What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Jonathan]

Hi, Jonathan, I suggest you hear Richter play Schubert's F minor sonata. As you probably know, Schubert abandoned it in mid-flow, and that's just how Richter plays it, breaking off abruptly, on one occasion startling a Festival Hall audience

Thanks for the advice smittims, I shall certainly investigate that!

[Joseph K]

Disk 53 of the DG Boulez The Conductor box, the first act of Schoenberg's Moses und Aron.

[Stanfordian]

Véronique Gens – ‘Nuits’
Mélodies from Berlioz, Chausson, Fauré, Hahn, La Tombelle, Lekeu, Liszt, Louiguy, Massenet, Messager, Ropartz, Saint-Saëns & Widor
(Transcriptions for string quartet & piano by Alexandre Dratwicki)
Véronique Gens (soprano)
I Giardini (period instruments)
Recorded 2019 Salle Philharmonique de Liège, Belgium
Alpha Classics, CD

[vinteuil]

.
... good to see Antoine Louis Joseph Gueyrand Fernand Fouant de La Tombelle getting another airing!

(I am grateful to Stanfordian, a regular consumer, for having drawn my attention to this composer... )
.

[Joseph K]

Haven't listened to this in a while. Sounding better than ever...

[smittims]

Hugh Wood's second violin concerto, 2011. Anthony Marwood, BBC S.O. Sir Andrew Davis.

One of Wood's best works, I think; I was a little disappointed with Epithalamium, though it had a very successful Prom performance .

[pastoralguy]

Szymanowski. Piano Works.

Krystian Zimerman, piano.

I was amazed to find this for 50p in a charity shop and even more surprised when it was announced as Gramophone’s keyboard winner in the Awards Issue. I don’t know this music at all and find it quite elusive. I’m looking forward to hearing it again soon.

[smittims]

Berwald, Symphony in E flat; Brahms, Requiem.

The San Francisco SO, Herbert Blomstedt.

I was late coming to appreciate this conductor. I missed his first set of the Nielsen symphonies as I bought the Unicorn set with the LSO and Ole Schmidt. But for anyone who wants a present-day conductor in thoroughly traditional style, he's he man.

[Joseph K]

Beethoven - piano concerto no. 1 - Ronald Brautigam & Die Koelner Akademie/Willens

[Stanfordian]

Anna Netrebko – ‘Russian Album’
Opera arias from Glinka, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky
Anna Netrebko (soprano)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre / Valery Gergiev
Recorded 2005/06 Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg
Deutsche Grammophon, CD

Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 5
Liszt
Mazeppa, symphonic poem No. 6
Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Zubin Mehta
Recorded Live 2013, Philharmonie, Munich
BR Klassik, recent CD release

[Pulcinella]

Szymanowski. Piano Works.

Krystian Zimerman, piano.

I was amazed to find this for 50p in a charity shop and even more surprised when it was announced as Gramophone’s keyboard winner in the Awards Issue. I don’t know this music at all and find it quite elusive. I’m looking forward to hearing it again soon.

Streaming here now: not sure I'd have guessed the composer.

[Joseph K]

Beethoven - piano concerto no. 1 - Ronald Brautigam & Die Koelner Akademie/Willens

No. 2 now.

[smittims]

Grieg:Peer Gynt. The 'complete' incidental music. San Francisco Symphony/ Herbert Blomstedt.

This is one of those discs where they try to find a way of presenting the music alone, from a Theatre piece, in a way that will make sense and satisfying listening without the visual aspects of the stage action. Long stretches of spoken dialogue, without music, can be tiresome in audio alone (even in Die Zauberflote) .What you get here is the music, number by number , with occasionally someone shouting a few words in Norwegian.

I don't know how many people enjoy this sort of thing: Decca's Hary Janos, with Peter Ustinov and Istvan Kertesz, is another example. For me, I'm afraid, it emphasised the difference between the 'plums' in Grieg's music (the numbers recorded by Sir Thomas Beecham on a famous old HMV LP) and the rest. Am I the only one who finds Grieg uneven? The Concerto, the Lyric Pieces, the Holberg Suite, are lovely: the rest: oh dear...

[richardfinegold]

Grieg:Peer Gynt. The 'complete' incidental music. San Francisco Symphony/ Herbert Blomstedt.

This is one of those discs where they try to find a way of presenting the music alone, from a Theatre piece, in a way that will make sense and satisfying listening without the visual aspects of the stage action. Long stretches of spoken dialogue, without music, can be tiresome in audio alone (even in Die Zauberflote) .What you get here is the music, number by number , with occasionally someone shouting a few words in Norwegian.

I don't know how many people enjoy this sort of thing: Decca's Hary Janos, with Peter Ustinov and Istvan Kertesz, is another example. For me, I'm afraid, it emphasised the difference between the 'plums' in Grieg's music (the numbers recorded by Sir Thomas Beecham on a famous old HMV LP) and the rest. Am I the only one who finds Grieg uneven? The Concerto, the Lyric Pieces, the Holberg Suite, are lovely: the rest: oh dear...

Are you listening to a Blomstedt/SFSO collection?
I remember hearing the “complete” incidental music to Peer once and feeling that was enough for me, compared to just the Suites. However I wouldn’t generalize about the Composer by analyzing the complete work. A lot of incidental music by other composers are boring and best heard as excerpts. Have you ever heard the complete Egmont? Not anything worth salvaging after the overture, imo. Even Midsummer Nights Dream, which is one of the best of the genre, tires after a few listens to the whole shebang

[smittims]

I was thinking of other works by Grieg. The Symphony was a disappointment, and there's a very dreary trio or quartet they used to play on Through the Night occasionally . Yes, Beethoven too was uneven, but I think that's because his best works are so good. I have a 35-minutes or so selection from 'Prometheus' (Eduard van Beinum) which is pleasant to hear occasionally. And 'Egmont' contains several short numbers recorded by Klemperer and Weingartner which are well-worth hearing.