What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Pulcinella]

Starting a new thread to help avoid having to clear the cache quite so often.

Martinu
Double concerto for strings, piano and timpani
ONF/Conlon

[french frank]

Currently giving YLE Klassinen a go: "Now it's ringing" :Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto, Ivry Gitlis (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Heinrich Hollreiser)

[Roger Webb]

Currently giving YLE Klassinen a go: "Now it's ringing" :Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto, Ivry Gitlis (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Heinrich Hollreiser)

I think I said this morning that YLE was my go to morning radio station....and sometimes evenings too. The weird translations are part and parcel of the experience...'Now it's ringing' as you probably guessed is 'Playing Now'. The almost catatonic 'presenter' (AI driven?) reminds me of our own 'Ultimate Calm' chap. But it's the music played that I find very rewarding - I've always liked the Finnish rep. (incl. Sibelius, Rautavaara et al. But they don't overdo it here), plenty of Erkki Melartin, Uuno Klami and so forth....but mainly it's the fact that they play complete works! In unusual and well chosen versions.

Have you discovered the menu page - it took me a while to realise that you tap the square with the trumpets (or piano, as it is now), and then 'see more', and up pops the forthcoming playing order with timings ( they're two hours ahead)

Oh, and don't you just love the way he says orchestry for orchestra and clarinety for clarinet?!

[smittims]

Ives: Symphony no.2: the Philadelphia orchestra, Eugene Ormandy. I always enjoy hearing these artists, though I haveto admit this particular recordiing would not be my BaL choice for this symphony , which i used to call 'the most beautiful thing to come out of America'. I'm not sure that's still not true.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Walton - Piano Quartet in D minor (1921), Maggini Quartet (x 3/4) and Peter Donohoe

I've never investigated WW's chamber music before, but glad I finally did!

[Stanfordian]

J.S. Bach – Cantatas – Thomas Quasthoff
Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen BWV 56
Der Friede sei mit dir BWV 158
Ich habe genug BWV 82
Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone)
Albrecht Mayer (oboe)
Members of the RIAS-Kammerchor
Berliner Barock Solisten/Rainer Küssmaul (violin)
Recorded 2004 Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin
Deutsche Grammophon, SACD

Frank Bridge – 'Chamber Music'
CD1
String Quartet No. 3
String Quartet No. 4
CD2
Piano Trio No. 2
Phantasy Piano Quartet
Miniatures for Piano Trio (Set 3)
Allegri Quartet; Tunnell Piano Trio; Brian Hawkins (viola)
Recorded 1971 Kingsway Hall, London (CD 1);
Recorded 1971 Christ Church, Chelsea, London (CD 2)
Lyrita, CD

[smittims]

I hope you go on to the String Quartet in A minor, enemyofthestoat. I've always thought that one of his best works.

Dvorak's Ninth has never been a favourite of mine but as I work through Stokowski's late recordings I heard it today. Sadly, I think it's not one of his best, with quite a few alterations to the scoring, added percussion and brass trills, etc. and eccenric tempi.

Its' curious that Stokowski was very wayward with some works , but kept strictly to the score in others. I wonder if he had a set of beliefs that goverened this.

[Pulcinella]

I hope you go on to the String Quartet in A minor, enemyofthestoat. I've always thought that one of his best works.

Dvorak's Ninth has never been a favourite of mine but as I work through Stokowski's late recordings I heard it today. Sadly, I think it's not one of his best, with quite a few alterations to the scoring, added percussion and brass trills, etc. and eccenric tempi.

Its' curious that Stokowski was very wayward with some works , but kept strictly to the score in others. I wonder if he had a set of beliefs that goverened this.

On the same CD, so a safe bet, I think!

