What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[verismissimo]

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
Janet Baker (Alto)/Waldemar Kmentt/Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Rafael Kubelik (recorded live 27.02.1970)
As a pendant to his symphony cycle, Kubelik's DLvdE is just as good as one would have expected from those recordings. Janet Baker is at her very considerable best, the orchestra plays beautifully, the recording (Herkulessaal) is excellent and Kubelik adopts a - I was tempted to say "ton neutre" - clear-eyed, unsentimental approach (like Abbado in Berlin in 2011). Listening to this rather wonderful performance serves as a welcome antidote to the rather silly point-scoring going on elsewhere in this forum.

Also recorded live in 1970, a wonderful (but little noticed) Das Lied from Janet Baker, Richard Lewis, Cleveland / Szell.

[Stanfordian]

Frederica von Stade - ‘French Opera Arias’
Arias by Berlioz, Massenet, Thomas, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Offenbach
Frederica Von Stade (mezzo soprano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra / John Pritchard
Recorded 1976 Henry Wood Hall, London
Sony

French Wind Quintets - Ibert, Ravel, Jolivet, Milhaud, Taffanel,
20th Century Wind Quintets - Ligeti, Zemlinsky, Barber, Sandor Veress, Hindemith
Les Vents Français,
featuring Emmanuel Pahud (flute)
Recorded 2011 Bavaria Musikstudios, Munich
Warner Classics (2 CDs)

[richardfinegold]

Also recorded live in 1970, a wonderful (but little noticed) Das Lied from Janet Baker, Richard Lewis, Cleveland / Szell.

I was intrigued, not realizing that Szell had recorded Das Lied, but it isn't listed by Arkiv Music. I'll see if Presto has it as a download later today. Otoh, there are 10 versions listed by Arkiv with Bruno Walter. I will have to see how many of them are in the big Bruno Walter box in my upstairs den

[BBMmk2]

Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Symphonies
CD 1
Symphony No.1 “The Sea Symphony”
(Amanda Roicroft (soprano)
Thomas Hampson (baritone)
BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra
Sir Andrew Davis).
CD 2
Symphony No.2 “A London Symphony”
Symphony No.8 in D minor
CD 3
Symphony No.4 in F minor
Symphony Mo.5 in D major
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Sir Andrew Davis

[Petrushka]

Also recorded live in 1970, a wonderful (but little noticed) Das Lied from Janet Baker, Richard Lewis, Cleveland / Szell.

I remember listening to that on Radio 3 circa 1987. What label is that on? Or is it the one on youTube? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VRYgKlja4c

I have another Szell recording of Das Lied with Maureen Forrester and Richard Lewis in a live performance with the Cleveland Orchestra in Berlin on April 21 1967. It's on the Living Stage label, LS1053.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Hi Petrushka – there’s a better sounding rendition on You Tube:

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

Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano; Richard Lewis, tenor; Cleveland Orchestra; George Szell, conductor Recorded live 5 & 7 February 1970 in Severance Hall, Cleveland

Interesting listening – I’m 25 minutes in, and Janet Baker seems in fine form. I’m fond of Richard Lewis - a fine Mozartian et al. I’m not sure how the heroic moments will pan out with him.

The sound is better than off air tape, but still boxy. Its on a 75th Anniversary Set of CDs issued by the Cleveland O, but I can’t find it anywhere on streaming (not on Naxos ML – Cleveland’s Label has 2 recordings total!) and I’m not sure I’ll want to track down/pay for the set just for this recording……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/1994/01/30/classical-recordings/50fc362f-da0b-46a4-ac16-6f58e65d03da/

[MickyD]

Good luck with that! You actually have ground dry enough?

35 is a wonderful piece, hidden treasure..... 45 playing now, again.... interesting how they hold back the ferocity in (i) to some extent, and as usual repeat the second half....but then, turn it on in the finale to play up the contrasts........a truly fresh, considered account.
Slow movement right now.... God, this is heavenly playing.....again, some of the greatest Haydn recordings of our time.

Point taken about the covers to 2032, but they do indeed all have themes, and the artistic concept is based on photographic essays, and tangential musical essays around the concept. I guess the idea was simply that one would collect them (soft or hard) and find out for oneself. The kind of mystery that encourages creative thought. They are luxurious physical disc products...but the extensive booklets do accompany the Qobuz streams at least.
(So long as you take the trouble to read them...)

No I didn't buy them in that physical form, but slightly regret that. Expensive to catch up now...

