What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[BBMmk2]

Vaughan Williams
The House of Life
Songs of Travel
Plus songs by Butterworth, Warlock & Guerney
Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor)
David Willison (piano)

[pastoralguy]

[B]Florence Price. Symphony No.1[

The Philadelphia Orchestra.conducted by Nezet-Seguin.

Going to hear it played by these artists at The Edinburgh Festival. A good piece but not a great piece, imho. Bit like Dvorak with bits of Delius and Elgar thrown in.

[BBMmk2]

Szymanowski
Symphony Mo.4, Op.60 “Symphonie Concertante” *
Symphonie No.3, Op.27 “Song of the Night”**
Sinfonia Votiva (Symphony No.8)
Philip Langridge (tenor) **
Piotr Paleozny (piano) *
** BBC Singers,
BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra
*Mark Elder
** Andrzej Panufnik

[richardfinegold]

[B]Florence Price. Symphony No.1[

The Philadelphia Orchestra.conducted by Nezet-Seguin.

Going to here it played by these artists at The Edinburgh Festival. A good piece but not a great piece, imho. Bit like Dvorak with bits of Delius and Elgar thrown in.

The Chicago Classical station, WFMT, has been playing a lot of Price music these past few months. I agree with your assessment. It’s sturdy, well crafted, and the occasional use of Music from Spirituals adds a nice flavor. Certainly if she had been a White Male we would have heard a lot more of this, and it is good to see her getting belated recognition. Essential listening? If your tastes lean heavily in the direction of American Composers such as Hanson, then I would say it is

[Bryn]

Likewise. I've just booked the trains and hostel.

Unfortunately, it is now looking touch and go as to whether I can make the concert. Last night, on the way back from Tesco, I took the 'pretty route'. I managed to slip on a particularly lutulent patch of mud on the path and severely jolted my right knee, which has rather limited flexion of barely 45 degrees from straight (the result of an RTA back in 1977). Fortunately, no new breaks occurred but I have been left with a groin strain and, for the time being, even more-limited flexion and considerable discomfort in the right knee, which, again fortunately, remains load-bearing. Hopefully, a mix of rest and carefully exercise with sort things out in time for the concert. For the time being, I'm using crutches to get around, gingerly.

[BBMmk2]

Szymanowski
Stabat Mater, Op.53
Litany to the Virgin Mary, Op.59
Symphony No.3, Op.27 “Song of the Night”
Elzbieta Szmytka (soprano)
Florence Quivar (mezzo-soprano)
John Connell (bass)
CBSO & Chorus
Sir Simon Rattle

Violin Concerto No.1, Op.35
Violin Concerto No.2, Op.61
Karlowicz
Violin Concerto in A major, Op.8
Tasmin Little (violin)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner

[pastoralguy]

The Chicago Classical station, WFMT, has been playing a lot of Price music these past few months. I agree with your assessment. It’s sturdy, well crafted, and the occasional use of Music from Spirituals adds a nice flavor. Certainly if she had been a White Male we would have heard a lot more of this, and it is good to see her getting belated recognition. Essential listening? If your tastes lean heavily in the direction of American Composers such as Hanson, then I would say it is

Every year, I try to hear, (not here!), a work I don’t know when it’s performed at the Edinburgh Festival and this year I’ve decided on the the Price. Probably the only opportunity I’ll get to hear this work live as well as being played by such top quality musicians!

[RichardB]

After Rameau and Sacrati (see baroque/early music thread), continuing through Maria Lettberg's complete Scriabin set, now reaching the 5th Sonata, the first of the single-movement ones which (especially from no.7) show the uniqueness of his creative vision most clearly. Although actually the 1st, which I thought I'd forgotten altogether, turns out to have been more memorable than I thought. This is certainly the best recording I've heard of no.5.

[Bryn]

After Rameau and Sacrati (see baroque/early music thread), continuing through Maria Lettberg's complete Scriabin set, now reaching the 5th Sonata, the first of the single-movement ones which (especially from no.7) show the uniqueness of his creative vision most clearly. Although actually the 1st, which I thought I'd forgotten altogether, turns out to have been more memorable than I thought. This is certainly the best recording I've heard of no.5.

For completeness, don't forget https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/op.../4015372820404

By the way, to save a bit of space on your shelves, the disc and booklet from the "opus-posthum" digipak fit nicely within the 8-CD plus 'bonus' DVD box.

[BBMmk2]

Paul Hindemith
Orchestral Works.
San Francisco Symphony
Leipzig Gewandhausorchester
Herbert Blomstedt.

[Stanfordian]

Benjamin Bernheim – ‘Boulevard des Italiens’
Opera arias in French by Cherubini, Donizetti, Mascagni, Puccini, Spontini & Verdi
Benjamin Bernheim (tenor),
Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna / Frédéric Chaslin
with Florian Sempey (baritone)
Recorded 2021, Teatro Auditorium Manzoni, Bologna
Deutsche Grammophon, CD
I just love Benjamin Bernheim’s voice - ‘Boulevard des Italiens’ is a really super album!

Brahms
Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 33
Shostakovich
Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57
Olga Kern (piano)
Dalí Quartet
Recorded 2019, Robin Hixon Theatre, Norfolk, VA, USA
Delos new CD

[BBMmk2]

Erwin Schulhoff
Symphonies Nos.1 - 3.
Philharmonia Hungarica
George Alexander Albrecht

[pastoralguy]

Ravel. Violin Sonata

Alina Ibragimova, violin. Steven Osbourne, piano. Hyperion.

[Ian Thumwood]

Although I am quite familiar with a lot of Chopin, I have discovered his Etudes for the first time this week and I was wondering just where they are considered in the pantheon of his music. My Mum was particularly fond of the Waltzs, Impromtus and Nocturnes and I have a book of his Preludes somewhere, so this element of his compositions is pretty familiar. Chopin is always a bit of an enigma for me. He tends to get classified as salon composer yet I have felt for a long while that, after initially being put off by the prettiness of his music that he should be considered to have been a Radical. Personally, I feel that Chopin was an absolute necessity and his approach of harmony that the exact refreshing that was needed after Beethoven had taken things just about as far as the Classical movement could go with his piano Sonatas. Chopin is like a breath of fresh air but, perhaps more significantly, his approach to harmony was instrumental to where harmony would progress on in to the 20th century and also informing a lot of modern jazz pianists too. So much of what is fascinating and significant in music owes it's origins to how Chopin radicalised music.

I am very curious to see how the Etudes are preceived. Listening to Lang Lang perform them, I have been staggered . They seem extremely technical but, to my ears, more important because this is total music. I am wondering whether they perhpas represent the peak of his repertoire.

[Mandryka]

I am very curious to see how the Etudes are preceived. Listening to Lang Lang perform them, I have been staggered . They seem extremely technical but, to my ears, more important because this is total music. I am wondering whether they perhpas represent the peak of his repertoire.

Of course many people appreciate the etudes, but by no means all. There used to be a video of Mitsiko Uchida on YouTube discussing the Debussy etudes where she says that the Chopin sets are not at all poetic, that they are merely technical exercises. But I think her view is probably in a minority, rather extreme and maybe hard to justify.

As far as Chopin’s peak is concerned, one popular musical writer who thought in those terms was Charles Rosen. For Rosen Chopin’s peak was not the etudes, but was rather the Mazurkas.

Chopin could indeed write «radical» music. For me there is no 19th century piano music more radical than the final movement of the second sonata.