What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Ian Thumwood]

Messiaen: Turangalila Symphony
Yuja Wang (piano), Cecile Lartigau (ondes Martenot)
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons

This is a terrific recording and performance from all concerned. The sound is very impressive indeed and bass drum fans will be well pleased. Anyone who feared that Yuja Wang would be given undue prominence can rest easy as the piano is superbly integrated within the orchestral texture. The ondes Martenot is also very well balanced and better than on most recordings. Super disc!

I love this composition and we had 5th movement played as we walked out of the registry when we got married. A bit different from the West Life my wife chose at the beginning of the ceremony !


I just feel that the 5th movement is probably the most ebullient piece of music in any genre. For me, Messiaen is the absolute apogee of classical music and the Turangulila the greatest symphony ever composed . Messiaen was an absolute titan of classical music. Curious about thus recording but ready have the version by Myung Whun Chung from early 1990s.

I always feel that Classical music was dominated by the twin peers of J s Bach and Bela Bartok. Messiaen is nearly up there in my opinion.

[oliver sudden]

I've just been enjoying Beethoven's Violin Concerto with Zino Francescatti andthe Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy, Columbia 33CX 1011. Probably nowhere near Beethoven's metronome markings

You presumably know that Beethoven didn’t leave any for op. 61 …but if you’re curious what they might have been if he had, as it happens I’ve just been reading Rudolf Kolisch’s superb ‘Tempo and Character in Beethoven’s Music’. An absolute tour de force, looking at Beethoven’s actual metronome markings and probable intended tempi in practically every major work and plenty of minor ones. I commend it to all and sundry.

[Barbirollians]

Liszt recital 1972 John Ogdon.

[Barbirollians]

I love this composition and we had 5th movement played as we walked out of the registry when we got married. A bit different from the West Life my wife chose at the beginning of the ceremony !


I just feel that the 5th movement is probably the most ebullient piece of music in any genre. For me, Messiaen is the absolute apogee of classical music and the Turangulila the greatest symphony ever composed . Messiaen was an absolute titan of classical music. Curious about thus recording but ready have the version by Myung Whun Chung from early 1990s.

I always feel that Classical music was dominated by the twin peers of J s Bach and Bela Bartok. Messiaen is nearly up there in my opinion.

To each their own . Admire them as I do Bartok and Messiaen -are not within a country mile of the greats of the First Viennese School.

[richardfinegold]

To each their own . Admire them as I do Bartok and Messiaen -are not within a country mile of the greats of the First Viennese School.

Agreed.
Brahms First Symphony Solti/CSO. I can’t remember if it was Barbs or Petrushka that advocated for this cycle a few weeks back. I hadn’t cared for it at the time of release and have avoided it. The First is sounding very good to me and it will be fun to explore the rest of the cycle

[Barbirollians]

Agreed.
Brahms First Symphony Solti/CSO. I can’t remember if it was Barbs or Petrushka that advocated for this cycle a few weeks back. I hadn’t cared for it at the time of release and have avoided it. The First is sounding very good to me and it will be fun to explore the rest of the cycle

‘‘Twas me I think Richard - glad to hear you are enjoying it .

[pastoralguy]

Agreed.
Brahms First Symphony Solti/CSO. I can’t remember if it was Barbs or Petrushka that advocated for this cycle a few weeks back. I hadn’t cared for it at the time of release and have avoided it. The First is sounding very good to me and it will be fun to explore the rest of the cycle

That cd of Solti conducting the Brahms symphony No.1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was one of the first CDs I ever acquired. The shop I bought it from had experienced problems with boxes being stolen. So I acquired it very cheaply as a disc in a plastic envelope. I played it often and really enjoyed it. (This was at a point when CDs were extremely expensive and each purchase required a lot of soul searching).

About 25 years later, I was at a church sale and found the box set that seemed very inexpensive. The chap manning the stall said that the reason it was so cheap was that the disc of the First Symphony was missing…

A nice little bit of serendipity.

[pastoralguy]

Brahms Clarinet Sonatas & Three pieces from Op.117.

