What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[AuntDaisy]

Janáček's "The Excursions of Mr. Broucek" 1959 in a German translation, it works surprisingly well (but I still prefer the 1980 Supraphon version.)
A wonderfully silly set of adventures.

[Roger Webb]

One of Debussy's pianos was a Bluthner bought in England I believe.

Yes, it's the one in Brive above. If you open the youtube video and go to the Comments you'll see my history of this piano.

May be worth reading this too...

https://www.eastbournehistory.org.uk/blog/debussys-piano-alive-and-well-and-living-in-brive-la-gaillarde

[gradus]

Yes, it's the one in Brive above. If you open the youtube video and go to the Comments you'll see my history of this piano.

May be worth reading this too...

https://www.eastbournehistory.org.uk...e-la-gaillarde

We have the same model of Bluthner but from 1905, regretably it doesn't make me able to play Debussy's music except for the simplest of pieces, I hope that my wife's young pupils have better luck!

[teamsaint]

Symphony # 6 , Peter Maxwell Davies.
RPO.
I never really know what to make of his symphonies, even when he was a hot topic hereabouts some years ago, with that flurry of late works.
Never really found a way in. Maybe that will change.

[smittims]

I underrated Max for rmany years until I realised that the essence of his work is a serious fascination with the art of composition. I think there is much to learn from his symphonies and quartets. In producing so many large-scale works in so short a time, he shows himself more in line with 18th or 17th-century practice; it's craftsmanship rather than the 19th-20th-century emphasis on the 'immortal masterpiece'.

[oliver sudden]

Symphony # 6 , Peter Maxwell Davies.
RPO.
I never really know what to make of his symphonies, even when he was a hot topic hereabouts some years ago, with that flurry of late works.
Never really found a way in. Maybe that will change.

The only ones I know at all well are the bookends. Only the first really grabbed me until I heard the 10th, which for me is tremendous. I first got to know it, though, when he played some of it in a talk he gave in Basel, at about the same time I met him (as I mentioned elsewhere).

What has always grabbed me in terms of the orchestral pieces are the ones he wrote leading up to his first symphony, above all Worldes Blis, which is a truly extraordinary thing, but also the Second Taverner Fantasia and St Thomas Wake.)

I think smittims is quite right, though: I also don’t see Max as having had a masterpiece obsession. There’s a heck of a lot of his music I still want to catch up with!

[Stanfordian]

Gustav Mahler – 'A Life in Songs' – Bernarda Fink
Lieder with Piano & Orchestral Lieder: Songs of a Wayfarer (arr. Schoenberg), Kindertotenlieder, Rückert-Lieder (4), Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen & Early Lieder
'Bernarda Fink (mezzo-soprano)
Anthony Spiri, piano (tracks 1-3, 9, 15, 17-18)
Gustav Mahler Ensemble (tracks 4-7),
Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich (tracks 8, 10-14, 16, 19) / Andrés Orozco-Estrada
Recorded 2013 Telex Studio, Berlin (Lieder) & Auditorium Grafenegg, Austria (orchestral Lieder)
Harmonia Mundi, CD

Beethoven – Complete Piano Sonatas – Rudolf Buchbinder
Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101
Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 'Hammerklavier'
Rudolf Buchbinder (piano)
Recorded Live 2014 Grosser Saal, Stiftung Mozarteum, Salzburg
'Beethoven Complete Piano Sonatas Live from Salzburger Festspiele'
Deutsche Grammophon, CD 8 of 9

In the Beethoven complete Piano Sonatas this Buchbinder set is my prime recomendation.

[smittims]

Rudolf Buchbinder gave some fine Beethoven sonata performances at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago, I recall.

My choice today, Huw Watkins' concerto for viola, cello and orchestra.

I think Huw Watkins is my favourite living compooser, though I also admire Thomas Larcher and Helmut Lachenmann (if he's still alive). Watkins writes concertos in three-movement fast-slow-fast format, but can still make this form fresh and vital. It's good honest music with no silly gimmicks.

[Stanfordian]

Brahms
String Quintet in F major, op. 88
String Quintet in G major, op.111
Mandelring Quartett
with Roland Glassl (viola)
Recorded 2016 Konzertsaal, Abtei Marienmünster, Germany
Audite, CD

Frederica von Stade - ‘French Opera Arias’
Arias by Berlioz, Massenet, Thomas, Meyerbeer, Gounod & Offenbach
Frederica Von Stade (mezzo soprano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra / John Pritchard
Recorded 1976 Henry Wood Hall, London
Sony, CD

[smittims]

I've been catching up with the Harnoncourt Handel opus 6 concertos.

This set differs from others in two respects: Harnoncourt has seen fit to add to later concertos in the set the oboe and bassoon doublings found in four of the earlier ones. Also, and most curiously, the concertante group of soloists is placed at the back, almost in the distance.

While this sounds quite pleasant I don't know what authority he has for doing this. However, he aways had strong reasons for what he did and was wont to explain them at length so I don't suppose it was just a a whim.

Back on more conventioanl ground, I followed this with Haydn's quartet op. 33 no.1 played by the Aeolian Quartet as part of their complete Argo series. This was certainly the Aeolians' apotheosis on disc,their previous recordings being mostly of neglected British works such as Hugh Wood and NIcholas Maw.

[oliver sudden]

Helmut Lachenmann (if he's still alive).

I believe he is, and given my line of work I would expect to find out quite quickly should that cease to be the case.

[pastoralguy]

Rudolf Buchbinder gave some fine Beethoven sonata performances at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago, I recall.

My choice today, Huw Watkins' concerto for viola, cello and orchestra.

I think Huw Watkins is my favourite living compooser, though I also admire Thomas Larcher and Helmut Lachenmann (if he's still alive). Watkins writes concertos in three-movement fast-slow-fast format, but can still make this form fresh and vital. It's good honest music with no silly gimmicks.

Yes, Buchbinder gave a complete cycle over 9 mornings the Edinburgh Festival in 2015. For some stupid reason I didn’t go to any of them, much to my regret.

[teamsaint]

The only ones I know at all well are the bookends. Only the first really grabbed me until I heard the 10th, which for me is tremendous. I first got to know it, though, when he played some of it in a talk he gave in Basel, at about the same time I met him (as I mentioned elsewhere).

What has always grabbed me in terms of the orchestral pieces are the ones he wrote leading up to his first symphony, above all Worldes Blis, which is a truly extraordinary thing, but also the Second Taverner Fantasia and St Thomas Wake.)

I think smittims is quite right, though: I also don’t see Max as having had a masterpiece obsession. There’s a heck of a lot of his music I still want to catch up with!

Thanks both for your comments,which I shall definitely bear in mind for future listening.