What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Pulcinella]

According to Wikipedia, there is only one version, 1985.

On first hearing, very relaxing music.

No: there's more than one!

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/works/71742--feldman-m-coptic-light/browse

[Jazzrook]

Many thanks, Pulcinella. I’m trying to determine the best version to buy.

JR

[Stanfordian]

Eva Zaïcik – ‘Rebelle’ – ‘Hommage a Célestine Galli-Marié’
Airs by Bizet, Thomas, Paladilhe, Poise, Deffès, Offenbach, Massé, Guiraud, Cohen, Grisar & Massenet
Eva Zaïcik (mezzo-soprano)
Orchestre National de Lille / Pierre Dumoussaud
Recorded 2024 Auditorium du Nouveau Siecle, Lille
Alpha Classics, new release

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet – Ravel – Complete Piano Works
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)
Recorded 2003 Furstliche Reitbahn Bad Arolsen
MDG, 2 CDs

[Pulcinella]

Many thanks, Pulcinella. I’m trying to determine the best version to buy.

JR

Feldman
Coptic light

American SO/Botstein
SWR SO/Gielen
New World Symphony/MTT

The MTT appealed most as a listening experience, but how faithful it is to the score I don't know. It's sharper/less hazy/more vividly recorded than the other two.

[pastoralguy]

String Quartet by Lyell Creswell, streamed from Qobuz. I don’t think I have heard any music by this composer recently and only learned recently that he had died a few years ago. An interesting work, the sort I am attracted to as “Modern” but not radically so and not of Minimalistic tendency.

Tonight a favourite, Parry Ode to the Nativity on Lyrita, I feel this is amongst the best of Parry.

I knew Lyell Creswell’s wife quite well when I was much younger. She played the ‘cello in a small chamber orchestra I was a member of and we’d occasionally play string quartets. I didn’t really know him that well but he seemed like a nice bloke. Alas, I didn’t realise that he was as good composer or I might have taken more interest although I’m sure I spoke to him about a composition he was working on called ‘the magical wooden head’.

I do remember looking through his record collection which consisted of extremely esoteric repertoire with no concessions given to standard repertoire except for an Lp Of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto played by John Ogdon!

[oliver sudden]

I occasionally put my ancient ipod in shuffle mode and am usually rewarded by some fascinating juxtapositions.

Few have been quite as fascinating as just now: Auf blumige Wiesen from the Dresden/Kempe Alpensinfonie making a perfect segue into ‘Scene: Battle’ from the LSO/Doráti Nutcracker. The violin line in particular links up perfectly.

Take that, Radio 3 mixtapes!

[Jazzrook]

Feldman
Coptic light

American SO/Botstein
SWR SO/Gielen
New World Symphony/MTT

The MTT appealed most as a listening experience, but how faithful it is to the score I don't know. It's sharper/less hazy/more vividly recorded than the other two.

Thanks for your help, Pulcinella. Have ordered a copy of the above for less than a tenner!

JR

[Pulcinella]

Thanks for your help, Pulcinella. Have ordered a copy of the above for less than a tenner!

JR

Hope you enjoy it (and the couplings).

[smittims]

Sibelius, Symphony no.2: Sinfonia of London , Tauno Hannikainen.

This early stereo version has had high praise, the Penguin Guide even preferring it to the Collins (which admittedly was mono) but I was struck by one detail which receives different attention in various recordings I've heard.

At the first movement recapitulation (I can't see a bar number in the YouTube score) there's an ambiguous passage for the timpani, a long roll interrupted by groups of five crotchets , yet all marked with a trill symbol At the usual tempo it would be impossible to play each crotchet as a separate roll. What one usually hears is the semibreves played as rolls and the crotchets detached strokes (da-da-da-da-da-brrrrrrrr). In some performances the crotchets are really hammered out molto marcato , which I enjoy as I feel it's in keeping with the climactic mood of the music at that point , but in others (the Hannikainen is one) they are barely audible. He is supposed to have known the composer personally so maybe he asked 'old Sib' about it.

Maybe the composer's notorious handwriting is to blame. There are other 'textual crux'es in his other works.

[Stanfordian]

Hans Werner Henze
Symphony No. 2 for large orchestra (1949)
Symphony No. 10 for large orchestra (1997-2000)
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin / Marek Janowski
Recorded 2012-13 Rundfunk, Berlin-Brandenburg, Haus des Rundfunks, Berlin
Wergo, CD

Handel Arias – Magdalena Kožená
Alcina, Hercules, Agrippina, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Joshua, Ariodante, Theodora, Amadigi di Gaula, Orlando, Ariodante, Rinaldo
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano)
Venice Baroque Orchestra / Andrea Marcon
Recorded 2006, Gustav Mahler Saal, Kulturzentrum Grand Hotel, Toblach
Archiv Produktion, CD

[smittims]

The BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli.

Beethoven: Symphony no.3 : Eroica.

I often used to see this disc advertised on the inner sleeve of HMV LPs, but I heard it for the first time only yesterday. It's a stately, majestic reading and the engineers did well to get the first two movements complete on side one.

I don't recall Sir John doing much Beethoven, apart from the seventh at his own 70th birthday concert, and I think this is his only commercial recording with this orchestra. I wondered if it had come about by accident, e.g. he stood in for someone else indisposed. It's dated 1968 so it may have been recorded then or in '67.

[Petrushka]

The BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli.

Beethoven: Symphony no.3 : Eroica.

I often used to see this disc advertised on the inner sleeve of HMV LPs, but I heard it for the first time only yesterday. It's a stately, majestic reading and the engineers did well to get the first two movements complete on side one.

I don't recall Sir John doing much Beethoven, apart from the seventh at his own 70th birthday concert, and I think this is his only commercial recording with this orchestra. I wondered if it had come about by accident, e.g. he stood in for someone else indisposed. It's dated 1968 so it may have been recorded then or in '67.

That Beethoven 'Eroica' was recorded on May 18 & 19 1967 and is included in the Barbirolli box issued by Warner in 2020. I've not made a thorough search of the contents but I think that was indeed JB's only recording with the BBC SO. He was offered the conductorship of the BBC SO in 1948 but turned it down to stay with the Halle.

Also included in the box is more Beethoven from him. There is a 5th Symphony from 1947 and 1 & 8 (originally on Pye) recorded on New Year's Eve, 1957. Needless to say, Klemperer was EMI's Beethoven choice in those days.

I'd need a lot more time to trawl through the Halle/Barbirolli performance history but I do know that JB's last concert, on July 25 1970, ended with the Beethoven 7.

[Stanfordian]

‘English Orchestral Songs’ – Parry, Stanford, Finzi & Gurney
Christopher Maltman (baritone)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins
Recorded 1998, City Halls, Candleriggs, Glasgow
Hyperion, CD

Frank Bridge
String Quartet No. 1
String Quartet No. 3
Maggini Quartet
Recorded 2002 Potton Hall, Suffolk
Naxos, CD

[smittims]

Thanks, Petrushka. I thought there was a Pye or two.

Oh yes, I recall the offer to JB of Chief Conductor , BBC S.O. a murky story involving Steuart Wilson, and a sad episode in the untimely departure of Sir Adrian Boult.

[gradus]

Rimsky's delightful piano quintet with that jaunty last movement.