What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Roger Webb]

Pernod and olives are out.....

https://www.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/podcasts/jazz-club/jazz-sous-les-pommiers-no-w-beauty-a-coutances-9268408

Edit. Oops, sorry, not classical.

[pastoralguy]

Mozart. Symphonies 38 ‘Prague’ and 40.

Roger Norrington conducting the London Classical Players.

Hard to believe that this recording dates from 1992. Very well played, conducted and recorded. There is one real oddity in that the disc takes 15 seconds before the music plays. I honestly thought there was something wrong with my Hi-Fi! It was a relief when the music started.

[oliver sudden]

Mozart. Symphonies 38 ‘Prague’ and 40.

Roger Norrington conducting the London Classical Players.

Hard to believe that this recording dates from 1992. Very well played, conducted and recorded. There is one real oddity in that the disc takes 15 seconds before the music plays. I honestly thought there was something wrong with my Hi-Fi! It was a relief when the music started.

Quite a few EMI discs of this vintage, including quite a bit of the LCP catalogue (from memory also some releases from the Taverners?) have such a chunk of ‘ambience’ at the beginning. I’ve no idea why!

[smittims]

By coincidence I too was listening to the 'Prague' symphony this morning, though in a performance I imagine souds differently from Mr. Norrington's.

It was the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Colin Davis, the first of his three recordings of the symphony, this one made for Oiseau-Lyre in the early '60s. I've been listening to all his early recordings of Mozart Symphonies and Divertimenti. This is very much how I like this music played: the F major Divertimento K247 was especially exquisite. It seems to me that Davis' tempi in Mozart stem from Sir Thomas Beecham; they're certainly similar and aim at depth , though there's not lack of sprightliness in the faster movements.

[richardfinegold]

Mozart. Symphonies 38 ‘Prague’ and 40.

Roger Norrington conducting the London Classical Players.

Hard to believe that this recording dates from 1992. Very well played, conducted and recorded. There is one real oddity in that the disc takes 15 seconds before the music plays. I honestly thought there was something wrong with my Hi-Fi! It was a relief when the music started.

How long is the gap between works? I remember reading a lot of criticism of CDs that had one work quickly following another on a disc that would leave substantial unused capacity. However a large block of silence at the start of a CD (BIS frequently guilty here) is nonsensical.

[Ian Thumwood]

I wonder if anyone else had an interest in thr complete Scarlatti sonatas set on Naxos? I have been collecting them for about 2 years and have found them addictive to the extent that I now have as many discs in this series as by Miles Davis. The discs are performed on piano with a different pianist on each CD. There is no order to the sonatas.

Someone commented about Mompou being being pleasure to play on the previous edition of this thread. Not fussed by Mompou but the comment summed up how I feel.about Scarlatti. Not sure I would be so fussed if recorded on harpsichord yet they make a nice contrast to the piano versions of Goldberg and English Suites. Only one volume has disappointed and this was due to the piano being out of tune.

[smittims]

I have the Brilliant Classics set with Scott Ross playing them on one of two, I think , Harpsichords.

I was introduced to the Scarlatti Sonatas many years ago by a friend who had the old LPs by Fernado Valenti and Sylvia Marlowe (also harpsichord), but for many years I listened to them on piano by such artists as Horowitz, Peter Katin, John McCabe, Clara Haskil, Angela Hewitt and Walter Gieseking, all of whom play them superbly . I do feel, however,that something is missing when they are played on a piano.

One intriguing fact about the 555 is that, like Shakespeare's plays there is not one single surviving autograph. It's even been suggested that they were taken down in dictation by skilled copyists in the royal service. Another intriguing thoight is that they might not have survived at all had not Scarlatti's friend, a well-known singer, collected and preserved them .

[Ian Thumwood]

Smithims

I was surprised by your comments as I assumed that Scarlatti had been more organised and that the original manuscripts would have been presented to the publishers. I had no idea that the music had nearly been lost.

The latest Naxos discs have sonatas that are not assigned Kirkpatrick numbers which makes me assume there are now more than 555 of them. Some of the sonatas on Naxos are premier recordings of what I assume are recent discovered pieces.

[pastoralguy]

I remember buying the Scott Ross set at Notting Hill Gate about 20 years ago in a set that was described by Gramophone as ‘like a small car battery!’ They then banged against my legs as I trudged around London. I’ve listened to the whole cycle twice and have loved every moment. If I won the lottery, I’d engage Sophie Yates to record them on harpsichords, ( I did ask her many years ago and she would be totally up for the project. She’d record them with different instruments!)

