What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[smittims]

I've been listening to Sixten Ehrling's 1953 set of the Sibelius symphonies; I wonder if anyone else has views on them. Like many English Sibelius fans I've long admired the famous Collins Decca series , some of which were made at the same time, and I found a similarity of approach, straightforward and unfussy. Ehrling's strike me as unvarnished and fresh, without some of the unusual tempi and emphases we have heard since,perhaps by conductors wanting to make their mark on the music. . They certainly made me hear the symphonies anew. It's curioius that they were unavailable in Britain for so many years.

[Stanfordian]

Michael Spyres – 'In The Shadows'
Opera arias by Méhul, Beethoven, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Weber, Auber, Spontini, Bellini, Marschner & Wagner
Michael Spyres (baritenor)
Jeune Chœur de Paris / Marc Korovitch (chorus master)
Les Talens Lyriques / Christophe Rousset
with Julien Henric (tenor)
Recorded December 2022, Salle Colonne, Paris,
Warner Classics/Erato, CD

[Stanfordian]

... I don't get Reinhard Goebel's move away from appropriate historical instruments to 'modern'. What was your feeling here in the Handel?

.

In my review I wrote:
"Goebel is best known as founder of early music ensemble Musica Antiqua Köln (1973-2007), whom he directed for thirty-three years and were renowned for their recordings using period instruments notably on Archiv Produktion. For a number of years Goebel has collaborated with the Berliner Barock Solisten and in 2018 he was named its artistic director. Employing a flexible approach to period informed performance, the Berliner Barock Solisten use modern instruments and where old ones are used, they are fitted with modern set-ups such as metal strings etc. Goebel has stated, “I see the future of Baroque orchestral music in the hands of modern ensembles – the fetish of the ‘original instrument’ has had its day, but not the profoundly trained professional who guides an orchestra into the deeper dimensions of the composition. For it isn’t the instrument that makes the music, but the head!” Now an advocate of employing a flexible, period-informed approach Goebel has used his vast experience in early music to determine the choice of instruments for this recording."

[Pianorak]

“Salome” by Richard Strauss, from Irish National Opera. With Sinéad Campbell-Wallace as an outstanding Salome and Vincent Wolfsteiner a superb Herodes. A truly mesmerising production by Bruno Ravella. Watch online on operavision.eu

[EnemyoftheStoat]

“Salome” by Richard Strauss, from Irish National Opera. With Sinéad Campbell-Wallace as an outstanding Salome and Vincent Wolfsteiner a superb Herodes. A truly mesmerising production by Bruno Ravella. Watch online on operavision.eu

She is impressive as Gutrune in the upcoming Götterdämmerung. I know this from yesterday's rehearsal, where I was bellowing during Act II.

[Barbirollians]

Cyrille Dubois – 'So Romantique!'
French Opera Aria collection: Auber, Boieldieu, Clapisson, Delibes, Donizetti, Thomas, Dubois, Godard, Gounod, Halevy, Luce-Varlet, Saint-Saëns & Silver
Cyrille Dubois (tenor)
Orchestre National de Lille / Pierre Dumoussaud
Recorded 2021 Auditorium du Nouveau Siècle, Lille
Alpha Classics, CD

I just love this rare opera repertoire.

Such a fabulous light tenor voice .

[LMcD]

As a contrast to Tony Blackburn's 'Sounds Of The Sixties' (which I greatly enjoyed as usual) I'm now listening to Music of The Crusades (A Decca Serenata CD featuring the Early Music Concert of London under /David Munrow).

[Ian Thumwood]

I read in a review of Rachmaninov's Piano Trios on Naxos that Stravinsky described Rachmaninov as ‘six-foot-six of Russian gloom’. Intense and beautifully recorded performances of these élégiaque works by Valeri Grohovski (piano), Eduard Wulfson (violin), Dmitri Yablonsky (cello).

