What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[RichardB]

I think the composer's comments, found in the booklet note for the Salonen recording of the 1996/7 revision, suggest to me that he might well have approved of this production. That said, I remain fond of Howarth's 1987 Austrian Radio recording of the original '74 to '77 version on Wergo.

According to Steinitz, Ligeti was very disappointed with the Sellars production from which the Salonen recording was derived, but preferred the revised version (and the audio recording of it) to the one recorded by Howarth. I don't know, I've never liked the work much. It's too concerned with being an opera, in a way that the large scale theatre pieces by (to name a few) Berio, Stockhausen, Kagel and Messiaen were not.

[pastoralguy]

Jose Carreras. Neapolitan Songs.

The English Chamber Orchestra is conducted by Edoardo Müller.

I’ve attempted to collect as many Philips ‘Blue Face’ CDs from the 60 discs that were released in 1983 as I possibly can. ( I’ve got around 28 so far). I managed to get this disc quite cheaply from eBay and, to be honest, I bought it simply to tick it off my list but I’m absolutely loving it! Carreras sings superbly and the ECO playing is gorgeous.

[Bryn]

According to Steinitz, Ligeti was very disappointed with the Sellars production from which the Salonen recording was derived, but preferred the revised version (and the audio recording of it) to the one recorded by Howarth. I don't know, I've never liked the work much. It's too concerned with being an opera, in a way that the large scale theatre pieces by (to name a few) Berio, Stockhausen, Kagel and Messiaen were not.

To avoid possible confusion, my "this production" referred to the Fura dels Bals staging, not the Sellars. Sellars was decidedly dismissive of Messiaen's detailed staging instructions for Saint François d'Assise. Messiaen, of course, used to make models of theatrical staging as a child. I wonder how he might have reacted to Audi's staging of the work.

[RichardB]

To avoid possible confusion, my "this production" referred to the Fura dels Bals staging, not the Sellars. Sellars was decidedly dismissive of Messiaen's detailed staging instructions for Saint François d'Assise.

Yes that was clear. I think that when composers put detailed staging instructions in their scores directors immediately take it upon themselves to dispense with them on the grounds that they aren't going to be told their job by some tunesmith. Apparently the audience wants a Peter Sellars production, not a Peter Sellars interpretation, which seems strange in view of the fact that conductors generally don't ignore the composer's suggestions to them in such summary fashion. I always think the question directors should ask themselves should be: is this the way someone seeing the work for the first time ought to understand and remember this work? But I imagine they aren't thinking much of the audience.

[Joseph K]

Bartok - string quartet no. 2 - Brooklyn Rider

[JasonPalmer]

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, op. 30

[pastoralguy]

Sibelius. Symphony No.3.

Lorin Maazel conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. SONY.

And now…

Shostakovich. Symphony No.11

USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky.

Getting ready to hear the London Symphony Orchestra play this at the Edinburgh Festival!

[Joseph K]

Bartok - string quartet no. 2 - Belcea Quartet

[Stanfordian]

Mozart
Piano Concerto No’s 20 & 21
Jan Lisiecki (piano)
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks / Christian Zacharias
Recorded 2012 Herkulessaal, Munich
Deutsche Grammophon, CD

Schubert
Symphony No. 9 in C major ‘The Great’
Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Maxim Emelyanychev
Recorded 2019 Caird Hall, Dundee, Scotland
Linn, CD

[Master Jacques]

Orff
Prometheus
Roland Hermann, Colette Lorand, Fritz Uhl, Josef Greindl,
Choir and Orchestra of Bavarian Radio, c. Rafael Kubelik
Rec. 1/2 October 1975
Orfeo C240012 (2-CDs)

Is it an opera? Is it ritual theatre? A play with music?
What's in a word?

Whatever it is, this is certainly hard-core Orff, using Aeschylus's original Greek text, mainly spoken and violently percussive. And this performance (taken from two live concerts) under Kubelik grips like a vice, though you'll need Orfeo's synopsis to follow the broad outlines of what's going on. A truly heroic performance from Roland Hermann makes this the best available version of an extreme and still controversial work.

