What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[oliver sudden]

Good lord though, that really is a superb Heldenleben and I commend it to the assembled company.

[AuntDaisy]

Jean-Guihen Queyras & Alexandre Tharaud: Marin Marais arrangements for Cello & Piano.
From the Presto reviews (BBC music Mag & Gramophone), I was a bit unsure about this CD, but the arrangements work surprisingly well, esp. the Folia one which is excellent and very lively.

[Stanfordian]

Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 7 in E major, WAB 107
(1885 version. ed. Leopold Nowak, 1954)
Mason Bates (b.1977)
'Resurrexit' for orchestra
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Manfred Honeck
Recorded Live 2022, Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, USA
Reference Recordings SACD - recent release

[pastoralguy]

Beethoven. The Piano Sonatas.

I found a pristine set of the classic set played by Artur Schnabel in BHF for £2.50 today. I’ve heard bits of this cycle over the years and am looking forward to hearing the whole cycle.

[gradus]

Prompted by the same excerpt (Sachs monologue Act 2) being played on EssentialClassics recently but a different recording, I dug out the live performance from the first night of the re-opened Munich Opera House in 1963. Conducted by Keilberth it has been in and out the catalogue for years but I like it enormously. Hotter couldn't sing Sachs but managed to cope with Pogner whilst Otto Wiener took the role of Sachs - and how. I remember his singing being criticised for lack of subtlety and coarseness of tone but I think he's terrific, making of Sachs a thoroughly believable character. The remainder of the cast has the delightful Claire Watson as sweet-voiced an Eva as you could wish and Jess Thomas on top form as Walther.

[richardfinegold]

Beethoven. The Piano Sonatas.

I found a pristine set of the classic set played by Artur Schnabel in BHF for £2.50 today. I’ve heard bits of this cycle over the years and am looking forward to hearing the whole cycle.

Pristine Audio?
I have that set in mp3 cost about what you paid. MP3 is fine for records of that vintage

[Mario]

A BRUCKNER

Sqn in F Maj WAB 112
Fine Arts Q & Gil Sharon

Free download today from Naxos

[Stanfordian]

Puccini – ‘Turandot’
Opera in 3 acts, premiered La Scala, Milan (1926)
(completed Alfano)
Birgit Nilsson (Turandot), Jussi Björling (Calaf), Renata Tebaldi (Liù),
Mario Sereni (Ping), Piero De Palma (Pang), Tommaso Frascati (Pong),
Giorgio Tozzi (Timur) & Alessio De Paolis (Emperor Altoum)
Orchestra & Chorus of Teatro dell'Opera di Roma/ Erich Leinsdorf
Recorded 1959 Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
Orig. RCA Victor Red Seal - Remastered and reissued on Alto CD

[Mario]

In message 488, I vowed to learn more British music. Well, how about this then?

L v BEETHOVEN

29 Songs from the British Isles, with various soloists
E Woods, C Watkinson, J Protschka, R Salter, C Altenburger, J Berger and H Deutsch.

The silly Sony 60-CD box is woeful in its supporting material, but I’m sure these folk songs (Beethoven arranged over a hundred of them) are all originally by British composers. So, I AM listening to British music (albeit arranged by a German).

I rest my case for the defence, m’lud.

[smittims]

I think many of them are Scots folk songs, as they were commissioned by an Edinburgh publisher. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Janet Baker recorded some of them for EMI around the time of the Beethoven bicentenary in1970.

I've been renewing my acquaintance with Gustav Holst's Somerset Rhapsody, in a splendid performance by the LPO under Sir Adrian Boult. It seems to have been recorded inthe early 1950s at a time when he was recording a lot of English music for Decca, but I don't think it was issued until now. Here we see Holst in 1908 following Vaughan Williams in writing a 'folk-song rhapsody' and I think, being more original than his mentor. The harmonies and modulations are quite original, looking forward at times to The Planets.

[vinteuil]

I rest my case for the defence, m’lud.

... not the prosecution?




.

[pastoralguy]

Pristine Audio?
I have that set in mp3 cost about what you paid. MP3 is fine for records of that vintage

No, it’s the original EMI ‘Big Box’. I honestly wouldn’t know what to do with mp3!

[bluestateprommer]

Listening to WRTI's Sunday radio relay (via internet, of course) of The Philadelphia Orchestra, where Leif Ove Andnes just played one of his party pieces, Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3 (with a Chopin Mazurka as an encore):

https://www.wrti.org/wrti-spotlight/2024-09-09/dalia-stasevska-leads-bartok-leif-ove-andsnes-plays-rachmaninoff

Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is on deck, with Dalia Stasevska on the podium.

[smittims]

Tchaikovsky, Symphony no.6, The Philharmonia Orchestra, Paul Kletzki.

I think this was recorded in 1959 along with the famous Scheherazade , and probably produced also by Victor Olof. And like that classic, it was destined to go straight to HMV's new bargain 'Concert Classics' label, set up probably as a rival to Decca's 'Ace of Clubs'. Two shillings more, but many of the titles were real and even new stereo, whereas most Ace of Clubs were early mono Lp.

Even today it's an impressive recording, reappearing in a 10-CD box of this conductor, including his Mahler 9 and 'Transfigured Night'. I listened to it on my 60-year-old bue label copy, with a sleeve note by W.A.Chislett, who mentions that Tchaikovsky later asked for the 'Pathetique' subtitle to be removed. I didn't know that.