What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Pulcinella]

Tippett: Tempest Suite (arr. Bowen)
Nash Ensemble, Martyn Hill (tenor),
Stephen Barrell (baritone), c. Andrew Parrott
(Private CD, 1995 recording)

Tippett's Tempest suite, from his incidental music for the 1960 Old Vic production, is a rich quarry for later and earlier music. It incorporates his earlier Songs for Ariel, and contains music later redeployed in The Knot Garden, The Blue Guitar and even the Triple Concerto. The chamber scoring is Tippett's own, delicious at every point; and this 30-minute suite is absorbing music, in its own right.

:envy emoticon:

[JasonPalmer]

Listening to some nice music on "in tune" , looking forward to this evenings concert.

[smittims]

I remember Tippett's Tempest Suite being performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1981 or thereabouts, in a concert in which Tippett himself conducted the Concerto for Double String Orchestra in a rigorous performance removed from the cosy bucolic image his work has sometimes been given.

[smittims]

Yes, cloughie, Solomon's disc was a latecomer, one of his few stereo recordings. There were also Lipatti, Lympany, Gieseking and maybe more.

[Stanfordian]

Beethoven
‘Complete Violin Sonatas’
Corey Cerovsek (violin) & Paavali Jumppanen (piano)
Recorded 2006 La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
Claves, 3 CD box set

I'm dipping into this set today.

[Barbirollians]

Mozart Dissonance Quartet played by those BAL dinosaurs Quartetto Italiano - so beautifully .

[Bryn]

Mozart Dissonance Quartet played by those BAL dinosaurs Quartetto Italiano - so beautifully .

1952, 1966 or both?

[Master Jacques]

I remember Tippett's Tempest Suite being performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1981 or thereabouts, in a concert in which Tippett himself conducted the Concerto for Double String Orchestra in a rigorous performance removed from the cosy bucolic image his work has sometimes been given.

Intriguing, as this 30-minute Tempest Suite wasn't devised or published by Schott until 1995, for this Nash Ensemble performance, which was the premiere. It uses the original, chamber scoring from the Old Vic production, so I wonder what you heard from his score (presumably with full orchestra) in the 1980s?

[Pulcinella]

Wagner: Wesendonk Lieder
Mahler: Rückert Lieder

Yvonne Minton/LSO/Boulez
From the big Sony Boulez box.

Not being as methodical a listener as JosephK, I don't think I'd played this before.
Rather taken with it.

I need to check if either of these works has featured in a BaL; if not, one or other might be suitable for a Summer BaL.
The other recording I have (apart from BBC MM ones) is with Janet Baker.

[smittims]

Hi, MasterJaques, no, it certainy wasn't a full orchestra, more a chamber ensemble, and I can't remember how much was played. There may have been more than one song, and I think it was conducted by Nicholas Kraemer. I wish I could remember more. Maybe there's an archive somewhere of QEH concerts.

[Master Jacques]

Hi, MasterJaques, no, it certainy wasn't a full orchestra, more a chamber ensemble, and I can't remember how much was played. There may have been more than one song, and I think it was conducted by Nicholas Kraemer. I wish I could remember more. Maybe there's an archive somewhere of QEH concerts.

Thank you smittims, most interesting. I wonder if it was the original chamber version of the three Songs for Ariel? Difficult to tell from over 40 years ago, and the Southbank Archive still awaits online digital search facilities, alas.

[JasonPalmer]

Listening to essential classics on radio 3

[smittims]

Beethoven Concerto in G major. Solomon, Philharmonia, Andre Cluytens.

[Stanfordian]

‘Romantique’ – Elīna Garanča
Opera arias Donizetti, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Gounod, Vacci, Berlioz & Lalo
Elīna Garanča (mezzo-soprano)
Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna / YvesAbel
Recorded 2012 Salone Bolognini, Bologna
Deutsche Grammophon, CD

Leonard Salzedo
String Quartet No.1 in one movement, Op.1
String Quartet No.5, Op.32, No.1
String Quartet No.10, Op.140
Archaeus Quartet
Recorded 2017, St. George's Church, Benenden, Kent
MPR, CD

[Bryn]

This morning: Mahler, Symphony no.10, with the Tonhalle-Orchester conducted by David Zinman.

My first hearing, I think, of the Carpenter arrangement, severely criticised by Colin Matthews, which is as good a recommendation as any for me! The problem is that Carpenter uses preexistent bits of actual Mahler to fil in some of the gaps in the 10th, which I was dreading, although actually this feature is much less obtrusive than I was expecting it to be. On the other hand there are some quite beautiful moments that underline what I find to be the threadbareness of the much more popular Cooke version. I really don't know why most conductors seem to prefer it to this and Mazzetti II and even Barshai, which could be slightly edited into something very good. The last word hasn't been and never will be said of course.

Listening to it now, the CD version (the only one of the Mahler Symphonies under Zinman that I did not get the SACD issue of - too expensive to resolve, now). I like the way Carpenter treated the first movement as being a sketch, as with the other four. Surely Mahler would have returned to it had he had time to fully orchestrate the rest of the symphony, prior to or in reflecting upon its rehearsal/premiere under his baton?

So, Richard, when do we get to hear your performing version?

For those who object to others attempting to make Mahler's sketches come to life for the listening public, please recall that Mahler was in no way averse to reorchestrating, or indeed completing, the work of other composers, from Beethoven to Weber.