What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Stanfordian]

Anna Moffo – French & Italian arias from Gounod, Puccini, Meyerbeer, Bizet, Rossini & Delibes
Anna Moffo (soprano)
Orchestra del Teatro dell'Opera di Roma / Tullio Serafin
Recorded 1960, Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
RCA Victor, Living Stereo, remastered CD
This is Moffo's debut recital album' aka the ‘Beige Album'

[french frank]

Following the Kernel's post elsewhere:

Felix Draeseke, Piano Sonata Op 6 on YouTube.

[frankbridge]

Robin Holloway: Second Concerto for orchestra

BBC Symphony Orchestra / Ollie Knussen

NMC D015M

I've probably told everybody ad nauseam many times before, but this is a work of genius IMHO

[smittims]

I shall try to listen to it. I heard some of Mr. Holloway's music many years ago and could find nothing in in it to like, so it's only fair to give him another chance.

I'm currently listening to the Christoph Eschenbach recording of the Hammerklavier Sonata, and enjoying it very much. It has, I think, the slowest adagio on disc (25 mins.), even slower than Solomon's.

[Stanfordian]

Schubert
Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat, D.898
Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat, D.929
Notturno in E flat, D.897
Sonatensatz, D.28
Frank Braley (piano), Renaud Capuçon (violin) & Gautier Capuçon (cello)
Recorded 2006 MC2 Maison de la Culture de Grenoble
Virgin Classics, CD

Samuel Ramey - ‘Operatic Arias’
By Verdi, Rossini, Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Donizetti
Samuel Ramey (bass)
Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Jacques Delacôte
Recorded 1988 Studio 1, Bayerischen Rundfunk, Munich
EMI, CD

[oliver sudden]

Yesterday in fact but no time to write since: Mahler 6, CBSO/Rattle. I forget where I read that it’s an interpretation focussing on the forward-looking aspects of the piece but I heartily concur: they definitely dig into the stranger aspects of the sounds. Andante-Scherzo of course and thank goodness for that—Rattle was one of very few who persisted with Mahler’s preferred order for quite a while there, and both the Andante following the first movement and the horrors of the finale emerging from the horrors of the Scherzo are indispensable parts of the symphony’s dramaturgy for me nowadays.

Three hammers for those who are keeping score but I don’t really mind either way on that subject.

[kuligin]

Hoddinott Symphony No. 5 Op.81 RPO Andrew Davis

I have owned this recording for ages, picked up for 75p from the local library but never really appreciated it a great deal. I recall praise on the old boards?, for Hoddinott’s Organ Symphony but thought it was very old hat at the time. Now I find this Symphony serious well argued and stimulating, well it’s not the music I really passionately like ie Birtwistle and Tippett but it seems a lot better than Ms Price‘s Symphony…

[Hitch]

Saint-Saëns
Piano Concerto No.5, Op.103 "Egyptian"
Louis Lortie (piano)
BBC Philharmonic cond. Edward Gardner
Chandos

[silvestrione]

Robin Holloway: Second Concerto for orchestra

BBC Symphony Orchestra / Ollie Knussen

NMC D015M

I've probably told everybody ad nauseam many times before, but this is a work of genius IMHO

No, I only remember a former board member's enthusiasm, for the Third. I seem to only have the Third. which has a marvellous opening but...goes on a bit...
I will give the Second a go later, stream it...Thanks for the recommendation.

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been listening to the Naxos double CD of Shostokovich's 24 Prelude and Fugues. For ages, I have been reticent to explore his music as I never really acquired a taste for the biting satire in his work and the references towards jazz in his earlier compositions never seemed genuine from the perspective of a jazz fan. (I don;t think he really knew what propoer jazz was.) Previously, I had enjoyed Shostokovichs' Prelude when I tipped my toe in the water in January but I just think that these 24 preludes and fugues are absolutely brilliant. For the last few weeks I have been appreciating Villa-Lobo's Bachianus Brasilieras which loosely re-imagines Bach. Some of these are more famous than orhers with No. 3 effectively being a piano concerto that deserves to be more familiar. However, I have to say that I think I prefer Shostokovich's 24 to Bach's originals. It is an excellent double CD and I have been blown away by this music which gets right under the skin of Bach's music. This is an exceptional composition. Easily the best thing I have heard by this composer.

I now have two questions :-

1. Are the Shostokovich 24 much harder to play than the Bach? I was wondering if it was worth a punt but would not bother it much harder than Bach.

