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The classical what are you listening to now ? thread.

My favourite Mahler. Wonderful sense of immediacy,presence and “being there”

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Watched some more Berlin Philharmonic - Thomas Sondergaard's debut with them from a few days ago - lockdown concert with no audience, but a superb rendition of Sibelius 6. I hope the RSNO is not going to lose him!

Followed by Kyril Petrenko conducting Tchaikovsky's Rome & Juliet - superb. But then Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead.....Petrenko's exacting crispness just doesn't work here..... I far preferred the huge enveloping sound that Gustavo Dudamel achieved in this same piece in a concert from about 10 years ago that's also available on the Berlin Phil subscription.

Sticking with Russian popular classics... Tugan Sokhiev conducting Rimsky-Korasakov's Scheherezade from 2016. Again, wonderful. What a superb piece of music too.... like Holst's Planets, its a rare example of a piece of music that has great memorable tunes, incredible orchestration that will pull in even the most inexperienced newcomer to classical, yet remains totally satisfying for afficionados.
 
alanbeeb said:
Watched some more Berlin Philharmonic - Thomas Sondergaard's debut with them from a few days ago - lockdown concert with no audience, but a superb rendition of Sibelius 6. I hope the RSNO is not going to lose him!

Followed by Kyril Petrenko conducting Tchaikovsky's Rome & Juliet - superb. But then Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead.....Petrenko's exacting crispness just doesn't work here..... I far preferred the huge enveloping sound that Gustavo Dudamel achieved in this same piece in a concert from about 10 years ago that's also available on the Berlin Phil subscription.

Sticking with Russian popular classics... Tugan Sokhiev conducting Rimsky-Korasakov's Scheherezade from 2016. Again, wonderful. What a superb piece of music too.... like Holst's Planets, its a rare example of a piece of music that has great memorable tunes, incredible orchestration that will pull in even the most inexperienced newcomer to classical, yet remains totally satisfying for afficionados.
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I had tears in my eyes during the Tchaikovsky Rachmaninov concert.
 
Prokofiev's concerto for piano #2 with Rana/Pappano. I've fallen in love with this concerto.
 
TheDecameron said:
I had tears in my eyes during the Tchaikovsky Rachmaninov concert.
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For good reasons I hope? have to say I have reservations about Petrenko.

I didn't get as far as Francesca da Rimini.... best give it a try!

I seriously recommend you hear Dudamel's Isle of the Dead though as a corrective to Petrenko. Likewise Tugan Sokhiev's Symphonic Dances for some late Rachmaninov.
 
alanbeeb said:
For good reasons I hope? have to say I have reservations about Petrenko.

I didn't get as far as Francesca da Rimini.... best give it a try!

I seriously recommend you hear Dudamel's Isle of the Dead though as a corrective to Petrenko. Likewise Tugan Sokhiev's Symphonic Dances for some late Rachmaninov.
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You’re on.
 
Geza Anda [missing an accent on the 'e'] playing Schumann's Davidbundslertanze [missing a couple of umlauts along the way], in a 1964 recording, and the C-major Fantasie, in a recording from 1963.
 
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I'm certain I've never heard a better played version of Chausson's Poeme, but I'm less certain about this setting the standard for lush French romanticism. The Prokofiev likewise rates with the best when it comes to playing, but here I want a bit more bite. Perhaps the problem is that Hahn loves the piece and performs it frequently, so now, like with the Nielsen when I saw her perform it, she just dashes it off as a matter of course, not having to struggle as lesser violinists might have to. The two Rautavaara Serenades are neo-romantic and sound less like many of the composer's other works I've heard than I expected, but then they blend in seamlessly with Hahn's conceptions of the other two works. Not a standard bearer disc (well, except for the world premiere Rautavaara pieces, written for the fiddler*), but up there with the best, and when considered as a programmatic whole, where styles blend, rather successful. As if Hahn could release a dud.


* Per Ms Hahn's liner notes, neither she nor Mikko Franck knew about the pieces until after the composer's death; the works had only been discussed previously. The second was left incomplete, and was finished by Kaveli Aho, so perhaps that explains a bit of the soundworld difference, though that exists in both pieces.
 
Digital Concert Hall. Theilemann conducting with Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund in Richard Strauss orchestral songs. Breathtaking performance of Morgen.
 
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The third of three recent-ish recordings of works for Violin and Piano by Enescu, and by some distance the best. It ain't even close. Though neither artist is Romanian, the color, the rhythmic flexibility, the vitality all seem from a different world than Germans or Hungarians can muster. (Perhaps Kudritskaya's Ukraninian roots matter?) Both artists play with very strongly individual artistic temperaments, and then merge together spectacularly well. The pinnacle of the disc is Impressions d'enfance, Op. 28, which emerges as a towering masterpiece of 20th Century chamber music, blowing the Duo Bruggen-Plank take into the weeds. This duo has recorded a couple other discs, including an all French music disc. I must hear it.
 
How much improvisation is possible in classical works i wonder. I have listened a lot to Mozart lately, especially the piano concertos (to me Mozart is the greatest of them all). But how much of the performance is left as improvisations and understanding to the director and musicians? There are fans of improvisations, like Robert Levin. At the same time, many of the passages as I hear them are quite similar. Are there pre-completed ornaments or passages that most practitioners use?

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Pierre Monteux, LSO Beethoven Symphony No.3.
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This 1963 recording from the man who conducted Diaghilev’s premiere of Right of Spring in the pit at The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in 1913 (and probably took a cabbage to the head) is a wonderful thing- spry and energetic in the same way Herbert Blomstedt has managed in his 9th decade. The bonus track is him rehearsing the Concertgebouw in the funeral March.
Decent recording quality, though the Concertgebouw brass sound more like the Leningrad Philharmonic which I assume is a tape artefact.
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Mahler Symphony No.4. Dudamel, Camilla Tilling, Concertgebouw. Live stream on Medici TV. Utterly beautiful and the eerie clarity of an empty ( of audience) Concertgebouw. The microphones remained live as the end credits claim up and they picked up Dudamel- he said ‘wow!” to the orchestra and I have to agree.
 
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