What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Stanfordian]

Marina Viotti – ‘Mezzo Mozart’
Mozart
Opera arias & concert arias, sacred Latin works
Marina Viotti (mezzo-soprano)
Gli Angeli Genève / Stephan MacLeod
Sebastian Wienand (fortepiano)
Recorded 2023, Großer Festsaal, Landgasthof Riehen, Basel
Aparté, CD

Mozart & Beethoven – Quintets for Winds & Piano
Mozart
Quintet for piano & winds in E flat, K452
Andante (arranged B. Schober) for piano & winds, from Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K467 'Elvira Madigan'
Beethoven
Quintet in E flat major for piano & winds, Op. 16
Margarita Höhenrieder (piano)
Bläsersolisten der Dresden Staatskapelle
Recorded 2012 Bibliothekssaal, Polling, Germany
Hänssler Classic, CD
A favourite album. Magnificent playing!

[pastoralguy]

There is more than 1 Schubert Impromptu recording in that box, correct? I remember reaching for what I thought was the seventies recording and instead there was one from much later

Yes.

Impromptus D.899 Nos. 1-4. February 1972

As above. 1988. July.

Impromptus D.899 No.3. 2008. December. Live.

Impromptus D.935 1-4. 1974. June.

As above. 1988. July.

Impromptus D.935. No.1. 2007. August. Live.

[HighlandDougie]

Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon

Not one of my favourite works - until now - but I am completely seduced by this recording. I'm prepared to forgive Mr Collon for his, "Turangalila from memory - and played while standing", nonsense if he can continue to record Sibelius like this recording. Forget Karajan et al.

[smittims]

Well, with respect I shan't (can't?) forget Karajan , but certainly having a Finnish orchestra helps ,and Collon is a fine conductor of 20th-cent. rep.

I tend to listen to music as abstract , i.e. just as music , and I wondered today while listening to Shostakovitch 7 how many people would link it to a war at all, let alone Leningrad in 1941, if they hadn't been told. And this, even, in a performance by the Leningrad Philharmonic , who really give it their all here, ina 1953 recording, only twelve years after the siege, conducted by Mravinsky who was their chief conductor in 1941 (what you might call 'historically-informed performance' ) .

[Stanfordian]

Sinfonia Grange au Lac – 'Beethoven & Richard Strauss'
Beethoven
Symphony No. 3 'Eroica'
Richard Strauss
Metamorphosen, study for 23 solo strings, TRV 290
Sinfonia Grange au Lac / Esa-Pekka Salonen
Recorded Live 2018, Salle de Concert, La Grange au Lac, Évian-les-Bains, France
Alpha Classics, CD

Ruth Ziesak – Franz Liszt – 'Lieder'
Collection of 21 Lieder with piano
Ruth Ziesak (soprano)
Gerold Huber (piano)
Recorded 2007, Kammermusiksaal Deutschlandfunk, Cologne
Berlin Classics, CD

[Roger Webb]

................... I wondered today while listening to Shostakovitch 7 how many people would link it to a war at all, let alone Leningrad in 1941...............

I too sometimes wonder, if the 'meaning' of a certain piece would occur to a listener on first hearing it. An example might be Vivaldi Four Seasons. Who could pick out the seasons 'depicted' on first listening without reading the sleeve notes!......the slow bits in Winter
and the equivalent in Summer could easily be swapped round, and we'd swear that they perfectly represent the 'mood' of the season.

Although I don't totally go along with Stravinsky who declared that essentially music cannot represent anything.....and certainly not with the 'Butler of Waffling Hall' (Tom Service), who declared 'La Mer' wasn't 'about' the sea at all, and that 'Impressionism' in music didn't exist!

[Master Jacques]

Well, with respect I shan't (can't?) forget Karajan , but certainly having a Finnish orchestra helps ,and Collon is a fine conductor of 20th-cent. rep.

I tend to listen to music as abstract , i.e. just as music , and I wondered today while listening to Shostakovitch 7 how many people would link it to a war at all, let alone Leningrad in 1941, if they hadn't been told. And this, even, in a performance by the Leningrad Philharmonic , who really give it their all here, ina 1953 recording, only twelve years after the siege, conducted by Mravinsky who was their chief conductor in 1941 (what you might call 'historically-informed performance' ) .

While agreeing that music can only rarely be said to "depict" anything, it is every bit as impossible for it to appear "abstract". Even a Bach fugue can't claim any such luxury.

In the case of the Leningrad symphony, I imagine that anyone listening to the first movement's section built on the Lehár ('Maxim') quotation we might guess we were hearing a satirical take on a "war machine", due to the insistent rhythm, blaring brass and repeated melodic cell, being compared to trotting off to a Paris restaurant. Though I suppose it could be a circus parade rather than marching into war. At any event, it is nothing if not pictorial.

(It only just occurs to me, that perhaps Shostakovich was picking up on the pun between his famous Merry Widow allusion - 'Da geh' ich zu Maxim' - and the adapted Maxim guns being hauled towards Leningrad. I wouldn't put it past him. Or am I being too clever?)

[Master Jacques]

I too sometimes wonder, if the 'meaning' of a certain piece would occur to a listener on first hearing it. An example might be Vivaldi Four Seasons. Who could pick out the seasons 'depicted' on first listening without reading the sleeve notes!......the slow bits in Winter
and the equivalent in Summer could easily be swapped round, and we'd swear that they perfectly represent the 'mood' of the season.

