What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Serial_Apologist]

Like many other earlier 20th-century composers, Cyril Scott wrote two kinds of music : short , light piano pieces and songs to make a living, and longer serious stuff which wouldn't be profitable. The latter tends to be forgotten or neglected, unless revived by enthusiasts. This applies also to , say, Francis Chagrin, William Alwyn, Ruth Gipps and Richard Rodney Bennett.

I think Richard Rodney Bennett's more substantial orchestral and chamber music up to his abandonment of twelve-tone serial and atonal expressive means more generally in his pleasant enough Third Symphony, of whose first movement he spoke embarrassingly apologetically of having used a tone row, are well deserving of revival. I once asked another composer, with whom RRB had collaborated in the early 70s, what to make of this defensiveness. "Politics" was his reply.

[Ian Thumwood]

Whenever RRB is mentioned, I always think of Ki.ng Kennytone's dismissive remark

[Serial_Apologist]

Whenever RRB is mentioned, I always think of Ki.ng Kennytone's dismissive remark

I finally got to rename him Wretched Rodney Bin It! Perhaps a bit harsh - some of the approximately pre-1986 works, such as the orchestral song cycle Voices which sounded for all the world as if Alban Berg had got together with William Walton, were extremely fine, as were the film scores, in which he proved brilliant at pastiching other styles and period of music - something which troubled his erstwhile college professor, leading him to wonder if the man had any personality. He was no bad jazz pianist, although the ventures from the 1980s onwards at being a jazz singer, where he said he felt most at home, were to be frank cringeworthy in the extreme. He moved to New York, but as far as I know never collaborated with better-known jazz musicians, apart from Claire Martin!

[smittims]

I value Bennett for his three symphonies, al of which are splendid in my opinion, and for his advocacy of Constant Lambert's music and that of others (Gerrard Williams for example) at a time when they were severely undervalued. His choral work Changes is well worth reviving. There was a R3 broadcast a couple of years ago.

[richardfinegold]

WFMT is currently playing the Piano Trio transcription of Beethoven Second Symphony, with Ax and Kavakos and I am uncertain who the cellist is. It’s fairly effective

[smittims]

I agree. there's a good Philips version by the BeauxArts trio.

I've just been listening to The Snow Maiden by Rimsky-Korsakov, in a Bolshoi production. It seems that Rimsky, acknowledging that opera was 'an exotick and irrational entertainment' decided his operas would deal deal with supernatural themes, fairy tales , magic, and the like. While some may regard this as a cop-out, I do think it does away with the accusations of unreaeality that straightforward dramatic opera often attracts.

[pastoralguy]

WFMT is currently playing the Piano Trio transcription of Beethoven Second Symphony, with Ax and Kavakos and I am uncertain who the cellist is. It’s fairly effective

Pretty sure it’ll be Yo-Yo Ma.

[Ian Thumwood]

I finally got to rename him Wretched Rodney Bin It! Perhaps a bit harsh - some of the approximately pre-1986 works, such as the orchestral song cycle Voices which sounded for all the world as if Alban Berg had got together with William Walton, were extremely fine, as were the film scores, in which he proved brilliant at pastiching other styles and period of music - something which troubled his erstwhile college professor, leading him to wonder if the man had any personality. He was no bad jazz pianist, although the ventures from the 1980s onwards at being a jazz singer, where he said he felt most at home, were to be frank cringeworthy in the extreme. He moved to New York, but as far as I know never collaborated with better-known jazz musicians, apart from Claire Martin!

'High camp' as King Kennytone used to say.

Not surprised that Stan Getz was not interested in RRB's saxophone concerto.

[richardfinegold]

Pretty sure it’ll be Yo-Yo Ma.

Yeah was what I was guessing but the streamer was cutting off meta data

[Ian Thumwood]

The series of Haydn piano sonatas on Naxos by jeno Jando are current obsession . I love the clarity of Haydn's work. This is an excellent set of discs. Just a few volumes outstanding now but tempted by the piano trios next. Haydn has been a recent discovery for me both to listen to and play.

[smittims]

Bach; The Goldberg Variations. Wilhelm Kempff, (modern)piano. a 1970 Deutsche Grammophon recording.

Kempff plays the Busoni edition, and I was so taken aback by the start that I was reminded of Eric Morecambe playing the Grieg Concerto. But I soon began to enjoy it, and by the end preferred it to my previous favourite modern piano versions, by Rosen and Tureck.

Kempff use lively tempi. Of course HIPP fans would run screaming from the room, but there yougo...

[AuntDaisy]

Bach; The Goldberg Variations. Wilhelm Kempff, (modern)piano. a 1970 Deutsche Grammophon recording.

Kempff plays the Busoni edition, and I was so taken aback by the start that I was reminded of Eric Morecambe playing the Grieg Concerto. But I soon began to enjoy it, and by the end preferred it to my previous favourite modern piano versions, by Rosen and Tureck.

Kempff use lively tempi. Of course HIPP fans would run screaming from the room, but there yougo...

Thanks smittims - listening to Kempff on Naxos Music Library (courtesy of our local library) - I see what you mean about the start & all the right notes...
Beautifully played & I managed not to run away (although I still prefer Trevor Pinnock).

In 2000, Gerard McBurney presented a Discovering Music on the Goldbergs with pianist Tim Horton - fascinating the way they pulled the variations apart.
I wish R3 still did DM (Music Nap and the attrocious Listening Service are poor replacements).

[Master Jacques]

I agree. there's a good Philips version by the BeauxArts trio.

I've just been listening to The Snow Maiden by Rimsky-Korsakov, in a Bolshoi production. It seems that Rimsky, acknowledging that opera was 'an exotick and irrational entertainment' decided his operas would deal deal with supernatural themes, fairy tales , magic, and the like. While some may regard this as a cop-out, I do think it does away with the accusations of unreaeality that straightforward dramatic opera often attracts.

Just over half of Rimsky's operas are in fairy-tale mode (and I completely share your positive sentiment about the challenge to so-called "real life" which the subject matter offers). Yet Servilia, The Tsar's Bride and the Polish-set Pan Voyevode are historical-realist, as are The Maid of Pshkov and its pendant Vera Sheloga. Then of course there is Mozart and Salieri. In range, as well as quality, Rimsky is one of the greatest of musical dramatists, one whose time is now.

In any case, Dr. Johnson's exotic irrationality does not exclude engagement with contemporary life. In point of fact The Snowmaiden - which sets Ostrovsky's magnificent and much-performed play - deals with deep questions of human life, death, art and society as seen through the prism of natural ritual, and tells us more about our "real lives" than any TV realism ever could. It's no more fairy-tale fantasy than The Rite of Spring.

There are of course several Bolshoi recordings out there, of which the 1943 Kondrashin recording, with Lemeshev as Tsar Berendey and his onetime wife Irina Maslennikova in the title role, is by some way my personal favourite.

[richardfinegold]

The series of Haydn piano sonatas on Naxos by jeno Jando are current obsession . I love the clarity of Haydn's work. This is an excellent set of discs. Just a few volumes outstanding now but tempted by the piano trios next. Haydn has been a recent discovery for me both to listen to and play.

I had lunch with Klaus Heymann, the founder of Naxos, back when these recordings were being made. He said Jando was completely unfamiliar with Haydn piano music until he learnt it for those recordings. That is probably not uncommon with Haydn, as I suspect that many bigger name pianists that did Haydn surveys did likewise

[AuntDaisy]

Bach Toccatas BWV 910-916 Trevor Pinnock.
Gloriously lively and the CD "fillers" are a treat. I wish the CD booklet had the original LP photos & extensive notes...