an attempt at a general "What are you currently digging re. classical music" thread

This thread is fantastique.

Scott-- Try Charles Mackerras conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in the Brahms symphonies. This was recorded in the digital age so it's not on vinyl, but recorded very well by Telarc and the performances are nimble, vivid and fresh.

Also there's a new Brahms 1st from Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra on Channel Classics which is getting raves. Fischer and the Budapest are kind of the team to beat right now. Their recent Mahler recordings have been stupendous, as have their not as recent Bartok series.

Guys why doesn't anyone here talk about Mieczysław Weinberg (Moisei Vainberg)? His 18th Symphony is seriously one of the most beautiful things ever. But he was so prolific! Any Weinberg fans here?

Never heard of him! Will investigate...

I have this:

http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/61U6a5x%2BagL._SS500_.jpg

I'll have to give it a listen once my Hindemith marathon is over. Thanks for reminding me. :)

:D His piano quintet is amazing.

Also, what do we all think of Gloria Coates? GLISSANDI/CLUSTERS madness. The 5th String Quartet is still so unsettling and gorgeous.

"I've heard of Rudhyar mentioned as one of the early American "ultramodernists" like Ruggles, Crawford-Seeger and Cowell. I'll definitely be interested hear your thoughts."

very cool. and yes way ultramod. all the true hepcats must have dug him. cuz he was one of those mystical jungian ancient-non-western-music-loving deep thinkers. i want to hear more. and i need to listen to this piece again. it's called *Granites*. he wrote a book called *Art As Release Of Power*. he wrote more than one book. he wanted to transform society with his music. there is a very cool and far out short article written by rudhyar on the back of this album. he sounds stoned.

here's a piece called "yearning" from a larger work that should give you an idea of where he was coming from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmA_CMIQUJY

and this site, yowza, see for yourself:

http://www.khaldea.com/rudhyar/

you can read everything he wrote about music on that site and some of it is really interesting. i am definitely an ultramod sympathizer and support their fight against the stranglehold of the western note!

"Be it as it may, the spectacle of this group of French composers is a sad one for whomsoever loves the truly progressive life, and is trying to feel the great pulse of humanity as it vibrates toward a deeper and more intrinsically realization of the essence of a conscious, free, sincere and spontaneous Manhood and womanhood, toward universal compassion and international brotherhood. The music of Milhaud and of his friends is a denial of the dearest aspirations, of the most vibrant hopes, which a Scriabin, for instance, had roused. It "goes back" to Mozart and Mendelssohn — what more to say! It is cold, heartless, superficial, artificial, unmoving, chauvinistic. We must recognize that it is supremely clever, well made, well orchestrated; that it generates new and striking effects, that its technic is masterly. But it is dead, spiritually, ethically, emotionally."

Charles Alkan (crushed by a falling coat rack)

The going story for a while IIRC was that he was crushed by a bookshelf as he reached for a volume of the Talmud, but this was later proven to be apocryphal - I don't think he was actually crushed at all.

But strange death aside, Alkan's totally fascinating and a fucking virtuoso. Contemporary and friend of tons of well-regarded composers, underappreciated until recently (and imo still underappreciated). Marc-Andre Hamelin's three albums of Alkan material are all Classic, but if you haven't heard anything of his before, the one to hear is Le Festin D'Esope (No. 12).

Gah. Five days and already so many amazing sounding recommendations to catch up on.

Cosign on Hamelin's Alkan discs. Each one's a gem. (My preference as a dyed-in-the-wool Dionysian is still with Liszt, but Alkan's knife-edge sangfroid makes for great listening).

Today and yesterday-- a couple of live radio broadcasts captured to good MP3 by a friend-- an old german radio one of Kubelik leading his Bavarian orchestra in Messiaen's colossal La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jesus Christ (which I think I like better than the commerical recording I have of the piece) and one from this year on Radio France with Nicholas Angelich and the Capucon brothers playing all three Brahms trios in one concert (huge, snorting romantic performances with lots of rubato, totally great).

Now bumping Villa-Lobos' Forest Of The Amazons on Delos Records. Should have mentioned this alongside the Choros the other day. Big raucous sentimental craziness with birds, rivers, natives, a soprano. I think this was born out of a film score?

Cannot stop listening to The Sparrow and the Gentle Dove by Purcell (Hyperion recording).

Good to see Brahms being mentioned a lot - his alto rhapsody (Ferrier I think, although I quite like the Klemperer as well) and his first symphony.

Constant Lambert's Prize Fight is quite a good alternative getting ready to go out music.

John Ireland's Mai Dun and The Legend are, as they were intended to be, the perfect accompaniment to my Arthur Machen kick a while ago - mixture of pastoral mysticism and ancient English militarism.

