Bruckner symphonies (Nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 & 9) with Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the Staatskapelle Dresden. I have these 1987-99 Deutsche Grammophon recordings in a Japanese Tower Records box set. Listening to the 8th at the moment, I find interpretation cold and angular, many voices weakly pronounced, and the stereo separation, through headphones, extreme. Still, I may find myself buying this particular piece again some day to get Strauss' Metamorphosen which padded out the original 2-CD release...
NP: Janáček String Quartet No. 2, “Intimate Letters” Talich Quartet Between this recording, Panocha and Pražák, I’d have a difficult time choosing a favorite in these SQs. I also like the Takács on Hyperion.
Yep, this was a part of an American composer series from Slatkin and RCA. Most of the covers featured Benton’s artwork --- Ives, Copland, Piston, Barber, Schuman, Corigliano...am I forgetting anyone? I think these were the only composers in the series to have Benton art.
Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht op.4; Webern: Passacaglia op.1; Berg: Three Orchestral Pieces op.6 Berlin Philharmonic & Herbert von Karajan DGG (Esoteric SACD) These are fantastic recordings - the opulent Berlin sound complements these works extremely well, IMO.
NP: K. A. Hartmann Burleske Musik SWR Rundfunkorchester Kaiserslautern Paul Goodwin A fun little piece --- a jazzy excursion that has some traces of Hindemith and Stravinsky.
Indeed. I always wished Karajan had ventured further into each of these composer’s oeuvres. I can only imagine what he’d do in Berg’s Wozzeck. Now, that would be something!
First-Listen Tuesday Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos, Op. 60 Ian Thompson (tenor), Michael Howard (tenor), Albert Dohmen (baritone), Sami Luttinen (bass), Christoph Genz (tenor), Eva Kirchner (soprano), Andris Liepa (contralto), Stephan Genz (baritone), Romuald Pekny (speaker), Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano), Jürgen Commichau (bass), Christiane Hossfeld (mezzo-soprano), Ben Heppner (tenor), Natalie Dessay (soprano), Deborah Voigt (soprano) Staatskapelle Dresden Sinopoli
Working through some of the Glenn Gould albums that I hadn't heard prior to the boxed set arriving yesterday. I confess I don't see the attraction of the early Strauss pieces that were his final recordings. Not works I shall revisit often.
Now playing: Nikolai Myaskovsky - Symphonies Nos. 2 & 10 - Vienna Radio SO, Gottfried Rabl - recorded 1997
Have just had a gallop through the Moonlight Sonata with Mr. Gould. I think he had a taxi waiting on that day. Not quite sure why the Pathetique was included on this album as it had already been released three years earlier on another.
I’m not Gould fan so I can’t comment on the performances, but I don’t think Strauss came into his own until the late 1880s. He’s not really well-known for his chamber or solo piano works anyway, but I do like the Violin Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 18 and Piano Quartet, Op. 13. His operas, tone poems, lieder and concertante works seem to get the most acclaim and rightfully so.
I’m still listening to Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos (w/ Sinopoli et. al.) and enjoying it immensely sans the narration in the Prologue, but this isn’t why I’m making this post... I want to post my review of the new Berg Tilson Thomas recording: Title: An All Berg Program From MTT But With Mixed Results First, let me get the negatives out of the way first since no one apparently likes to read a complaint these days, but the performances of the “Violin Concerto” and “Seven Early Songs” are to be found in better performances elsewhere. I never have been a huge fan of Gil Shaham’s violin playing as great technically as he may be, I think he missed the boat interpretatively in Berg’s “Violin Concerto”. The main problem is Shaham doesn’t dig into the music enough here to devastate the listener or, at least, this listener. This concerto was “Written in memory of angel”, but this doesn’t come across here. Everything is pristine, well-paced, but it’s not psychologically gripping as Berg should be. Anyway, Shaham isn’t the violinist for the job. My two go-to performances here are Mutter/Levine on DG and Faust/Abbado on Harmonia Mundi. I think both of these performances get inside the music and leave the listener a bit uncomfortable. “Seven Early Songs” is well-enough sung here from Susanna Phillips and, again like Shaham, there’s no questioning how technically superb she is, but there’s more to Berg than this and I’ll continue to return to Norman/Boulez on Sony and Otter/Abbado on DG. I do want to mention that Tilson Thomas’ accompaniment is quite good, but it could be more edgier and responsive to what the soloist is doing rather than just beating time on the podium. I think what really stands out here are the “Three Pieces for Orchestra”. Now, this is where I think Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra come alive. This is a gripping performance and it does make me question why couldn’t this kind of attention and excitement be in the “Seven Early Songs” and “Violin Concerto”? Was Tilson Thomas asleep at the wheel during these performances? I don’t know, but he really gets inside the “Three Pieces for Orchestra” --- all of the eeriness, Expressionistic distortion and maniacal delusion are here in all their splendor. This performance doesn’t quite reach the same level as Karajan’s incredible Berliner performance on DG or Boulez’s performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on Sony (originally Columbia), but it certainly gets close. Allow me to add that the fidelity of this recording is outstanding. Anyway, I’ll give this 3-stars for the “Three Pieces for Orchestra”, but the weaker performances of the “Violin Concerto” and “Seven Early Songs” keep me from giving it a full 5-star rating as I don’t think Shaham and Phillips were interpretatively that interesting.
Listening to "Orlando Di Lasso - Missa Tous Les Regrez / Motetten / Motets" performed by Singer Pur on Ars Musici.
