What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Joseph K]

but my favourite piece - and probably disk -

I forgot to add 'of Spectralist music'.

I'm now checking out the excerpt of Les Sept Paroles Mandryka posted...

[Mandryka]

Rihm, Canzona Nuova, Desjardins.

[Stanfordian]

Donizetti
‘Dom Sebastien, roi de Portugal’ opera in 5 acts
Vesselina Kasarova (Zayda), Giuseppe Filianoti (Dom Sébastien),
Alastair Miles (Dom Juam de Sylva), Simon Keenlyside (Abayaldos),
Carmelo Corrado Caruso (Camoëns), Roberto Gleadow (Dom Henrique),
John Upperton (Dom Antonio/First Inquisitor), Lee Hickenbottom (Second Inquisitor),
Andrew Slater (Den-Sélim), Martyn Hill (Dom Luis), Nigel Cliffe (Soldier), John Bernays (Third Inquisitor),
Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, London / Mark Elder
Recorded 2005 Royal Opera House, London & Cadogan Hall, London (ballet music)
Opera Rara, 3 CD set

[BBMmk2]

Catching up with some BBC Music Magazine cover. CDs…..

Vaughan Williams
Symphony No.4 in F minor
In the Fen Country
Symphony No.6 in E minor
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
John Wilson

Dvorak
String Quartet No.12 in F major, Op.96 ‘American’
Leoš Janáček
String Quartet No.1 ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’
Dvořák
String Quartet No.13 in G major, Op.106
Pavel Haas Quartet

Vaughan Williams
Serenade to Music *
Wagner
Siegfried Idyll
George Lewis
Minds in Flux
* Various soloists
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Donald Runnicles

Lamentations
Choral works by
Tallis, Mindy, Brumel, etc.
BBC Singers
Peter Philips.

[richardfinegold]

Sibelius Symphonies 6,7, and Tapiola. Vanska /Lahti. Luminous performances, relatively small orchestra in a crystal clear BIS recording. I prefer both the playing and the recording to the later Minnesota recordings on SACD.

Grigory Sokolov, assorted Haydn/Schubert works, DG Blu Ray and CDs. This has become my favorite Haydn disc. The Schubert and the encores are also fine but for those who might reject Haydn played by a non HIPP specialist try to listen without preconceptions. Tempos are slow, there is some rubato, but Sokolov seems to personalize the music and I hope he records more Haydn. The Blu Ray contributes nothing sonically over the included CDs but you do get a lot of views of Esterhazy Palace.

[Joseph K]

Ravel - Valses Nobles et Sentimentales - BBCSO/Wigglesworth

Eagerly awaiting the Murail piece that follows - L'oeil du cyclone.

edit - really enjoying it actually, more so than for example any work I've heard by Dalbavie...

[RichardB]

Schoeck's Elegie again... this is really getting to me at the moment. Does anyone else know this work? If not, those of you who appreciate early 20th century music would greatly appreciate it I think.

[Pianoman]

Schoeck's Elegie again... this is really getting to me at the moment. Does anyone else know this work? If not, those of you who appreciate early 20th century music would greatly appreciate it I think.

A wonderful song cycle which I've been recommending to friends for years - since I first got the Andreas Schmidt recording in fact, though I really must investigate the alternatives...

[RichardB]

A wonderful song cycle which I've been recommending to friends for years - since I first got the Andreas Schmidt recording in fact, though I really must investigate the alternatives...

The "unearthly" quality I mentioned before is somehow connected with the fact that most of the songs are similar in mood and tempo, while at the same time being subtly differentiated in colour and melodic shape. I haven't heard the Schmidt recording. Perhaps he would be a bit more secure in some of the lowest notes than Gerhaher is, but I think the fragile quality of the latter's voice is very suitable to the music, and with Holliger conducting the Kammerorchester Basel the accompaniment is perfectly judged.

I came to this work having been previously attracted to the Notturno which is quite similar in some ways (but with string quartet accompaniment and more "advanced" harmony) and the Minguet Quartet's recording of Schoeck's two string quartets, but my explorations of Schoeck haven't yielded anything else I find immediately appealing. Any recommendations?

[Mandryka]

Nono’s La Lontananza Nostalgica Utopica Futura with vocalisations, Miranda Cuckson + 1, after listening to Harvey’s 4th quartet.


