What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Joseph K]

Just listened to Barraqué's ...au delà du hasard. It's a very fine piece.

[DoctorT]

More from the new Harnoncourt/COE live box on ICA Classics
Yesterday: Brahms 4 & Tragic Overture
Today: Beethoven 5&7

[Joseph K]

More from the new Harnoncourt/COE live box on ICA Classics
Yesterday: Brahms 4 & Tragic Overture
Today: Beethoven 5&7

It's a good box.

[BBMmk2]

More Haydn
Symphony no 100
COE/ Harnoncourt (live)

Self recommending?

Today, carrying on with CDs I received for Christmas. I’ve been wanting the set below for sometime now. At las I have it, in this rather marvellous remastered recording from Philips. Second hand from Amazon.

Johann Sebastian Bach
CD 1
Brandenburgshe Konzert
No.1 in F major, BWV 1046
No.2 in F major, BWV 1047
No.3 in G major, BWV 1048
No.4 in G major, BWV 1049
No..6 in Bb major, BWV 1051

CD 2
BC No.5 in D major, BWV 1050
4 Orchestersuiten
Suite No.1 in C major, BWV 1066
No.2 in B minor, BWV 1067
Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV1041

CD 3
Orchestersuiten
No.3 in D major, BWV 1068
No.4 inD major, BWV 1069
Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042
Concerto for two Violins & Strings, BWV 1043
Various Soloists
ASMF
Sir Neville Marriner.

[Quarky]

Merry Christmas everyone.

Following a prompt from TTN, I've been listening to Orpheus / Stravinsky. This had previously defeated me, but I'm happy to have made some progress. The narrative is a little complex, and it might have helped me greatly if there were DVDs available of a performance by a Ballet Company. However there seems to be very few, the only one I came across was an original Balanchine recording in Black and White, and in PAL format!

The Balanchine DVD is highly recommended:: Tchaik/ Serenade, Stravinsky / Orpheus. In black and white, but the best purchase I've made in many a year!

p.s. A random number generator for listening to Haydn Symphonies?

[RichardB]

Just listened to Barraqué's ...au delà du hasard. It's a very fine piece.

Until I heard the Concerto that was my favourite Barraqué piece. Maybe it still is, I should check that again! It's so labyrinthine you feel you can get completely lost in its complexities but at the same time you're aware of an intense necessity behind it. I haven't managed to work out what it was about Hermann Broch's novel The Death of Virgil that impelled Barraqué to plan an enormous series of works derived from it (including this, Le temps restitué and Chant après chant, and various other compositions that were never realised). I found it pretty tough going and didn't even get halfway through!

[Joseph K]

It's so labyrinthine you feel you can get completely lost in its complexities but at the same time you're aware of an intense necessity behind it.

Agreed.

[Mandryka]

Until I heard the Concerto that was my favourite Barraqué piece. Maybe it still is, I should check that again! It's so labyrinthine you feel you can get completely lost in its complexities but at the same time you're aware of an intense necessity behind it. I haven't managed to work out what it was about Hermann Broch's novel The Death of Virgil that impelled Barraqué to plan an enormous series of works derived from it (including this, Le temps restitué and Chant après chant, and various other compositions that were never realised). I found it pretty tough going and didn't even get halfway through!

I've tried at least three times with the book - twice in English and once in French -- and didn't get far. Maybe it doesn't translate well, maybe I’ve never been in the right frame of mind. The concerto is very good, I agree. I like Chant après Chant too -- especially in Jamie Jordan's recording.

[RichardB]

I've tried at least three times with the book - twice in English and once in French -- and didn't get far. Maybe it doesn't translate well

I assume Barraqué read it in French though.

[jayne lee wilson]

Magnard Symphony No.3; No.4.

BBCSSO/Ossonce. Hyperion CDs.

and

Freiburg PO/Bollon. Naxos CD.

Ossonce has the glorious climaxes, but Bollon the edge in tautness of phrase, focus of musical argument. But both are very rewarding in music which, on each revisit, I always find needs 2 or 3 hearings before it starts to draw me in. After which.... it is all I want to hear (well apart from Prokofiev Symphonies and Brahms Chamber Music, the latter inspired by reading...).

The Bollon 3rd is certainly the best on record now, and of course the pastorale slow movement has one of the all-time greatest and most memorable oboe solos....straight to the heart, and stays there for ever.

[Edgy 2]

Beethoven Diabelli Variations
Schubert Piano Sonata D 960

Geza Anda

[Mandryka]

I assume Barraqué read it in French though.

I guess so, in his paper Beethoven (A propos de B ou B et son à-propos) Barraqué directly quotes from the Gallimard translation -- this is fabulous -- makes me want to give the book another go.

Le grondement continua ...c'était transcendant toute communication et toute signification . . . pour lui était le verbe qui est au-delà de tout language.

Barraqué goes on to say that the Broch quote puts him in mind of the Missa Solemnis!

[Joseph K]

Haydn - 7th symphony.

Digging the solos given to particular instruments, and the horns in the third movement.

[Joseph K]

Seeing the comments over on the lunchtime concerts thread, I've decided to sample a download from earlier this year which I've hardly touched: the complete Schubert piano sonatas and more on Brilliant.

Schubert - piano sonata in A minor D784 - David Kuyken

[pastoralguy]

Saint-Saëns. . Works for violin and orchestra.

Jinjoo Cho, violin. Appassionata directed by Mathieu Herzog. Naïve label.

I’ve always loved the French maestro’s works for solo violin and this collection is lovely. The Gramophone hits the nail on the head when they say the disc’s success is as much the orchestra’s since the playing is gorgeous.

Well worth hearing.