What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Petrushka]

Mahler: Symphony No 3
Norma Proctor (contralto)
William Lang (flugelhorn), Dennis Wick (trombone)
Wandsworth School Boys' Choir
Ambrosian Singers
London Symphony Orchestra
Jascha Horenstein

Terrific performance, with perhaps the best finale on disc. This comfortably sees off the new Fischer disc I played last weekend.

[Lat-Literal]

A lot of Austro-German in the immediate above. I am not at all anti German but this - which is supposed to be at the hub of all classical music - is the most difficult nut to crack for me. The next most difficult are Scandinavla and Eastern Europe but they are nowhere near as difficult. I'm Anglo-Franco-Spanish-Italian in classical music although I have leanings towards Russia as well. Would very much welcome any suggestions but especially early 20th Century that doesn't have emphasis on bombast but rather subtlety. Bits of Mahler - yes - the songs not the symphonies, never "found" R Strauss, I like Humperdinck, have hovered over Schmidt, Wolf is a consideration. Mainly, I don't get it. Piano would be a good start.

Eastern Europe (some central if you like) with Russia is complicated. The names are not easy for we mere mortals and I reckon that beyond a Top 30 or 40 most people would be stuggling. I have found joy in discovering a few who caught my interest - Kalinnikov, Eller, Tubin, Jezek, Stolcer-Slavesnki, A Panufnik, Liadov, Kaprilova and especially the Tcherepnins who are outstanding. There are bits on the "edges". I'd see Gliere as fairly mainstream but perhaps he isn't to some. There is to my mind also a world music dimension there. One gets caught in the moment. Enthuses, buys it, then doubts. It would be so easy to go for a Suk (who I like very much) or a Kodaly and Part or Gorecki off CFM but there was an odd race to purchase this one as "really not my thing but there is something here for me". I will stick with it as a champion of the less than obvious. Can I see what I saw immediately? Not sure - but no regrets. I think I still believe in him/it and this was no fly-by-night. He wrote many symphonies as well. Obviously, less than 0.1 per cent of the west has heard of him:

Miloslav Kabeláč - Mystery Of Time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kxcD0mU9jo

[EdgeleyRob]

A lot of Austro-German in the immediate above. I am not at all anti German but this - which is supposed to be at the hub of all classical music - is the most difficult nut to crack for me. The next most difficult are Scandinavla and Eastern Europe but they are nowhere as difficult. I'm very Anglo-Franco-Spanish-Italian in classical music although I have leanings towards Russia as well. Would very much welcome any suggestions but especially early 20th Century that doesn't have emphasis on bombast but rather subtlety. Bits of Mahler - yes - the songs not the symphonies, never "found" R Strauss, I like Humperdinck, have hovered over Schmidt, Wolf is a consideration. Mainly, I don't get it. Piano would be a good start.

Anglo?most definitely.
French,Spanish.Italian?So so.
Hmmm,Scandinavian?
Some is ok,Alfven,Berwald...it's the big hitters I don't get,Nielsen and Sibelius.
Austro-German ? Got to be chamber and piano music mainly,rather than Symphonies and Concertos.
I don't do Lieder though but English songs I can't get enough of.
Bruckner not really,Mahler I'm falling in love with again after a bit of a falling out (1st Symphony,Chicago,Giulini today).
Strauss ?nah.
Russia? Oh yes,Myaskovsky,Weinberg,DSCH.
Piano Lat? Try Medtner,Myaskovsky,Weinberg,Kabalevsky Sonatas

[DracoM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9yM53TowA&index=1&list=RD9y9yM53TowA&9B5070081C0831AC37B1807E807D1D58

Yes, I know it's Lauridsen, but after an exhausting day, balm to the hurt mind.
The Drome choir live on utube.




......and oh yes, upthread to Mahler 8th / Solti.
But that's for tomorrow!

[Lat-Literal]

Anglo?most definitely.
French,Spanish.Italian?So so.
Hmmm,Scandinavian?
Some is ok,Alfven,Berwald...it's the big hitters I don't get,Nielsen and Sibelius.
Austro-German ? Got to be chamber and piano music mainly,rather than Symphonies and Concertos.
I don't do Lieder though but English songs I can't get enough of.
Bruckner not really,Mahler I'm falling in love with again after a bit of a falling out (1st Symphony,Chicago,Giulini today).
Strauss ?nah.
Russia? Oh yes,Myaskovsky,Weinberg,DSCH.
Piano Lat? Try Medtner,Myaskovsky,Weinberg,Kabalevsky Sonatas

Thank you ever so much for your considered reply, Rob.

I know you love the English/British as do I but you are far more knowledgeable. I love the French and find the Latin/Spanish so interesting. Maybe not love in every case but I like it because when I started I made it my especial learning/educational thing. I'm still on that line - do love Villa Lobos etc - on instinct. I can discover wonderful things as a student and also teach if people want to be receptive. I'd dip into Sibelius and Nielsen - they are here in the room as I type - and there is, yes, Alfven - and Melartin - but I also branch out to Rautavaara (I like the experimentalism) and Leifs (so atmospheric that one can overlook the bombast). Gade is an interesting one. That is french frank to me. She may feel slightly put out - but I bought that and it isn't quite my era - because of my liking and respect for her whatever our occasional differences. She may not be Gade to her but she is Gade to me and consequently I like it. I do this with music and people. Bob Lind is here because of JC and partly as JC. I know what I like. It no longer matters as much how I come across.

