What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[smittims]

To be fair to Ian, he does admit that he hasn't listened 'much' to Dvorak . Many people who haven't listened 'much' to Mozart or Bach have said 'much' the same about their music. I did enjoy the Golden Spinning Wheel the other day of Classical Live, a glorious work I remember from the Beecham recording.


I think the quality of performance can make a difference. I underrated the ninth symphony ('from the New World') for years until I heard the Toscanini recording.

[vinteuil]

To be fair to Ian...

... I don't think his asseverations here and elsewhere require one to be fair!

.

[Ian Thumwood]

I think that Dvorak is typical of late 19th century music and some of the composers like Rachmaninov and Suk who crept unto the 20th century. It is not objectionable but you can understand why music had to change in 20th century . I quite like the opus 44 wind serenade by Dvorak but i am more interested in early 20th century and composers likr Bach and Scarlatti.

I think of Dvorak as more of a consolidator as opposed to being an innovator. I am generally not too fussed by nationalist composers although i so like Na Vlast. The main issue for me ia few composers reached tge heights of Bartok in this respect.

Dvorak is totally outside of my listening experience which was initially taunted by the New World symphony.

[LMcD]

Paul O'Dette (10-course lute and chitarrone) playing works by Kapsberger.

[rauschwerk]

Last night I continued with my third journey through the cantatas of Bach - mainly the Suzuki recordings. BWV31: Der Himmel lacht, Die Erde jubilieret (Weimar 1715). I enjoyed this, then decided on something completely different: The Dicky Bird and the Owl - Victorian songs and ballads with Robert Tear, Benjamin Luxon and Andre Previn. A quite delightful collection from 50 years ago.

[Stanfordian]

‘The Second Viennese School’ – Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern & Alban Berg
Schoenberg
String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7
String Quartet No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 10
String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30
String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37
String Quartet in D major
Webern
Five Movements for string quartet, Op. 5
String Quartet
Six Bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9
String Quartet, Op. 28
Berg
Lyric Suite for string quartet
String Quartet, Op. 3
Margaret Price (soprano) (Schoenberg 2)
LaSalle Quartet
Recorded 1970, Pienansaal der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich
First issued on 5 LP as DGG 2720 029
Brilliant Classics, 4 CD set

In the next few days I'll be dipping into this set. Top drawer playing of fascinating works from the Zweite Wiener Schule.

[richardfinegold]

Continuing with my Brendel Big Box project!

Today, Disc 75.

Robert Schumann. Symphonic Studies. Op.13..

Mussorgsky. Pictures at an Exhibition.

Franz Liszt. Vexilla Regis Prodeunt. S.185
Weinnachtsbaum Suite. S. 186. No.6 Glockenspiel.

Only 20 discs to go…

I don’t think I’ve played that one. The Schumann is one of my favorite pieces by that composer.

[pastoralguy]

I don’t think I’ve played that one. The Schumann is one of my favorite pieces by that composer.

It’s a wonderful disc, imho.

[smittims]

I acquired that La Salle set when it came out in a luxury box with a wonderful book of documents, letters, and analyses, in 1972. It was my introduction to the music of Webern, and to Schoenberg's quartets which I did not know. I still have it, the cloth-bound box now faded and a little worn, though supplemented by the Brilliant Classics CD reissue. A treasurable set of discs indeed.

Another treasurable recording, which for no particular reason I never heard until today:

Brahms: Concerto in D minor. Artur Schnabel, LPO/ Georg Szell. World Records SH223. This is a truly marvellous performance and a splendid LP transfer of the 1930s 78s by Anthony Griffith, who seems to have been running WRC at the time and using it as a reissue label for historic EMI recordings with his 'Retrospect Series'. . .

[Serial_Apologist]

Gosh! Isn’t that a wonderful piece?!

Yes - a more than worthy successor to the various Beethoven themes and variations specially for the piano, as well as forerunner to those of Brahms and Reger in particular - and one of my favourite Schumann works, of which my mother was a fine interpreter.

[Serial_Apologist]

‘The Second Viennese School’ – Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern & Alban Berg
Schoenberg
String Quartet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 7
String Quartet No. 2 in F sharp minor, Op. 10
String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30
String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37
String Quartet in D major
Webern
Five Movements for string quartet, Op. 5
String Quartet
Six Bagatelles for string quartet, Op. 9
String Quartet, Op. 28
Berg
Lyric Suite for string quartet
String Quartet, Op. 3
Margaret Price (soprano) (Schoenberg 2)
LaSalle Quartet
Recorded 1970, Pienansaal der Akademie der Wissenschaften, Munich
First issued on 5 LP as DGG 2720 029
Brilliant Classics, 4 CD set

In the next few days I'll be dipping into this set. Top drawer playing of fascinating works from the Zweite Wiener Schule.

Now that's the kind of fellow listener I identify with!

I have presently reached the year 1920 in my journey through British C20 music. So today I have listened to:

Bax - Symphony No 1
Ireland - Piano Sonata (a passionate stylistic amalgam of Vaughan Williams, Ravel and Rachmaninov - probably my favourite piece of his)
Bliss - Conversations; Rout.

[Serial_Apologist]

To be fair to Ian, he does admit that he hasn't listened 'much' to Dvorak . Many people who haven't listened 'much' to Mozart or Bach have said 'much' the same about their music. I did enjoy the Golden Spinning Wheel the other day of Classical Live, a glorious work I remember from the Beecham recording.


I think the quality of performance can make a difference. I underrated the ninth symphony ('from the New World') for years until I heard the Toscanini recording.

I think Ian won't mind me saying that he is especially knowledgeable and insightful in areas of musical transcultural lineage in late 19th and early 20th century American music, about which he could tell us a considerable amount. Not particularly my interest, and he probably won't thank me for mentioning it ; but I do agree with his implied preference for Smetana over Dvorak. I hear more of Smetana in Janacek than of Dvorak, and vice versa in the case of Suk, who might be viewed as the Czechoslovakian Mahler, perhaps?

[IanF]

Elgar's Cello Concerto op 85 in a version from 1985, with Julian Lloyd Webber playing with the RPO conducted by Yehudi Menuhin.

[smittims]

Berlioz: Grand Messe des Morts. RPO choirs and orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham. Royal Albert Hall, November 1959 . The last concert in his 50-year association with this hall.

[Ian Thumwood]

I think Ian won't mind me saying that he is especially knowledgeable and insightful in areas of musical transcultural lineage in late 19th and early 20th century American music, about which he could tell us a considerable amount. Not particularly my interest, and he probably won't thank me for mentioning it ; but I do agree with his implied preference for Smetana over Dvorak. I hear more of Smetana in Janacek than of Dvorak, and vice versa in the case of Suk, who might be viewed as the Czechoslovakian Mahler, perhaps?

Thanks very much for your comnents. This is just an era of musuc that interests me. I would not be surprised if rhe "Going home" theme from Dvorak's New World symphony had not come from Will Marion Cook. The latter published 2 anthologies of black American folk music.

There is a whole nether world of black music in 1890s to 1910s America which bridged musical theatre , serious music and vaudevile which is overlooked and thst included the likes of Joe Jordan, will Vodery , James Reece Europe and Cook. Quite a few standards date from 1910s were written by black singwriters prior to the likes of Jerome Kern. They were a precursor to rhe Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.

It is curious to chase the chain back and see rhe involvement of Dvorak who must of been one of the first European composers to see something in black music.