What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Stanfordian]

‘Songs of War’ – Ireland, Somervell, Vaughan Williams, Bridge, Butterworth, Finzi, Gurney Warlock, Rorem & Weill
Simon Keenlyside (baritone) & Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Recorded 2011, Potton Hall, Suffolk
Sony Classical, CD

Holbrooke
String Quartet No. 1 ‘Fantasie’ in D minor, Op. 17b
String Quartet No. 2 ‘Impressions’, Op. 59a
Song of the Bottle (from Folk Song Suite No. 2)
Eileen Shona for clarinet and string quartet
The Last Rose of Summer & Mavourneen Deelish for string quartet
(from Folk Song Suite No. 1)
Clarinet Quintet Op. 27
Rasumovsky Quartet with Richards Hosford (clarinet)
Recorded 2002, Great Hall, Bancroft's School, Woodford, Essex
Dutto Epoch, CD

[DoctorT]

Mozart
String Quintet in Bflat, K174
Arthur Grumiaux and friends

[silvestrione]

I've been working my way thru Glenn Gould playing Bach. Most enjoyable. Reading a book of his letters too.

Exhilarating playing, isn't it? I was a devotee, but started to find his interpretations idiosyncratic.

Last night, I accidentally (!), meaning to play something else, put on the Beethoven 'Eroica' in the classic recording by Karajan and the BPO in 1962. These days my attention can wander, e.g. listening to a Prom, but here I listened to every note.

It's because you see something new every time in the symphony, and I see something new every time in this performance. This time, in particular, the miraculous precision, all in service of the drama. And the timpani. And the perfection of the 'trumpet and drum' contributions in the background.

As always, I regret the rather distant woodwind, though there is some marvellous playing from them.

[smittims]

I too used to listen to Glenn Gould in Bach until I discovered Rosalyn Tureck and Gieseking . I value Gould for his Brahms and Schoenberg.

Not long ago I found a clean copy of the original LP of that 1962 Eroica . I've had the CD for years but playing the LP emphasises and recalls the freshness of discovery this performance brought.

[AuntDaisy]

Mondonville: Sonates Op. 3, Marc Minkowski & Les Musiciens du Louvre.
Enjoying every minute - having been lead astray by MickyD, Nick Armstrong, et al.

Up next Rameau & Mondonville from "Les Grands Motets Francais - Campra, Desmarets, Mondonville, Rameau"; Les Arts Florissants & William Christie.

[Stanfordian]

Puccini – ‘Turandot’
Birgit Nilsson (Turandot), Peter Klein (Altoum), Giuseppe di Stefano (Calaf), Leontyne Price (Liu), Nicola Zaccaria (Timur),
Kostas Paskalis (Ping), Ermanno Lorenzi (Pang), Murray Dickie (Pong) & Alois Pernersdorfer (Mandarin)
Chorus & Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera / Francesco Molinari-Pradelli
Recorded Live June 1961 Wiener Staatsoper, Austria
Orfeo d'Or, 2CDs

[richardfinegold]

Mondonville: Sonates Op. 3, Marc Minkowski & Les Musiciens du Louvre.
Enjoying every minute - having been lead astray by MickyD, Nick Armstrong, et al.

Up next Rameau & Mondonville from "Les Grands Motets Francais - Campra, Desmarets, Mondonville, Rameau"; Les Arts Florissants & William Christie.

That is a really interesting cover for the Mondonville

[AuntDaisy]

That is a really interesting cover for the Mondonville

It is quite striking. Nick Armstrong showed a higher resolution cover image in the Mondonville thread.

The booklet says: Detail from "Allegory of Europe" by Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1722). Or is it Europa?
More information at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston website and here.

[vinteuil]

.

.... monkeys was quite a thing then - one thinks of the singerie at Chantilly -

https://www.barnebys.com/blog/singerie-the-art-of-monkey-business

.

https://insideinside.org/project/the-grande-singerie-chateau-de-chantilly/

.

(by the way, the article under here in aunt daisy's above seems to me a total misreading of the picture, which is surely a depiction of 'folly', here 'European folly' - monkeys, cards, drinking songs, parrots, bagpipes &c - rather than European riches and sophistication)

[AuntDaisy]

...
(by the way, the article under here in aunt daisy's above seems to me a total misreading of the picture, which is surely a depiction of 'folly', here 'European folly' - monkeys, cards, drinking songs, parrots, bagpipes &c - rather than European riches and sophistication)

Your interpretation makes far more sense. Perhaps Christopher M. Hammel had his fingers Singed?

[smittims]

Beethoven : Piano sonatas op. 13 in C minor and op. 53 in C major: Solomon, a Warner CD of HMV 1950s recordings.

I was deeply inpressed by these performances, their clarity in the faster passages and depth of feeling in the slow movements and an absence of sentiment or showiness. The six 'nicknamed' sonatas are sometimes treated as warhorses or showpieces for fast flashy playing, but Solomon gives the most convincing readings I've heard.

[Stanfordian]

Rossini – ‘La Cenerentola’
Opera buffa in two acts( prem. 1817 Teatro Valle, Rome)
Angiolina (Cenerentola), Jennifer Larmore (mezzo-soprano); Don Ramiro, Raúl Giménez (tenor); Dandini, Gino Quilico (baritone); Don Magnifico, Alessandro Corbelli (buffa-bass); Alidoro, Alastair Miles (bass); Clorinda, Adelina Scrabelli (soprano); Tisbe, Laura Polverelli (mezzo-soprano)
Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden / Carlo Rizzi
Recorded 1994, Abbey Road Studios, London
Warner Classics, 2 CD set

[smittims]

Henri Pousseur: Rimes, for different sound sources (my translation). Members of the Rome S.O. , Bruno Maderna.

Listening to this RCA Italiana recording from over sixty years ago it struck me that the music still sounds completely new, whereas the 'new' music at this year's Proms could, with one or two exceptions, have been written over a hundred years ago (e.g. the trumpet concert and the Anna Clyne piece) . I can't help wonderig if the composers of this year's Prom commissions, have , like those asked to write music for the Coronation, been told to write something 'accessible' (i.e. old-fashioned).

[Stanfordian]

Mahler
Symphony No. 2 in C minor ‘Resurrection’
Masabane Rangwanasha (soprano) & Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)
Hallé Choir & Hallé Youth Choir,
Hallé / Kahchun Wong
Recorded Live Jan 2025 Bridgewater Hall, Manchester & in rehearsal
Hallé own label, CD

[richardfinegold]

It is quite striking. Nick Armstrong showed a higher resolution cover image in the Mondonville thread.

The booklet says: Detail from "Allegory of Europe" by Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1722). Or is it Europa?
More information at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston website and here.

Thanks for those links
The blogger seems completely unaware that the painting refers to a classical myth