Quite so. It is of course an open question as to whether the sonnets were written post-hoc as marketing tools, as many academics think, or were pre-existent. I challenge anyone listening with an "innocent ear" to choose which concerto goes with which particular season: they seem interchangeable, perhaps with little details (e.g. the "barking dog" violas) added before publication, to spice things up.

Nobody would deny the marketing worked, to ensure that these four (excellent) concerti have almost eclipsed pretty much everything else Vivaldi wrote.

[Master Jacques]

Handel: Concerti Grossi Op. 6 (1-4)
Concentus Musicus Wien
c. Nikolaus Harnoncourt
(Teldec Das alte Werk 0630-17370 3-CD set, 1983 rec.)
Although in some ways this seems a "dated" set - like many things up-to-date in their time - it still provides great pleasure, and much stimulation to consider these wonderful works afresh. As Harnoncourt says in the notes, "I am interested in original sound only if ... I consider it to be the best way of presenting a particular piece of music today'. Wise words, and though 1983 is not 2025, the set stands as a monument to that philosophy. We may not always agree with the conductor's interpretative choices, or his micro-management of cadences, but my goodness! he and his players hold our attention still. Outstanding music-making.

[richardfinegold]

Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82

Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Nicholas Collon

Not one of my favourite works - until now - but I am completely seduced by this recording. I'm prepared to forgive Mr Collon for his, "Turangalila from memory - and played while standing", nonsense if he can continue to record Sibelius like this recording. Forget Karajan et al.

Interesting the Collon Fifth isn’t available from Qobuz, which only lists the Seventh. Apple, however has it.
For years the only Sibelius symphonies that I knew were 1/2. Finally I acquired the Davis/Boston complete set on LP and was nonplussed by the Fifth, of which I had read great praise. I wasn’t a convert until I heard it in concert.
A nit to pick about the Leningrad: the siege began in 1941, but wasn’t the premiere in 1943 or 1944? First the work had to be composed and then rehearsed . I also think that as far as being abstract music, the subsequent movements could be about anything, but the Invasion Movement will forever be associated with it’s circumstances.

[smittims]

The first performance of the seventh was in Kyubyshev on 5 March 1942. The Leningrad premiere was on 9 August. It had been played in New York, 19July 1942 (Toscanini) and the British pemeire was at the 1942 Proms (Can't find an exact date). . .

[smittims]

I endorse your liking for Harnoncourt's Handel op. 6, Master Jaques. This recording was quite a discovery for me.

The only thing I found puzzling was that Alice Harnoncourt's solo violin paying appeared to be in the background,rather like the second orchestra in Vaughan Williams' Fantasia, rather than in the foreground as in most recordings. I imagine that, as ever, N.H. considered all aspects of the interpretation carefully , so he must have had some reason.

[Pulcinella]

The first performance of the seventh was in Kyubyshev on 5 March 1942. The Leningrad premiere was on 9 August. It had been played in New York, 19July 1942 (Toscanini) and the British pemeire was at the 1942 Proms (Can't find an exact date). . .

This is from Wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._7_(Shostakovich)#Premières
No date for the Proms performance but there had been a European broadcast before that.

The world première was held in Kuybyshev on 5 March 1942. The Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, conducted by Samuil Samosud, gave a rousing performance that was broadcast across the Soviet Union and later in the West as well. The Moscowpremière took place on 29 March 1942 in the Columned Hall of the House of Unions, by a joined orchestra of the Bolshoi Orchestra and the All-Union Radio Orchestra.

The microfilmed score was flown to Tehran and travelled to the West in April 1942. The symphony received its broadcast première in Europe by Sir Henry J. Wood and the London Philharmonic Orchestra on 22 June 1942 in London, and concert première at a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The première in North America took place in New York City on 19 July 1942, by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini in a concert broadcast nationwide on the NBC radio network. This performance was originally released on LP by RCA Victor in 1967.

[AuntDaisy]

Haydn String Quartets Op.64 nos. 1, 2 & 3; The Lindsays. Op.20 1, 3 & 4 were on this morning.
Apart from the beautiful playing, I love the ASV booklets & their covers.

[Master Jacques]

I endorse your liking for Harnoncourt's Handel op. 6, Master Jaques. This recording was quite a discovery for me.

The only thing I found puzzling was that Alice Harnoncourt's solo violin paying appeared to be in the background,rather like the second orchestra in Vaughan Williams' Fantasia, rather than in the foreground as in most recordings. I imagine that, as ever, N.H. considered all aspects of the interpretation carefully , so he must have had some reason.

True, it's an interesting "natural concert hall balance" between the solo group and the ripieno. Very like the expected aural perspective in the RVW work. Perhaps it was something to do with Vienna's Casino Zögenitz acoustic. I find this more pleasant in Baroque concerti than the reverse: too often the concertino group sounds unnaturally close-miked, but here it is almost more of a reflective echo. Did you note that the solo violin in No.10 here was the very young Thomas Zehetmair?

Harnoncourt's reasons were usually the best one: to surprise us, and make us sit up and listen properly! Of course, these scores have room for interpretative freedom, as part of their essence.