What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Brigg Fair on the JS hosted Sunday. It was from the Halle/Elder recording. Anybody else here remember the Barbirolli HMV late sixties LP - a filler to Appalachia - the recording deteriorated towards the end of side 2 - I think it was tidied up when transferred to CD.

I had the LP re-issue on HMV "Greensleeves" in the early '80s, cloughie: I don't remember any obvious deterioration on that. (Dearest Heavens - nearly forty years ago!!!)

[teamsaint]

Nutcracker.
RPO
Rodzinski.

Very invigorating.

[BBMmk2]

Nutcracker.
RPO
Rodzinski.

Very invigorating.

Aha! Someone played a Rodzinski recording, at last!

Having a Bach day today. I first played Robert Quinney's CDs Vols2 & 3 and now playing Masaaki Suzuki's cycle.Vol.2

[mahlerei]

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 3
Gerhild Romberger (alto)
Cantemus Children's Choir
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer
CHANNEL CLASSICS CCSA38817

[Petrushka]

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 3
Gerhild Romberger (alto)
Cantemus Children's Choir
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer
CHANNEL CLASSICS CCSA38817

Thoughts please! This is on my wish list but it will have to be something very special to dislodge Haitink's latest as my preferred version.

[cloughie]

I had the LP re-issue on HMV "Greensleeves" in the early '80s, cloughie: I don't remember any obvious deterioration on that. (Dearest Heavens - nearly forty years ago!!!)

This was ASD2635 - nearly 50 years ago!

[BBMmk2]

Haydn
Symphony no.93 in D major, HobI.93
Symphony No.101 in D major, HobI.101.
Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Claudio Abbado.

[pastoralguy]

Beethoven. Violin concerto

Fritz Kreisler, violin. Sir John Barbirolli conducting the LPO in 1936.

This was part of a 10 cd set I picked up in a charity shop for £2 last week. I think the set was probably pretty cheap to start with since this Beethoven concerto doesn't seem to have been lavished with much care. The side changes are painfully obvious and there's a lot of surface noise. I must look out another transfer.

I found I have Kreisler's Biddulph transfer and that's much more successful. There's no hiatus before the soloist's first movement entrance that makes one wonder if he's going to come in at all!

[Stanfordian]

Tchaikovsky
Symphonies No’s. 3 ‘Polish’, 4 & 6 ‘Pathétique’
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko
Recorded 2015 Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Onyx

Piotr Beczala - Slavic Opera Arias
Arensky, Borodin, Dvorák, Moniuszko, Nowowiejski, Rachmaninov,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Smetana, Tchaikovsky, Żeleński
Piotr Beczala (tenor)
Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Łukasz Borowicz
Recorded 2009 Witold Lutosławski Concert, Warsaw
Orfeo

[Alison]

Thoughts please! This is on my wish list but it will have to be something very special to dislodge Haitink's latest as my preferred version.

Rave review of the Haitink in the latest BBCMM.

[BBMmk2]

Sir Arnold Bax: Orchestral Music Vol.3
Morning Song, "Maytime in Sussex"(Margeret Fingerhut, piano)
November Woods; The Happy Forest
The Garden of Fand; Summer Music; Tintagel.
London PO, Ulster Orchestra, Bryden Thomson.

[Dave2002]

Hindemith
Symphony in E flat, Boult, LPO

There aren't really many works by Hindemith which I like much. The other day I heard his clarinet concerto on R3 - and the soloist - Annelien van Wauwe - admitted that at first she didn't really like it. Unlike her I've not yet reached the point at which I can say I like it, but maybe I'll have another go soon.
The movement of the Malcolm Arnold concerto which she played as an encore in that BBC NOW concert was great fun, though.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08n238r The clarinet playing was very good throughout.

I have this E flat symphony in the recording above - in a CD format apparently from Everest, but I've left it in its wrapper and am playing it from Qobuz - which is adequate for the moment - http://open.qobuz.com/album/0734796503321

The opening brass outburst is splendid, though some of the fast string playing later in the first movment does sound scrappy - is it meant to? Not sure about the date of the recording, but perhaps the LPO wasn't uniformly good throughout all sections in the period when this was recorded.

The second movement seems as turgid as I usually find Hindemith's music to be - and again there seems to be scrappy string playing towards its end.

The third movement attempts jollity - and at times almost succeeds.

The fourth movement seems to plod along, and conjures up an image of sitting in a railway train which proceeds at moderate pace to nowhere in particular, passing different scenes along the way, but none of them particularly striking or interesting. There is a build up at the end and quite a strong finish.

Perhaps I will enjoy this work more if I listen again - the journey may become more familiar - though it's not guaranteed.

I do like the flute sonata - on occasions - but then I'm biased.

[BBMmk2]

Sir Arnold Bax: Orchestral Music Vol.3
Morning Song, "Maytime in Sussex"(Margeret Fingerhut, piano)
November Woods; The Happy Forest
The Garden of Fand; Summer Music; Tintagel.
London PO, Ulster Orchestra, Bryden Thomson.

Having a Bax session today. Following on from the above:-

Four Orchestral Pieces; Phantasy in D minor; Overture, Elegy & Rondo.
Philip Dukes(viola). BBC PO, Sir Andrew Davis.

[Petrushka]

There aren't really many works by Hindemith which I like much..

Hindemith is something of a strange composer, one I never really know what to make of, his place in musical history perhaps based more on Furtwangler's defence of him in the Third Reich than much of the music he wrote. However, I recall a Prom concert from the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and Claudio Abbado in 1995 when I was knocked out by the encore they played. I asked one of the orchestra members what it was and it turned out to be the Passacaglia from Hindemith's Nobilissima Visione.

I searched out a recording and came up with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I do like the Symphonic Metamorphoses on a Theme by Weber and the Symphony Mathis der Maler which are included on the disc together with the Nobilissima Visione suite. Perhaps the unwieldy titles don't do Hindemith any favours but this is the extent of my knowledge of his music.

[Tony Halstead]

Hindemith is something of a strange composer, one I never really know what to make of, his place in musical history perhaps based more on Furtwangler's defence of him in the Third Reich than much of the music he wrote. However, I recall a Prom concert from the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and Claudio Abbado in 1995 when I was knocked out by the encore they played. I asked one of the orchestra members what it was and it turned out to be the Passacaglia from Hindemith's Nobilissima Visione.

I searched out a recording and came up with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra. I do like the Symphonic Metamorphoses on a Theme by Weber and the Symphony Mathis der Maler which are included on the disc together with the Nobilissima Visione suite. Perhaps the unwieldy titles don't do Hindemith any favours but this is the extent of my knowledge of his music.

May I recommend investigating at least some of the following, listed in no particular order of preference:

Concert Music for Brass and Strings Op.50
Concert Music for Piano, Brass and Two Harps Op.49
Funeral Music for Viola and Strings
Symphonic Dances ( for orchestra)
Symphony in Bb for Concert Band
Violin Concerto
Cello Concerto
Horn Concerto
Little Chamber Music for Wind Quintet
Sonata for Horn Quartet
Organ Sonatas (all 3 of them)
Piano Sonatas, no.2 ( of 3) being maybe the most enjoyable.
All the instrumental Sonatas with piano. Although they are all ‘fun to play’ ( several with fiendish piano parts*) the following are perhaps the most memorable for the listener:
Flute; Cor Anglais; Horn in F*; Horn in Eb*; Trumpet; Tuba*; Double Bass*.
Of the many songs with piano, one of the most profound is maybe ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’.
Last but not least, the Opera ‘Mathis der Maler’, plus of course the sublime Symphony with the same name.