What's playing today ?

...and this evening the same pieces but in a concert.
Same place, much more people but the musicians played the pieces in one go, without repeating passeges over and over again. also great

 

Thanks Blue Note - I got Langgaard's Music of the Spheres yesterday - you're right - superb music!

His symphonies are well worth exploring too - I have about half of them now and plan to get them all.

 

Treated myself to this for Christmas:



Very nice performance. The SACD doesn't appear to make much difference (I'm only listening to it in two-channel).

My initial impression is that it's as good as Gardiner's ground-breaking version of some years ago, but I'll have to revisit Gardiner for a more definitive opinion. However, taken on its own, it's right up there with the superb standard that Suzuki has set in his BIS cantata recordings, and it will always be a joy to listen to.

 

Julia Fischer - Pentatone SACD: Bach solo violin Sonatas & Partitas

 

Dear Rodrigo

As far as I know, there are in the Dom of Lübeck only the great Marcussen-organ from 1970 and a small Italian baroque organ from 1777.

Or do you think of Marienkirche, which is not the Dom.

Link:
http://orgelwelt.eu/galerie/index28.html

Kind regards

 

Dear Pe-Zulu

Yes, my mistake. Thank you for the correction and the link.

Have a nice 2008

 

For Christmas I listened to Praetorius's Mass by McCreesh. Always a joy.

Uncharacteristically for me, I also listened to some opera. My eldest brother brought a record by a Russian singer, Anna something (Ruddenko?) and while I do not like the pieces she sings, I found her singing very moving.

 

Probably Anna Netrebko – best experienced live, very sexy lady.

 

Yes, that is the name. She seemed beautiful from the photos. But I liked the unlikely combination of innocence and tragedy in her singing. Beautiful voice, marvelous singing.

 

By chance I'm just soaking up a longish programme on the history and development of opera, on the UK internet station Oneword. Maybe you can find it on their website - it's very interesting.

 

Last night:

Music by Felix Weingartner (yup, the conductor chappie from early 20thC) -

Symphonies 1 & 3, & King Lear and Merry Overtures. On the cpo label.

Quite bowled over by it. Big-boned, nicely melodic romanticism.

Written when it was, the music is of course terribly old-fashioned and reactionary. But if it had been written 20 or 30 years previously it would now be a staple of the repertoire, I reckon! (I never could understand that seemingly-moronic distinction - as if changing the date on the manuscript changed the quality of the music! )

I loved it. Well, to be a bit more pernickety - the too-cutesy Merry Overture and the rather less urgent 3rd symphony are not so good. But I'll definitely be giving the 3rd sym more of a try though - methinks it may be akin to Brahms' 2nd sym compared to the other three.

 

Tonight:

- Bach St John Passion - Suzuki / Bach Collegium Japan on DVD. Hmmmm ..... OK, but I have to confess that I gave up on it after 45 minutes - too little variety in the interpretation. Vocalists are OK, but there's too little tension in the instrumental playing really. ...... I'll go back to my fave, I think - Helmuth Rilling on CD.

- Bach Brandenburg Concertos - Karl Richter / Munich Bach Orchestra on DVD.
Several decades on, and they still don't come better than this!

 

"Death & Devotion" - The Netherlands Bach Society / Channel Classics
Music by: Weckmann / Tunder / Buxtehude / Ritter

Just my sort of stuff - suitably depressing / uplifting for a dark January afternoon. Reckon I must have been 17thC North German in a past life!

(I'd put a picture of the cover, but I don't know how!)

 

Jerry, I don't know if you've heard the recording of the St.John conducted by Benjamin Britten on Decca. It's 'of its time' (1972) of course, but captivating and compelling. Certainly never boring. Britten has the composer's insight to bring out all the underlying drama and theatre that drive the work. In fact it is very close to being an opera. I'm certainly with those who feel that it's a great pity that Bach never had the opportunity (like Handle for instance) to write opera – to think what we might have had… Still I guess we cannot exactly complain!