Treasure indeed, but for this listener, certainly not 'hidden' - the early and mid period symphonies of Haydn have always been far more enjoyable for me than the later, more well-known ones. I regard them as old friends who constantly delight as they reappear in new guises throughout the years - from the Dorati recordings through to Solomons, Hogwood, Pinnock, Weil, Bruggen, Goodman and now this latest superb cycle.

[Richard Barrett]

Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

Janet Baker (Alto)/Waldemar Kmentt/Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Rafael Kubelik (recorded live 27.02.1970)

Just finished listening here. I agree that it's on a level with his symphony recordings and I think it's a great shame it wasn't recorded for DG at that time - I've always liked the way they recorded that orchestra, although the radio engineers on the Lied did some fine work to be sure. I'm slightly ashamed to say I first put on this recording while doing some admin work, just to get a rough idea of it, but I then had to down tools near the beginning of the "Abschied" and give it my full attention. Well... music doesn't get more moving than this, as far as I'm concerned. Now back to the start.

[verismissimo]

Treasure indeed, but for this listener, certainly not 'hidden' - the early and mid period symphonies of Haydn have always been far more enjoyable for me than the later, more well-known ones. I regard them as old friends who constantly delight as they reappear in new guises throughout the years - from the Dorati recordings through to Solomons, Hogwood, Pinnock, Weil, Bruggen, Goodman and now this latest superb cycle.

I'd add to your fine list, MickyD: Fey, Adam Fischer, some Rattle. But not Tafelmusik/Weil, which sounded to me like a knitting machine.

[Joseph K]

but I then had to down tools near the beginning of the "Abschied" and give it my full attention. Well... music doesn't get more moving than this, as far as I'm concerned.

Agreed. My copy is conducted by Otto Klemperer.

[DracoM]

Anyone tell me about 'kantele' music?

[jayne lee wilson]

Treasure indeed, but for this listener, certainly not 'hidden' - the early and mid period symphonies of Haydn have always been far more enjoyable for me than the later, more well-known ones. I regard them as old friends who constantly delight as they reappear in new guises throughout the years - from the Dorati recordings through to Solomons, Hogwood, Pinnock, Weil, Bruggen, Goodman and now this latest superb cycle.

Absolutely. My first encounter with 35 was the OAE/Bruggen, the Philips Sturm und Drang Box (with the head-in-hands cover art) in 1999. I bought it after the HiFiNews Review (possibly Anthony Hodgson), when their classical coverage was far more extensive.....
A wonderful, revelatory anthology since gathered into much bigger collections, and yes - a world-changing discovery for me....still recall the impact of hearing 26, (The Lamentation) for the first time to this day....

I played nothing else for weeks. The next time that happened was with that DG Original Masters Collection of Scherchen's 1950s Haydn...(the 49 in there is remarkable, those baleful horns in the minuet!..)

Has there been a more important composer to me in my listening life, than Haydn? Probably not.

[MickyD]

I think I've come to the same conclusion as you, Jayne. For me, no other composer can touch so many emotions as he does; the overriding one is that of happiness, making you feel so glad to be alive.

[cloughie]

Absolutely. My first encounter with 35 was the OAE/Bruggen, the Philips Sturm und Drang Box (with the head-in-hands cover art) in 1999. I bought it after the HiFiNews Review (possibly Anthony Hodgson), when their classical coverage was far more extensive.....
A wonderful, revelatory anthology since gathered into much bigger collections, and yes - a world-changing discovery for me....still recall the impact of hearing 26, (The Lamentation) for the first time to this day....

I played nothing else for weeks. The next time that happened was with that DG Original Masters Collection of Scherchen's 1950s Haydn...(the 49 in there is remarkable, those baleful horns in the minuet!..)

Has there been a more important composer to me in my listening life, than Haydn? Probably not.

what, not even AB, jane

[Richard Barrett]

For me, no other composer can touch so many emotions as he does; the overriding one is that of happiness, making you feel so glad to be alive.

As Samuel Beckett is reputed to have said, "I wouldn't go that far."

I'm still reeling somewhat from listening twice to Das Lied von der Erde today, but before that I was listening to that same Haydn album yet again. No. 45 is a highly complex work, in emotional terms, isn't it? I'm not sure I buy the traditional story about the last movement, it sounds to me rather more like an extension of the inscrutable second movement. I associate Haydn with a magnifying mirror-like quality: you hear in it whatever you're feeling at the time, but more so.