What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[BBMmk2]

Schoenberg's violin concerto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ukPsvh51hI

Liking it very much.

Thanks JK!

Schoenberg:
Violin Concerto
Sibelius
Violin Concerto
Hilary Hahn(Violin), Swedish RSO,
Esa-Pekka Salonen,.

[Richard Barrett]

I wasn't planning this but I seem to have been listening to Mahler all day: Jonathan Nott's 7th and 3rd (the former not so very distinguished, the latter really very good indeed) and now Solti's 8th, the first Mahler I ever heard, as I mentioned recently on another thread. Very hard to get an idea of the music taking place in an actual physical space, but I guess that's what the engineers wanted.

[Joseph K]

Just finished listening to Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande - VPO/Abbado.

What I weird story. I am reminded of Breton's Nadja.

What 'a' weird story, I meant, obviously.

Wagner - Tristan and Parsifal preludes, here. Obviously not simultaneously.

[ahinton]

Schoenberg's violin concerto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ukPsvh51hI

Liking it very much.

This is by far the best performance of it that I've ever heard. In fact, it's a work that I simply couldn't get my head around for years until I heard Hilary Hahn play it and then it immediately clicked for me. Interesting that her recording of it pairs it with the - erm - slightly better known Sibelius Concerto! Had Schönberg himself heard this performance I suspect that he'd have dropped his wry comment abbout having contributed another unplayable work to the repertoire...

[Serial_Apologist]

This is by far the best performance of it that I've ever heard. In fact, it's a work that I simply couldn't get my head around for years until I heard Hilary Hahn play it and then it immediately clicked for me. Interesting that her recording of it pairs it with the - erm - slightly better known Sibelius Concerto! Had Schönberg himself heard this performance I suspect that he'd have dropped his wry comment abbout having contributed another unplayable work to the repertoire...

Indeed, ahinton - an extraordinary coupling, rather akin to a modern-day job interview. Perhaps it should be on offer at half-price, for them as doesn't like Schoenberg... or Sibelius.

[Richard Barrett]

Tristan and Parsifal preludes, here. Obviously not simultaneously.

Try it some time maybe... I've mentioned this before, but I once managed, through the magic of computers, to accidentally put on pieces by Heinz Holliger and Morton Feldman (neither of which I'd heard before) simultaneously. The result was absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable, in fact; and as soon as I worked out what had happened it didn't sound quite the same.

[cloughie]

Try it some time maybe... I've mentioned this before, but I once managed, through the magic of computers, to accidentally put on pieces by Heinz Holliger and Morton Feldman (neither of which I'd heard before) simultaneously. The result was absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable, in fact; and as soon as I worked out what had happened it didn't sound quite the same.

But did it inspire your writing?

[Joseph K]

Try it some time maybe... I've mentioned this before, but I once managed, through the magic of computers, to accidentally put on pieces by Heinz Holliger and Morton Feldman (neither of which I'd heard before) simultaneously. The result was absolutely fantastic. Unbelievable, in fact; and as soon as I worked out what had happened it didn't sound quite the same.

I will try it some time.

I recall listening to Debussy's string quartet and some Hi-Tech (a form of fast psytrance) on simultaneously, as a form of compromise with a friend. One tended to drown out the other. Not a good combo.

[BBMmk2]

What 'a' weird story, I meant, obviously.

Wagner - Tristan and Parsifal preludes, here. Obviously not simultaneously.

JK, I wish you'd put the recording details on! I am very curious!!

BTW that Schoenberg/Sibelius recording I found on Spotify! Really good it is too!

[Bryn]

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 (MPO, Kondrashin, live in Prague), this a DAB mp2 introduced by Rob Cowan. Presumably I saved it to an SD card from a CD Masters broadcast. Much swifter in general than the Melodiya CD, if a tad scrappier in parts.

[Richard Barrett]

But did it inspire your writing?

When I had worked out what was going on, it struck me as not dissimilar to something I might have written, I think because of the simultaneous presence of very detailed and intricate activity (Holliger) and slower textural evolutions (Feldman). It's a bit like what you might call the "what if" stage of a composition, where you imagine some combination of musical elements and "listen" to it inwardly (or indeed listen to it outwardly, if making electronic music) to hear whether it might form the starting point for something. So, apart from being accidental, listening to those two pieces simultaneously was not so very different from how the composition process sometimes goes anyway.

[Bryn]

. . . that Schoenberg/Sibelius recording I found on Spotify! Really good it is too!

Even better without Spotify's lossy compression , i.e. on CD or a lossless download. However, I fear there is no high resolution download easily to be found.

[Joseph K]

JK, I wish you'd put the recording details on! I am very curious!!

Just via youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-qoaioG2UA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQOfIENN2tk

[teamsaint]

Roussel
Symphony #3.
Brno PO / Neumann

Another attempt to get to grips with Roussel.
( me, not the performers.)

[DublinJimbo]

Beethoven: Rondo a capriccio in G major op. 129 ('Rage over a lost penny' – arr. for Orchestra by Erwin Schulhoff)
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Roland Kluttig
New to me. A masterly orchestration.

Erwin Schulhoff:

Suite op. 37
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / James Conlon

Suite dansante en jazz
Caroline Weichert (piano)

Five Pieces for String Quartet
Quatuor Voce

String Sextet op. 45
Spectrum Concerts Berlin

All wonderful, each in its own way, but it's the Sextet which is the masterwork.