Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #28)

Trying to make the best of the weather and doing stuff outside the web while I can.
Come winter this'll be my 2nd home again! LOL

 

Few posts in this thread get more sympathy from me than those lamenting the need to schedule one's air conditioning around listening times. Trust me, I know the feeling.

Here's a new piece by Anthony Tommasini on today's seemingly ubiquitous piano virtuosity: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/arts/music/yuja-wang-and-kirill-gerstein-lead-a-new-piano-generation.html?ref=arts Uncanny timing as I was thinking the same thing myself the other day -- it really seems now that there is a pile of pianists with the technique to play whatever they want. Whether we want to pay them to, well, that's another story.

One pianist whose name was not mentioned, which surprised me, is Yevgeny Sudbin, who has chops the equal of anyone's, with very sound intellect and judgment as well. Seems a very nice guy -- he autographs any CD you purchase from his Web site, for example -- whose career I would love to see fully take off (Carnegie Hall recital, etc.)!

 

Now playing.

Picked it up at the Hong Kong audio show.

 

Wand's Beethoven is second to none.

 

Now playing the following CD, which arrived early this week for a first listen ...

 

Alun Hoddinott

I was listening to this Decca LP last night, a sonic knockout by a 20th Century Composer. Actually, I was needle dropping it last night after listening the night before. One of those LPs with great mastering, 50 minutes total, and no breakup or any distortion. Decca was good at that kind of thing.

Interesting thing is that this original Decca LP material from 1973 has come out on CD, but has been broken up, the material is on three different Decca and Lyrita CDs.

This LP and a few other recent needle dropping projects has convinced me that I really need to go 24/96 hi-rez from now on out with regards to LP to digital transfers. Recordings like this one have much to gain with a high bitrate capture as compared to 16/44.1.

Check out the album details, album scans below, and them links to where the material turns up in the CD era below that. Or pm me for other info on this TKO.

Alun Hoddinott - Horn Concerto, Piano Concerto, & Symphony No. 5,
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Davis

Horn Concerto

http://www.amazon.com/Barry-Tuckwel...L8AC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313197508&sr=8-1

Piano Concerto No. 2

http://www.amazon.com/Alun-Hoddinot...DCBS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1313197557&sr=8-3

Symphony No. 5

http://www.amazon.com/Alun-Hoddinot...6486/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313197616&sr=8-1

 

It appeared this CD was not released until both Karajan and Bernstein had passed away - in 1992. Indeed, this was the only recording Bernstein had ever made with the BPO. Not sure if Karajan had ever conducted the NYPO though ...

 

I don't think I enjoy Karol Szymanowski music much - it is too weird sounding ...

 

Watched this tonight and it featured so much Mozart, I thought it was worthy on mentioning here.

Now playing:



Thanks for the recommendations on this one, guys! Great stuff! Except for that recitative singing (talk-singing), which I really don't enjoy. When did opera composers do away with that?

 

Now playing the following CD, which cost me under $7, shipping included. The same CD is available on Amazon UK for over £13. Another great title to my early music collection ...

 

They didn't. Try R. Strauss Capriccio if you want wall to wall recitative.

 

Unreleased Youra Guller Vol. 3

Someone mentioned Youra Guller in the last thread (5 String?), and I posted two CD covers of her Tahra releases. Looks like Vol. 3 was released in EU a few months ago. Guller / Inghelbrecht / Orch. Nationale de France -- doesn't get much more French than that. Btw, Dr. Gary Lemco does all of Tahra's French-English booklet translations.

 

So which operas have the least amount of recitative?

 

"You Vill get uuuuuuuuuuuuused to it"

It's an aquired taste.

One of the best scenes in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte happens to be a dialog in recit form. However Die Zauberflöte is not an Opera—it's more like an early version of the Broadway musical. And the recitative of Figaro is some of the best.

You had to shift gears to get into Schoenberg, right? Same thing, only older.

 

Sure, if you like it, or get used to it. Until then though, which period or composers wrote with less recitative?

Actually, I took to Schoenberg right away.

 

Like a sorcerer's sealed book

His Sprechtstimme? Erwartung? Pierrot Lunaire? Because this sort of vocal experimentation is much closer to Recitatives than Arias.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6LyYdSQQAQ

 

Bohm's version of Die Zauberflote is supposed to be recitatif-free, or maybe just have less of it. In Le Nozze di Figaro, I find it helpful to listen on my computer, and just unclick the all the spoken parts. You could make CDRs.

 

I have yet to hear his vocal works, I meant his instrumental works. And you still haven't answered my original question.

 

Good idea!

 

Now playing CD6 - Brahms PC No. 2 & Strauss Burleske in D minor from the following set for a first listen ...

 

Any major dude can tell you . . .

To be perfectly honest, as the recits don't bug me the way they bug you, I never felt the need to find out. There's recits in Puccini, but they might strike you as more musical. There's tons of orchestral fireworks going off in Wagner when this sort of stuff is going on. As of now, on account of not listening to opera now like I used to, I'm more likely to listen to opera highlight and recital recordings than devote myself to two or three hours of a single opera. Actually, I'm listening to Steely Dan right now, so you might have good reason to find my opinions suspect anyway.

And seriously, explore Schoenberg's vocal works, they are phenomenally weird.

 

OK, thanks. I guess that Pierrot Lunaire is a good place to start, right? I already have 2 of Berg's operas as well.

 

Mondestrunken

There's a great, ultra creepy version sung by Christine Schäfer, led by Boulez that's been rendered as a long form video. You find it streaming from the usual suspects, videos well worth exploring:

http://www.youtube.com/results?sugg...naire+schoenberg++Christine+Schäfer,+playlist

 

OK, thanks. I have read good things about the Naxos CD version.

 

I have that on DVD! It's called "One Night, One Life." Very strange. Christine Schafer is beautiful . . .

George, check out String Quartet No. 2 ("I feel the air of other planets . . .") I heard this live in Philadelphia a few years ago; had never heard it before and immediately struck me as strange, beautiful, and otherworldly.