What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[pastoralguy]

Shostakovich. The Preludes and Fugues.

Alexander Melnikov, piano. Harmonia Mundi.

A £3.00 charity shop find along with…

Rachmaninov’s 2nd and 4th Piano Concertos.

Daniil Trifanov, piano.

The Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. DG. £3.00 charity shop find.

The Shelter Shop has obviously had a huge donation handed in including many Hyperion CDs that are unopened!

[smittims]

Alban Berg: Chamber Concerto, Boulez first recording , with Barenbom, Gawriloff and members of the BBC S.O .

I was pleased to find how much I enjoyed what at first seemed an inaccessible work to me.

Three Orchestral pieces op. 6. Whatever one thinks of Berg's music one has to admit he was a quick learner. One minute he was writing little late-romantic songs, next, he's almost caught up with Arnold Schoenberg.

Five Altenburg Lieder. I'm afraid this is still a closed book to me.

[Bryn]

Alban Berg: Chamber Concerto, Boulez first recording , with Barenbom, Gawriloff and members of the BBC S.O .

I was pleased to find how much I enjoyed what at first seemed an inaccessible work to me.

Three Orchestral pieces op. 6. Whatever one thinks of Berg's music one has to admit he was a quick learner. One minute he was writing little late-romantic songs, next, he's almost caught up with Arnold Schoenberg.

Five Altenburg Lieder. I'm afraid this is still a closed book to me.

A superb LP which greatly stoked my admiration for Berg's work, back in the day.

[Bryn]

Downloaded this morning from:

https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68316&utm_medium=DM&utm_source=DM2023_04&dm_i=10ZR,892Z4,26MSX6,XW0YH,1

along with the final Haydn String Quartets issue from the LHQ + Schubert duos from Lewis and Osborne.

[Stefan Dehor is decidedly improvisational in his approach to Appel interstellaire. Very glad to hear this recording.]

[smittims]

And good to hear the Utah S.O. is still going strong. Many will recall their Mahler and VW recordings.

[Bryn]

And good to hear the Utah S.O. is still going strong. Many will recall their Mahler and VW recordings.

Just came across this:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/apr/06/messiaen-des-canyons-aux-etoiles-review-epic-score-soars-in-utahs-superb-recording

[Petrushka]

Alban Berg: Chamber Concerto, Boulez first recording , with Barenbom, Gawriloff and members of the BBC S.O .

I was pleased to find how much I enjoyed what at first seemed an inaccessible work to me.

Three Orchestral pieces op. 6. Whatever one thinks of Berg's music one has to admit he was a quick learner. One minute he was writing little late-romantic songs, next, he's almost caught up with Arnold Schoenberg.

Five Altenburg Lieder. I'm afraid this is still a closed book to me.

I bought that LP in 1976 and took to the Three Orchestral Pieces and Altenberg Lieder immediately. The Chamber Concerto, though, proved, and still proves, a tough nut to crack.

[RichardB]

Just came across this

I guess a stopped clock is right twice a day. I’m looking forward very much to hearing this though. And the Haydn.

[Bryn]

Cassandra Miller: Viola Concerto + Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin (Lawrence Power, Brussels PO, Ilan Volkov) from:

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnu/luister/radio/k/klarafestival~31-189/klarafestival~31-20706-0/?fbclid=IwAR3-fMRGwFLdrlfMF-ZSdeeU1KnESczWZC0bqAo_CbAhi3ueypjvPoVUzM8

Be warned, the Miller and Bartok are surrounded by lots of presentation, some in Flemish and some in Engish, plus several music fill-ins. It's worth burrowing in to hear the Miller and Bartok, however. The Bartok is the full score, not just the suite.

[gradus]

A performance of Mars in Daniel Harding's new recording with the Bavarian Radio Symphony. I found it oddly uninvolving and no encouragement to hear the rest.

[Bryn]

As an ironic counterpoint to The Miraculous Manderin, Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (Nash Ensemble at the 200 Proms from BBC MM cover disc). Not, perhaps a library choice but well worth hearing, I think. I will not be following on with Pierrot Lunaire tonight. I don't want to break the atmosphere of Verklärte Nacht.

[smittims]

I think I'd feel the same. Although I've aways preferred the 1943 string orch. version , I have come to admire an EMI recording of the original sextet with the Artemis quartet, Thomas Kakuska and Valentin Erben.

I'm currently enjoying Alan Civil's Grieg suite for brass, from this morning's TTN.

[Joseph K]

Mentioned upthread by Bryn -

Terry Riley - A Rainbow in Curved Air

[smittims]

Ah, thanks for reminding me about Terry Riley. I have head that piece, if long ago. I used to have a 2-LP set of 'The Turkish Surgery Dervishes' which I enjoyed, and once attended live performance of 'In C', rare for me as I've not been an avid concert-goer.

My choice today was from a very different world.

Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante K364: Stern, Zukerman,Barenboim.
Elgar: Symphony no.2. LPO/Barenboim. I prefer this performance to his recent ones, though the Sony CD transfer sounded as if the Master Tape has deteriorated a little since 1973.

[gradus]

New DGG recording of Verdi's Falstaff.