Does anyone know what Blachard’s vertical imagination is? It comes up in Harvey’s note on the quartet.

https://www.fabermusic.com/music/string-quartet-no-4-3801

[Stanfordian]

Jacques Offenbach
Le Voyage dans la Lune – opera-féerie in four acts (prem. 1875)
Soloists: Violette Polchi, Sheva Tehoval, Matthieu Lécroart, Pierre Derhet,
Raphaël Brémard, Thibaut Desplantes, Marie Lenormand,
Christophe Poncet de Solages, Ludivine Gombert
Chœur et Orchestre National Montpellier Occitanie / Pierre Dumoussaud
Recorded September 2021, Salle Beracasa, Corum de Montpellier
Bru Zane ‘Opéra français’ series, volume 3

[Mandryka]

Re the Schoeck Elegie I have Klaus Mertens singing it. I like his voice. I have tried the Holliger but there’s something about it which rubs ne up the wrong way, it just seems horribly heavy. That could be the sound engineering, it’s close and there’s not much sense of hall ambience. And it could be Holliger’s part. Gerhaher is always a bit angsty, but normally I’m OK with that. Anyway the Mertens is worth a listen - totally different from Holliger, when I’m in the right frame of mind (this afternoon!) a few songs from it can be very pleasant.

I just found a Guardian review of the Holliger which says he used more instruments than Schoeck wanted - if that’s right, that'll give it weight. I wonder why he did it, assuming it’s right.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/apr/21/othmar-schoeck-elegie-review-christian-gerhaher

[Serial_Apologist]

Schoeck's Elegie again... this is really getting to me at the moment. Does anyone else know this work? If not, those of you who appreciate early 20th century music would greatly appreciate it I think.

Yes, my father taped a performance off Radio 3 somewhere back in the late 60s/early 70s. I can't recall who the performers were, but I remember being fascinated by the harmonic idiom and how it often vacillated between resolution and reversion pre-echoing the Weill of The Threepenny Opera and The Seven Deadly Sins where such indecision found its reflected grounding. I think the younger me who found the unfolding narrative trail too depressing and felt similarly about much of Delius and the poetry of Dowson actually got it right. Recently I re-discovered Schoeck's Lebendig begraben - literally as it says on the tin - here with the, for me, unsurpassable Fischer-Diskau - composed some 4 years after the Elegie. For all the subject matter the bejewelled scoring is ravishingly "Klimt"-ish: there weren't many pursuing this hovering post-Art Nouveau post-Salome proto-psychedelic musical universe by the 1920s: Szymanowsky still just about in parts of his second VC; Bridge in Enter Spring; Cyril Scott; Sorabji - I wish Schoeck had composed more orchestral music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrMSV0oQN8g

[Mandryka]

Francisco López - La Selva -- anyone into this sort of music here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDONvM77jEU&ab_channel=Mr.Schwarz

[Pianoman]

The "unearthly" quality I mentioned before is somehow connected with the fact that most of the songs are similar in mood and tempo, while at the same time being subtly differentiated in colour and melodic shape. I haven't heard the Schmidt recording. Perhaps he would be a bit more secure in some of the lowest notes than Gerhaher is, but I think the fragile quality of the latter's voice is very suitable to the music, and with Holliger conducting the Kammerorchester Basel the accompaniment is perfectly judged.

I came to this work having been previously attracted to the Notturno which is quite similar in some ways (but with string quartet accompaniment and more "advanced" harmony) and the Minguet Quartet's recording of Schoeck's two string quartets, but my explorations of Schoeck haven't yielded anything else I find immediately appealing. Any recommendations?

Well I'm no Schoeck expert but I came to his music through the one-act opera Penthesilea, based on Kleist's play, which some consider his finest score. It invites obvious comparison to Strauss's Elektra but listening again to it I think Schoeck is very much his own man, despite some occasional 'whiffs' of Strauss. It's worth hearing for the orchestration, which is idiosyncratic to say the least; 4 solo violins, a disproportionate number of violas, cellos and basses, no harps but 2 pianos, no bassoons (only a double bassoon) but 10 clarinets (!), 4 trumpets in the orchestra and 3 much-used trumpets on stage.
It creates some very interesting textures, and it's pretty cruel on the singers, with high tessituras and quite a bit of spoken dialogue - not as in Fidelio but some demanding Kleist verse !
I can see why it's not everyone's cuppa but I've always responded to it, and there are now 3 (I think) recordings. I have the Gerd Albrecht live one from Salzburg 1982, and luckily the main leads are excellent - Helen Donath and Theo Adam as Achilles. There is coughing and the sound's a bit uneven, but it's very persuasive conducting from Albrecht, who was always good in this sort of repertoire. I now notice there is a modern digital Venzago set so I may look into that.
As it happens I'm now about to listen to another Penthesilea from Pascal Dusapin....