What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Jean Barraqué - Séquence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WD9YjJxw4M

[Joseph K]

Brian Ferneyhough - Chronos Aion, then Contraccolpi.

Smashing, ear-teasing stuff.

[Dave2002]

Duly ordered - which makes about 50 "treats" ("well, it's Christmas!") I've allowed myself this week! I must stop.

(The Britten discs in that box are also available individually - probably "Used" - the Lucretia excerpts [which I first owned on an MfP LP] coupled with excerpts from Peter Grimes in the "original cast recording" from 1946. Both excellent.)

Someone has put up the first movement of Rubbra's PC on YouTube. Not sure if the other two movements are lurking somewhere in the TubeWorld. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yWdC2Jp-Ow

et voici - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b-FXVUT_YI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkepEA096eM

Odd that the Youtubes seem to have been provided by Warner.

Could be of interest while you wait for the delivery person.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Someone has put up the first movement of Rubbra's PC on YouTube. Not sure if the other two movements are lurking somewhere in the TubeWorld. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yWdC2Jp-Ow

Could be of interest while you wait for the delivery person.

The rest of the Concerto is there, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b-FXVUT_YI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkepEA096eM

... but I haven't listened to them, 'cause I don't want to spoil the ending.

[Pulcinella]

Someone has put up the first movement of Rubbra's PC on YouTube. Not sure if the other two movements are lurking somewhere in the TubeWorld. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yWdC2Jp-Ow

et voici - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b-FXVUT_YI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkepEA096eM

Odd that the Youtubes seem to have been provided by Warner.

Could be of interest while you wait for the delivery person.

So is it the old EMI recording?

[jayne lee wilson]

My favourite Maderna orchestral piece is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNx7Bw3cJE0

That's from Vol. 2 of the NEOS Complete Works for Orchestra series, (thankfully licensed for youtube)... I felt it was the least interesting of the 5 Volumes, largely drawn from excerpts from the opera Hyperion...

Here's my earlier Rough Guide....

The Grand Reference for Maderna is the NEOS 5-Volume series...
https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q...rna&i=boutique
(...still on Amazon too at reasonable prices…)

....which really does take you on a fantastic journey from the 40s to the tragic premature end (1973, Maderna just into his musical prime) courtesy of that 20thC music hero, Arturo Tamayo. Qobuz sadly lacks the (excellent) notes but you find most of them on the NEOS website if you search out Maderna there...
All fascinating, compellingly beautiful sonic experiences; one may consider Vol.2 less essential, consisting mainly of excerpts from the Hyperion music drama, but still plenty to enjoy.

But there are some earlier classics, notably the 1970 premiere of the marvellous Grande Aulodia (a sort of expanded, aleatoric, fantastical oboe/flute concerto) with Maderna himself conducting the RAI in very vivid mono..this outdoes both the NEOS and Strad issues, good they they are, for expressive intensity and sheer melismatic elan..…
His other late, great masterpiece is the Quadrivium (Naxos or NEOS, both good and very different due to the aleatoric sections).
The best of a terrific Stradivarius series is probably the Violin Concerto/Piano Concerto coupling, though the CD is prohibitively expensive now…
… All three Oboe Concerti fit neatly on one CD - from a choice of two ( , both good, go for the Holliger stunner...)

…….but I haven't made many notes on the music yet..just dwelling upon in a genuine, visionary musical revelation...the sheer beauty of his orchestral imagination, and the creative sparks thrown off by the aleatoric/written out conflict/opposition...

[Dave2002]

So is it the old EMI recording?

I think so - Denis Matthews and Malcolm Sargent + BBCSO

[Joseph K]

Claude Debussy : Nocturnes; Première Rhapsodie; Jeux; La Mer / Cleveland Orchestra under Boulez.

[Dave2002]

Ernst Eichner
Oboe Concerto No. 3 in C

A serendipitous find. Really good this one - or at least pleasant to listen to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LdMRTtExVQ

[Bryn]

Mozart: Sonatas K. 333, 370 and 570 (Gustav Leonhardt playing an unidentified fortepiano).



Recording originally published on the SEON label in 1972, so may also be in a SEON box.

[They are spread over 2 CDs in the Sony SEON big box, along with K. 282 plus the pieces K. 355 [576B] 453A and 540.]

[Richard Barrett]

Listening today for the first time to Riccardo Chailly's recordings of Schumann symphonies with the Gewandhausorchester, and beginning predictably enough with no.2. While people like JEG and Herreweghe have shown that Schumann's orchestration doesn't necessarily need reworking, if you're going to perform this music with a "modern" orchestra, with all the balance decisions that will involve, why not use Mahler's solutions? Especially when they're as well played as this. Does it actually sound like Mahler? Not at all, except maybe the dynamics at some moments. I look forward to another listen when I won't be so concerned with who and how, but just with the musical substance.

[Richard Barrett]

I felt it was the least interesting of the 5 Volumes, largely drawn from excerpts from the opera Hyperion...

That isn't quite right though - Hyperion was assembled out of pieces which already had a life of their own, rather than being written and then split into excerpts. There's nothing "incomplete" about any of them. What is striking about Stele per Diotima for me is its radically disjunct form - isolated percussive points of orchestral sound for eight minutes, then four minutes of sparsely lyrical unaccompanied violin, eventually joined by other orchestral soloists (clarinet, bass clarinet, horn) in the kind of exuberant atonal polyphony shot through with soloistic moments that's familiar from much of Maderna's work, after which a lone woodblock ushers in a gradual return of the orchestra for the closing burst of brass and percussion. Of course, Maderna's sense of form is often strange and startling, but I think never more so than in this work.

[Dave2002]

Mozart: Sonatas K. 333, 370 and 570 (Gustav Leonhardt playing an unidentified fortepiano).



Recording originally published on the SEON label in 1972, so may also be in a SEON box.

[They are spread over 2 CDs in the Sony SEON big box, along with K. 282 plus the pieces K. 355 [576B] 453A and 540.]

So much for being able to search and find music easily using online services. Those are not in the downloads of Gustav Leonhardt's work I bought recently. I couldn't find them in Qobuz - after that I lost interest. They may be in the Gustav Leonhardt box, which I think I have, and they should be in the SEON box which you mention.

In the end I gave up and found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDmFp-IEGnI - which I think I also have on CD. Pity about the modern piano, but Horowitz is very good. I'll dig out the Leonhardt CDs later.

[Stanfordian]

Havergal Brian
Festal Dance
Wine of Summer (Symphony No. 5)
Roderick Williams (baritone)
Symphony No. 19
Symphony No. 27
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins
Recorded 2014 Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow
Dutton Epoch

Bridge
String Quartet No. 2
Phantasy Piano Quartet
String Quartet No. 4
Phantasy Piano Quartet
Martin Roscoe (piano)
Maggini String Quartet
Recorded 2003 Potton Hall, Suffolk
Naxos

[teamsaint]

Nothing , except the sound of train wheels on the tracks.

Left my headphones at home.