What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[teamsaint]

I too have always thought the Schubert 2 gets little credit for the exhilarating piece it is.

Sadly I never got on with that version of Mahler 10 at all.

Ever heard Schubert 2 live, Alison ? I can’t recall having seen it programmed very often. Would love to hear it in concert.

Re the Mahler, I bought it sort of in error, not really knowing my stuff . actually haven’t given it a really good listen, so might try it again later.

[Bryn]

Ever heard Schubert 2 live, Alison ? I can’t recall having seen it programmed very often. Would love to hear it in concert.

Re the Mahler, I bought it sort of in error, not really knowing my stuff . actually haven’t given it a really good listen, so might try it again later.

Quite frankly, I think you might find something more rewarding to listen to. If you could get hold of Mazzetti's later performing version, that might, I think, be worth the time and effort:



I got the Slatkin when it was first released and have regretted it ever since.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Where Clara found time to compose beats me, what with being a busy pianist, nurturing lots of children and being muse to her husband and Brahms!

She didn't do very much composition after the birth of her first child - just ten works, with, I think, only the Piano Trio having the sort of large-scale Sonata-principle type of composition. Half of her compositions (just 23 opus numbers) pre-date her marriage - with that Piano Concerto written when she was just 14 - and her editorial work dates from after even the youngest of her surviving children was seventeen.

[Petrushka]

Mozart: Symphony No 39

[interval]

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Yvonne Minton (mezzo-soprano), Rene Kollo (tenor)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Sir Georg Solti

This is a wonderful Das Lied, unjustly underrated, I feel, with Solti drawing sounds of great refinement and beauty from the CSO. Power when needed, otherwise Solti gets an almost bone china fragility of tone from his players. Minton is also underrated, here as outstanding as Baker and Ferrier. Kollo is fine in the tenor songs, a role he recorded three times (I think). Superb Decca engineering.

[teamsaint]

Quite frankly, I think you might find something more rewarding to listen to. If you could get hold of Mazzetti's later performing version, that might, I think, be worth the time and effort:



I got the Slatkin when it was first released and have regretted it ever since.

Cost me a fiver, got to give it two listens......

Or I might just listen to all of my CDs Of Weberns six Orchestral pieces, and suggest a summer BaL on it.

[Stanfordian]

Mahler
Symphony No. 7
Düsseldorfer Symphoniker / Ádám Fischer
Recorded Live 2015 Tonhalle, Düsseldorf
CAvi-music

‘Neil Shicoff - Live’
Opera arias: Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Massenet, Gounod, Bizet, Halévy, Puccini
Neil Shicoff (tenor)
Münchner Rundfunkorchester Fabio Luisi / Marcello Viotti / Frédéric Chaslin /
with baritone Vladimir Chernov (Bizet)
Recorded Live 1996 Bad Kissingen, Regentenbau, Bavaria;
1999 Philharmonie, Munich; 2001 Prinzregententheater, Munich
Orfeo

[HighlandDougie]

Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat major, Op. 83/Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from 'Tristan und Isolde'/Sibelius: En Saga Op.9 & Violin Concerto in D minor Op.47

Edwin Fischer (Piano)/Georg Kulenkampff (Violin)/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Wilhelm Furtwängler (SACD remasterings from the Wilhelm Furtwängler: The Radio Recordings 1939-45 box)

Approached as historical documents, recorded in early November 1942 and February 1943, by which time Stalingrad had been lost by the Germans, these performances have a particular resonance, which it's hard to put into a few words. If the Fischer is the same performance as on a Unicorn LP from 1969, I last heard it a long time ago but still greatly admire it, fluffed notes (from pianist and orchestra) and all. The slow movement is, well, aah..... Anyway, it's all PG's fault for enthusing about it (and a glass too many of rosé when subsisting on grass and dust for a month didn't seem too awful) but the SACD remastering (excellent), documentation and packaging make it well worth the investment - and not only for WF aficianados, who will know these performances anyway (but not in such good sound - I completely forgot that the Sibelius VC dated from 1943).