(at least one of the two eastern composers beginning with a "V "I posted were also FF and possibly the Respighi but I don't expect people to get it and my memory can be wayward)

[EdgeleyRob]

Thanks Lat,I wouldn't say I'm knowledgeable about British music,just potty about it.

[Lat-Literal]

There is an album out there called "The Tcherepnin Family" which I haven't got because I have CDs by the main two individually. I firmly believe that each is criminally underrated and initially I didn't even understand that there was more than one of them. Some of their pieces are beautiful. This is not necessarily that but it fits me well because it is performed by the Dad of John Sebastian of the Loving Spoonful. Did I bring this family to the forum first? It would be lovely to think so. I am certainly their first pro-active promoter, such as it is. We are given some and we bring some. Mostly people don't want it but I learn and teach at the same time. I am not sure I am capable of dividing the two - and it is just how I am:

As good as Thielemans and Adler:

Alexander Tcherepnin - Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vcympzq4xKA

(I get critical because I ultra romanticise everything and everyone in music and that mainly determines the wavelength)

[Lat-Literal]

What with post Hefner - did you spot the classical music in all of that supposed advanced sophistication because I didn't - I should try for the best four or five American symphonies of the sixties. This won't be easy. One is the outstanding moment - Harris without any doubt - and I have posted it twice before. Two others immediately spring to mind as probables:

Leonard Bernstein - Symphony No 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX1exz7eORo
Alan Hovhaness - Symphony No 19 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXetQjOgZVA
Roy Harris - Symphony No 11 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dr_jg-hl0g
Henry Cowell - Symphony No 16 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L9QgSNej4w
George Rochberg - Symphony No 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHfCyRi6chg

[Lat-Literal]

But, of course, and notwithstanding the fabulous Lou Harrison, who runs it very, very, close - he is surely the greatest post 1960s American composer by several thousand miles:

The best post 1960s American symphony, especially because it is retrograde and sums up the 20th Century's parts, is from 1992:

Samuel Jones - Symphony No 3 - "The Palo Duro Canyon" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiGNcHLEgKc

And while one could look at Daugherty, Corigliano, Zwilich and a whole host of others beyond those two (eg AH did some great stuff in the '70s), the next spot, sorry, goes to Glass:

Philip Glass - Symphony No 4 (Bournemouth SO/Ms Alsop) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hepf31JoBNo

Here's a wonderful early moment from American music history.......as slow as slow can be.

A little light music perhaps but it's from the best classical music decade in my opinion if not necessarily in the US generally which makes it of especial interest to me:

John Alden Carpenter - Adventures in a Perambulator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxRYTfQkHa0

(And I'm going to buy it now)

[BBMmk2]

British Violin Concertos

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto in G minor, Op.80
Delius Suite for violin & orchestra(1888-91)
Haydn Wood Violin concerto in A minor(1888)
Tasmin Little (violin), BBC PO, Sir Andrew Davis.

Frederick Delius
The Violin Sonatas
Tasmin Little(violin), Piers Lane(piano).

[Bryn]

Beethoven Op. 132 (Quatuor Mosaïques). What a difference from the only other (sort of) HIPP recording of the work I have, that by four members of the Collegium Aureum (1973). Let's hope the Quatuor Mosaïques goes on to record the 'middle quartets'.

[Stanfordian]

Puccini
La Bohème, opera in four acts
Irina Lungu – Mimì
Giorgio Berrugi – Rodolfo
Kelebogile Besong – Musetta
Mas Federico Longhi – Schaunard
Banjamin Cho – Marcello
Gabriele Sagona – Colline
Mattio Peirone – Benoît/Alcindoro
Cullen Gandy – Parpignol
Children’s Chorus Teatro Regio & Conservatorio ‘G Verdi’ Torino
Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio/Gianandrea Noseda
Chorus master – Claudio Fenoglio
Stage Director – Àlex Ollé
Set Designer –Alfonso Flores
Costume Design – Lluc Castells
Lighting Designer – Urs Schonebaum
Video Direction – Tiziano Mancini
Recorded 2016 Teatro Regio Torino
C Major Blu-ray

[visualnickmos]

British Violin Concertos

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto in G minor, Op.80
Delius Suite for violin & orchestra(1888-91)
Haydn Wood Violin concerto in A minor(1888)
Tasmin Little (violin), BBC PO, Sir Andrew Davis.

Frederick Delius

The Violin Sonatas
Tasmin Little(violin), Piers Lane(piano).

What a delightful sounding concert. Very enjoyable, I'm certain.

[Bryn]

Carmina Burana. Glorious stuff. I really should lift my spirits by listening to this more often.

[vinteuil]

Carmina Burana. Glorious stuff. I really should lift my spirits by listening to this more often.

.

... but was it this -

http://amzn.eu/dkCJzKO

.

http://amzn.eu/6YaM5JP

.

http://amzn.eu/0hkTUSK

or perhaps -

http://amzn.eu/15ezUR6

.