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7951867--walton-piano-quartet-1921-string-quartet-1947

PS: The quartet was later to become a string sonata!
Walton made the imaginative arrangement of his A minor Quartet at the prompting of Neville Marriner, who wanted a work for the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

[Stanfordian]

Verdi – ‘Rigoletto’
Maria Callas (Gilda), Tito Gobbi (Rigoletto), Giuseppe di Stefano (Il Duca), Nicola Zaccaria (Sparafucile),
Adriana Lazzarini (Maddalena), Plinio Clabassi (Monterone), William Dickie (Marullo), Renato Ercolani (Borsa),
Giuse Gerbino (Giovanna), Carlo Forti (Il Conte di Ceprano), Elvira Galassi (La Contessa di Ceprano)
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano / Tullio Serafin
Recorded 1955, Teatro alla Scala, Milan
Originally EMI now on Warner Classics, 2 CDs

[Pulcinella]

More pre-concert listening.

Victoria
Requiem (1605)
Tenebrae

They are singing it two weeks today in Beverley Minster.

https://www.ncem.co.uk/events/tenebrae/

[smittims]

Prokofiev: The Stone Flower. Bolshoi theatre orchestra/ Rozhdestvensky. 1971 HMV/Melodiya LPs.

I had never heard this work until I found this set in a charity shop last week. It's said to be the weakest of his mature full-length ballets , but I'm enjoying it thanks, perhaps , to the superb performance and recording. It reminds me a little of Britten's The Prince of the Pagodas, though I think it highly unlikely Britten could have heard the Prokofiev before he wrote his own work a few years later. .

[Pulcinella]

Prokofiev: The Stone Flower. Bolshoi theatre orchestra/ Rozhdestvensky. 1971 HMV/Melodiya LPs.

I had never heard this work until I found this set in a charity shop last week. It's said to be the weakest of his mature full-length ballets , but I'm enjoying it thanks, perhaps , to the superb performance and recording. It reminds me a little of Britten's The Prince of the Pagodas, though I think it highly unlikely Britten could have heard the Prokofiev before he wrote his own work a few years later. .

I got to know The stone flower through the Suisse Romande/Varviso recording.
Still available but in a different 2CD set:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7924763--prokofiev-visions-fugitives-op-22-etc

This is the Double Decca set I have:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prokofiev-Orchestral-Works-Sergey/dp/B0000042DL/ref=sr_1_9?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZjbkSjjdx6cKB_laT0q-8tR8lPLh2flMOJstyu3JSKfTbPIh-81S3kby07LZ9HjQy6LYK0GmjE9z9EDF3DbTl9Md_wkhuIAZPUjxoKXnVmQI67RFFcO9H8h9zVDRT1KlddmEzc1Z9LCVGBwi5wglQH7UIB90CvpPmi3BOHrguFr4O4t6A3hJASRhsuxadi1tulLcoJYo8LiN-jBYSmdED6caOvx1AZXccWMmuJmpcWI.v_vOErGIrnXlmhp4w0HpWtSCGKdaxFCN_uYC3Kv0pew&dib_tag=se&keywords=prokofiev+stone+flower&qid=1715503610&sr=8-9

[Roger Webb]

Listening to NYPO/Bernstein as cond. and soloist in Beethoven Pc1, YLE are transmitting all of it, not like some other radio stations where one movt. is judged sufficient! Forgotten how good Bernstein was in this repertoire.

[richardfinegold]

Cleaning some nooks and crannies of my home I discovered a Complete Rachmaninov box from Brilliant Classics. The best performances are the Wild/Horenstein PC recordings, justly famous but which I already possessed and have listened to for a few decades with pleasure. I’ve listened to the Symphonies with Rhozdevetsky leading the Ministry of Culture Orchestra in live performances. The solo piano music is handled by pianists who have justly faded into obscurity. It’s one of those bargain purchases that I couldn’t resist for the sake of completeness but as CD storage space is precious in mi casa I am attempting to burn it to a server, but some of the recordings are so obscure that the software package of my Melco server cannot reliably identify them. I can enter the data manually but that is a project.

[pastoralguy]

Music by Stravinsky, Scarlatti, Brahms and Ravel.

Yuja Wang, piano. An album entitled’Transformation’ that was Gramophone’s Disc of the Month back in July 2010. Absolutely astonishing playing. Very much looking forward to hearing her at this year’s Edinburgh Festival.