2. I am wondering where to go next in exploring classical piano music. In the last two years I have explored Janacek, Scriabin, Syzmanowki, Bartok , Prokoviev and Villa-Lobos amongst the 20th centuery composers. Previously I had always though that Debussy and Ravel were really something special yet I have to say I much prefer the other six having stumbled across them. In my explorations only two cmposers have disappointed me - Medtner and Martinu - the latter promising much but I feel spread himself much too thinly. I am not sure which other 20th century composers were as good as Scriabin, Syzmanowki , etc and am starting to think that these represent the pinnacle of writing for the instrument in the last century, Any suggestions ? I am thinking I might have exhausted the 20th Century. (Having got into Clasical music in the first place through Messaien! )

I have also been listening to Scarlatti, Bach, and Haydn from an earlier generation. I am fnding Haydn to be good fun to both play and listen to. Almost as enjoyable as Scarlatti. I am also intrigued by former Blandford Forum resident Musio Clementi - a bit like a well-behaved version of Haydn.

[Sir Velo]

Ian Thumwood given the strong preferences which you have enumerated above, I would strongly exhort you to listen to Ligeti's piano music which requires transcendental technique in abundance but is also truly great music. The recording by Pierre-Laurent Aimard of the Etudes would be my primary recommendation.

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7987925--ligeti-works-for-piano

Your delight in Scarlatti prompts me to urge that you investigate French baroque keyboard music of the 18th century. Personally, I prefer to hear this repertoire on a harpsichord but there can be no doubt that this disc of music composed for the court of Versailles is very special. I think you will delight in the sheer wildness of some of this music, particularly Rameau, and above all Royer. His Scythian March is like a proto Prokofiev toccata from two centuries earlier!

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8690113--versailles-alexandre-tharaud

Your choice of listening indicates a preference for music which draws strongly on folk elements and therefore you should seek out the holy trinity of late 19th century/early 20th cetury Spanish composers: Albeniz, Granados and, above all Falla. I think this disc by the doyenne of Spanish pianists gives an excellent compendium of just how important his music is. The Fantaisa Baetica is a masterpiece but the smaller works are just as impressive,

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8469680--falla-piano-music

[smittims]

For 20th-century piano composers apart from those mentioned I'd suggest Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Tippett, who each wrote a modest, but essential, amount of music for the solo instrument.

My choice today : Beethoven, symphony no 2 in D. The Philharmonia orchestra, Herbert von Karajan. A Columbia LP. 33CX1227.

This was Karajan's, and the Philharmonia's , first recording of this symphony; they were the first British orchestra to record all nine, a feat they repeated under Klemperer some years later. I think this is one of the best of this early set. The violins especially shine in the second movement.

The whole set was reissued by World Record Club as a boxed set in the late '60s, and in the '70s in 'electronic stereo' by EMI.

[Pulcinella]

Ian: try Barber (complete piano music on one CD; lots of good options) and Copland:

https://www.discogs.com/release/10080218-Aaron-Copland-Leo-Smit-The-Young-Pioneers-The-Complete-Music-For-Solo-Piano

[Ian Thumwood]

Sir Velo / Pulcinella / Smittins

Thanks for the recommendations. The Ligeti does sound interesting.

I have played some Rameu when I was taking piano lessons in the 1990s and have also explore Albeniz for recently. "Espana" was not what I had imagined but I learned from the notes with the manuscript that it was composed to earn money from amateur musicians at whose level it was aimed at. It is almost like Victorian pop music in that respect. My impression is that Grenados might be better. Having been obsessed with French classical music for so long, I am now feeling that those composers from eastern Europe were more interesting when writing for piano.

The other composer I have enjoyed is Enescu whose piano music is under-rated in my opinion. However, I am coming around to the opinion that when it comes to under-rated composers, Syzmanowski must take the biscuit. I cannot understand why his work is not as reverred as it should be. I would love to here composers who wrote in this kind of style .

[peterthekeys]

Roussel: Suite in F for orchestra, op33 (Detroit Symphony cond. Paray)

It's just been on France Musique Classique Plus (that station is just so good - the output is unendingly and unfailingly fascinating). Roussel is such an underrated composer - one of the most important members of the group of French composers who were put into the shadows by the fame of Ravel and Debussy, and which also included Fauré, Dukas, d'Indy, Koechlin, Magnard and probably a lot more). This is a tremendous work, which shows off Roussel's prime characteristics very well - his gritty and uncompromising originality, and the bracing, raw (almost rough) energy of his music. Highly recommended.