What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Stanfordian]

Puccini – 'Messa di Gloria'
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunk,
Tomislav Mužek (tenor) & George Petean (baritone)
Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Ivan Repušić
Recorded Live, 2024 Herz-Jesu-Kirche, Munich
BR Klassik, CD

Mozart – Hagen Quartet
String Quartet No. 16 in E-flat major, K428
String Quartet No. 17 in B-flat major, K458 'The Hunt'
String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K575 'Prussian No. 1'
Hagen Quartet
Recorded: K428 (Palatin, Minnesängersaal, Wiesloch, 1999);
K458 (Kirche St. Konrad, Abersee, 1998);
K575 (Mozarteum, Grosser Saal, Salzburg, 1995)
Deutsche Grammophon (CD 5 of 7 from the complete Mozart String Quartets)

[oliver sudden]

OK, it is late at night, but I'll go for the full force on this one, and chance the consequences:

Harrison Birtwistle

Punch and Judy

Bryn-Julson / DeGaetani / Langridge / Roberts / Wilson Johnson / Tomlinson

London Sinfonietta

David Atherton

Etcetra KTC 2014

The words "stellar" are nothing at all for the soloists but they are too. It is quite difficult to understand, but it is true. And I've got it

Magnificent piece, magnificent recording!

[edashtav]

Not the most accessible Birtwistle score but worth trying.

[Mario]

J SIBELIUS

Tone Poem – Kullervo Op 7
Bournemouth S O – Helsinki Uni Male Ch – Kostia R – Viitanen U – Berglund P

Don’t know this work, and the background story is hardly more palatable!

[Stanfordian]

Rachmaninov – ‘Destination Rachmaninov · Departure’
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, op. 18
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, op. 40
Rachmaninov arrangement of Suite from J.S. Bach’s Partita for violin in E major, BMV 1006
Daniil Trifonov (piano)
Philadelphia Orchestra / Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Recorded 2015 (No. 4, live), 2018 (No. 2, Partita) Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia
Deutsche Grammophon CD

One of my very favourite CDs. Daniil Trifonov is in magnificent form.

[smittims]

'Bachmaninov' the critics called Sergei Vasilyevich's arrangement of three movements from the E major partita; his own recording of it was one of his very last, in 1942.

Very 'un-Hipp' of course, as was my last listening: a curious disc of Gabrieli conzonas made around 1970 by Karl Munchinger and the Stuttgart Chamber orchestra. We tend to hear these more on a brass ensemble, but here it is a modern string orchestra, with a harpsichord very much in the background, played by Brian Runnett, who was at that time organist of Norwich Cathedral and tragically died not long after. I found it most enjoyable; I could imagine it playing as 'muzak' in a sort of high-class tea-room. It's pn Spotify.

[smittims]

Beethoven : Symphony no. 5. The Philharmonia orchestra, Otto Klemperer.

I hadn't listened to this famous recording for some time. It was chosen as the recommeneded version in the first 'Building a Library' in 1957. I think it's a good idea to revisit old favourites one has neglected for years for one reason or another.

I'm currently working through Klemperer's mid-fifties studio recordings in this way. Does anyone else do this sort of thing?

[AuntDaisy]

Obrecht: Scaramella, The Binchois Consort, Andrew Kirkman. Ready for the "Restoring Obrecht's Scaramella Mass" Early Music Show (on the 14th).

The challenges and rewards of performing early music are here vividly illustrated by The Binchois Consort, as creative scholarship comes to the aid of two substantial—but fragmentary—works by Jacob Obrecht, and an audacious recorded sound attempts to recreate the experience of the original performers 500 years ago: an album set to attract huge interest from critics and Renaissance scholars alike.

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68460

[AuntDaisy]

Johannes Regis "Opera Omnia", The Clerks, Edward Wickham.
Regis is new to me, but there's a handsome book (with colour pictures) to go with the two CDs, so plenty to read later.

[Stanfordian]

Montserrat Caballé – ‘French Opera Arias’
Arias from Gounod, Meyerbeer, Charpentier, Massenet, Puccini, Bizet
Montserrat Caballé (soprano)
New Philharmonia Orchestra / Reynald Giovaninetti;
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra / James Levine
with Placido Domingo (tenor)
Recorded 1971
Deutsche Grammophon, CD

[smittims]

Brahms: Symphony no.2: the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski.

I imagine this may be 1928-29, and it may be the recording from which I learnt the work, on my father's black-label (D-prefix)HMV 78s. Curiously, Stokowski takes the finale at a sedate tempo; in more recent years it has become a racecourse for virtuoso conductirs.

[Mandryka]

Johannes Regis "Opera Omnia", The Clerks, Edward Wickham.
Regis is new to me, but there's a handsome book (with colour pictures) to go with the two CDs, so plenty to read later.

It is indeed a very handsome booklet. I'm not sure about the music, I've had the CDs for years and years, but have never given it the time it probably deserves.

[Mandryka]

Obrecht: Scaramella, The Binchois Consort, Andrew Kirkman. Ready for the "Restoring Obrecht's Scaramella Mass" Early Music Show (on the 14th).





https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68460

It's interesting to contrast Andrew Kirkman approach to Obrecht's incomplete Scaramella mass with Bjorn Schmelzer's approach to Brumel's incomplete Earthquake mass.

[AuntDaisy]

It's interesting to contrast Andrew Kirkman approach to Obrecht's incomplete Scaramella mass with Bjorn Schmelzer's approach to Brumel's incomplete Earthquake mass.

I haven't heard the Schmelzer version of the Earthquake mass, but I do have the Tallis Scholars & Huelga Ensemble ones & enjoy them both.

This Gramophone review makes me a little reluctant to try it, esp. with an electric guitarist joining the bun-fight.

[Mandryka]

I haven't heard the Schmelzer version of the Earthquake mass, but I do have the Tallis Scholars & Huelga Ensemble ones & enjoy them both.

This Gramophone review makes me a little reluctant to try it, esp. with an electric guitarist joining the bun-fight.

Oh come now, don't be a wimp!