What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[Stanfordian]

J.S. Bach
Sonatas for harpsichord & violin (BWV 1014-16 & 1017-19)
Trio Sonata No.5 for violin & basso continuo in C
(transcribed from Trio Sonata for organ in C, BWV 228)
Sonata for violin & basso continuo in G (BWV 1021)
Viktoria Mullova (baroque violin) & Ottavio Dantone (harpsichord, organ)
Vittorio Ghielmi (viola da gamba); Luca Pianca (lute)
Recorded March 2007, Alte Grieser Pfarrkirche, Bolzano, Italy
Onyx Classics, CD

Jodie Devos – Offenbach – ‘Colorature’
Coloratura arias from operettas and opera: Boule de neige, Vert-Vert, Orphée aux Enfers, Un Mari à la porte, Fantasio, Les Bavards, Mesdames de La Halle, Le Roi Carotte, Les Bergers, Fantasio, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Robinson Crusoé, Boule de neige, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Le Voyage dans la Lune
Jodie Devos (soprano)
Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Laurent Campellone
with Adèle Charvet (mezzo-soprano)
Recorded 2018, Studio 1, Bayerischen Rundfunk, Munich
Alpha Classics, CD
R.I.P. – Jodie Devos (1988–2024) died age 35.

[Master Jacques]

…or even Manuel de Falla or Granados.

... or Hidalgo, de Nebra, Barbieri, Gaztambide, Caballero, Chueca, Chapí, Bretón, Luna, Vives, Guridi, Sorozábal, Torroba et al. for 17th to 20th century music theatre... There is infinitely more to Spanish music than the blinkered folk at Radio 3 seem to realise. Falla is of course top bracket, however you choose to define it. So are the others various posters have cited, in their own fields.

[silvestrione]

I watched last night augmented strings of the BPO (in the Digital Concert Hall archive) with Rattle in the VW Tallis Fantasia. It was a gala concert to celebrate the Philharmonie, and set out to use its space in imaginative ways, so one set of soloists was sat at the back, elevated and separate. What a glorious sound they all made!

A bit of heresy: I love the work, but is it slightly too long? The repetitions must be part of the point, no doubt. Can anyone who knows it better than me explain why, structurally, it has to be as long as it is?

[smittims]

I have an audio recording of that concert ( In assume it's the same one with the Berlioz Symphonie Funebre and Mitsuko Uchida in Rihm's Quasi una Fantasia). All the pieces appear to have been chosen to exploit the spacial potential of the building, but I felt that this failed in the VW piece (by the way I felt it wasn't a particularly good performance). I get a better sense of the separation of the two orchestras in Boult's 1940 mono recording, made in the Colston Hall, Bristol ! As MIchael Kennedy pointed out many years ago in a Radio3 broadcast, the sense of spacial resonance is 'built in' to the scoring, and it works even a relatively dry acoustic such as Studio One, Abbey Road. I know it has been recorded in various places such as the Temple Church , and Winchester and Gloucester Cathedrals (the last a fascinating TV documentary with the late lamented Sir Andrew Davis ) but the location doesn't seem to matter as much as one might expect.

I wouldn't say it was 'heresy' to ask if it is 'slightly too long'. Many people have felt many musical works to be so, and others have disagreed. You may be interested to know that VW did shorten it a little between performance and publication, removing one statement of Tallis' theme from the closing section. I don't think it is a second too long; together with Elgar's Introduction and Allegro I think it the finest piece ever written for string orchestra.

I don't know if I'm someome who ' knows it better than' you as I don't know how well you know it! But I've been listening to it for sixty years. I'm sorry to disappoint you but I have no wish to explain or justify its length; I don't go in for that sort of thing. . It's never occurred to me that it could be thought too long.

Incidentally, there are no repetitions in the score.

[silvestrione]

I have an audio recording of that concert ( In assume it's the same one with the Berlioz Symphonie Funebre and Mitsuko Uchida in Rihm's Quasi una Fantasia). All the pieces appear to have been chosen to exploit the spacial potential of the building, but I felt that this failed in the VW piece (by the way I felt it wasn't a particularly good performance). I get a better sense of the separation of the two orchestras in Boult's 1940 mono recording, made in the Colston Hall, Bristol ! As MIchael Kennedy pointed out many years ago in a Radio3 broadcast, the sense of spacial resonance is 'built in' to the scoring, and it works even a relatively dry acoustic such as Studio One, Abbey Road. I know it has been recorded in various places such as the Temple Church , and Winchester and Gloucester Cathedrals (the last a fascinating TV documentary with the late lamented Sir Andrew Davis ) but the location doesn't seem to matter as much as one might expect.

I wouldn't say it was 'heresy' to ask if it is 'slightly too long'. Many people have felt many musical works to be so, and others have disagreed. You may be interested to know that VW did shorten it a little between performance and publication, removing one statement of Tallis' theme from the closing section. I don't think it is a second too long; together with Elgar's Introduction and Allegro I think it the finest piece ever written for string orchestra.

I don't know if I'm someome who ' knows it better than' you as I don't know how well you know it! But I've been listening to it for sixty years. I'm sorry to disappoint you but I have no wish to explain or justify its length; I don't go in for that sort of thing. . It's never occurred to me that it could be thought too long.

Incidentally, there are no repetitions in the score.

That's the one, yes, (though it is Kurtag's piece 'quasi una fantasia'. There is a Rihm piece in the programme.)

A friend has suggested it is 'theme + variations (three?) + theme', so some repetition built in. And of course, it may have been inadequacy in the performance that made me feel that, or wonder about it. Lack of variety in expression and attack, etc.