The disc is entitled Brahms in Meiningen and is played by Keith Puddy on Mühlfeld’s clarinet whilst Malcolm Martineau plays on a 1881 Bechstein piano.

It a beautiful cd and makes me wish that Mr. Martineau had recorded more of the late Brahms piano music. He really has the character of this music in his bones. (Dare I say much more than a pianist I heard at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh on Monday who seemed to think he was playing the First Piano Concerto in the Albert Hall instead of late Brahms in a small hall).

[smittims]

Mozart: Divertimento in F , K247
Symphony in C, K200

The English Chamber Orchestra , Colin Davis.

Recorded in Conway Hall and Broadhurst Gardens in 1960 and '62, these are a relic of Colin's few years with Oiseau-Lyre, an important part of his pre-Philips career. He seems to have planned to work his way thought Mozart's later symphonies. I especially enjoyed the Divertimento, where he strikes just the right note. Possibly Ifor James on first horn.

[Master Jacques]

On a hot, muggy and still day such as today (29C) only Hovhaness will do:

Alan Hovhaness
Concerto for Harp and Strings, Spirit of Trees; Harp Sonata; The Garden of Adonis; Upon Enchanted Ground
Yolanda Kondonassis (harp), with David Leisner (guitar), Frank Hendrickx (flute), Herwig Coryn (cello), Patrick de Smet (tam-tam)
I Fiamminghi, c. Rudolf Werthen
Telarc CD-80530 (73')

This has restored heart, soul and mind (aided by a cup of single estate Assam).

[richardfinegold]

That cd of Solti conducting the Brahms symphony No.1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra was one of the first CDs I ever acquired. The shop I bought it from had experienced problems with boxes being stolen. So I acquired it very cheaply as a disc in a plastic envelope. I played it often and really enjoyed it. (This was at a point when CDs were extremely expensive and each purchase required a lot of soul searching).

About 25 years later, I was at a church sale and found the box set that seemed very inexpensive. The chap manning the stall said that the reason it was so cheap was that the disc of the First Symphony was missing…

A nice little bit of serendipity.

I had bought the Second, also when each CD purchase was an extravagance, and found it thick going. I also have a memory of sweltering through a Solti led Third at Ravinia that was enervating. This First however was lovely. I pulled a review from Fanfare that criticized the brass for playing to legato in the chorale of IV. It seems that the CSO brass was constantly criticized during the Solti years but this is the first time I’ve seen the charge that they were excessively legato

[Petrushka]

I had bought the Second, also when each CD purchase was an extravagance, and found it thick going. I also have a memory of sweltering through a Solti led Third at Ravinia that was enervating. This First however was lovely. I pulled a review from Fanfare that criticized the brass for playing to legato in the chorale of IV. It seems that the CSO brass was constantly criticized during the Solti years but this is the first time I’ve seen the charge that they were excessively legato

I heard Solti and the Chicago SO in the Brahms 3 in London in September 1978. From memory I recall it as being anything but enervating! It was followed by the Mahler 1.

[richardfinegold]

I heard Solti and the Chicago SO in the Brahms 3 in London in September 1978. From memory I recall it as being anything but enervating! It was followed by the Mahler 1.

No doubt my experience was influenced by heat, humidity, mosquitoes , sleep deprivation, and a complaining ex wife. Currrently enjoying the Fourth

[IanF]

I've been listening to Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune and Trois Nocturnes by Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker. A recent purchase based on the Radio 3 Building a Library recommendation back in 2016.

[Stanfordian]

Verdi – ‘Il trovatore’
Opera in four acts
Manrico - Franco Bonisolli; Azucena - Fiorenza Cossotto; Leonora - Leontyne Price; Conte di Luna - Piero Cappuccilli;
Ferrando - José van Dam; Ines - Maria Venuti; Ruiz - Heinz Zednik; Un vecchio zingaro - Martin Egel; Un messo - Ewald Aichberger
Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin,
Berliner Philharmoniker / Herbert von Karajan
Recorded 1977, Philharmonie, Berlin.
EMI, 2 CD set