I'm currently working through the Sony 22 CD boxed set of all the recordings made for CBS by Stravinsky. The recordings mostly date from the early sixties, but sound surprisingly well. Now this really is historically important and endlessly fascinating. Stravinsky was well into his eighties at the time, but the sense of energy and purpose are actually quite moving. Here is an old man setting out his life's work for posterity with humour and some humility. Included are several recorded dialogues and studio sessions that reveal his great musicianship and humanity.

Stravinsky is central to all 20th century art. Certainly to understand 20th century music you need to know all his major work. I'm increasingly viewing this set as essential.

 

I agree about the Stravinsky box set. It's also almost unbelievably cheap.

 

Yeah, only £19.95 from Europadisc for a box set of 22 CDs! That's only about 90 pence per CD… Wow! Somewhat of a philanthropic gesture methinks. Anyone with even a passing interest in classical music would be crazy to pass this one up.

The only down side is that only vestigial notes are included. Still there are many good books on the market surveying Stravinsky's work. Robert Craft's 'Conversations with Stravinsky' I can recommend. I think he's since updated it, I read it while I was still at school!

 

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy .... what a discovery for me!

I was listening to BBC Radio 3 on Easter Sunday morning (I think it was) - a themed programme on peace and protest. Lots of interesting and enjoyable pieces including "where have all the flowers gone" sung by Marlene Dietrich .

Also played was a quarter hour or so segment from a set of piano variations. IIRC the announcer compared the music with JSB's Goldberg Variations. Ridiculous! Errrr .... or not. I was totally blown away by the extract played and after a bit of research selected the version I fancied from Amazon Market Place (used) CDs. It arrived a fewdays ago. If you want a laugh you should have seen me playing the "air piano" along with the music :shame: .

The piece is Frederic Rzewski's 36 variations on "The people united will never be defeated". Like Bach's Goldbergs it's based on a simple, accessible and moving melody that just kind of sticks in your mind and makes you sway happily along. The piece runs for just under 1 hour of totally mesmerised enrapturement. I can't remember when I enjoyed a new piece of music so much.

The version I chose was on the New Albion label with Stephen Drury - good reviews on Amazon, and with the considerable bonus of starting out with a recording of the original protest song as recorded in Buenos Aeres live in 1975 - you can't get more authentic than that!

Simply fantastic. :yikes:

 

This week, much listening to a recently arrived Fremaux/CBSO 1973 Saint-Saens Organ Symphony on EMI TWO 404 - a recording that I have some history with but lost. It knocks the socks off my CD recording, Dukas/Berlin Phil on deutsche gramaphone

 

Over the past month or so I've been listening to a lot of music from the byeways, rather than the highways, of 20thC British music.

Excellent sounds have been heard from Geoffrey Bush (2 symphonies and a symphony in all but name on Lyrita), & symphonies by York Bowen, Daniel Jones, Arthur Dunhill, Richard Arnell, Gordon Jacob, Matthew Taylor (including a fine horn concerto, too), Lennox Berkeley, and Arnold Cooke.

The Arnold Cooke CD is interesting as it was from an eBay seller who came across a privately recorded cassette of Cooke's 5th symphony and a short song cycle at a car boot sale! He makes CDRs from this and sells them on eBay. The symphony is not otherwise recorded and is a most interesting piece. The sound is a bit hissy - but otherwise fine. Well worth exploring!
There are no eBay listings for this as I type, but here is a recent Completed listing (no buyers - what an unadventurous lot eBayers are!! ) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ARNOLD-COOKE-...oryZ1049QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
The seller is 'calvingeneva'. I'd strongly recommend that lovers of tonal English music drop him a line!

 

This:



I haven't bought anything from the King's Singers for ages, but I came across this today. It consists of gorgeous renditions of 16th and 17th century Iberian music. Very nice, and a nice atmospheric recording.