[pastoralguy]

Brahms. Symphony No.2

Herbert Von Karajan conducting Die Berliner Philharmoniker. 1980’s vintage.

Mrs PG and I are going to hear the Scottish Chamber Orchestra play it on Thursday and although it will be a completely different experience it’s an interesting primer.

[Ian Thumwood]

Nights in the Gardens of Spain, El Amor Brujo and the Three-cornered hat are surely more profound and substantial than most of Villa-Lobos' output. I enjoy Villa-Lobos for its vitality and colourful sonority (though Falla and Turina have at least as much of that) , but I don't find so much memorable thematic material there. Montsalvatge is also worth investigating. His Sinfonia de Requiem is a very moving work.

The aforementioned Gil Evans album includes a reworking from El Amor Brujo too but the best track on the disc plugs into Spanish folk music.

I need to check our Grenados more but was really disappointed by the Albeniz I bought fir sight reading. I feel that Albeniz was pretty lightweight and maybe of the same ilk as Cecile Cheminade who u have been listening to of late. The music seems of its time and perhaps demonstrative of the popular nature of alot of late 19th century music which I personally feel is not quite serious. It was either written for amateurs or has been marooned by the passage of time

I would really recommend the 9 volume Sonia Rubinsky set of Villa Lobos piano music on Naxos. I would concur that his work is not always profound but I feel he really challenged what was feasible with a piano....maybe because he was primarily a cellist. For me, I feel Albeniz was more populist and markedly more mainstream. In his defence, I feel that the late 19th century churned out alot of ordinary and populist music and was maybe the point at which music started to suffer due to populist demands. Rightly or wrongly, this is how I perceive Spanish classical music . I think Villa Lobos also plugged into popular music yet he subverted it more. At his best, he was quite radical . I feel that South American classical music is more interesting because it picked up native music's and was not ashamed to explore populist idioms. I quite like that tasteless element within Villa-Lobos ' music when if he was better at chamber music that large scale works in my opinion. There are times when I would concur that Villa-Lobos was low brow yet I feel his maverick and non traditional approach makes his music more appealing and less corny that the likes of Rodriguez or Albeniz.

[gradus]

Odd that the Tchaikovsky Orchestral Suites are so rarely performed, the third in particular is a peach. The final polonaise is as good a high spirited finale as you could wish for. The recording I listened to was on Supraphon, Beloklavik and the Prague SO.

[smittims]

I agree, gradus. I recently discovered the first suite and find it marvellous.

I think youhave misjudged Albeniz, Ian. The later movements of Iberia are complex harmonically, and very difficult to play even accurately, let alone convincingly. 'Written for amateurs' doesn't mean simple. Amateur pianists in Albeniz' day were often quite accomplished. Before radio and gramophone most piano music was published for amateurs to play , even Schumann,which is very difficult.

[Stanfordian]

J.S. Bach – Cantatas from Leipzig 1726-29 – Cantatas Vol. 50
Man singet mit Freuden vom Sieg, BWV149
Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen, BWV145
Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte, BWV174
Ich geh und suche mit Verlangen, BWV49
Hana Blažíková (soprano), Robin Blaze (counter-tenor),
Gerd Türk (tenor), Peter Kooij (bass),
Bach Collegium Japan / Masaaki Suzuki (organ / direction)
Recorded 2011, Kobe Shoin Women’s University Chapel, Japan
BIS-SACD

[richardfinegold]

Brahms. Symphony No.2

Herbert Von Karajan conducting Die Berliner Philharmoniker. 1980’s vintage.

Mrs PG and I are going to hear the Scottish Chamber Orchestra play it on Thursday and although it will be a completely different experience it’s an interesting primer.

Is that a commercial release or a live version? I have the seventies studio cycle augmented by a live series from Paris made at the same time, and I recently acquired the files (mp3) of the RFH cycle

[Master Jacques]

, I feel Albeniz was more populist and markedly more mainstream. In his defence, I feel that the late 19th century churned out alot of ordinary and populist music and was maybe the point at which music started to suffer due to populist demands. Rightly or wrongly, this is how I perceive Spanish classical music.

Wrongly. Big time. You at least ought to listen to Albéniz's Wagnerian opera Merlin and his more lyrical Pepita Jiménez to test your notion of "amateurism", concerning this supreme musical professional. And his Ibéria has been described by many leading professional pianists as the summit of romantic piano music, technically fiendish, but wonderfully layered and rewarding when it comes off. Of course he wrote bon bons to stay alive, as did Mendelssohn and Grieg before him. But please do him the respect of judging him by his best works, not the quotidian salon pieces.

[smittims]

I imagined pastoralguy was referring ot the June 1986 DG recording of the Brahms second . Hebert followed this with the first and third in 1987 and 88. They were issued on CD in 2003 with the 1977 fourth . (474 263 - 2) . He seemed to do the Second every ten years! :-

1940s : VPO (Columbia)
1950s: Philharmonia (Columbia)
1960s, '70s. 80s, BPO (Deutsche Grammophon).

[smittims]

William Walton: Prologo e Fantasia

Does anyone else know this curious work? It begins like a mighty symphony, then just as it's getting into its momentum, it suddenly stops.

I once borrowed a study score when the composer was still alive (and for all I know , kicking) and the librarian said to me ' I think this is all we're going to get of the Third Symphony'. And I think that's what it is. Rather sad.

[AuntDaisy]

Thanks to MickyD's prompt, David Munrow "Music of the the Gothic Era" followed by The Hilliard's "Perotin" - lovely music & interesting booklet, but a terribly dull cover.
Now on to Bach BWV 1041-1043 Edward Melkus et al. with a Vivaldi RV 540 extra.