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Current Listening Vol VI

1M views 29K replies 281 participants last post by  Musicaterina 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
#2,181 ·
Rodion Shchedrin, Sotto voce concerto - Mstislav Rostropovich, LSO, Ozawa.

Like a fair proportion of the works in this box this piece was written for Rostropovich. A work that is relatively new to me but with each listen I am starting to believe this piece should be much better known.

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That's a special work indeed, rather serious and severe in its writing.
 
#2,188 · (Edited)
I began my listening this 29th of March, 2020, upon learning of the death of Krzysztof Penderecki, a powerful influence upon my personal musical tastes. It was Penderecki's De Natura Sonoris that first introduced me to the composer's music and began my lifelong appreciation for the man and his music making. I turned to the disc, a vinyl LP long in my collection, which started it all for me in the early '70s.

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This NONESUCH record features two works by Penderecki (and two by Xenakis) and I've never been the same since first hearing them. It was the second track on side B of the album, De Natura Sonoris though, that totally captivated my attention. I had never imagined such orchestral music existed, and so I began to explore further the works of this avant-garde composer.

Over the years I've acquired quite a library of Penderecki's recorded music, several dozen discs worth with multiple interpretations of many of the major works. (I must have at least a dozen recordings of the Threnody alone! -- as well as the score, a real delight to gaze at during listening sessions of the music).

One disc is a rather fine introduction to this composer (with all works conducted by Penderecki himself, including the Threnody), and I played it this afternoon, re-enjoying each and every piece:

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I scoured through recordings, choosing to hear a handful that had special meanings to me, and including the Violin Sonata No. 1 on NAXOS 8.557253, the Symphony No. 2 "Christmas" on OLYMPIA OCD 329, and Quartett für Klarinette und Streichtrio on BIS CD-652. But the crown of my listening session today remains a rehearing of another LP disc that has resided on my shelves (and spun on my various turntables) for quite a few years, the RCA Victrola recording of Penderecki's Passion According to St. Luke.

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Classic Penderecki, touching on so many of the bases for which the composer is known. And a profoundly beautiful and moving composition at the same time. A work in which Penderecki truly touches the sublime.

I admit to having been rather exhausted after my survey of the composer's music, and I sat in silence for some while, wondering what might sooth the spell of the moment as I reflected upon the life and music and so recent death of Krzysztof Penderecki. a true giant on the contemporary music scene.

I don't know why, but I was led to move to a new shelf of CD discs where resided no "classical" composers of either the traditional or the modern schools. In a row of folk music I found the disc my mind had sought out as a possible musical palate cleanser to my session with Penderecki: the high lonesome sound by legendary Kentucky mountain vocalist/banjoist Roscoe Holcomb, on Smithsonian Folkways CD 40104:

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This sparse, barren, simple-sounding disc full of raw, emotionally human songs featuring banjo, harmonica, and guitar accompanying the rather sad, plaintive vocals of Holcomb did not do much to sooth my soul with its unique change of pace, especially when featuring songs such as track number 20, "A Village Churchyard", seven minutes of mournful humanity. But it was a great contrast to the Threnody and the Lucas Passion, at least musically.

But what I found especially haunting, and sobering, while perusing through the liner notes of the Holcomb disc was this quotation on p.4 by musician/actor/researcher/journalist and Grammy winner Jon Panake:

"Roscoe Holcomb's music is at once so archaic and so abstractly avant garde … the exultation of despair … the most moving, profound and disturbing of any country singer in America."

With but a few small word changes, this passage could uniquely describe the music of one Krzysztof Penderecki, whose loss I mourn this day, with no small sadness.

Where ever are my ears, Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki sounds on. RIP, Maestro. And thank you.
 
#2,192 ·


Vaňhal: Sacred Works

Alice Martini (soprano), Sylva Čmugrová (mezzo-soprano), Jaroslav Březina (tenor), Roman Janál (bass)

Boni Pueri, Komorní filharmonie Pardubice, Marek Štryncl

Aria in B major - Semper quaero
Gloria in G major
Huc adeste (Aria)
Kyrie in G major
Offertorium in D major - Jubilate plausus date
Tu trinitatis orbem, Alleluja (motet)
 
#2,194 ·


Disc 1

Organ Concerto - Maurice Duruflé (organ), Orchestre de la Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire - Georges Prêtre
Litanies à la Vierge noire - Henriette Roget (organ) - Maitrise d'enfants de la Radiodiffsion Française - Jacques Jouineau
Piano Concerto in C sharp minor - Gabriel Tacchino (piano) - Orchestre de la Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire - Georges Prêtre
Concert champêtre in D - Aimée Van de Wiele (harpsichord) - Orchestre de la Societé des Concerts du Conservatoire - Pierre Dervaux

A wonderful set, which I bought initially for the Aubade on disc 2, as I already recordings of the piano concertos and the organ concerto under Dutoit. Though those performances are indeed excellent, these have a tang of authority with Duruflé, the original soloist in the Organ Concerto.

Late 1950s early 1960s recordings might not be quite up to the standard of the digital recordings for Dutoit but sound well enough to me.
 
#2,196 ·
Igor Stravinsky - various non-vocal works part three for late morning and early afternoon.

Apollon musagète - ballet in two scenes (1927-28):



Capriccio for piano and orchestra (1929):
Violin Concerto in D (1931):



Duo Concertant for violin and piano (1932):



Pastorale for wordless voice and piano - arr. for violin, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet and bassoon (orig. 1907 - arr. 1933):
Concerto for two pianos (1935):



Le baiser de la fée [The Fairy's Kiss] - ballet in four scenes, after The Ice Maiden by Hans Christian Anderson (1928 - rev. 1950):
Jeu de cartes [Card Game] - ballet 'in three deals' (1936-37):

 
#2,199 ·
Mahler Symphony No 4 - Kate Royal (soprano), Manchester Camerata, Douglas Boyd.

This is the Stein reduction for chamber orchestra created at the request of Schoenberg. If you compare with the fully orchestrated original it lacks weight, obviously, but taken for what it is it becomes an interesting listen - now if someone had made a string quartet version of the Eroica ;)

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