What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Mandryka]

I don't think Boulez was interested in "vehicles for his prodigious skills", and he almost only conducted music that he felt a personal affinity with as a composer - no Brahms, Tchaikovsky or Sibelius to name but three composers to whose work his skills as a conductor might have brought some valuable insights. The fact that you can ask such a question, though, means that one can never really extrapolate a conductor's thoughts about the music they perform from listening to the results. Is it an important question? For my liking Boulez isn't sufficiently flexible in tempo with Mahler. Some people have suggested that this is indicative of an uninvolved relationship to the music, but why should that be the case?

Sorry to be an arsehole but I can’t resist: Boulez conducted the Brahms requiem and first piano concerto in (separate) proms in 1973 - I can let you have a recording of the requiem if you want. He did indeed bring insights to the requiem.

[Pulcinella]

Sorry to be an arsehole but I can’t resist: Boulez conducted the Brahms requiem and first piano concerto in (separate) proms in 1973 - I can let you have a recording of the requiem if you want. He did indeed bring insights to the requiem.

The Requiem was the First Night, and the programme began with Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms.
I was there!
Boulez as usual, with no baton, just a flick of the fingers: that wonderful opening chord set the season going.

[jayne lee wilson]

Bruckner Symphony No.2 (1872/77 Mixed Versions. Ed. Leopold Nowak).

Bruckner Symphony No.3 (1873 Ed. Leopold Nowak)

USSRMoCSO/Rozhdestvensky. Venezia CDs.
More Rozh marvels of imaginative, Russian-accented yet perfectly idiomatic Bruckner. He often takes the scherzi slower than usual, emphasising their weight and truculence and in the case of the 3rd, the fascinating syncopated rhythms of the 1873 version, which the revisions regularised and made less interesting.

[Stanfordian]

Benjamin Bernheim – ‘Boulevard des Italiens’
Opera arias 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

‘French Cello Sonatas’ vol. 1 – Lalo, Koechlin & Pierne
Koechlin
Cello Sonata, Op. 66
Lalo
Cello Sonata in A minor
Pierne
Cello Sonata in F sharp minor, Op. 46
Marina Tarasova (cello) & Ivan Sokolov (piano)
Recorded 2022 Studio of Victor Popov, Academy of Choral Arts, Moscow
Brilliant Classics, recent CD

[smittims]

Elgar: Introduction and Allegro; Serenade.
Delius: Brigg Fair ; on hearing thr first cuckoo in spring.

The LSO and New SO , Anthony Collins. ACL 131. Nice b/w photo of someone ploughing with a tractor, followed by gulls.

[Ian Thumwood]

I discovered Enescu's piano music before Christmas when I bought Volume 1 of Luiza Boruc's recordings of this music. I have to say that I have been shocked how good this music is but the music on Volue 2 is, if anything, even better. Habing practically exhausted all of Scriabin's piano music, I was looking to listen to something new and feel that Enescu is a bit of a revelation. It is staggering to think someone who could write music like this (and much of it in his youth too!) can be so over-looked.

Any other recommendations, please ?

[Mandryka]

Elena Bashkirova Mozart solo piano. Exquisite modern piano playing, melodious and nuanced and elegant in the great tradition rather than the HIP tradition. Particularly impressive ornamentation. Delicate rather then virile, sometimes psychologically deep. Needs good speakers (the sound is excellent) and a state of mind where you're ready to give it attention rather than expect it to grab your attention.

That’s the second outstanding modern piano recording this month, the other being Francois Frederic Guy’s Chopin.

[Mandryka]

The Requiem was the First Night, and the programme began with Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms.
I was there!
Boulez as usual, with no baton, just a flick of the fingers: that wonderful opening chord set the season going.

Extraordinary to programme both the requiem and the symphony of psalms in the same concert!

[jayne lee wilson]

I discovered Enescu's piano music before Christmas when I bought Volume 1 of Luiza Boruc's recordings of this music. I have to say that I have been shocked how good this music is but the music on Volue 2 is, if anything, even better. Habing practically exhausted all of Scriabin's piano music, I was looking to listen to something new and feel that Enescu is a bit of a revelation. It is staggering to think someone who could write music like this (and much of it in his youth too!) can be so over-looked.

Any other recommendations, please ?

