘In Gloucestershire’
Lady Audrey’s Suite, Op. 19
Dante Quartet
Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21
Gould Piano Trio & David Adams (viola)
Recorded 2017 Wyastone Concert hall, Monmouth
Naxos - new release

Delius
The Song of the High Hills
9 Orchestral Songs
Sarah Walker, Anthony Rolfe Johnson & Felicity Lott
Ambrosian Singers,
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Eric Fenby
Recorded 1983 Walthamstow Town Hall, (High Hills), 1983 Barking Assembly Hall, London
Unicorn-Kanchana

[Richard Barrett]

This morning I've been listening to MGT's new Weinberg disc.

I found the 2nd Symphony quite interesting, but the 21st seemed to me seriously problematic - a "musical testament to the dark history of the 20th century", as the liner note puts it, but one which basically ignores the history of music in the 20th century, having been written in 1991 but which could have been written at any time in the previous seven decades or so really... how can that be a testament to its time, when stylistically it behaves as if that time never happened? I'm not doubting its sincerity for one moment, but to me it seems that, contrary to what the composer appears to have intended, it ends up being escapist rather than bearing witness.

[Pulcinella]

Howells
String Quartet No. 3 ‘In Gloucestershire’
Lady Audrey’s Suite, Op. 19
Dante Quartet
Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21
Gould Piano Trio & David Adams (viola)
Recorded 2017 Wyastone Concert hall, Monmouth
Naxos - new release

Delius
The Song of the High Hills
9 Orchestral Songs
Sarah Walker, Anthony Rolfe Johnson & Felicity Lott
Ambrosian Singers,
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Eric Fenby
Recorded 1983 Walthamstow Town Hall, (High Hills), 1983 Barking Assembly Hall, London
Unicorn-Kanchana

Interesting selection on the Howells release, Stanfordian.
I love In Gloucestershire, and have versions by the Britten Quartet on EMI and Divertimenti on Hyperion.
I also have the Piano quartet on a very bronzed but still playable Metier CD (Lyric Quartet with Andrew West, piano)
How do these new versions compare (if you know the others)?