[RichardB]

Whatever it is, this is certainly hard-core Orff, using Aeschylus's original Greek text, mainly spoken and violently percussive. And this performance (taken from two live concerts) under Kubelik grips like a vice, though you'll need Orfeo's synopsis to follow the broad outlines of what's going on. A truly heroic performance from Roland Hermann makes this the best available version of an extreme and still controversial work.

I love it. And it's an amazing performance from Hermann, as you say. Amazing also that everyone involved sounds so convincing in a language I presume none of them actually spoke (although the pronunciation is of course Germanised).

[Master Jacques]

I love it. And it's an amazing performance from Hermann, as you say. Amazing also that everyone involved sounds so convincing in a language I presume none of them actually spoke (although the pronunciation is of course Germanised).

I love it, too. Though it's always had a particularly snooty press over here, even for Orff, probably because it challenges critical ideas of what stage drama "ought" to do. I suspect that he was after a similar effect to Stravinsky in Oedipus Rex, to monumentalise the drama by making sure that nobody was going to get hung up on literal meaning of a text. He doesn't want us to understand it, any more than Glass wants us to understand the invented Ancient Egyptian of Akhnaten ... which of course never stops managements providing surtitles, to help lame dogs over styles!

[RichardB]

I love it, too. Though it's always had a particularly snooty press over here, even for Orff, probably because it challenges critical ideas of what stage drama "ought" to do. I suspect that he was after a similar effect to Stravinsky in Oedipus Rex, to monumentalise the drama by making sure that nobody was going to get hung up on literal meaning of a text. He doesn't want us to understand it, any more than Glass wants us to understand the invented Ancient Egyptian of Akhnaten ... which of course never stops managements providing surtitles, to help lame dogs over styles!

On the other hand, Orff had previously set to music two other Greek tragedies (Antigonae and Oedipus der Tyrann), but in Hölderlin's German translation, in these he does clearly want every word to be heard and understood, and the style of the three is quite consistent, allowing for the increasing paring down of musical materials that runs through Orff's work in the postwar period. I think it's just as likely that he wanted a third tragedy to sit alongside the two earlier ones, and he'd already used the only two Hölderlin translations that exist.

[Master Jacques]

On the other hand, Orff had previously set to music two other Greek tragedies (Antigonae and Oedipus der Tyrann), but in Hölderlin's German translation, in these he does clearly want every word to be heard and understood, and the style of the three is quite consistent, allowing for the increasing paring down of musical materials that runs through Orff's work in the postwar period. I think it's just as likely that he wanted a third tragedy to sit alongside the two earlier ones, and he'd already used the only two Hölderlin translations that exist.

Quite so: it is a natural development, pared down even further as you say. Contrary to popular belief, Orff never wanted to repeat himself, and was continually questing, so his move here from text-centred to timbre-centred drama was particularly bold.

I wrote something during lockdown on his Oedipus der Tyrann, and found it fascinating from our perspective that Orff's all-round "plague drama" was so strongly focussed on the political aspects of the catastrophe - the ruler taking measures to promote civil order, getting flack from all sides, and communicating his determination to "follow the gods" (science, if you like) in everything he did, once Creon had returned from Delphi with the official line. Orff gets these political complexities across - through music - to a wonderful degree.

[Serial_Apologist]

Quite so: it is a natural development, pared down even further as you say. Contrary to popular belief, Orff never wanted to repeat himself, and was continually questing, so his move here from text-centred to timbre-centred drama was particularly bold.

I wrote something during lockdown on his Oedipus der Tyrann, and found it fascinating from our perspective that Orff's all-round "plague drama" was so strongly focussed on the political aspects of the catastrophe - the ruler taking measures to promote civil order, getting flack from all sides, and communicating his determination to "follow the gods" (science, if you like) in everything he did, once Creon had returned from Delphi with the official line. Orff gets these political complexities across - through music - to a wonderful degree.

Do you think he changed his political views after WWII, having ostensibly disgraced himself by supporting the Nazis? Or is this a mistaken reputation? It would be good to have the truth - I have never head any of his music, apart from "that" overplayed and over-exploited passage from Carmina Burana.