What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Bryn]

Tippett: Concerto for Orchestra. The BBC S.O. , Andrew Gourlay. A superb rendering which replaces, in my affection,the classic Colin Davis disc. . . .

Where? When? Internet searches have failed to assist.

[Mandryka]

Schubert - Piano Sonata in D major D850
Paul Badura-Skoda (piano)

This is the last of PB-S's recordings of this piece, recorded in 2015 at Bosendorfer's studio in Wiener Neustadt. I also have his earlier recording on a 1823 Graf fortepiano, but not his earlier modern piano recording.

The variations movement of this sonata is one of those pieces which somehow gets under my skin, it moves me. I don’t say that it’ll have the same effect on anyone else, or that Badura Skoda would have that effect on me - I got to know it through Richter, and then Zilberstien, and those two have proved to be enough for me.

[Sir Velo]

Scharwenka Piano Concerto in F Minor Hough/CBSO/Foster

This recording had eluded me on its initial release but with the cornucopia of Hyperion's catalogue making its way onto streaming platforms, was just too tempting to resist,

So what to make of it? Having given it the cold shoulder for 27 years, I've now listened twice in the space of 12 hours. The debt to Liszt is obvious in the pianistic fireworks on display, but the lovely slow movement brought Busoni to mind. One gets the feeling that Scharwenka had almost too many ideas to know what to do with and consequently there is an occasional lack of coherence or overall vision. "Hey, you didn't like that tune, see what you make of this next one then." A word about the recording. Somehow the engineers have managed to combine absolute clarity with a genuine sense of occasion. At the end, I could hardly restrain myself from shouting "Bravo" and was genuinely surprised at the lack of an ovation, so convincing was the illusion of a live performance..

[smittims]

Hi, Bryn, shamefully, I don't always keep notes of the dates of recordings. The closest I can get is May 2013. Around the same time there was a fine broadcast of Tippett's Third Symphony with David Robertson conducting the BBC S.O. and Susan Bullock. I even combed through my journal for that month as I used to note such things, but no luck this time. Andrew Gourlay is a conductor I've admired for some time, a superb Walton 1, Sib.5 and 'Scene with cranes' from 'Kuolema' around the same time.

[Bryn]

Hi, Bryn, shamefully, I don't always keep notes of the dates of recordings. The closest I can get is May 2013. Around the same time there was a fine broadcast of Tippett's Third Symphony with David Robertson conducting the BBC S.O. and Susan Bullock. I even combed through my journal for that month as I used to note such things, but no luck this time. Andrew Gourlay is a conductor I've admired for some time, a superb Walton 1, Sib.5 and 'Scene with cranes' from 'Kuolema' around the same time.

Thanks for trying. This appears not to have been associated with a Radio 3 broadcast and I somehow doubt Classic FM would have been involved. I see that Andrew Davis conducted it at the Proms (London Sinfonietta) in 1986. I must have missed that one at the time.

[Sir Velo]

Sir Michael Tippett
Concerto for Orchestra
Concerto for Orchestra
Conductor: Andrew Gourlay
Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra
March 12, 2013 | London (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) , Maida Vale Studios

[smittims]

Thanks, Sir Velo. I wasn't far out.

There ya go, Bryn.

[Pulcinella]

Sir Michael Tippett
Concerto for Orchestra
Concerto for Orchestra
Conductor: Andrew Gourlay
Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra
March 12, 2013 | London (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) , Maida Vale Studios

I love the terminology: Orchestra Cast.

Shamefully few performances, though.

[Bryn]

Sir Michael Tippett
Concerto for Orchestra
Concerto for Orchestra
Conductor: Andrew Gourlay
Orchestra: BBC Symphony Orchestra
March 12, 2013 | London (United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) , Maida Vale Studios

Thanks, but why is a broadcast so difficult to trace? I have tried searching via both genome and Radio Times, without success.

Ah, I was searching using DuckDuckGo. However, Google offers "TUE 14:00 Afternoon Concert (b01r5nys) Tippett Plus" as the programme during which it was broadcast live. I may just have it on a hard disc, somewhere. I might try searching a few for the Programme IDentifier (PID), b01r5nys.

[Bryn]

Thanks, but why is a broadcast so difficult to trace? I have tried searching via both genome and Radio Times, without success.

Ah, I was searching using DuckDuckGo. However, Google offers "TUE 14:00 Afternoon Concert (b01r5nys) Tippett Plus" as the programme during which it was broadcast live. I may just have it on a hard disc, somewhere. I might try searching a few for the Programme IDentifier (PID), b01r5nys.

Hmm. Sadly, the main hard disc with some Afternoon Concerts from 2013 only has a few from March, and Tuesday 12th is not among them. I had a brief fillip when searching that drive for "Tippett" and the Concerto for Orchestra popped up. However, it turned out to be an mp3 of the LSO/Colin Davis I'd made from my 6-CD Decca set:

[Stanfordian]

Brahms
Serenade No. 1 in D major, op. 11
Serenade No. 2 in A major, op. 16
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Riccardo Chailly
Recorded 2014 Gewandhaus, Leipzig, Germany
Decca, CD

[Sir Velo]

Ysaÿe Sonata No 5 Hahn

[RichardB]

Sonata No 5 Hahn

I don't know these works at all although I've always meant some time to make their acquaintance, so I was pretty excited to see that HH had now recorded them. I've listened so far only to the first one and I wasn't disappointed.

[Sir Velo]

I don't know these works at all although I've always meant some time to make their acquaintance, so I was pretty excited to see that HH had now recorded them. I've listened so far only to the first one and I wasn't disappointed.

I've had Zehetmair's recording of the complete set since they came out, and a passing acquaintance with Kavakos and Faust. They're not easy works, but they are absolute technical tours de force. They all take an element of the compositional techniques of violinists whom Ysaye reveres (eg Bach; Enescu) and "riff" off that.. I've just started listening to HH, and looking forward to hearing the rest of them -with suitable gaps for recovery!

[Stanfordian]

Les Vents Français – 'Music for Wind Quintet' & '20th Century Wind Quintets'
CD 1
'Music for Wind Quintet'
Ibert, Ravel, Jolivet, Milhaud, Taffanel
CD 2
'20th Century Wind Quintets'
Ligeti, Zemlinsky, Barber, Sandor Veress, Hindemith
Les Vents Français, featuring Emmanuel Pahud (flute)
Recorded 2011 Bavaria Musikstudios, Munich
Warner Classics, 2 CD box set