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

Some of you, I'm sure, know the Candide label LPs from the '70s. If you ever get a chance to hear the Giovanni and Andrea Gabrieli album they put out in 1973, it's really something.

"Karajan is the only man who really understands my music."
— Jean Sibelius

Sibelius said things like that about Beecham too, and Robert Kajanus-- he was basically super psyched whenever someone recorded his music well and could be a bit of a quote whore (I seem to recall Messiaen was a bit like this as well)?

I wasn't denigrating Karajan's Sibelius in any way-- his take is v distinctive and strong; there's no one 'correct' angle on Sibelius.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/12/22/arts/music/22met1/articleInline.jpg

I can never resist a good James Levine photo.

Whoa where's his traditional sweat-towel?

haha yes re: Messiaen being a quote whore, too.

Been neglecting this thread as of late, as I haven't really been left alone long enough to listen to anything with any degree of attention. :\

Lately I've been breaking my usual habit with CM and listening to the Mozart symphonies (Pinnock/English Consort), for the first time in fact! No. 40 is played to death but still beautiful, 41 is very impressive (esp. the final movement), but so far I've enjoyed No. 38 the most. The slow movement is especially gorgeous. I love the "shiny" timbre of the HIP ensemble.

Daruton, one of my favorite classical discs of the year was a Profil disc of Sawallisch and the Bavarian Radio SO performing symphonies 35 and 41, a live radio broadcast performance. These are not HIP performances, of course, but exciting high-energy modern orchestra renditions that somehow just sound totally right. Finally a recording of the 'Haffner' symphony that I can totally get with (I am a bit obsessed with #35).

I have a lot to say but I just thought I'd chime in that Villa-Lobos' "Etude 11" may be my favourite piece to play on guitar. The Ginastera Sonata for Guitar is essential, of course.

I'm studying the Mozart piano sonatas at the moment. (Analysing, not playing.)

Stream from my tumblr: http://themagiclantern.tumblr.com/post/286006568

Leoš Janáček - String Quartet No. 2, ‘Intimate Letters’ - II. Adagio, performed by the Talich Quartet

:D

lately i've been digging on toru takemitsu - why cant other modern composers make dissonance and otherwordly melodies that are actually pleasant to listen to?

I know what you mean, but... a lot of them have!

Have been just blown away by my discovery of Prokofiev's 3rd Symphony (Muti/Philadelphia). I had avoided him before due to a bad experience with his piano concertos, but this is just amazing.

xxp Late Feldman? Rautavaara? Ligeti? Messiaen?

speaking of Rautavaara, I have a couple naxos discs (the one with Cantus Arcticus and the one with Angels and Visitations) that I bought a few years ago and never really got into, but I was listening to his Piano Concerto No. 1 the other day, and man does that thing cook! don't know how I never noticed it before.

I know what you mean, but... a lot of them have!

i suspected as much, but i rarely come across any - suggestions for more pleasant dissonance then?

Late Feldman? Rautavaara? Ligeti? Messiaen?

tbh i've never even heard of these guys - i'm not a complete noob when it comes to classical but there are huge gaps in my knowledge to be sure...

haha, it's cool; I followed a pretty similar trajectory, actually. I first heard of Takemitsu thru a piece that Leo Brouwer (really good cuban guitar composer) dedicated to him, and then basically followed Amazon.com recommendations to find other 20th century stuff I dug.

btw, not to belabor the point, but seriously, this is great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjMtX1GLkTc

Have been just blown away by my discovery of Prokofiev's 3rd Symphony (Muti/Philadelphia). I had avoided him before due to a bad experience with his piano concertos, but this is just amazing.

― You give me falun gong, four in the morning (Daruton), Tuesday, December 29, 2009 3:49 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

Prokofiev is easy: stay away from the early work. He went from being the Worst, most Unidiomatic composer (age 10-28, basically everything before the Classical Symphony) to being the poster child for idiomatic writing. His woodwind writing in Romeo & Juliet and Cinderella is so, so great.

Listening a lot to Britten's Turn of The Screw. I think it's the Britten/Pears version but I copied it to mp3 ages ago and lost track of some details so not 100% sure. In any case I prefer it to the Daniel Harding/Ian Bostridge version on Virgin, which I've been comparing it with. The kids' singing is more childlike in the Harding, thin and slightly insecure treble voices, which may be more authentic but I find them a bit irritating. Also Gergiev's cycle of Prokofiev symphonies, especially, by coincidence, the 3rd which is less familiar to me than 1,5 or 6. Quatuor Ebene's recordings of the Ravel/Debussy/Faure SQs - even if you think the first two of these in particular are overfamiliar it's worth checking out these revelatory performances.

I was lucky enough to see Turn Of The Screw performed in Seattle ~15 years ago; so eerie and awesome. It was my first live opera. I don't have the Britten/Pears or the Harding/Bostridge but the one on Collins Records with Langridge and Bedford conducting.

Prokofiev's 3rd symphony is tremendous fire-breating modernism. I think it's my favorite thing he did for orchestra (though I also stan for Romeo, Cinderella, the 2nd symphony and the succulent fairy-tale Violin Concertos. Like daruton, I have not had good mileage from his piano concertos, BUT BUT BUT as a solo piano composer he is one of the century's finest.

i suspected as much, but i rarely come across any - suggestions for more pleasant dissonance then?

George Crumb and Kajia Saariaho. Both utterly uncompromising, both intensely beautiful in an almost palpable way.

