Records recently heard

Stokowski certainly thought so - he chopped it down to about 40 minutes!

I have the CD you are listening to, and I certainly enjoy hearing it once in a while... but do sometimes wonder whether Stokowski might have had the right idea.

Never heard the 2nd - the Chandos cover art gives the impression that it's every bit as lush as the 3rd, so thanks for correcting that misapprehension.

 

If you've got a lot of Reich, Glass, Adams and the like, a good side-expansion isPaul Dresher: Casa Vecchia. He's often called a post-minimalist, apparently, but the title track, especially, is like Reich before he started setting music to sampled speech-rhythms (Different Trains, etc.)

 

Cesar Franck's Trois Chorales. Peter Hurford plays the Rieger organ in Ratzeburg. The organ has a stop which opens a small drinks drawer when pulled. Hurford recorded also a Mendelssohn record there at the same time (=1984)

 

Box of 2nd hand records arrived on Saturday including :

Arnold Bax - 3 symphonies (1, 2 and 7) on Lyrita - all excellent, first time I've listened to any of his symphonic work.

Mahler - symphony No.2 - on Decca, Solti

Bartok - 6 string quartets on DG, tokyo quartet. Superb condition for a 2nd hand purchase and I've wanted a copy of these for a very long time.

Borodin- String quartets 1 & 2 on Melodiya.

 

I went into HMV yesterday on way to work, they always have interesting stuff in the special offer rack. Came away with Complete Brahms Piano Works with Julius Kaatchen. Wonderful recordings, now over 40 years old but sound superb.

Anyway, I had never heard the 2nd sonata op. 2 before tonight.... its not Brahmsian and its a bit all over the place but I really enjoyed it.

 

A friend introduced me to Kaatchen before as he thinks his Rach 2 was definitive. Anyway, I got the above 2 weeks ago even I had never heard of these music before. Got it purely because cello has been my favourite instrument and must admit the cover girl looks nice. The programmes are cello and piano duo but there are no photo of the poor guy anyway in the album covers nor booklet. Initially found the music programmes slow and wonderful for inducing a good night sleep. However, after perseverance it is has certainly grown on me. One might think it is outlandish buying an album based on the artists one heard of before but in this case it works as I would probably not had discovered these Brahms and Schubert sonatas thing otherwise. Here is a link by some one who seems to know a bit about the programmes.

http://www.mvdaily.com/articles/2005/02/arpeggione1.htm

 

This really belongs to the French Suites thread, but Pe-Zulu and RdS have already learnedly discussed it, Christophe Rousset's version. I've just finished listening to it, and it's very nice. A delicious-sounding harpsichord and, it seemed to me, bright, lively playing. Whoever thinks that Bach keyboard works are unemotional intellectual exercises needs to hear this.

 

Like this:

Currently listening/being force-fed Brucker's fifth by SWMBO.
I hate Bruckner. He bored for Germany. His concept of music is diddly diddly CRESCENDO ad Inf. Humourless, bombastic, predictable, soulless, utterly boring and sans merit.
HOwever, a bit later I will be listening to:
Alpha061 Captain Tobias Hume -- the passion of musick as performed by Nima Ben David
Alpha057 Antoine Boesset -- je meurs sans mourir as performed by Vincent Dumestre and Le Poeme Harmonique
Ensemble Gilles Binchois -- Cantigas de Santa Maria (ambroisie AMB9973) A wonderful album featuring beautiful singing and a spectacularly good percussionist.
+plus a bunch of Arab music no one here would be the slightest bit interested in

 

Hah! Do tell, please.

 

A few I haven't dug out in a while...
Chants sacrés du Sahara - Ahalil de Gourara deep desert drone
Au royaume de la Lyre - Osma, Gubara & co Lyre music from the Sudan
and last, but far from least, the wonderous Abdelkrim Raīs & l'orchestre Al-Brihi -- Musique andalaouse de Fès

 

Haven't heard any of these, I'm afraid. I really have to stock up a bit on Arab music. Ebay, here I come ...

 

I don't know how much Arab music you have already, but this is not where I'd recommend you start.
Do you have the Moroccan and Egyptian discs on Ocora yet?
If not, get these first. They are also interesting in that they provide an insight into Medieval European music - or at least modern interpretations from at least Thomas Binkley onwards AFAIK.