Gurnemanz

I have long avoided Rachmaninov's music mainly as a consequence of my piano teacher's prejudice of his work. I find Rachmaninov really odd because his music sounds like it should have een written some 50 years before it was and, as a consequence, I find him difficult to take seriously. My teacher always told the tale about Rachmaninov hating Debussy's music and would perform it alongside his own in order to demnstrate the percevied short comings of the Frenchman's writing. From that era, I much prefer Scriabin but have never really explored Rachmaninov as I am expecting it to be disappointing. Russian Romantic music does strike me as being a bit corny and some how not "serious" when you contrast it with what else was happening in the late 19th and early 20th century. More recently I have been prompted by people on this thread to explore Prokoviev and Shostakovich. Along with Scriabin, I just find this music to be exceptional. For me,Scriabin took Romantic piano music to it's ultimate conclusion whereas the other two do strike me as fulfilling the potential of the earlier generation of Classical composer. I am beginning to see a lot of Neo-Classical music as being the most "successful" 20th century style of classical music. In the light of how music moved on in the early 20th century, I cannot help but wonder how Rachmaninov's music was perceived at the time it was written. I would imagine that more progressive reviewers , musicians and composers would have ridiculed it at the time.

BTW, I have been checking out Mompou's music and regret to way that I am finding it lightweight to the exent of almost being pointless. It makes you think fondly of Satie but Mompou not as good. In comparison with so much of 20th century piano works, it falls well short in my opinion of what serious composition should be - just little ideas which are gently floated out and not really explored. In the end, I had to turn the CD off as it was so annoying. As I said on the jazz bored, I think that Mompou's work is wafer thin and odd to recognise that a jazz pianists like Keith Jarrett and Paul Bley could improvise something from scratch with far greater depth and technical accomplishment.

Whoever recommended the Shostakovich Preludes and Preludes & Fugues, this was a brilliant call! This music is a revelation to me. I particulaly like the latter. Has anyone attempted to learn the P & F's and are they harder to sight read than the Bach 48?

Cheers

Ian

[silvestrione]

Gurnemanz

I have long avoided Rachmaninov's music mainly as a consequence of my piano teacher's prejudice of his work. I find Rachmaninov really odd because his music sounds like it should have een written some 50 years before it was and, as a consequence, I find him difficult to take seriously. My teacher always told the tale about Rachmaninov hating Debussy's music and would perform it alongside his own in order to demnstrate the percevied short comings of the Frenchman's writing. From that era, I much prefer Scriabin but have never really explored Rachmaninov as I am expecting it to be disappointing. Russian Romantic music does strike me as being a bit corny and some how not "serious" when you contrast it with what else was happening in the late 19th and early 20th century. More recently I have been prompted by people on this thread to explore Prokoviev and Shostakovich. Along with Scriabin, I just find this music to be exceptional. For me,Scriabin took Romantic piano music to it's ultimate conclusion whereas the other two do strike me as fulfilling the potential of the earlier generation of Classical composer. I am beginning to see a lot of Neo-Classical music as being the most "successful" 20th century style of classical music. In the light of how music moved on in the early 20th century, I cannot help but wonder how Rachmaninov's music was perceived at the time it was written. I would imagine that more progressive reviewers , musicians and composers would have ridiculed it at the time.

BTW, I have been checking out Mompou's music and regret to way that I am finding it lightweight to the exent of almost being pointless. It makes you think fondly of Satie but Mompou not as good. In comparison with so much of 20th century piano works, it falls well short in my opinion of what serious composition should be - just little ideas which are gently floated out and not really explored. In the end, I had to turn the CD off as it was so annoying. As I said on the jazz bored, I think that Mompou's work is wafer thin and odd to recognise that a jazz pianists like Keith Jarrett and Paul Bley could improvise something from scratch with far greater depth and technical accomplishment.

Whoever recommended the Shostakovich Preludes and Preludes & Fugues, this was a brilliant call! This music is a revelation to me. I particulaly like the latter. Has anyone attempted to learn the P & F's and are they harder to sight read than the Bach 48?

Cheers

Ian

Yes I can see how you might think that about Mompou. Kenneth Hamilton said something similar on RR a few years back, prompting A McG to slip in a rare disagreement before they moved on. I love it, but not to listen to, to play: in my experience, a Book of the Musica Callada, played straight through, takes you to an extraordinary place....

