What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Joseph K]

Bach - Concerto in C minor for violin and oboe, BWV 1060 - Rachel Podger & Brecon Baroque. On R3 just now!

[BBMmk2]

Parry
Judith
Sarah Fox (soprano)
Kathryn Rudge (mezzo-soprano)
Toby Spence (tenor)
Henry Waddington (bass)
Crouch End Festival Chorus
London Mozart Players
William Vann

[Stanfordian]

Snap !! I've just finished this classic performance in the latest Andrew Rose (Pristine) re-incarnation - fabulous in virtually every way.

Hiya Pianoman,

Yes, Don Giovanni is a great work, quite marvellously performed and the Alto remastering is top drawer.

[Mario]

MOZART W A

Church Sonatas K67, 68, 69, 144, 145, 212, 224, 225, 241, 244, 245, 263, 274, 278, 328, 329, 336

Collegium Jaroslav Tuma – B Matousek

Erm… An offday?

Mario

[visualnickmos]

MOZART W A

Church Sonatas K67, 68, 69, 144, 145, 212, 224, 225, 241, 244, 245, 263, 274, 278, 328, 329, 336

Collegium Jaroslav Tuma – B Matousek

Erm… An offday?

Mario

Mozart or the Collegium? Or both?

[BBMmk2]

Ottorino Respighi
Fountains of Rome
Pines of Rome
Il tramonto
Feste Romane
Christine Rice (soprano)
Orchestre dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma
Sir Antonio Pappano.

Poeme autunnale
Concerto Gregoriano
Ballata della Gnomidi
Lydia Mordkovitch (violin)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Edward Downes

Belfagor Overture
Toccata, for Piano & Orchestra
Tre Corali
Fantasia Slava for Piano & Orchestra
Geoffrey Tozer (piano)
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Edward Downes

Vetrate di Chiesa
Brazilian Impressions
Philharmonia Orchestra
Geoffrey Simon.

[HighlandDougie]

Beethoven: Violin Sonata no 9 in A, Op 47 'Kreutzer'

Viktoria Mullova (violin), Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano)

Might not make up for last night's disappointments but a really sparky and beautifully played performance, perfect for a summer's evening which I'm glad to say isn't featuring an overhead battle between Thor and Aurgelmir, as seems to be happening over London. Recorded at Wyastone Leys so that spacious acoustic I associate with Nimbus recordings.

[Mario]

Mozart or the Collegium? Or both?

Hi visualnickmos!

Apologies for the late reply!

No, nothing wrong with the Collegium, at least not to my ears anyway.

Wiki tells me that WAM wrote these between 1772 – 1780, so he started when he was just 16 years old. But this is no ordinary 16-year-old, is it? And the works are so… mundane, pedestrian, two-dimensional, and all so similar. Hardly worth a second listen, are they? And how on earth can they in any way be considered even remotely religious?

I hope I haven’t upset any Mozartians.

Mario

[Richard Barrett]

And how on earth can they in any way be considered even remotely religious?

They were written to be performed during Mass in Salzburg between the Epistle and the Gospel, as per prevailing service regulations in that time and place, and were purposely set in a more or less archaic style in order better to combine with the vocal music elsewhere in the service. These circumstances and the fact that they were meant to be performed only one at a time explain the sameness and other features of the music. On the other hand, Mozart's worklist runs to 600-odd compositions, and the proportion of these which are regularly performed and accorded "masterpiece" status is smaller than you might think, even if the rest always bears Mozart's fingerprints so to speak.

[Joseph K]

70 years ago to the day that Schoenberg died. R3 is playing the Gavotte from the Suite in G for String Orchestra. I might play more Arnie later today...

[Mario]

Richard, thanks for the clarification.

I might start another thread along the lines of, “Mozart is currently going through a bad phase”. Wasn’t there another thread recently which questioned Mozart’s legendary status?

I really didn’t mean to sound so critical of him apropos the Church Sonatas – I was merely disappointed in their quality.

Mario

[Richard Barrett]

Wasn’t there another thread recently which questioned Mozart’s legendary status?

Of course the point isn't to minimise the qualities of the works Mozart is best known for, but Mozart was a human being like the rest of us, and, like all composers of his time and earlier, he was working to commissions from princes and bishops and the like, which sometimes generated the highest level of inspiration, other times not. He didn't have the luxury of saying "thanks but no thanks, Your Whatever, I don't much feel like providing this particular content for you, I'd rather be thinking about my next masterpiece."

[Mandryka]

Richard, thanks for the clarification.

I might start another thread along the lines of, “Mozart is currently going through a bad phase”. Wasn’t there another thread recently which questioned Mozart’s legendary status?

I really didn’t mean to sound so critical of him apropos the Church Sonatas – I was merely disappointed in their quality.

Mario

I think they’re delightful, but not in Matousek’s performance. I got to know them through Chorzempa’s recording and it is still a favourite - and very different from the one you were listening to.


I enjoy this music at least as much as Frescobaldi’s Canzone da sonare.

That being said, I’m listening to Egarr Froberger volume 3 , capricci mostly - some of them very serious. It is an early recording by Egarr, and he seems to have the knack of leading the listener forward through the music invisibly, firmly and gently, I don’t sense Egarr’s presence, his interventions.

[Stanfordian]

Natalie Dessay – À L'Opéra
Opera Aria collection
CD 1: French mainly Romantic repertoire
CD 2: Italian Romantic opera arias
CD 3: German and English arias
Natalie Dessay (soprano)
Erato, recently reissued set 3 CD set

Ravel
String Quartet in F Major
La Tombelle
String Quartet in E Major, Op. 36
Mandelring Quartett
Recorded 2018 Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal, Cologne
Audite, CD recent release

[vinteuil]

Tombelle – 'Concertante & Orchestral Works'
‘Impressions matinales’ – Orchestral Suite No. 1
‘Livre d’images’ – Orchestral Suite No. 2
‘Fantasy’ for piano and orchestra, op. 26 (rev. 1896 version)
Hannes Minnaar (piano)
Brussels Philharmonic / Hervé Niquet
Recorded 2008, Studio 4 Flagey, Brussels, Belgium
Bru Zane – Portraits series, vol. 5 - CD 1 of 3 from set -
Tombelle Musique de chambre, chorale et symphonique

La Tombelle
String Quartet in E Major, Op. 36
Mandelring Quartett

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... Antoine Louis Joseph Gueyrand Fernand Fouant de La Tombelle - such a good name!

But is the music worth investigating?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_de_La_Tombelle

EDIT - oops, I had forgotten that I had already asked a year or so ago -

... are you enjoying your exploration of Antoine Louis Joseph Gueyrand Fernand Fouant de La Tombelle [1854-1928]? I see The Times this morning gives it a three star (out of a potential five) review, adding "The music’s engaging, the performances decent, and the whole serves as a salutary reminder that you don’t have to be a Beethoven to deserve a spot in the sun... "


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and you kindly replied -

These are well-crafted and entirely agreeable works by La Tombelle but thankfully I wasn't expecting anything of the elevated quality of Saint-Saëns, Franck, Chausson, d'indy and Massenet. There is much to enjoy on this Bru Zane set which is ideal for those wanting to explore the byways of French Romantic music.

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