I would think Delius would also go well with Machen...

digging Bruckner Symphonie No. 4, "Romantic"

which version should i hear? and what others?

I don't have a million Bruckner 4s, but my favorite now is the Klemperer on EMI. Klemps and Bruckner a perfect match to my ears.

I'd recommend proceeding to the 5th, then the 9th, then the mighty 8th.

thanks jon. i've got two versions of 4, but can't remember either at the moment, but i don't think i've got Klemperer. will seek this and the others.

BTW, lots of ppl also swear by the karl Bohm Bruckner 4 most recently reissued in the Decca Legends series. I haven't heard it though.

I would think Delius would also go well with Machen...

Definitely. Delius was buried in a churchyard near where I grew up in fact, although the only material effect this had on my musical taste was that every time I cycled or walked past the church and remembered Delius was buried there, I would break out into 'Delia's Gone' by Johnny Cash.

I will remedy this.

For the darkling magical side of Delius try 'Song Of The High Hills' and 'North Country Sketches' imo.

"which version should i hear? and what others?"

if you want to make your head spin, listen to bruckner's massive 8th symphony and then put on some of his motets which are these brilliant miniature masterpieces of church music. so beautiful.

I've never heard the Motets!

Oh shit, really?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8no8t0saHI

actually this a better boychoir rendition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWK4sF84M1I&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSC5Kjq4aIw

listening to arturo benedetti michelangeli play haydn piano concertos in d & g (with zurich chamber orchestra). kinda jaw-dropping if you are into piano shredders. he didn't record a ton of stuff apparently. cuz he was such a prefectionist. thrilling really to hear.

here is him and some beethoven:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z8VxIxZVOI

definitely recommend the recording (on angel) if you like haydn or piano or great pianists or just great performances.

i don't know what bruckner motet recordings to recommend on cd. there are probably a bunch. i have old vinyl recordings and can't think of any specific favorites.

Yeah Michelangeli was the ultimate perfectionist piano hermit really. Listening to his studio Debussy (Images book i and ii and Children's Corner) feels almost hallucinatory, everything is so perfectly placed and shimmering.

It's funny re: the perfectionist thing, Michelangeli's most notorious recording, Ravel's Gaspard De La Nuit, is live-in-studio for radio and in not-great sound quality.

Pianists playing today who bring this kind of 'hallucinatory clarity' are Zimerman, Kocsis, and especially Ivan Moravec. Thankfully none of them are quite as restricted in their repertoire as ABM.

An interesting bit of trivia abt Arturo is that he was chronically obsessed with The Master And Margarita...

great thread, and thanks for all the good Bruckner recommendations

This book looks very interesting (to me). Not in any local library yet. May blind-order.

Joseph Straus - Twelve-tone Music in America
http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521899550

I'm experimenting with listening to classical music while doing other things (reading web forums, walking, etc.) When I first started getting into CM I would do the same but noticed eventually that I was retaining very little of what I heard, and started listening as an exclusive activity — but now I seem to be able to appreciate it (mostly tonal music, not anything hyper-complex).

Just wondering what percentage of everyone's listening is exclusive v. while doing other things, what music works for what, etc.

I'm listening to the Beethoven SQs (Alban Berg) and frankly wondering why I listen to anything else.

Hearing a Rubinstein recording from the '30s has, I think, made sense of Chopin's Scherzo No. 4 for me.

the only photo of chopin. the year he died. has tim roth played him yet?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Chopin1849opt02.jpg

so much chopin i still need to hear. there's a lotta mazurkas out there! been listening to claudio arrau and maurizio pollini play chopin and they are supposed to be top-notch old-school interpreters. i've got some great rubinstein recordings too. speaking of top-notch old-school.

This is the album:

http://www.lala.com/#album/1009369266561368272/Artur_Rubinstein,_Frédéric_Chopin/CHOPIN:_Nocturnes_and_Scherzi_(Rubinstein)_(1936-1937)

8:14 version of Scherzo No. 2 as compared with a 9:40 interpretation on an early '70s or so LP I have by Philippe Entremont.

Sorry again, my link got broken up.

Rubinstein's 30s recordings are radically different to his mono LP and stereo LP recordings-- in the 30s he was a wildman with his Chopin, those Scherzi are like no others I've heard. His 30s polonaises are also straight fire from what I've listened to. By the end of the 78 era he had revised his approach to a much more reflective place.

I think my favorite modern recording of the 4 Scherzi is the Ivan Moravec one on Dorian Recordings. Moravec is pretty much the greatest living/still-playing Chopinist at this point. I wish he had a full set of the Mazurkas, but he has done 20 or so scattered across his several Chopin discs.