 

And we can enjoy the happy fact, that Bachs French suites which contain some of his most charming harpsichord music have been rather well served by excellent recordings e.g. Gilberth, Leonhardt, Mortensen, Rannou, Moroney, Jaccottet, Curtis and Rousset and many more(order quite accidental).
Regards

 

Currently listening to the Sixth from Lorin Maazel's Mahler set with the VPO, which is selling at the frankly silly price of £25 for the 14 discs (symphonies 1-9, the Adagio from 10, and the Kindertotenlieder). I'm still working my way through this set - it's not, perhaps, the most thrilling Mahler you're likely to hear, but it's extremely well played throughout as you'd expect and well recorded. Good VFM at the asking price and contains some very good performances (particularly the First and Fourth).

 

Listened to Scott Ross's recording of Bach's six partitas, which is very hard to get in the US. A friend from UK sent it to me. A lively and vibrant reading emphasising the dance element of these suites. Unidentified harpsichord has a nice sound and the interpretation is quite superb, although my preferred versions are Leonhardt, Suzuki and Rousset. Still, an excellent recording.

Have been listening to Bach's Trio Sonatas for Organ. Four versions by Koopman (Teldec), Herrick (Hyperion), Walcha (DG) and MC Alain (Elektra). Koopman's is a virtuoso display, technically marvellous although his ornamentation is a bit too elaborate. Phrasing is neat and registration adequate. Herrick's is an OK lively version but pales in comparison to MC Alain, whose use of registration is, frankly, quite amazing. It is just so diverse. Walcha's moves me the most. Minimal changes in registration and almost no ornamentation but he seems to understand Bach perfectly. Pure magic.

Regards.

 

Yesterday I made the mistake of listening to some Elgar overtures (Cockaigne, Froissart, In The South; Sir Adrian Boult conducting the LSO). Oh dear. Pompous, overblown stuff, summing up the worst of the Edwardian era. The musical equivalent of Central Hall, Westminster.

I cleaned my aural palate with some Mozart piano sonatas (Brendel) and a Brandenburg Concerto or two (Philip Pickett/New London Consort).

 

Just listened to Michael Tippet's Piano Concerto, John Ogdon with Colin Davis conducting the Philharmonia, superb sound for 1963 and didn't realise Sir Colin went that far back!

This piece of music deserves to be much better known, it has real beauty and grace and flows along. Its much more accessible than Bartok's Piano concerti and some of Prokofiev's and much more enjoyable too IMO.

Also had the Concerto for Double String orchestra on the same disc (not the one in the link - the one I have is the previous reissue on HMV's own budget label), this work has never done much for me before but tonight it really worked.

 

I am currently listening to Artur Schnabel's recording of Beethoven's piano sonatas. Wonderful stuff; easily better than Barenboim or Kempff IMO.

The French version of the sleevenotes is quite different from the English ersion; unfortunately my 1970s O level French isn't quite up to a complete translation.

 

Bach

Dear Sn66

We seem to agree quite a lot. My preferred versions of the partitas would be Leonhardt, Suzuki and Gilbert, but Ross should not be overlooked. Unidentified harpsichord, yes, but probably made by the modern harpsichord builder David Ley in Paris. Ross preferred usually his instruments for Bach-recordings. A modern built "period"-instrument without strictly defined historical model, as far as I can see (hear).

As to the organ triosonatas we also agree much.
My preferred versions are Walcha (Lübeck-Cappel-mono version, but the stereo version from Alkmaar and Strassbourg very fine too) and Alain and Rübsam. Alain recorded the sonatas four times, I think you refer to her newest version from Aa Kerk, Groningen. Rübsam has until now made two versions, the first on the Metzlerorgan in Freiburg (Philips 1977) to be preferred.
I find Koopmans newest version on the Jacobiorgan in Hamburg a bit extravagant, and the organ is too big for this chamber-style music.
His first version for DG on the Müller organ in Waalse Kerk Amsterdam is more in style.
In comparation with Walcha, Alain and Rübsam, Herrick is just boring.

The troisonatas are believed to be arrangements of not surviving triosonatas for chamber
ensemble (two violins and continuo fx.) except perhaps the sixth sonata, and there are some interesting CDs with reconstructions for instrumental ensemble.

London Baroque for BIS,
Robert King Ensemble for Hyperion and
Musica Pacificata (with among others Edward Parmentier) for Virgin Classics are the most interesting.

Regards,

 

Beethoven

Perhaps a little strict to compare masters of the piano of the first degree in that way.

Regards,