What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I think it's the "K.247" that's the cause of any puzzlement - a BBC typo for "BV247", mesuspects.

[pastoralguy]

Not a charity shop purchase today but...

Elgar. Dream of Gerontius.

Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Andrew Staples and Thomas Hampton.

Staatsopernchor Berlin.

RIAS Kammerchor.

Staatskapelle Dresden Berlin.

Daniel Barenboim.

I've been looking forward to this since it was announced and it's great to see Elgar's creation being presented to the Berlin audience in this way. The orchestral playing is absolutely superb and reveals lots of details I've note heard before. Barenboim doesn't hang around and seems determined not to let the work become a dirge. (As, occasionally, I've heard it done). The only interpretive oddity is during the first part of the 'Demon's Chorus' where Barenboim slams the breaks on, reverts to a tempo, and then slams the anchors on again. Most odd. (There's nothing in the score to suggest this).

Imvho, both male singers are terrific although I do find Wyn-Rogers a little bit 'wobbly' although not as pronounced as Janet Baker in the Rattle recording. The choir and semi-chorus are excellent.

Well worth hearing although I'd value others opinions.

[Pianoman]

Interesting that a friend has just bought this and has emailed me with the heading 'Doom of Gerontius'....I know he's picky, but absolutely hates it and has already offered it to me (cheap)...he does go into detail, but doesn't basically like any of the soloists, or particularly Barenboim's conducting, which is full of wilful point making (apparently). These of course aren't my views as yet, but I have to say the extracts I heard didn't make me want to ditch my Barbirolli or Handley, much as I like Daniel's Elgar Symphonies.

[Bryn]

Interesting that a friend has just bought this and has emailed me with the heading 'Doom of Gerontius'....I know he's picky, but absolutely hates it and has already offered it to me (cheap)...he does go into detail, but doesn't basically like any of the soloists, or particularly Barenboim's conducting, which is full of wilful point making (apparently). These of course aren't my views as yet, but I have to say the extracts I heard didn't make me want to ditch my Barbirolli or Handley, much as I like Daniel's Elgar Symphonies.

I'm waiting for Mr GG's review before committing myself to purchasing this one.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Interesting that a friend has just bought this and has emailed me with the heading 'Doom of Gerontius'....I know he's picky, but absolutely hates it and has already offered it to me (cheap)...he does go into detail, but doesn't basically like any of the soloists, or particularly Barenboim's conducting, which is full of wilful point making (apparently). These of course aren't my views as yet, but I have to say the extracts I heard didn't make me want to ditch my Barbirolli or Handley, much as I like Daniel's Elgar Symphonies.

I have heard similar comments. I'd also listened to the extended extracts on the Europadisc site, and had already had very grave reservations about the Mezzo and Bass soloists. I
think I'll borrow the set from a friend of mine who wasn't that keen, either, before he passes it on - but I doubt I'll be buying it myself. (DB's Elgar Symphonies were a different matter - the First is fine, and whilst I'm less enthusiastic about some of the v e r y s l o w tempi in the first Movement of the Second, it still had much that I found very rewarding.)

[HighlandDougie]

Roussel: Bacchus et Ariane, Op.43; Le Festin de l'araignée, Op.17 (Fragments symphoniques); Sinfonietta, Op.52/Pierné: Concertstück for harp and orchestra, Op.39

Annie Challan (harp)/Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire/André Cluytens

CD61 from the André Cluytens box. As stellarly remastered as the other CDs in this box of delights. The Paris CO recordings are like listening to an orchestral world we have lost. Alain M's comments about Karel Ančerl's Czech PO Janáček recordings (in the BaL thread on the Sinfonietta) have had me think about 'idiomatic' orchestral timbres. I'm probably being very unfair but I recall that, when the Orchestre de Paris was established in 1967 out of the ashes of the PCO, one of André Malraux's aims was to create an orchestra of the stature of the Berlin or Vienna PO and, in so doing, particularly when HvK was brought in to succeed Charles Munch, to purge the new orchestra of the distinctive 'Frenchness' of the sound of its predecessor. Whatever, I love these performances - and regret that, unless François-Xavier Roth does the honours with Les Siècles, I'm unlikely ever to hear this music played like this live. To me, they are as French as Juliette Gréco and the untipped Gauloises I used to smoke as a pretentious 16 year old.

[Stanfordian]

Offenbach
‘Les Contes d’Hoffmann’ opéra fantastique in five acts
Olympia, Giulietta – Kerstin Avemo
Antonia, Giulietta – Mandy Fredrich
La Muse, Niklausse, La Voix de la tombe – Rachel Frenkel
Hoffmann – Daniel Johansson
Lindorf, Maître Luther, Coppélius, Le docteur Miracle, Le capitaine Dapertutto – Michael Volle
Spalanzani – Bengt-Ola Morgny
Crespel – Ketil Hugaas
Andrès, Cochenille, Frantz – Christoph Mortagne
Nathanaël – Hoël Troadec
Hermann – Josef Kovačič
Wilhelm – Petr Svoboda
Stell (non singing part) – Pär (Pelle) Karlsson
Prague Philharmonic Choir,
Wiener Symphoniker/Johannes Debus
Stage Director – Stefan Herheim
Set Design – Christof Hetzer
Costume Design – Esther Bialas
Recorded live 2015 Festspielhaus, Bregenz Festival
C Major Blu-ray

Wonderful entertainment! Evokative of the decadent Berlin cabaret scene -
even the men are wearing basques, black stockings and high heels.

