Music new to you

[Barbirollians]

One thing that we are so lucky about with classical music is that there is so much of it . Even if you know the “repertoire” well it seems that there are always pieces you have not heard .

For example this week I have heard for the first time not only the two works on Mirga’s outstanding Weinberg disc but Schubert’s A Flat Mass - terrific piece that has passed me by .

What have you heard for the first time ever recently that has made an impression on you ?

[pastoralguy]

Brahms' Third Piano Quartet. A marvellous work!

[jayne lee wilson]

Similar thread a few months ago, here's my updated post....

I always check Qobuz on Audirvana every Thursday/Friday for new releases - its rather like a radio station for serendipity, anything might appear....

....all you need is that insatiable curiosity to just try them.....and follow wherever they may lead....

These are some of my favourites for previously unknown or unfamiliar music this year.....

Chamber Symphonies from Riga. .... by Dzenitis, Tumševica, Leimane.
Sinfonietta Riga/Snē. Skani CD.
https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/dz.../pfbe50s8jju4b

"Polish Contemporary Concertos"
by Błażewicz, Łukaszewski, Czarnecki. Dux CD.
https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/po.../k1yn1s7ulcfwb



The Riga works are the more challenging; the Polish Concertos rather beautiful examples of a somewhat neglected genre....
Contemporary Easy Listening....... they're gorgeous - full of melody, mystery, warmth and humour... I return to them often.

***
"The Senses Reign, and Reason now is Dead..."

Sometimes, Early Music can be very new-to-you... I've been streaming this endlessly this year, a series of 16th/17th C. dances and fantasies with some wonderfully wild and unexpected wind and brass solos and ensembles...... just letting it drift through the house.....
https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/la.../ejejmr9xyuokc
"This grand instrumental musical fresco of time and space is a kind of self-portrait of Giovanni Antonini and his longstanding musical colleagues."


"Folia" Various Artists, Glossa CDs/Qobuz Studio 2019.Like La Morte della Ragione, another of these extravagantly presented Early/Baroque anthologies, but with a dazzling variety of composers/ensembles, the dances and sonatas all based on the "Folia" dance style/rhythm. The 2CD album comes across as 19 multi-composer variations on a single theme (rather like the famous Purcell Chacony tune)....
violins, da gambas, guitars, theorbos, vihuelas...
Foscarini to Vivaldi, Ortiz to Corelli....dazzling red ,yellow and blue artwork extends to the CDs too...
https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/album/fo.../rd2wcrtuhoqab
***
Anyway, I mean, how long have you got...? There are endless new voyages of discovery to embark upon....!

Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe?
Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!

Other 2019 highlights..........

[Joseph K]

Brahms' Third Piano Quartet. A marvellous work!

Ditto - and, agreed!

[antongould]

Memory Of Time - Jane Antonia Cornish

[Barbirollians]

Brahms' Third Piano Quartet. A marvellous work!

Now that one I have known for sometime - the wonderful Rubinstein/Guarneri recording accompanied much of my A Level revision in the mid 1980s - together with Tortelier/Previn in the Dvorak Cello Concerto and Barenboim/Klemperer in Beethoven No 5 .

[sgjames]

Federico Mompou - Les Improperes
Soloists, Cor de Valencia, Orquestra de Cambra teatre Lliure, Josep Pons

Heard on this show from last Sunday's Al-Andalus feature on R3:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008w6n

The CD from which the broadcast performance was taken arrived yesterday. A nice discovery.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000025YT8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[richardfinegold]

Honegger Symphonies. I bought a complete set with Serge Baudo and the Czech PO and have played it through twice. I particularly like the 4th

[Serial_Apologist]

Honegger Symphonies. I bought a complete set with Serge Baudo and the Czech PO and have played it through twice. I particularly like the 4th

If, as in my case, you dragged yourself up educationally to appreciate 20th century modernist music through both the post Debussy/Stravinsky and Second Viennese School lineages as key* to keeping faith with historic antecedents, Honegger can come to represent a highly satisfying amalgamation or reconciliation between two main, and once thought to be opposing sets of musical aesthetics.

*No pun intended!

[silvestrione]

For me, Honegger Sym 5, in a stunning performance recently recommended on another thread, by the Orchestre Lamoureux under Igor Markevitch.

Also on that disc, Roussel, Bacchus and Ariane, 2nd suite, fabulous.

[jayne lee wilson]

Honegger Symphonies. I bought a complete set with Serge Baudo and the Czech PO and have played it through twice. I particularly like the 4th

Yes - a classic set, musically more compelling than Dutoit, if less well recorded.... but the ideal one to move on to, by far the most original and fresh interpretively..... (sorry to promote it yet again...)...is this - (CDs out there but pricy...)

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=honegger+luisi&i=boutique

...it goes to extremes of tempi and dynamic, but almost always in a good way. And has by some margin the best recorded sound.
As I've often said, the true classics of the Honegger discography are the Munch 2 & 5 (Boston 50s) and the 4th in 1960s Paris....(Lamoureux)...(I'm assuming everyone knows the HvK 2&3...or Jansons' Oslo update of same...)

But the SRO/Luisi stands apart...

[silvestrione]

Yes - a classic set, musically more compelling than Dutoit, if less well recorded.... but the ideal one to move on to, by far the most original and fresh interpretively..... (sorry to promote it yet again...)...is this - (CDs out there but pricy...)

https://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=honegger+luisi&i=boutique

...it goes to extremes of tempi and dynamic, but almost always in a good way. And has by some margin the best recorded sound.
As I've often said, the true classics of the Honegger discography are the Munch 2 & 5 (Boston 50s) and the 4th in 1960s Paris....(Lamoureux)...(I'm assuming everyone knows the HvK 2&3...or Jansons' Oslo update of same...)

But the SRO/Luisi stands apart...

Is that a slip for 5th, JLW, or do you have details of a Lamoureux version of Sym 4?

[jayne lee wilson]

Is that a slip for 5th, JLW, or do you have details of a Lamoureux version of Sym 4?

It's this one.....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphonie-No-Metaboles-Munch/dp/B0000AKQHD/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=honegger+munch&qid=1570378551&s=music&sr=1-16

Highest recommendation in all respects.... (You may find the works in other couplings... apex/earlier Erato etc...... this one sounds excellent...)

[silvestrione]

It's this one.....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphonie-No-Metaboles-Munch/dp/B0000AKQHD/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=honegger+munch&qid=1570378551&s=music&sr=1-16

Highest recommendation in all respects.... (You may find the works in other couplings... apex/earlier Erato etc...... this one sounds excellent...)

Ah I see, thanks. Bit expensive though!

[Pulcinella]

Ah I see, thanks. Bit expensive though!

Cheap download here:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8501669--dutilleux-symphony-no-2-le-double-metaboles-honegger-symphony-no-4-deliciae-basiliensis

Lamoureux applies only to the coupling, I think, which might be why jlw has inadvertently caused some confusion.