What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[BBMmk2]

Yesterday would’ve been Claudio Abbado’s 89th birthday, if my maths , is correct. So all this week, I’ll be playing recordings of his, that I have in my collection.

Schubert - The Symphonies
The Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Claudio Abbado.

[Master Jacques]

Elgar
Introduction and Allegro for Strings
(rec. 1956)
Vaughan Williams
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
(rec. 1962)
Piston
Toccata
(rec. 1965)
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Smetana Quartet (Elgar and Vaughan Williams), c. Karel Ančerl
Live performances, Dvořák Hall, Rudolfinum, Prague
Supraphon, from CD11 of 15 in 'Karel Ančerl Live Recordings' (SU 4308-2).

It is a deep pleasure to eavesdrop on these superbly-played live performances of familiar works, in remarkable readings, graced by the Smetana Quartet, no less. Ančerl's feeling for Elgar is extraordinary, in a driven and romantically generous reading; the Vaughan Williams has an almost suffocating intensity we wouldn't find within the familiar, English performing tradition; the Piston is virtuosic heaven. The whole box is a treasure trove, of course, and this CD (also featuring Prokofiev's Scythian Suite and Lutoslawski's Musique Funebre) is one of its more unexpected.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Elgar - Serenade For Strings In E Minor, Op 20.

Actually, I'm bending the rules - it was this morning. At Elgar's Birthplace.

Mrs CS birthday present was a weekend at the Upton upon Severn Jazz Festival which she has long wanted to visit. I have no great interest in Jazz but for the trad. variety I can raise an interest. We found excellent performers and I discovered that I really like the Hot Club of France material - and found two similarly excellent groups performing it.

This morning it was a visit to Elgar's Grave en route to the Birthplace. In the sun the garden at the birthplace was as lovely as last time. I do think the National Trust have done a good job with the visitor facility over the bridlepath at the back of the house, and their assumption of its operation has secured it's future.

I was touched to read that Elgar said to Howells, when they visited The Firs:

"I don't expect much from the nation, but if they think it worthwile, I wish they would buy this little cottage". "Its the only wish I've got - about the nation and me"

[Bryn]

Beethoven : Op. 59, 1, 2, & 3 (Quatuor Mosaïques) [from Radio 3 a couple or so years ago].

[Stanfordian]

Mercadante
‘Emma d’Antiochi’ opera in 3 acts (prem 1834)
Nelly Miricioiu (Emma), Roberto Servile (Corrado di Monferrato), Bruce Ford (Ruggiero),
Maria Costanza Nocentini (Adelia), Colin Lee (Aladino), Rebecca von Lipinski (Odetta),
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir,
London Philharmonic Orchestra / David Parry
Recorded 2003 Henry Wood Hall, London
Opera Rara, 3 CD set

[RichardB]

But you don't get the cymbal clash!

The fewer of those the better if you ask me!

[BBMmk2]

Yesterday would’ve been Claudio Abbado’s 89th birthday, if my maths , is correct. So all this week, I’ll be playing recordings of his, that I have in my collection.

Schubert - The Symphonies
The Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Claudio Abbado.

Playing the last two CDs now.

[Mandryka]

Phill Niblock, kontradictionaries. This is very processed music, and all the better for it IMO. The musicians recorded some sounds, Niblock processed them and made a tape, played it back to the musicians who then added bits. I like it very much, though I’d be hard put to say why I like it, or what I like about it.

[Joseph K]

Currently listening to the second Brouwer sonata played by Ricardo Gallén.

Got the fourth on now. It's very nice.

[Serial_Apologist]

Today I finished listening to my entire Frank Bridge recorded collection, covering almost the entire oeuvre chronologically. Of the major pieces only the first string quartet of 1906 and the Dance Rhapsody of 1912 are missing, and I shall have to dig out youtubes of these two works. The cello concerto Oration of 1930 was the work Bridge considered his best - a memorial to his pupil Ernest Ferrar who had died at the front in World War 1. Bridge was neglected during the 1950s as one among several composers whose music was erroneously thought to have failed to face up to the revolutionary new developments taking place across the Channel. In fact he was one of the few of his, Vaughan Williams's, Holst's and John Ireland's generation, who not only did, but profoundly understood those aspects that chimed with his own temperament and capacity for thinking in organic symphonic terms, especially the musics of Berg and Schoenberg, but also Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin, late Fauré and (to my ears anyway) Szymanowsky, uniquely blending these with the chromatic language Delius bestowed on English pastoral composers such as Bax and Warlock.

The article below is a good guide to Bridge's compositions and life in music.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/bridge/chapt1.htm

[Serial_Apologist]

Frank Bridge - String Quartet No 4 (1938) - Maggini String Quartet, (with score)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-Jkm8Zczo

Probably my favourite British string quartet in its best recorded performance.

[Pulcinella]

Frank Bridge - String Quartet No 4 (1938) - Maggini String Quartet, (with score)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-Jkm8Zczo

Probably my favourite British string quartet in its best recorded performance.

You've got me wondering, SA.
I'll certainly listen to this (I guess it's the Naxos version not a live recital?) but you might want to launch a new thread.
I imagine there could be other strong contenders.

[Mandryka]

Bryn Harrison’s Dead Time, played by Wet Ink. This music seems very much in the same vein as Bernhard Lang’s - I mean, I expect there’s something in the processes which produce the near repetitions and articulations which is technically different from Lang’s monadologies, but as a listener it kind of has a very similar effect. Like it.

https://vimeo.com/449315887

[ahinton]

Frank Bridge - String Quartet No 4 (1938) - Maggini String Quartet, (with score)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W-Jkm8Zczo

Probably my favourite British string quartet in its best recorded performance.

One of Bridge's finest works IMHO is his second piano trio (although actually it's his third, as an early one from around 1899 was written and performed but then discarded); a oerformance by Menuhin, Gendron and Britten is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCB1Vo4AwiY .

[Stanfordian]

Nicola Porpora – ‘Il Maestro’ – Franco Fagioli
Opera Arias from Ezio, Semiramide riconosciuta, Didone abbandonata,
Meride e Selinunte, Il verbo in carne, Meride e Selinunte, Il ritiro,
Polifemo, Carlo il Calvo, Vulcano
Franco Fagioli (countertenor)
Academia Montis Regalis / Alessandro De Marchi
Recorded 2013, Sala di Santa Croce, Academia Montis Regalis, Mondovi, Italy
Naïve, CD

Henri Bertini
Nonetto in D major for flute, oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet, viola, cello, double bass & piano, Op. 107 (c. 1840)
Grand Trio in A major for piano, violin & cello, Op. 43 (1836)
Linos Ensemble
Recorded 2020, Kammermusiksaal, Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
CPO, CD