[richardfinegold]

I've been listening to Sixten Ehrling's 1953 set of the Sibelius symphonies; I wonder if anyone else has views on them. Like many English Sibelius fans I've long admired the famous Collins Decca series , some of which were made at the same time, and I found a similarity of approach, straightforward and unfussy. Ehrling's strike me as unvarnished and fresh, without some of the unusual tempi and emphases we have heard since,perhaps by conductors wanting to make their mark on the music. . They certainly made me hear the symphonies anew. It's curioius that they were unavailable in Britain for so many years.

Ehrling was conductor emeritus of the Detroit Symphony and I hear him a few times in the late seventies/early eighties. The programs were always Scandinavian Music and it was my first exposure to a few of the Nielsen and Sibelius symphonies.

[smittims]

'Russian romantic music does strike me as being a bit corny and somehow not 'serious'.

As someone said 'you cannot be serious , man!'

I have to say I think you may hear more in it if you listen more carefully. Rachmaninov's music is much better understood these days, thanks to advocacy by such champions as Vladimir Ashkenazy and Peter Donohoe. It was not regarded as 'old-fashioned' before the 1930s, but after that , film composers copied his style so much that highbrow critics such as Eric Blom tended to dismiss him. Respighi's and even Tchaikovsky's music suffered in the same way for a while. Now thankfully ,the true depth of expression in Rachmaninov is appreciated by thinking people .

If you're exploring piano music I'd recommend the Etudes-Tableaux, especially the op. 39 set: difficult to play (and they were meant to be) but not exactly corny or unserious.

[vinteuil]

...appreciated by thinking people

... o, there's thinking people and thinking people. This thinking person doesn't like Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky. Nor Respighi neither...

.

[smittims]

Yes, I didn't mean to suggest that , simply that the prejudice against these composers was hasty and unthinking (as was the prejudice against Mahler so common before 1960). Of course we all have our likes and dislikes. I don't like Szymanovsky and I'm not terribly fond of Bartok, but I don't write them off as incompetent as people once did Rachmaninov .

[Ian Thumwood]

I was notaware that Mahler was once ill-considered. My Mum was a qualified piano teacher but chose not to teach. I think she lost a lot of interest in classical music before I was born but when I started to show interest in music, it was interesting to hear her perceptions of composers who were deemed unfashionable in the 50s/ 60s. I grew up with these perceptions having never considered that they would be subject to change. The one composer who I recall being dismissed was Mendelssohn but have since understood that there are quite a few composers whose reputation has been assumed to have been similarly lightweight. I know that many German composers were avoided after WW2 but I thought that Mendelssohn was dismissed for being too Victorian.

For what it is worth, I feel that Symanowski is probably the most under-rated composer in Classical music. If you made a Venn diagram of Debussy, Scriabin and Bartok, he would be in the point where they all over-lapped. I sometimes feel that there are composers whose work is seriously under-valued such as Syzmanowski and Enescu whereas others now seem less "serious." My tastes have broadened massively in the last two years but it is still difficult to shake off my perceptions of Mendelssohn and Rachmaninov which stem from the predjudices of my peers when I was younger.

[smittims]

Well, I have to say I think that's a pity. I hope you will have more success in appreciating them in time: there is much enjoyment and satisfaction to be had from those two composers,as many comments on this forum have shown.

I should say that an 'underrated ' composer is one whose quality exceeds his reputation (or frequency of performance, broadcast and recording) . In the case of Szymanowski I think they are about equal; in other words, I think his music currently (thanks to the advocacy of certain musicians such as SimonRattle) gets its due . In this context I'd say the most underrated composer is Arnold Cooke , in the sense that I think the gap between the quality of his music (which I regard as high) and the almost total neglect it suffers, is wider than for any other composer I can think of.


Of course this is all highly subjective. I think it was Berlioz who said to Mendelssohn words to the effect of 'come on , you don't really think this old JS Bach was really any good do you?'.