I can never resist a good James Levine photo.

― .gif of the magpie (Jon Lewis), Monday, December 21, 2009 9:32 PM

Saw him in action a few times this year, most recently when he returned from his post-surgical convalescence to conduct Tales of Hoffmann. That was a lot of fun.

messiahwannabe, you should check out Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time," Ligeti's Violin Concerto, Schnittke's Piano Quintet, Shostakovich's string quartets (all of them, really), String Quartet No. 4 by Peteris Vasks, Dutilleux's 'Ainsi la nuit' string quartet...

The textures of "La création du monde" by Darius Milhaud are so gorgeous.

@snowy, Thanks for posting the Rautavaara concerto; there's a composer I've always ignored & will now check out...

@messiahwannabe meanwhile, another noteworthy purveyor of "dissonance and otherwordly melodies that are actually pleasant to listen to" is Henri Dutilleux

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEYsu6xXWWQ

In addition to that quartet, favorites from Dutilleux include Tout un monde lointain (a cello concerto); L'arbre des songes (a violin concerto); Metaboles; and especially Timbres, espace, mouvement (go for the revision with the Interlude for cello ensemble)... I'm unfamiliar with the solo piano music.

I gave Rautavaara's Angel of Light symphony a few listens last year and thought it sounded too much like movie music with "modern" sounds tacked on (glissandi, Ligeti-style "sound clouds", etc.). FWIW I find Takemitsu pretty boring also.

Oops, apologies to Turangalila for totally missing his mention of Dutilleux a few posts before mine! Glad I'm not the only fan here...

I love my disc with the 2nd Symphony and Shadows of Time, but haven't explored anything else yet.

Been listening to some Haydn string quartets. Really liked a couple of the slow movements (one being the second movement from the Quartet in G, Op. 77, No. 1).

listening to mozart. the four flute quartets. all very lovely and spritely and all that. i could go for some haydn right about now. mozart and haydn used to jam together. they had a jam band.

what are the best classical mags w/r/t quality and trustworthy recommendations?

For me it's been Smetana - Ma Vlast and Grieg - Sigurd Jorsalfar.

now playing: william byrd - music for voice and viols (i could listen to this all day long.)

it's opera time. listening to rossini's il turco in italia. dramma buffo in two acts. sounds great. maria callas in the house.

Woah! I just learned that Charles Wuorinen is composing an opera based on "Brokeback Mountain". The composer's own website confirms that Proulx herself is contributing the libretto.

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Been (somewhat grudgingly) admitting to myself lately that Fauré's chamber music (not including solo piano, I can't completely take that stuff yet) is Really Rather Good, e.g. piano quartets.

And have dvded a couple of "minor operas" for quiztraining purposes as well, lots of fun! Händel's Tamerlano and Rossini's Comte d'Ory, to name a couple. The DVD of the former (T. Pinnock) has the coolest "subtitling" feature I've ever seen in an opera DVD, transparent overlay of the score at all times!

It's almost like an aural equivalent of those Klee paintings that are just regular grids of colors with varying hues and brightnesses.

Loving this comment abt late Webern.

Also loving thread!

Fauré's late chamber music is fucking genius! Seek ye the 2nd violin sonata, the string quartet (one of my favorite pieces ever, period) and the two piano quintets (the quartets are weak in comparison imo). Some of the most magical and pleasantly unpredictable music I know.

listening to Bruckner's 7th symphony (on naxos) a lot. My first Bruckner. I got the 8th too but it hasn't clicked with me.

Mozart's String Quartet No. 19, K. 465 (the last of the "Haydn Quartets") is incredible.

I second Daruton's Faure SQ & Piano Quintet reccs. Gorgeous music.

That arpeggiated intro in the 1st piano quintet is :O

can anyone give me a yes/no on a Beethoven symphony box with George Szell/Cleveland Symphony? Columbia/RCA pressing I think.

xxxxxpost to Omar Little-- the only classical mag I spend money on every time is Fanfare. It's bi-monthly and very thick. Layout is totally basic and zine-like. It's invaluable for its massive review section, which takes up about 80% of every issue-- the articles at the front are relatively lightweight. But the reviewers are not kept on any leash at all in terms of tone, style or review length, and they range from brilliant to douchebag. You can subscribe to just the online version for a little less than a print subscription, and that includes the online archive of the last 10 years of reviews.

sleeve-- I blow hot and cold on Szell in classical-era music. He can sometimes be too tight-assed whipcrack in Beethoven and Mozart. The further you get into Romantic, late-romantic and early modern stuff, the better Szell's recordings are. He's amazing in Schumann and Strauss and Mahler, for instance. But if the price on that box is not too high then buy it.

SPEAKING OF MAHLER I just listened to a download of a captured radio broadcast of Mahler's 1st with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orch led by their new conductor Manfred Honeck. HOLY SHIT this is a crushingly powerful, shit-hot performance of this piece. Do a little googling for Honeck Mahler R@p1dsh@re and you'll find the DL link for this. It will blow you away. An audiophile Japanese CD is available of the same concert, and the broadcast version was so good I just went on Amazon and spent 30 bucks on that.

Coincidentally, I see Honeck/Pittsburgh will be playing this symphony in NYC soon-- I'll probably have to go.

Listening to the Boulez Conducts Stravinsky box set. I've heard some of these performances before but it really adds to the impact getting all of the Boulez performances together in one box. Wonderful stuff.

It's a box of all his Sony stravinsky or all his DG?