[Beef Oven!]

Egon Wellesz - Symphony #9 (1971)

Earlier, Xenakis - Nama & Khoai

[pastoralguy]

Another charity shop purchase.

Lucia Popp with Geoffrey Parsons at the Salzburg Festival on 18th August 1981

Orfeo label.

Absolutely gorgeous singing. Her style reminds me a little of Magdalena Kozena.

[Stanfordian]

Bel Canto - Kathleen Battle Sings Italian Opera Arias
Bellini
I Capuleti ed i Montecchi & La Sonnambula,
Rossini
Tancredi & Il viaggio a Reims,
Donizetti
Don Pasquale & Linda ii Chamounix
Kathleen Battle (soprano)
The Ambrosian Opera Chorus
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Bruno Campanella
Recorded 1991 St John's, Smith Square, London
Deutsche Grammophon

Schumann
String Quartets No’s 1-3
Melos Quartet
Recorded 1986/7 Zentralsaal, Bamberg, Germany
Deutsche Grammophon

[pastoralguy]

Schumann. Symphony no. 4

Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Sir Georg Solti.

Decca.

Hard to believe this was recorded in 1967.

[Bryn]

Having taken a rain check on the Schønwandt recording of Ruders' The Handmaid's Tale I have now resorted to the 2003 E.N.O. production as broadcast on Radio 3 DAB (192kbps mp2). In these days of the iPlayer at 320kbps aac, the audio quality of DAB sound very distinctly second rate, but just about acceptable, and at least I can understand the clearly enunciated words. The Danish original is quite beyond my grasp, and it's three decades since I read the book.

[jayne lee wilson]

Having taken a rain check on the Schønwandt recording of Ruders' The Handmaid's Tale I have now resorted to the 2003 E.N.O. production as broadcast on Radio 3 DAB (192kbps mp2). In these days of the iPlayer at 320kbps aac, the audio quality of DAB sound very distinctly second rate, but just about acceptable, and at least I can understand the clearly enunciated words. The Danish original is quite beyond my grasp, and it's three decades since I read the book.

You're following the dramatisation on C4? Outstanding, and quite difficult to watch - just as it should be....

IN Other News...

Enescu
Piano Quartets 1 & 2.

Voces Quartet/Yvonne Piedemonte. Olympia CD (from Electrecord) rec. 1981.
Schubert Ensemble. Chandos 24/96 rec. 2010. Replay Audirvana+.
Tammuz Piano Quartet, streamed via Qobuz HiFi. CPO Rec. 2008.

All of these have their very high merits - perhaps I'm fondest of the Romanian performers on Olympia, for that peculiarly Slav, Gypsy, Tziganish way they have with rhythm and phrase, the angularity, lean-ness and spontaneity, the avoidance of opulent Brahmsian tone.
Yet the Schubert Ensemble recordings followed years of a devoted Enescu project, and their rich smooth passions are hard to resist. The Rolls-Royce version.
Then the Tammuz, (with a former Wiener Philharmoniker concertmaster Daniel Gaede, as their violinist) whose faster tempi in the finale of No.1 made all the difference for this listener: I began to get it, at last.... (because they got it, better than most). Their andante mesto is more touching than any, and their sheer grip of these shape-shifting, constantly-evolving forms and ideas the keenest of all.

Such elusive music - perhaps scarcely to attend to unless you're prepared for many repeated listenings; so rewarding if you are...when you arrive at the heavenly 2nd thematic group in the first movement of No.1, maybe for the third or fourth time....then you'll understand... then you'll know.
Enescu - For the Happy Few...

[Stanfordian]

Kiri Te Kanawa - Mozart Arias
Opera arias: Le nozze di Figaro, Der Schauspieldirektor; concert arias: Ah, lo previdi K272,
Vado, ma dove K583, O temerario Arbace... Per quel paterno amplesso K79/73D,
Chi sà, chi sà, qual sia K582, Non più, tutto ascoltai… Non temer, amato bene K490,
Bella mia fiamma... Resta, oh cara K528, Nehmt meinen Dank, ihr holden Gönner! K383
Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano)
LSO/Sir Georg Solti; Wiener Philharmoniker/Sir John Pritchard;
Wiener Kammerorchester/György Fischer
Recorded 1981 Kingsway Hall, London; 1990 Konzerthaus & 1980 Sofiensaal, Wien
Decca

Schoenberg
String Quartet No’s 1-4
String Quartet in D major (1897)
Margaret Price (soprano) (No. 2)
LaSalle Quartet
Recorded 1970 Pienansaal der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich
Brilliant Classics

[pastoralguy]

Sibelius. 'Finlandia'. Dvorák. Symphony no.9 'From the New World'.

Chineke! Orchestra conducted by Kevin John Edusei.

Very good playing and performance if unlikely to knock the top exponents of these works off their perches.

Also, rather short measure at 49' 31" but I believe the soloist in the concerto was contracted to someone else. Still, a nice souvenir of a laudable enterprise.