And I’d also see if I could persuade Mitsuko Uchida to record, if not a whole cycle, then some of them. Before the pandemic, we heard her play one as an encore after playing Beethoven’s fourth concerto and I swear that in over forty years of concert going it was the most exquisite piece of music making I have ever heard. I asked her about it some time later and she quipped that she would wait until she could no longer play anything else!

Anyway, wonderful pieces.

[silvestrione]

I wonder if anyone else had an interest in thr complete Scarlatti sonatas set on Naxos? I have been collecting them for about 2 years and have found them addictive to the extent that I now have as many discs in this series as by Miles Davis. The discs are performed on piano with a different pianist on each CD. There is no order to the sonatas.

Someone commented about Mompou being being pleasure to play on the previous edition of this thread. Not fussed by Mompou but the comment summed up how I feel.about Scarlatti. Not sure I would be so fussed if recorded on harpsichord yet they make a nice contrast to the piano versions of Goldberg and English Suites. Only one volume has disappointed and this was due to the piano being out of tune.

You mean you play Scarlatti yourself? They are marvellous, and there are of course pieces for just about all abilities. I have been learning the B minor one that Horowitz plays. But even some of the 'speedy' ones are not too difficult. (I confess to occasionally adapting them to be more pianistic!)

[silvestrione]

I remember buying the Scott Ross set at Notting Hill Gate about 20 years ago in a set that was described by Gramophone as ‘like a small car battery!’ They then banged against my legs as I trudged around London. I’ve listened to the whole cycle twice and have loved every moment. If I won the lottery, I’d engage Sophie Yates to record them on harpsichords, ( I did ask her many years ago and she would be totally up for the project. She’d record them with different instruments!)

And I’d also see if I could persuade Mitsuko Uchida to record, if not a whole cycle, then some of them. Before the pandemic, we heard her play one as an encore after playing Beethoven’s fourth concerto and I swear that in over forty years of concert going it was the most exquisite piece of music making I have ever heard. I asked her about it some time later and she quipped that she would wait until she could no longer play anything else!

Anyway, wonderful pieces.

Sophie Yates! Yes! I still have an LP of her playing Scarlatti. (Recommended on BAL by none other than Lionel Salter...)

[smittims]

Sophie Yates' CD The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Harpsichord music of the eighteenth century, is highly recommendable. Does anyone know if she is releated to conductor Martin Yates?

Rather different listening for me today:

Bax: The Garden of Fand
Butterworth : A 'Shropshire Lad' Rhapsody
Vaughan Williams: Eighth Symphony
Elgar: Symphony no.1.

Vintage Pye early stereo recordings made in the Free Trade Hall in 1956.

[Ian Thumwood]

Silvestrione

I initially bought 2 volumes of the Associated Boards sonatas around late 1990s when I was having jazz piano lessons. This was when I was starting to listen to classical music. My teacher was concerned that I had no technique and was very poor at sight reading. As a consequence I was put on a strict regime of Bach . Scarlatti was a composer I checked out in my own as my teacher did not have any real interest in his work.

Faced with the same problem 2 years, I picked up rhe Scarlatti again to improve my reading and I found the music very appealing and perfect for sight reading practice. I then picked up the Schirmer edition of 60 sonatas. The Naxos discs were bought to understand how the music should sound but I am addicted both to listening and playing these sonatas.

Harmonically Scarlatti strikes me as being sophisticated for his time and certainly more interesting than say Mozart or Haydn. He does seem underrated in my opinion . Of the composers whose works I bought to play, Scarlatti is probably the most rewarding yo play and maybe only matched by Haydn and Clementi as sight reading material.

[richardfinegold]

Ma Vlast, Kubelik/CSO, a Mercury reissue from 1953, part of a big Mercury reissue box, and I hadn’t played this until today. I believe that Pristine Audio may have also reissued this, along with Decca Eloquence. I’m guessing that most Forumites are familiar with this . I had just streamed Bychkov/Czech PO, which is a very different, more reflective, and the sound of the Czech PO just can’t be beat. These two interpretations are about as opposite as possible, and I enjoy them both

[smittims]

Vaughan Williams : A London Symphony, the Halle Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli. Recorded for Pye in the FreeTrade Hall in 1957. Ihad forgotten what a fine performance this is. I think there is none better. Everyone seems to have been at their best at this session: all the wind solos and the divided strings, for instance, are beautifully tuned, whih doesn't always happen. This I think is the Halle at its best. . .