What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[LMcD]

I DO have it and am looking forward to hearing it after my daily duty to Mr. Brendel is completed!

Thanks again.

Smyth: Concerto for Violin and Horn
Respighi: Church Windows

[cloughie]

I looked it up on Discogs but no luck. Thanks anyway.

It’s in the Kempe Icon Box - CD4, also on a Disky 2 CD set c/w BPO Sym Fant and New World!

[pastoralguy]

It’s in the Kempe Icon Box - CD4, also on a Disky 2 CD set c/w BPO Sym Fant and New World!

Many thanks, Cloughie.

[pastoralguy]

Mrs PG has just returned from a holiday in the South of Spain with her best friend who was celebrating her 70th birthday. She found a charity shop and sent me pictures of their CDs which were 20p each! One of the discs was

Richard Strauss. Also Sprach Zarathustra c/w Macbeth.

The Vienna Philharmonic is conducted by Lorin Maazel (DG. 1983).

Alas, the disc is missing its liner notes but the disc is fine apart from a huge mark across its circumference. (Well, it was only 20p!). However, it sounds terrific. A real tummy wobbling start to Also Sprach. I’ll try a do-it-yourself cover.

[Pulcinella]

Mrs PG has just returned from a holiday in the South of Spain with her best friend who was celebrating her 70th birthday. She found a charity shop and sent me pictures of their CDs which were 20p each! One of the discs was

Richard Strauss. Also Sprach Zarathustra c/w Macbeth.

The Vienna Philharmonic is conducted by Lorin Maazel (DG. 1983).

Alas, the disc is missing its liner notes but the disc is fine apart from a huge mark across its circumference. (Well, it was only 20p!). However, it sounds terrific. A real tummy wobbling start to Also Sprach. I’ll try a do-it-yourself cover.

Here you go:

https://www.discogs.com/master/288977-Richard-Strauss-Wiener-Philharmoniker-Lorin-Maazel-Also-Sprach-Zarathustra-Macbeth

I guess if Mrs PG brings you Charity Shop gifts back from her trips, she can hardly complain when you claim that the Hyperion ones you found recently are always worth having.

[smittims]

Mozart: Serenades and divertimenti for wind ensemble. The Decca set with Jack Brymer's hand-picked group of London players . This is a delightful set I return to always with pleasure, and just the music for a summer afternoon. I feel that the sessions were very convivial, as most of the players knew one another personally . Originally on separate ful-price discs , they were reissued in an 'Ace of Diamonds' box set with a lovely Watteau picture on the cover. They include some but not all of the 'doubtful ' works , which are also of interest.

[pastoralguy]

Here you go:

https://www.discogs.com/master/288977-Richard-Strauss-Wiener-Philharmoniker-Lorin-Maazel-Also-Sprach-Zarathustra-Macbeth

I guess if Mrs PG brings you Charity Shop gifts back from her trips, she can hardly complain when you claim that the Hyperion ones you found recently are always worth having.

Well, I suppose they are all worth having.

[cloughie]

Mozart: Serenades and divertimenti for wind ensemble. The Decca set with Jack Brymer's hand-picked group of London players . This is a delightful set I return to always with pleasure, and just the music for a summer afternoon. I feel that the sessions were very convivial, as most of the players knew one another personally . Originally on separate ful-price discs , they were reissued in an 'Ace of Diamonds' box set with a lovely Watteau picture on the cover. They include some but not all of the 'doubtful ' works , which are also of interest.

Ace of Diamonds LPs were my affordable introduction to the great recordings of my youth. Brymer’s VWE Mozart superb!

[smittims]

The Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra in Moscow, 1965, conducted by Y. A. Mravinsky:

Sibelius 7th
Stravinsky: Apollo
Hindemith: Symphony Die Harmonie der Welt
Shostakovitch 6th

The Leningrad was always the most 'western-sounding' of the soviet orchestras, but listening to them again 60 years on they sound exotic compared with today's 'international-standard' orchestral sound, especially the brass . Nevertheless, these are the finest performances I've ever heard of these four works, utterly intense heartfelt playing.

[Stanfordian]

Verdi – ‘Rigoletto’
Opera in 3 acts, (prem. Venice 1851)
Beverly Sills (Gilda), Alfredo Kraus (Il Duca di Mantova), Sherrill Milnes (Rigoletto),
Samuel Ramey (Sparafucile/Il Conte di Monterone), Mignon Dunn (Maddalena),
Dennis O’neill (Borsa), John Rawnsley (Marullo), Malcolm King (Il Conte di Ceprano),
Ann Murray (Giovanna) & Sally Burgess (La Contessa di Ceprano)
Ambrosian Singers,
Philharmonia Orchestra / Julius Rudel
Recorded 1978 Abbey Road, London
EMI Classics (reissued on Warner), 2 CD set

[smittims]

Frank Bridge: Phantasy Piano Quartet (1910) . The Tunnell trio with Brian Hawkins (viola).

I hadn't listened to this Argo Lp for fifty years since the trio on the other side (one of Bridge's major works) is represented by a more prestigious recording on CD. But I was impressed by this very congenial quartet and it made me think what a good idea WW Cobbett's prescription of the 'Phantasy' form ' was, and how, perhaps , we might benefit from some equivalent today, if composers were encouraged to follow some sort of format. It might yield better music than the sad '25 for 25' project which in my view has been an embarassment.

[Stanfordian]

Frank Bridge: Phantasy Piano Quartet (1910) . The Tunnell trio with Brian Hawkins (viola).

I hadn't listened to this Argo Lp for fifty years since the trio on the other side (one of Bridge's major works) is represented by a more prestigious recording on CD. But I was impressed by this very congenial quartet and it made me think what a good idea WW Cobbett's prescription of the 'Phantasy' form ' was, and how, perhaps , we might benefit from some equivalent today, if composers were encouraged to follow some sort of format. It might yield better music than the sad '25 for 25' project which in my view has been an embarassment.

It's a super work and a fine recording too.

[Stanfordian]

Rossini – ‘Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra’
Opera in 2 acts (prem. Naples 1815)
Jennifer Larmore (Elisabetta), Bruce Ford (Leicester),
Majella Cullagh (Matilde), Maneula Custer (Enrico),
Antoninio Siragusa (Norfolk), Colin Lee (Guglielmo)
Geoffrey Mitchell Choir,
London Philharmonic Orchestra / Giuliano Carella
Recorded 2002, St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, London
Opera Rara, 3 CD set

[pastoralguy]

Continuing with my Brendel a Day project where I intend to listen to the entire contents of his ‘big box’. Mozart Piano concertos today!

I think I mentioned that my Brendel Big Box is missing its lid hence why I was able to pick it up so cheaply. I’m wondering what it would cost to commission a joiner to make a wooden lid for it. It’s the sort of thing that my late and much missed father in law could have conjured up very quickly.

[DoctorT]

Vaughan Williams
Symphony no. 5
RLPO/Vernon Handley