What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Stanfordian]

Jennifer Larmore – ‘L’etoile’ – French Arias
Arias by Offenbach, Massenet, Auber, Saint-Saëns, Berlioz, Gounod, Ravel, Thomas, Chabrier
Jennifer Larimore (mezzo-soprano)
Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra / Bertrand de Billy
Recorded 2001, Österreichischer Rundfunk, Vienna
Teldec Classics

Katsuya Watanabe – ‘Pastorale’
Walmisley
Oboe sonatine No. 1
Ravel
Pièce en forme de Habanera
Poulenc
Oboe Sonata, FP 185
Head
Three Pieces for oboe and piano
Dinicu
Hora Staccato
Godard
Légende pastorale,
Katsuya Watanabe (oboe) & Ulugek Palvanov (piano)
Recorded 2015 Jesus Christus Kirche, Dahlem, Berlin
Profil

[Richard Barrett]

Maybe, but it strikes me as a bit odd that you'd still call a crotchet a quarter note even if it's in a bar of 5/4, for example...

But it's still 1/4 of a whole note no matter what metre it's in.

[BBMmk2]

Maybe, but it strikes me as a bit odd that you'd still call a crotchet a quarter note even if it's in a bar of 5/4, for example...

Even in 5/4 yes is still a crotchet, as we say over here. In any time signature, it still called a crotchet.

[Bryn]

Even in 5/4 yes is still a crotchet, as we say over here. In any time signature, it still called a crotchet.

Yes the "quartet", "Eighth", "half" refer only to their relation to a semi-breve or, ahem, "whole note".

[rauschwerk]

Anyway...

Prokofiev: Symphony 7, LSO/Gergiev. Never rated this piece as highly as the other 7 symphonies but Gergiev makes a fine job of it, much more so than Rozhdestvensky on a Melodiya LP I used to own.

Haydn: 7 Last Words, Concert des Nations/Savall. My first hearing of the original version. A fine recording.

Hindemith: The Four Temperaments, Shelley/BBC Phil/Tortelier. Unlike Richard Barrett, I'm very fond of a lot of Hindemith from this period.

Nielsen: Symphony 2 (The Four Temperaments), SFSO/Blomstedt.

[Bryn]

Anyway...

Prokofiev: Symphony 7, LSO/Gergiev. Never rated this piece as highly as the other 7 symphonies but Gergiev makes a fine job of it, much more so than Rozhdestvensky on a Melodiya LP I used to own.

Which ending does Gergiev use in that recording? The original or the sanitised 'happy' one he was required to write.

[rauschwerk]

Which ending does Gergiev use in that recording? The original or the sanitised 'happy' one he was required to write.

The original, which I greatly prefer.

[Bryn]

The original, which I greatly prefer.

[visualnickmos]

The original, which I greatly prefer.

Yes. Definitely. I don't know if any other recordings use the original ending.....?

[Bryn]

Yes. Definitely. I don't know if any other recordings use the original ending.....?

I forget which but Kirill Karabits offers both endings, though not the whole of the final movement, just the ending. I suppose one might rip and edit to resolve this. Litton offer both versions of the final movement, complete.

[Dave2002]

Yes the "quartet", "Eighth", "half" refer only to their relation to a semi-breve or, ahem, "whole note".

Reminds me of a stupid question “If it takes 5 men 2 days to dig a hole, how long does it take 2 men to dig half a hole?” Answers on a postcard, pleae1

[jayne lee wilson]

The original, which I greatly prefer.

The subtle and enigmatic 7th is an iconic work for me. I find the last pages devastating (in the original of course..), as the old musical magus, after looking back at a lifetime of dance, romance and fantasy (the shades of Cinderella and Romeo & Juliet seem often to pass across the symphony) accepts his fate in a twilit, stoical coda, grimly resigned at the end of his final haunting fairytale.

Very much depends on the performance here.... Gergiev and Karabits do very well, Neeme Jarvi, sadly, cheers himself up (or perhaps cheers himself up sadly - you could see the coda-to-coda that way..."our business is rejoicing"..etc.

Rozhdestvensky understood this music as well as anyone (it could have been written for his uniquely Russian musical temperament), alternating snarling sardonic protest with fairytale soldiers and agonised lovers in a finale which ends as tragically as it surely should. The recording has its bizarre highlightings, the legendary Moscow Studio Vastnessess, but sounds much better in the last 2010 remastering of the Melodiya cycle. That last soaring dance sounds like the love-death of Romeo and Juliet, the contrast from this to those saturnine Russian brasses, and those sinister harp glissandi, in the coda (without the Janus-Cheerful-Face) is - vividly bleak.
(*** just playing this now.... it sounds pretty good actually, the vast spaciousness offsetting the textural intensity most affectingly).

Perhaps most remarkable of all is Kitajenko, stunning well recorded in Cologne.
After a performance of striking depth, one which expresses the all that agonised complexity and ambiguity of mood, he draws out the dark-textured tragedy of the conclusion in a very intense finale which always seems to hover on the brink of collapse, emphasising the parallel with the finale of NO.6 - with which it has surprising, fascinating, close and little-noticed or commented upon parallels.

Not many performances allow the percussion and brass in the coda to speak quite as tellingly as Kitajenko. You can't miss the tragic poetry there.
I sometimes find his cycle somewhat "Apollonian", but his 6th and 7th are exceptional: fully-expressed, perfectly controlled, audiophile-sound-quality achievements.

[Joseph K]

Ravel - L'Enfant et les Sortileges - Orchestre National de la R.T.F/Maazel

[KLawrence]

Feldman: Triadic Memories (Philip Thomas). A very fine performance, beautifully represented in this recording. A wonderful complement to John Tilbury's second recording ('live' concert recording from St. John's, Smith Square). In both cases, the work is split over 2 CDs. However, they are easy enough to rip and edit back into a continuous whole which can either be played from a USB stick via most modernish equipment or burned to an overburn CD-R (or DVD recordable, come to that).

The Feldman/Philip Thomas set on Another Timbre is out of the very top draw - consistently excellent over all 5 CDs. The recording
of the piano is very close, but I have come to terms with it. In terms of Feldman and John Tilbury my collection is definitely lacking.
I have been trying, without success, to find a good but reasonably priced copy of the 'All Piano' box. Maybe one day.

[Bryn]

The Feldman/Philip Thomas set on Another Timbre is out of the very top draw - consistently excellent over all 5 CDs. The recording
of the piano is very close, but I have come to terms with it. In terms of Feldman and John Tilbury my collection is definitely lacking.
I have been trying, without success, to find a good but reasonably priced copy of the 'All Piano' ox. Maybe one day.

JT was never happy with the recording of Triadic Memories in that London Hall set. Apart from anything else, the photocopy of the music he was constrained to work from lacked a marking indicating that one of the notes should be repeated 11 times. He had played it just the once. His much later St John's, Smith Square recording is much better. Look out for a PM in the near future.