What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[BBMmk2]

Pretty good, I should think?

Saint-Saens Symphonies Vol.3
Symphony in F major R.163 “Urbs Roma”
La Jeunesse d’Hercule, Op.50
Danse Macabre, Op.40
Malmö Symphony Orchestra
Marc Soustrot

Reinhold Glière
Symphony No.3 in B minor, Op.42 “Il’ya Muromets”.
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
JoAnn Faletta

Shostakovich
Symphony No.11 in G minor, Op.103 “The Year 1905”
BBC PO
Jon Storgårds

Today’s listening

Bruckner
Symphony No.5 in B major
(1875-1878 Edition L Nowak)
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Lorin Maazel.

(Back to Bruckner)

Following on from the Bruckner

Josef Suk
A Summer’s Tale, Op.29
Prague, Op.26.
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Jiri Behlohlavek.

Debussy
Sonates & Trio
Renaud Capuçon(violin)
Emmanuel Pahud(flute)
Gérard Causse(viola)
Marie-Pierre Langamet(harp)
Bertrand Chamayou(piano)

[rauschwerk]

A DVD of the 2015 Glyndebourne production of Mozart's Die Entführung. Nice to see a production actually set in the 18th century and it brought back very pleasant memories of the touring production in Norwich a couple of years ago. Uniformly excellent singing and OAE/Ticciati in the pit.

[BBMmk2]

Bruckner
Symphony No.7 in E major
(1881-1883 Edition L. Nowak)
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Lorin Maazel.

[Joseph K]

Xenakis - Keqrops

I put this on t'other night to drown out the neighbours. Needless to say, it is much more than simply tumultuous! Top-drawer Xenakis, fantastic piece.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Score following - Days 84 & 85

Britten:
Noye's Fludde op59
Nocturne op60
War Requiem op66
Psalm 150 op67
Symphony for Cello & Orchestra op68
The Golden Vanity op78

[DublinJimbo]

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.

I must look up the Kitajenko version. My current favourite is James Gaffigan with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic (Challenge Classics).

[gradus]

Bach 1st Violin Partita, the first 6 dances played by a different violinist courtesy of Spotify, captivating and fascinating. To messrs Podger, Hahn, Tetzlaff, , Huggett, Sakurai and Fischer, many thanks.

[DublinJimbo]

Beethoven. The Nine Symphonies.

Robert Trevino conducting The Malmö Symphony Orchestra.

Kate Royal, soprano

Christine Rice, Mezzo Soprano

Tuomas Katajala, Tenor

Derek Welton, Bass

Malmö Symphony Orchestra Chorus.

Onedine. 2020 SACDs

I hardly need yet another set of these works but I'd read a good review of the cycle and they were cheap on eBay. I also like the two ladies! Inevitably, I started with Symphony 6 and I noticed details I've not heard before. Very fine playing and conducting.

Robert Trevino visited Dublin in September 2018 and directed our National Symphony Orchestra in a superb season-opener performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. A striking aspect of the performance was having the chorus perform from memory. He was scheduled to return for two further performances during the 2019/20 season but cancelled both. I haven't yet tried his Beethoven cycle but will catch up soon.

[cloughie]

Mozart Flute Concertos Hans-Martin Linde

[LeMartinPecheur]

Mozart: Piano quartets (Bilson & Co)
Suk: Piano Quartet In A minor Op1
4 Pieces for vln & pf Op17
Piano Quintet in G minor Op8
(Nash Ensemble)

[BBMmk2]

Bach 1st Violin Partita, the first 6 dances played by a different violinist courtesy of Spotify, captivating and fascinating. To messrs Podger, Hahn, Tetzlaff, , Huggett, Sakurai and Fischer, many thanks.

I hear this is very good. Might have some JSB on today.

[gradus]

I hear this is very good. Might have some JSB on today.

Good call, it's fascinating and very easy to compare these fine musicians in this great music. Some of the recordings are very good indeed and the illusion of the player in the room is vivid.

[Bryn]

Does anyone here know whether the planned recording sessions for the Brahms Concertos by these musicians went ahead as planned last winter? The two RFH concerts of the Brahms concertos and Schumann orchestral works were a revelation. Sadly, only this Zagreb performance of the 1st concerto is available complete on Youtube, though you do get the third movement of the 2nd as an encore.

[Bryn]

Howard Skempton: Notti stellate a Vagli (John Tilbury).

[Suffolkcoastal]

Score following - Day 86

Britten:
Death in Venice op88 (vocal score)