Thread: Current Listening...

[QUOTE=Vaneyes;338282]Haydn: Piano Sonatas with Hamelin (Vol. 3);

I have some of the Haydn sonatas played by him - they are great!

Yesterday I listened to...

Maurice Ravel - Menuet from Le tombeau de Couperin (Jean-Yves Thibaudet).
George Gershwin - Variations on I got Rhythm (Werner Haas/Edo de Waart/Orchestre National de l'Opera de Monte-Carlo).

Mozart, Sacred Works.

I'm too lazy to grab something from my collection, so I'm listening on Spotify. It's a decent recording of excerpts, not necessarily something I would pay for.

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Originally Posted by Jared

I'll be interested to know what you think..

McCreesh sure has some stellar women on board; Domine Deus is fun. So far I'm still overall leaning toward Gardiner. Maybe it's just familiarity.

Mendelssohn string quintet no. 1 while finishing off a bottle of cheap Malbec.

Pyotr Chaikovskii--Symphony No.1 in G Minor, Op.13 {"Winter Reveries"}, Symphony No.2 in C Minor, Op.17 {"Little Russsian"} and Symphony No.3 in D Major, Op.29 {"Polish"}. All three works feature the London Symphony Orchestra led by Igor Markevitch.
Ludwig Van Beethoven--Symphony No.3 in E-Flat Major, Op.55 {"Eroica"} and Symphony No.4 in B-Flat Major, Op.60, both performed by the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique under the baton of John Eliot Gardiner

Back in the studio today... listening to the following...



This disc has a few interesting numbers. Scelsi can even get the flute to sound like some ancient Himalayan drone... crossed with Japanese Shakuhachi flute.

Still I actually prefer Scelsi's work on this disc:



Then a jump back in time...



Some of the things that Biber does... his chaotic layering of multiple tunes and his use of dissonance... are shocking for the day... but I think that is what is lost with atonal music... the ability to employ dissonance as a shocking, disturbing, expressive element.



Some true Sturm und Drang music. I read up a good bit on Kraus. He was truly a composer with the potential to rival Beethoven. Haydn deemed him one of the greatest geniuses he had ever encountered. In spite of an early death at 36 he composed a good many symphonies, piano works, choral works, and operas. If the works on this disc are any measure, what he composed was truly first rate. At the same time he wrote, acted in the role of kapellmeister, conducted, and virtually established the Swedish Opera.

Currently listening to this a second time:

Anton Webern:

Concerto, Opus 24. Then Concerto, Opus 24. Then Concerto, Opus 24. Yeah, I like it.

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Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34
Sibelius: Symphony No. 4

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I've finally figured out the best time to listen to harpsichord: in the morning, to wake up. It's the opposite effect of nocturnes.
It's rare that I keep a disc out, and keep going back to it, but this Anthony Newman is doing it for me. Very forward-sounding recording on a superb instrument. This has more low-end than most, and Newman shows it off well, with plenty of flash, and total mastery, the kind that sets you at ease. This is also out on Columbia with a different cover, same recording.

Exploring some more Joseph Kraus on Spotify. Damn good.

Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 8 and 9
Sibelius: Symphony No. 4

Debussy: Danses sacree et profane

In 1904 Pleyel, the famous Parisian firm of instrument manufacturers, approached Debussy with a commission for a new test piece for chromatic harp, intended for use in the diploma examinations at the Brussels Conservatoire. Pleyel had introduced and patented the chromatic harp in 1897. Unlike the conventional concert harp, which is tuned according to the notes of the diatonic major scale, and has seven foot pedals, each of which corresponds to a single scale degree and its chromatic alterations (i.e. natural, sharp, and flat), Pleyel's instrument had no pedals. Instead, a separate string was provided for each chromatic note throughout its range.

Debussy's response to Pleyel's request was to compose his Danse sacrée et danse profane, which eventually took a place among the best-known and most frequently performed works for harp in the concert repertory. The harp parts are surprisingly conventional, and actually not especially difficult to play, though the exotic, coruscating passagework and rich chordal effects might suggest otherwise.

Almost from the outset, Danse sacrée et danse profane was played more often on the conventional orchestral harp, since the chromatic harp was soon abandoned, mostly because of its unwieldy size and the inordinate amount of time required to tune it before every performance.

According to the conductor Ernest Ansermet, the main theme of the first section was inspired by a piano piece by the Portuguese composer Francisco de Lacerda. This has not been proven, however, and it seems more probable that Debussy, with due regard for the antiquity of the harp (one of the oldest instruments in existence), based this slow, modally inflected piece on what he imagined Greco-Roman music must have been like. Another likely source of inspiration may well have been the antique flavor of Erik Satie's Gymnopédies for piano, which Debussy greatly admired, and two of which he orchestrated.

The second part is much faster, and takes the form of a waltz in the key of D major. Still, the music is filled with harmonic contradictions, particularly evident in the use of such "primitive" effects as the lowering of the seventh scale degree.