What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Stanfordian]

Verdi – ‘Il Trovatore’
Opera in four acts (1853)
Maria Callas (soprano) – Leonora; Fedora Barbieri (mezzo-soprano) – Azucena; Giuseppe di Stefano (tenor) – Manrico; Rolando Panerai (baritone) – Il conte di Luna; Nicola Zaccaria (bass) – Ferrando; Luisa Villa (soprano) – Ines; Renato Ercolani (tenor) - Ruiz/Un messo; Nicola Zaccaria (aka Giulio Mauri) (bass) - Un vecchio zingaro
Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Milano / Herbert von Karajan
Recorded 1956, La Scala, Milan
Warner Classics (orig. EMI), 2 CDs

[Pulcinella]

RVW: Symphony 5

For reasons that will soon become clear (keep your eyes on forthcoming BaL topics):

Symphony No 5 & Scenes adapted from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress


Georgina Wheatley sop Kitty Whately mez Christopher Bowen ten Tom Raskin tenAndrew Rupp bass Jamie W Hall bass Marcus Farnsworth bar BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus / Martyn Brabbins (Hyperion)

‘All told, a scrupulously attentive, uncommonly humane Fifth, utterly free of artifice and, to my mind, deserving of a place alongside Barbirolli (EMI/Warner, 5/44), Boult (Decca, 4/54), Previn, Handley (EMI/Warner, 3/88), and Haitink’s studio and live performances with the LPO from December 1994 (EMI/Warner, 12/95, and LPO, 10/13).’ (Andrew Achenbach, December 2020)

As recommended here:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/ralph-vaughan-williams-top-20-recordings

Not as impressed as AA clearly was.

[smittims]

I was interested in the 'scenes adapted from the Pilgrim's Progress'. It's well-known that VW was opposed to concert performances of his operas, as he (rightly, I think) believed they were only valid on stage, though I did hear a very fine concert performance of 'Pilgrims progress'' around 1970 in Manchester, conducted by Maurice Handford, aftre specia permission had been given .

There is also 'Pilgrim's Journey' a cantata arranged from the opera by Roy Douglas, after similar cantatas had been done from two of his operas, and a radio play from 1943 by Eddy Sackville-West, for which VW wrote extra music. Recordingsof bothof these have been issued by Albion Records in conjunction withthe RVW society.

I've just been listening to Brahms third symphony and Tragic overture on a 1960s RCA Victor Lp by the Boston Symphony and Erich Leinsdorf, glorious performances and recordings I had not heard of before; they seem not to have been available during my LP and CD collecting days. I especially appreciated Leinsdorf's slow tempi for the middle movements, making this a profoundly contemplative interpretation. Lovely colourful sleeve too. Those were the days when the Boston Symphony were being billed as 'The Aristocrat of Orchestras'.

[AuntDaisy]

Just finishing listening to Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro, 1957 Karl Böhm, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Irmgard Seefried, Erich Kunz...

[oliver sudden]

I was interested in the 'scenes adapted from the Pilgrim's Progress'.

I couldn’t get seriously into VW 5 until relatively recently. Then there was a CotW on him where they played the bit of Pilgrim’s Progress from which the Romanza is mainly derived and for some reason I do not properly understand that comprehensively turned the key.

[smittims]

I've often found a chance (or well-considered ) remark can 'unlock' a previously difficult work for me. I found Pelleas et Melisande unsympathetic for many years until I heard someone ( I wish I could remember who) say

'It has all the elements of a fairy story. A prince lost in a forest, a beautiful maiden in a tower, an old blind king in a castle. There's just one crucial element missing: there's no supernatural, no magic. Those people are out there on their own.'

Now some may find this somewhat Sartre-esque interpretation anachronistic. But it worked for me.

[gradus]

Felt like a bit of a bash so I listened to the Tchaik 3rd Orchestral Suite played by the Moscow Phil with Kondrashin up. Crikey, what a performance but in some of the worst sound (Denon surprisingly) I've heard - as though mastered with huge treble boost. Scarcely less exciting although with even worse sound is the coupling of the Rach Symphonic Dances.

[richardfinegold]

A cd incarnation of a CfP Lp I had as a teenager.

Tchaikovsky. Selections from Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.

The Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Efram Kurtz. Yehudi Menuhin plays the violin solos in the Swan Lake selections. I absolutely loved this recording when I was discovering the repertoire and its allure has not dimmed over the years. The 1958 review of Swan Lake is incredibly detailed as to the providence of what we’re listening to and give the Lp an extremely warm welcome.

50p charity shop find!

( to show what treasure can be unearthed for such little money!)

My sister had Kurtz conducting Peter and the Wolf on lp. I don’t think that I ever came across anything else lead bh him

[smittims]

Beethoven : Symphony no.9. Leopold Stokowski, London Symphony Orchestra and chorus, Heather Harper, Helen Watts, Alexander Young and Donald MacIntyre. A Decca 'Phase Four' LP recorded in Kingsway Hall in 1969 by Tony d'Amato and Arthur Lilley.

Today I heard for the first time this famous recording and recalled how much praise it received and surprisingly little criticism. It''s a remarkably straightforward , gimmick-free interpretation and recording and I found it most convincing and heartfelt. It makes an interesting comparison with another Decca single-LP Ninth whch appeared around the same time, but with very different artists : the Vienna Philharmonic and Hans Schmitt-Isserstedt and four famous opera singers. That too was a vey straight, traditional reading ('A NInth to live with 'the Gramophone called it) . At that time new Ninths usually occupied three sides , necessitating two Lps with a fill-up, so the single disc was a sales advantage, although it nearly always involved splitting the adagio. Funnily enough,we didn't mind that in those days.

[pastoralguy]

My sister had Kurtz conducting Peter and the Wolf on lp. I don’t think that I ever came across anything else lead bh him

I looked him up on Discogs and he seems to have recorded quite prolifically but, alas, at a time when 78’s were being superseded by vinyl. His most famous disc was accompanying Menuhin in his classic Mendelssohn and Bruch No.1 recording.

[HighlandDougie]

I looked him up on Discogs and he seems to have recorded quite prolifically but, alas, at a time when 78’s were being superseded by vinyl. His most famous disc was accompanying Menuhin in his classic Mendelssohn and Bruch No.1 recording.

Doh! Not least a very fine DSCH 10th …

[smittims]

Monteverdi: Vespers of 1610. The 1974 ARCHIV recording conducted by Hans-Martin Schneidt.

I had this when it came out , in a 3-Lp set with the second Magificat and the Mass, but hadn't heard it for over forty years. It was a pleasure to find a clean copy of t he 2-LP Privilege reissue ad to hear again what a beautiful performance it was.

I think this was the first recording wth period instruments, and interestingly it as 'all-male'., even the instrumentalists. Paul Esswood and Ian Partridge in particular stand out for their fine singing.

.

[pastoralguy]

Franck and Saint-Saëns violin sonata No.1

Pinchas Zukerman, violin and Marc Neikrug, piano.

I’ve been an admirer of Zukerman’s playing for many years but somehow seem to have missed out on this recording. To my ears, it’s terrific with Zukerman’s wonderful sound well represented. However, Gramophone are extremely critical and give it short shrift. Most odd.

[Padraig]

Like you pg, I'm treating myself to a long time love, in my case of Bach's Italian Concerto, but only now to Glenn Gould's performance.

[pastoralguy]

Brahms. The Symphonies.

Felix Weingartner conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Late 1930’s and early 1940’s recordings. Very interesting performances which the Gramophone reviewed very positively.