I'm experimenting with listening to classical music while doing other things (reading web forums, walking, etc.) When I first started getting into CM I would do the same but noticed eventually that I was retaining very little of what I heard, and started listening as an exclusive activity — but now I seem to be able to appreciate it (mostly tonal music, not anything hyper-complex).

Just wondering what percentage of everyone's listening is exclusive v. while doing other things, what music works for what, etc.

...no one?

Exclusively, or while walking (iPod), or while driving (if the dynamic range is narrow enough).

le-awsh yan-nah-chek

Anyone into Baroque organ music? Listening to recordings of Frescobaldi's Book II, Twelve Toccatas, from 1627. Some are played on the harpsichord and some on the organ. A few of the organ pieces seem like they're right on the cusp before functional tonality took over. Contrapuntal texture is very thin and they seem to be very much about the progression of harmonies. They're really beautiful.

Yan-nah-chek rules ofc. :3

Love Janacek. Especially in chamber music. Mad at myself for not making it to the Met production of From The House Of The Dead that just ended.

Friday night I was uncharacteristically early leaving work so I was able to make it to Academy Records before closing. Found two used Szymanowski things which have been on my want list for quite awhile: the complete Mazurkas for piano on the polish Dux label and the complete Songs on 4CDs from Channel Classics. Looking forward to digging into these today.

Classical record reviewers should still write like they did in 1956, y/n?

"Mozart: Concertos for Violin and Orchestra: No. 4, in D, K. 218; No.
5, in A ("Turkish"), K. 219

"Mischa Elman, violin; New Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips, cond.
London LL 1271. 12-in.

"No one who can bring himself to listen to this record will deny Mr.
Elman's ownership of a few seraphim, whom he keeps in his violin. Not
to argue a cause already won, let it be admitted briefly that this
fiddler has more sweet unction in his strings than any other of our
times. All his records are anointed with it, particularly this one,
engineered to catch delicately every lambent hemi-demi-semi-quaver.

"The stylization suggests a sure grounding in Coleridge-Taylor. It
is the work of a free man, a little dazed. (Freedom sometimes cannot
be borne.) The pace is languid, inclined to swoon, the phrase
unshaped, as if stuck in molasses on the bow. In this independence of
spirit Concerto No. 5 is a hymn to melting butter, an apotheosis of
goo. This originality is not sustained during No. 4, which in many
places sounds like Mozart. In both the orchestra is tame, we may guess
from sheepishness. C. G. B."

Concerto No. 5 is a hymn to melting butter, an apotheosis of
goo. mmmm...

"Just wondering what percentage of everyone's listening is exclusive v. while doing other things, what music works for what, etc."

i listen to music all day in my store, so that's a good time to listen to just about anything. but i like having the time to be at home on the couch reading liner-notes and really absorbing what i'm hearing. i make an effort at home to so some deep listening, because so much classical music is unfamiliar to me. and that includes things that i've heard more than once. i'm a simpleton and a rockhead, so it definitely benefits me to be attentive. as it is, i probably only absorb and retain about 5% of the liner-notes i read. and the music doesn't always stick either without repeated listening. (though, don't get me wrong, there is plenty of easy/immediate pleasure to a lot of the classical music i listen to.) so i re-read them. and re-listen. i think it's fun though. and rewarding. i am the opposite of an expert and instead of this scaring me, it instead encourages me to go in over my head. to listen to too much stuff from too many different eras and not worry too much about a coherent approach to my scattershot autodidactic education. it's kinda how i've always listened/read/learned anyway, so it's a little late now to change. i'm thinking in 30 or 40 years i'll have some grasp of western music and its history. then i'll tackle asia.

oh and i don't have an ipod or listen to music in the car much. the last time i had a walkman was 15 years ago.

so i re-read them. and re-listen. i think it's fun though. and rewarding. i am the opposite of an expert and instead of this scaring me, it instead encourages me to go in over my head. to listen to too much stuff from too many different eras and not worry too much about a coherent approach to my scattershot autodidactic education.

OTM x 1000 this is my classical music listening career in a nutshell. (not so much with liner notes, but i read Fanfare magazine every issue and digest a few heavy composer biographies a year)

it's not categorized precisely as classical, but right now i'm listening to sylvain chauveau's 'nuage' album and it's really working for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZPG7ZwQru4

Big hit of the day for me is this Szymanowski songs collection. If you dig Debussy's songs or Scriabin's solo piano stuff, you should check out Szymanowksi's voice w/piano stuff. He's decadent, he's devilish, he's orientalist (Songs Of The Infatuated Muezzin and such).

Speaking of decadent/symbolist intoxication, went back to Charles Mackerras' recordings of Delius short pieces and was sound-drunk all over again.