What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? IV

[MickyD]

The same here, to the letter.

Why wasn’t there a rerelease of her F Couperin when she died? Mystery.

Naïve now own Astrée and their releases are always rather haphazard ..maybe we will be lucky and get the whole lot one day.

[Petrushka]

My traditional annual Messiah this year comes from Klemperer. The first time I've heard it.

Handel: Messiah
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano), Grace Hoffman (contralto), Nicolai Gedda (tenor), Jerome Hines (bass)
Philharmonia Chorus
Philharmonia Orchestra
Otto Klemperer

[smittims]

That remains one of my favourite Messiahs. I love the Philharmonia's string playing throughout and the wonderful effect of the trumpets at the end of Part 2. I think Klemperer retains Handel's scoring. It was .sadly, the last recording made by the 'old' Philharmonia. By the time of the last sessions in Novemnber 1964 they had already performed and recorded as the New Philharmonia.

I'm revisiting Karl Munchinger and the Stuttgart Chamber orchestra. Today it's Bach cantatas with Suzanne Danco and the first Brandenburg concerto. For me, Munchinger was part of a generation, along with Karl Richter and Thurston Dart, who achieved a happy medium in baroque music interpretation, livelier and clearer than the old romantic approach but more human and enjoyable than the fundamentalist 'hair-shirt' brigade who came after.

[Ian Thumwood]

I was wondering if the likes of Couperin and Rameau transferred well to piano ? Ihave sightread some of the latter and have a Cd on Naxos where this was played in Harpsichord. I quite like it but find the harpsichord a bit dry after a while.

One of the best Bach cds ihave is the Goldberg variations by Beatrice Rana. It is absolutely superb yet there is no suggestion thst the composition was not written for a modern piano. Do Coyperin and Rameau translate so well ?

[smittims]

I think so, yes. Marcelle Meyer recorded a complete Rameau on a modern grand in the 1940s and '50s, and I treasure three short pieces by Couperin recorded by Gina Bachauer as a fill-up to an early 1950s Saint-saens and Faure HMV LP: magical playing. As long as you remember that they were specificaly intended for harpsichord they can be rewarding to hear on a modern piano.

[MickyD]

I was wondering if the likes of Couperin and Rameau transferred well to piano ? Ihave sightread some of the latter and have a Cd on Naxos where this was played in Harpsichord. I quite like it but find the harpsichord a bit dry after a while.

One of the best Bach cds ihave is the Goldberg variations by Beatrice Rana. It is absolutely superb yet there is no suggestion thst the composition was not written for a modern piano. Do Coyperin and Rameau translate so well ?

Try these, they work well.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Couperin-Tic-Choc-Fran%C3%A7ois-composer/dp/B000MG1YCK?crid=2UTY6J8NJ7HCM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-C8X2aFQh0EP-ltTg1XzAE1BSc5uAxdUBbW_v7SZEVTDP89R9LGSq7FpY6XeLYaMzhf_VQk0KNZBJG6UuRT8ebAoqAYdZAq1Kc_QRyi29SWytN66AYV6gTOv23s3dtmNSZ0kdoL299ll3paeBiJ0PFojAjax-lMVOUEX1i2i1V5FgcoCNYqO3nWeakzlgdczXwIQwZ-Ol1k2PTnyUwTKVjH9ScRVhsFkHZo_ABjaV5w.eKRTmlOoQ0270N-XKvPlJIpYbC83_BTwhvlKaffSjzo&dib_tag=se&keywords=alexandre+tharaud&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1734972315&sprefix=Alexandre+Thar%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-12

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Alexandre-Tharaud-Rameau/dp/B097QK2D3H?crid=2UTY6J8NJ7HCM&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-C8X2aFQh0EP-ltTg1XzAE1BSc5uAxdUBbW_v7SZEVTDP89R9LGSq7FpY6XeLYaMzhf_VQk0KNZBJG6UuRT8ebAoqAYdZAq1Kc_QRyi29SWytN66AYV6gTOv23s3dtmNSZ0kdoL299ll3paeBiJ0PFojAjax-lMVOUEX1i2i1V5FgcoCNYqO3nWeakzlgdczXwIQwZ-Ol1k2PTnyUwTKVjH9ScRVhsFkHZo_ABjaV5w.eKRTmlOoQ0270N-XKvPlJIpYbC83_BTwhvlKaffSjzo&dib_tag=se&keywords=alexandre+tharaud&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1734972315&sprefix=Alexandre+Thar%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-15

The Couperin one going for just 2 quid!

