What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Mario]

J TRIEBENSEE

Concerto for piano and wind octet in Eb Maj
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Listening to this on Venice Classic, one of my favourite radio stations (hardly any chit-chat), but really music of “such sweet delight”. Sorry to parade my ignorance publicly (again), but I've never heard of this composer.

[smittims]

No need to apologise , Mario, I'm sure many haven't heard of him! Discovery is one of the pleasures of radio listening, and thanks for the suggestion re Venice Classic.

No discovery fer me today, but two (surely) classic performances:

Beethoven : Piano concerto no.4 in G, Wilhelm Backahus, Vienna Philharmonic, Clemens Krauss.
Symphony no. 7 : Concertgebouw orch. Erich Kleiber.

Many older collectors will remember these on 'Ace of Clubs ' LPs, often with well-chosen black-and-white photos on the cover. I found both these completely satisfying, which is more than I can say for most performances today.

[Petrushka]

Beethoven: Symphony No 3 (Eroica)
Staatskapelle Berlin
Herbert von Karajan

This is HvK's first recording of the Eroica made in 1944. The Koch disc booklet says it was recorded in May 1944 but the Karajan official website says December 1 1944.

Some will be aware of my mania for dates and I don't such ambiguities. I'm more inclined to rely on the website date but wonder if anyone has any more information from later issues of this recording. Richard Osborne doesn't mention it, or if he does I can't find it.

[smittims]

Well,dates are important , as a wrong date can result in the same performance being confused with another, making us think there were two different ones; I've known this with Toscanini and Furtwangler broadcasts. Also, a lot of documentation of wartime concerts in Germany was destroyed in air raids. I'm afraid I know nothing of Herbert's recordings pre-1946, and from then on they are well-documented.

[Petrushka]

Well,dates are important , as a wrong date can result in the same performance being confused with another, making us think there were two different ones; I've known this with Toscanini and Furtwangler broadcasts. Also, a lot of documentation of wartime concerts in Germany was destroyed in air raids. I'm afraid I know nothing of Herbert's recordings pre-1946, and from then on they are well-documented.

The problem regarding this particular recording is that it was one of those Reich Radio tapes which were 'liberated' by the Russians in 1945 and taken to Moscow. Many turned up in Germany in the 1990s when the Russians returned them and the Furtwangler wartime concerts were among them. From photos I've seen of them in the book included with the BPO Furtwangler box, the tapes were clearly marked with recording dates and artist information but, of course, not all of them will have been.

I'm not sure about the ambiguity regarding the date of the Karajan Eroica but on the basis that the Karajan official website will be more likely to have researched it more thoroughly, it's my opinion that the December 1 1944 date is correct.

It's a very good performance, too, in fine mono sound and evidence that Karajan hardly changed his interpretation over the subsequent decades.

[richardfinegold]

The problem regarding this particular recording is that it was one of those Reich Radio tapes which were 'liberated' by the Russians in 1945 and taken to Moscow. Many turned up in Germany in the 1990s when the Russians returned them and the Furtwangler wartime concerts were among them. From photos I've seen of them in the book included with the BPO Furtwangler box, the tapes were clearly marked with recording dates and artist information but, of course, not all of them will have been.

I'm not sure about the ambiguity regarding the date of the Karajan Eroica but on the basis that the Karajan official website will be more likely to have researched it more thoroughly, it's my opinion that the December 1 1944 date is correct.

It's a very good performance, too, in fine mono sound and evidence that Karajan hardly changed his interpretation over the subsequent decades.

This might be a good spot to mention that I had received the Japanese SACDs of a live Karajan/BPO concert series in the sixties that Petruskka had earlier alerted us to.
The sound on these recordings are certainly acceptable, very comparable to the contemporaneous DG cycle. I also found the performances to adhere more closely to the studio cycle than I had previously noted with live Karajan performances. When I first played the Ninth it struck me as being greatly accelerated in tempo and energy compared to the studio version, but the timings of the two versions are actually not that much off. The pace is greatly pushed in IV, with the singers sounding like they are hanging on for dear life; again when I replayed the studio version I realized that HvK was applying the pedal to the metal there as well.
So I’m glad that I have it, as I have been collecting live
Karajan recordings (see the 78 experience web site of Quebec restoration engineer Yves St. Laurent). I think that this set is less essential than some other live Karajan recordings because the corresponding studio recordings were already of such a high quality that the advantages gained in these live performances are somewhat less than I had noticed previously .

ed- of course after writing this I listened to the Fourth last night, which had many characterful brief bits from solo flute and other winds, that I began to rethink it…

[AuntDaisy]

John Sheppard: Missa Cantate, The Tallis Scholars.
Beautiful singing & fascinating notes. Surprisingly, there were 80 tracks.

[Mario]

Sir C V Stanford

Irish Rhapsody No 4 in A min Op 141 “The fisherman of Lough Neah and what he saw”

Currently listening on WQXR, as recommended on the thread started by mozart79 and bumped by Maclintick.

I really must get to know more British music.

[smittims]

I hope you will, Mario. Wonders await you!

I've just listened to Beethoven's quartet in A minor, op. 132, played by the Lener Quartet from their light-blue Columbia 78s. On You Tube.

[Mario]

R VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

S No 1 “A Sea Symphony”
RLPO – Rodgers J / Shimell W / Handley V

[smittims]

Schubert, sonata in D major D 850: Daniel Barenboim. I like his slow tempo for the second movement , notably slower than Brendel, for example.

I well remember hearing this movement on the morning of May2, 1997. It was a beautiful morning and quite warm later. I was working up in the hills . The result of the General Election had been announced. It felt like the start of a new era.

[Pulcinella]

R VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

S No 1 “A Sea Symphony”
RLPO – Rodgers J / Shimell W / Handley V

A very good place to start!

I think I remember that you nearly made it to a performance when you were over here on one of your football trips.

[Mario]

Wow, what a memory!

You are, as always, correct. The performance was in Oxford, on the 7^th May 2011, a mere 13 years ago. On that day, Utd were playing Chelsea, and, as I said at the time, “sadly, this time, RVW must take second place to Man Utd”. (I’m not sure that that would still be the case now.)

[Pulcinella]

Wow, what a memory!

You are, as always, correct. The performance was in Oxford, on the 7^th May 2011, a mere 13 years ago. On that day, Utd were playing Chelsea, and, as I said at the time, “sadly, this time, RVW must take second place to Man Utd”. (I’m not sure that that would still be the case now.)

It was because I was singing in it and we'd hoped to meet up!
I'm sure that this is of immense interest to other forumites.

[richardfinegold]

Schubert, sonata in D major D 850: Daniel Barenboim. I like his slow tempo for the second movement , notably slower than Brendel, for example.
.

I heard Paul Lewis play this in April at the Gilmore Piano Festival in Kalamazoo Michigan. The recital was in a small intimate space and one could wonder at all of the wonderful things Lewis found in the work