As an Enescu obsessive I'd say just pitch straight in with the 3 Orchestral Suites and the 5 Symphonies. Yes - 5 Symphonies. The last late two were left unfinished when Enescu died, but they are complete in sketch form and (not so simply) needed orchestration, accomplished with idiomatic brilliance by his close friend, composer and conductor Pascal Bentoiu. Both available on CPO. For the first three, Romanian recordings (Horia Andreescu on Electrecord or Olympia) are more idiomatic but may be hard to find or even stream, so take on the Tampere/Lintu on Ondine (best), or the Monte Carlo/Foster EMI set. No.1 is very obviously Brahms 2nd-derived, but very well done and musically thrilling. After that, Enescu goes his own highly original, very symphonically elaborate way. Marvellously drifting, atmospheric wordless chorus in the finale to No.3.

The Suites are gorgeous music-for-pleasure pieces, mostly folksong derived with ear worming tunes and catchy rhythms. Foster very good again...but (again) Andreescu best for sound and idiom if you can track them down. Chamber music is marvellous too, especially the String Quartets and Piano Quartets (Tammuz/CPO).....

Two towering masterpieces of Poems: Vox Maris and Isis (CPO with the 5th Symphony)....among the greatest of Enescu.
One of his greatest works is also one of his earliest - The Opus 7 String Octet (try Gringolts/Meta4 on BIS SACD). Not a bad place to start. But I'll have to stop, sorry for lack of detail, screen-sickness a big problem these days....back soon!

[RichardB]

Sorry to be an arsehole but I can’t resist

Why would I think anyone is an "arsehole" for putting me right on an inaccurate claim? I'd never seen any recordings of Boulez conducting Brahms so I naturally assumed that his avoidance of the other two composers I mentioned would extend to Brahms. I can understand what he might have found interesting in the Requiem; the first piano concerto less so.

Anyway: my Bartók listening sent me in the direction of the Music for Strings... and Concerto for Orchestra by the Helsinki Philharmonic conducted by Susanna Mälkki. The CD grabbed me immediately at the beginning and didn't let up until the end. There are of course many excellent recordings of both pieces but this one got me excited about them all over again. Required listening for admirers of Bartók, I would say. I'm looking forward to listening to her other recordings of his work.

[Ian Thumwood]

As an Enescu obsessive I'd say just pitch straight in with the 3 Orchestral Suites and the 5 Symphonies. Yes - 5 Symphonies. The last late two were left unfinished when Enescu died, but they are complete in sketch form and (not so simply) needed orchestration, accomplished with idiomatic brilliance by his close friend, composer and conductor Pascal Bentoiu. Both available on CPO. For the first three, Romanian recordings (Horia Andreescu on Electrecord or Olympia) are more idiomatic but may be hard to find or even stream, so take on the Tampere/Lintu on Ondine (best), or the Monte Carlo/Foster EMI set. No.1 is very obviously Brahms 2nd-derived, but very well done and musically thrilling. After that, Enescu goes his own highly original, very symphonically elaborate way. Marvellously drifting, atmospheric wordless chorus in the finale to No.3.

The Suites are gorgeous music-for-pleasure pieces, mostly folksong derived with ear worming tunes and catchy rhythms. Foster very good again...but (again) Andreescu best for sound and idiom if you can track them down. Chamber music is marvellous too, especially the String Quartets and Piano Quartets (Tammuz/CPO).....

Two towering masterpieces of Poems: Vox Maris and Isis (CPO with the 5th Symphony)....among the greatest of Enescu.
One of his greatest works is also one of his earliest - The Opus 7 String Octet (try Gringolts/Meta4 on BIS SACD). Not a bad place to start. But I'll have to stop, sorry for lack of detail, screen-sickness a big problem these days....back soon!

JLW

Much appreciated. Enescu is a composer I want to check out further

[smittims]

Enescu's Third Symphony was broadcast on 'Afternoon Concert' a few years ago, a substantial work which impressed me.

[RichardB]

I decided to start this morning with Susanna Mälkki's The Wooden Prince. If anything, even more impressive than the previous one of her Bartók recordings I mentioned here. I've never heard the colours of Bartók's complex orchestration so clearly realised and with such a natural-sounding sense of timing. I hope she has Mahler and Berg in her sights, not to mention later repertoire.

[Pulcinella]

I decided to start this morning with Susanna Mälkki's The Wooden Prince. If anything, even more impressive than the previous one of her Bartók recordings I mentioned here. I've never heard the colours of Bartók's complex orchestration so clearly realised and with such a natural-sounding sense of timing. I hope she has Mahler and Berg in her sights, not to mention later repertoire.

I must see what's available for streaming (Deezer/Sonos); the only Wooden Princes I've heard are the two Boulez versions (Sony and DG).
Have you got to the Mandarin yet?

[RichardB]

Have you got to the Mandarin yet?

No, I felt I'd had enough excitement this early on a Sunday morning, plus it's time to wake the sleeping beauty with some breakfast.