[Hitch]

One of the best Bach cds ihave is the Goldberg variations by Beatrice Rana. It is absolutely superb yet there is no suggestion thst the composition was not written for a modern piano.

Thank you for mentioning the Rana recording. I found it on Spotify (whose search function works occasionally) and am enjoying it.

[pastoralguy]

Thank you for mentioning the Rana recording. I found it on Spotify (whose search function works occasionally) and am enjoying it.

Marvellous recording.

[pastoralguy]

Berg, Webern and Schoenberg. Piano music.

Elisabeth Leonskaja, piano.

Absolutely beautiful playing from Ms. Leonskaja.

[Ian Thumwood]

Thank you for mentioning the Rana recording. I found it on Spotify (whose search function works occasionally) and am enjoying it.

No problem. Glad you are enthusiastic about it too. Nice to know what this music shoukd should like when played properly !

i have the Henle Verlag edition of this as i find their printing to be the clearest.

[smittims]

I was listening to Elisabeth Leonskaja last night in Chopin. One of my favourite pianists. I have a recording ofher playing the Berg Sonata.

This morning I heard Boulez and the Cleveland orchestra in Ravel (Scheherezade with Anna Sophie von Otter) and it reminded me of one of the first recordings of his I heard, Symphonie Fantastique in the 1960s. If one didn't know he was a rigorous mid-20th century avant-gardiste one might have mistaken him for a romantic, so sumptuous are the sounds he elicits from his orchestra. In those days I would not have predicted he would go on to record a 'complete' Mahler and even some Bruckner.

[AuntDaisy]

"Music for Philip II", Gabrieli Consort / Paul McCreesh - Morales Officium defunctorum Missa pro Defunctis, Lobo Versa est in lucutum.

[Pulcinella]

I was wondering if the likes of Couperin and Rameau transferred well to piano ? Ihave sightread some of the latter and have a Cd on Naxos where this was played in Harpsichord. I quite like it but find the harpsichord a bit dry after a while.

One of the best Bach cds ihave is the Goldberg variations by Beatrice Rana. It is absolutely superb yet there is no suggestion thst the composition was not written for a modern piano. Do Coyperin and Rameau translate so well ?

I know that that recording is held in great esteem by many in this Forum, but (compared to Perahia or Hewitt, say - the latter anathema to some!) I find her interpretation just that bit too wayward in places for repeated listening. I've never quite understood the adulation she gets; I'm not sure she was the right choice for Pappano's Bernstein Age of anxiety, to give another example.

That said, it would be churlish not to be pleased that you and others enjoy her Goldbergs, one of my desert island pieces.

[Stanfordian]

Verdi – ‘Il Trovatore’
Carlo Bergonzi (Manrico), Antonietta Stella (Leonora), Fiorenza Cossotto (Azucena), Ettore Bastianini (Conte di Luna), Ivo Vinco (Ferrando), Armanda Bonato (Ines), Franco Ricciardi (Ruiz), Giuseppe Morresi (old gypsy); Angelo Mercuriali (a messenger)
Coro e Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala / Tullio Serafin
Recorded 1962 Teatro alla Scala, Italy
Deutsche Grammophon CD set

[richardfinegold]

I know that that recording is held in great esteem by many in this Forum, but (compared to Perahia or Hewitt, say - the latter anathema to some!) I find her interpretation just that bit too wayward in places for repeated listening. I've never quite understood the adulation she gets; I'm not sure she was the right choice for Pappano's Bernstein Age of anxiety, to give another example.

That said, it would be churlish not to be pleased that you and others enjoy her Goldbergs, one of my desert island pieces.

Same here. I am an admirer of Rana but her Goldbergs are inconsistent