[Alison]

Mozart: Symphony No 39

[interval]

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Yvonne Minton (mezzo-soprano), Rene Kollo (tenor)

Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Sir Georg Solti

This is a wonderful Das Lied, unjustly underrated, I feel, with Solti drawing sounds of great refinement and beauty from the CSO. Power when needed, otherwise Solti gets an almost bone china fragility of tone from his players. Minton is also underrated, here as outstanding as Baker and Ferrier. Kollo is fine in the tenor songs, a role he recorded three times (I think). Superb Decca engineering.

Thanks Pet, I feel the urge to extract these performances from the Solti box.

[richardfinegold]

Walter Piston, Fourth Symphony, Gerard Schwarz/Seattle SO.

[richardfinegold]

Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2 in B flat major, Op. 83/Wagner: Prelude and Liebestod from 'Tristan und Isolde'/Sibelius: En Saga Op.9 & Violin Concerto in D minor Op.47

Edwin Fischer (Piano)/Georg Kulenkampff (Violin)/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Wilhelm Furtwängler (SACD remasterings from the Wilhelm Furtwängler: The Radio Recordings 1939-45 box)

Approached as historical documents, recorded in early November 1942 and February 1943, by which time Stalingrad had been lost by the Germans, these performances have a particular resonance, which it's hard to put into a few words. If the Fischer is the same performance as on a Unicorn LP from 1969, I last heard it a long time ago but still greatly admire it, fluffed notes (from pianist and orchestra) and all. The slow movement is, well, aah..... Anyway, it's all PG's fault for enthusing about it (and a glass too many of rosé when subsisting on grass and dust for a month didn't seem too awful) but the SACD remastering (excellent), documentation and packaging make it well worth the investment - and not only for WF aficianados, who will know these performances anyway (but not in such good sound - I completely forgot that the Sibelius VC dated from 1943).

I have all of these recordings as earlier incarnations issued by Music &Arts in the 1990s. Are the SACD remasters really an improvement over the earlier issues?

[Stanfordian]

Howells
String Quartet No. 3, ‘In Gloucestershire’
Lady Audrey’s Suite, Op. 19
Dante Quartet
Piano Quartet in A minor, Op. 21
Gould Piano Trio & David Adams (viola)
Recorded 2017 Wyastone Concert Hall, Monmouth
Naxos

Howells
‘Sacred Choral Music’
Magnificat & Nunc dimittis (St Paul's, 1951)
Like as the Hart
Requiem
Long, Long Ago
Office of Holy Communion
Take him, earth, for cherishing
Paean for Organ
Rhapsody for Organ No. 3, Op. 17/3
Iain Farrington (organ)
Choir of St. John’s College Cambridge / Christopher Robinson
Recorded 1999 Chapel of St. John’s College, Cambridge
Naxos, ‘English Choral Music’ series

[HighlandDougie]

I have all of these recordings as earlier incarnations issued by Music &Arts in the 1990s. Are the SACD remasters really an improvement over the earlier issues?

Richard - having never heard the M&A issues, I can't answer your question. I have a few of the DG issues from the 1990s but they are in Scotland - and the SACDs are here in France. From aural memory (which is certainly fallible), the new issues are significantly better sounding than those issues. As PG said in his earlier posts about this set, it has been lovingly produced, including modifying a studio tape recorder to ensure that the tapes (width, speed etc) have been faithfully reproduced. When the box was first discussed on the forum (it was reviewed on CD Review), I said that, although it was clearly interesting, I doubted that I would ever listen to the performances if I bought it. Now that I have it, I find that I'm hooked on listening to what's in it. Ordering the contents chronologically and by concert works very well - and, as Peter Quantrill says in this review from 'The Gramophone' also - tantalisingly - sets out what is missing. See: https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/...ings-1939-1945

[Bryn]

Nikolai Korndorf: Hymn I 'Sempre Tutti' od 1987 (BBC SO, Alexander Lazarev). All I have is a 128kbps mp3 derived from an FM broadcast (this downloaded from a now-defunct Canadian website). If anyone here has a recording of higher audio quality, please let me know. I did record it from Radio 3 at the time of its initial broadcast but that cassette has gone missing.

[Joseph K]

Richter - Mozart piano sonatas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3FWFlU2rnk

[pastoralguy]

Mozart. Piano Quartet. No.1 in g minor K.478

Skride Piano Quartet.

I was looking for a reason to buy this and my current obsession with the Mozart Piano Quartets is the perfect excuse!

Absolutely gorgeous playing!