[Enthusiast]

Some recent (last few weeks) listening of new-to-me recordings has included the Kletzki Beethoven set (currently very cheap as a download from Presto) and the Rattle Brahms symphonies. Both are truly excellent. And then there was Brahms 1 from Ivan Fischer (lovely).

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[Enthusiast]

3, 4 and 5 from this new but obviously great set. I've been playing it and playing it (despite having heard these works thousands of times).

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[Enthusiast]

Is this the new HIP? It is certainly nothing like what we have been calling HIP. Stimulating and effective but I feel sure it would really annoy many listeners!

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[Enthusiast]

Good to see you back posting Enthusiast - I don't know this recording but will try and give it a listen soon.

Thanks, Malx. I'm posting again but so far not as much as I used to! Do give this one a listen ... and prepare to be shocked! In a good way, I hope.

 

[Enthusiast]

Is this the new HIP? It is certainly nothing like what we have been calling HIP. Stimulating and effective but I feel sure it would really annoy many listeners!

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Not many liked this post but I was wondering if anyone has heard it. Minasi's approach is not at all what we have come to associate with HIP and I wonder if any can explain whether there are any grounds for playing these Mozart greats the way that he does?

 

[Enthusiast]

Promises
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and London Symphony
Label: Luaka Bop
Release Year: 2021

A jazz inspired classical work.

I would put it the other way around - classical inspired jazz. Right at the centre of it all is the great Pharoah Sanders (a musician who has dominated my mornings for a week).

 

[Enthusiast]

Sir John Barbirolli conducts Vaughan Williams - A London Symphony. Hallé Orchestra. Angel 1968

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One of the first LPs I owned, as a 12 year old. I'm afraid I've never enjoyed any other accounts of the work as much.

 

[Enthusiast]

I have been listening to quite a bit of Gergiev recently and finding myself becoming a big fan of his. Somehow I had missed the sheer volume of great records he has made. Some highlights (partly so because I hadn't known them so well until now) have included:

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I am not sure I have heard better performances of these works than this record.

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Less of a surprise as his 5th from this source has long been a favourite.

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This was my second complete hearing of this set - it's as good as any, better than most.

 

[Enthusiast]

I heard the Mariinsky Parsifal in Paris a couple of years ago. It had its moments, Parsifal sometimes being a bit of a snoozer no matter what (so looooong). But.....
The Good Friday music was breathtaking and the oboe soloist gave me a few bars that count among the greatest musical experiences I've had. Weird that a few bars could count for so much but I will never forget it.
I find Gergiev extremely variable. Some of his Prokofiev doesn't work for me. I think he conducts a Pique Dame that's available on YouTube that's pretty good, and for what I said about Prokofiev, I like his Three Oranges.

I also had the impression that his output has been mixed but I have surprised myself by how much of it is really very very good. That Alexander Nevsky instantly replaced my previously favoured Svetlanov - but then Gergiev has the big advantage of a Russian chorus - and it was great to hear a Scythian Suite that didn't just sound like a rather cynical Rite of Spring knock off! I do agree his Queen of Spades and Three Oranges are both excellent. I'm afraid I an quite a fan of Parsifal but I do know many who feel Wagner has some great highlights and a lot of boring music in between. I envy your seeing the Marinsky account.

 

[Enthusiast]

After receiving not unexpected but nonetheless desperately sad news, yesterdays listening was confined to one disc.

Faure, Requiem - Gardiner etc.

I am very sorry to hear that, Malx - my deepest sympathies. I have also been feeling surrounded by unexpected deaths in the last month (my mother-in-law who I always loved and one of my oldest friends both passed in March). I think Faure's is the only requiem I would actually want to listen to after a bereavement.

 

[Enthusiast]

Welcome back to our conversations, my dearest! Please, don't leave us again.

Thank you, indeed. I didn't really leave but was away for an extended period often with limited internet. And then I didn't really feel like posting for quite a while even if I visit to read the odd post. I can't promise to remain posting - I fear I irritate many of the members who remain and I'm also not sure I have much new to say to threads that often seem to be similar to old ones! But I'll probably be in the background reading posts. I hope life is treating you well?

 

[Enthusiast]

Haydn: Keyboard Concertos No. 3, 4 and 11

Leif Ove Andsnes (piano)

Norwegian Chamber Orchestra

I never got the critical praise heaped on this record (which, even while trying again and again, I find nearly dead). Am I missing something?

 

[Enthusiast]

This is a joy!

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[Enthusiast]

Two very contrasting CDs, both excellent and mood enhancing.

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The Schoenberg sounds great but the stand out for me is the Korngold, a lovely work that should be much more popular.

And after all that moody lushness, I turned to this:

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An extraordinary record of actually quite rich music for violin and viola by a number of composers including Scelsi, Holliger, Bartok, Martinu and Skalkottas. If it sounds like a chore to listen to it isn't so at all!

 

[Enthusiast]

The 2nd piano concerto of Skalkottas is a work I always enjoy.

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And this is one of my favourite Rites (albeit a work I love and I have a good few favourites but also know many that are just OK) along with an excellent Mavra. Eotvos is a great composer as well as a conductor who has made some first rate records.

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[Enthusiast]

I totally agree. I discovered Peter Eötvös by chance while going through the classical contemporary section in the public library. I've got these two albums on my shelves.

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Regards,

Vincula

I have good few Eotvos records but neither of those. I am quite jealous!

 

[Enthusiast]

Continuing with Eotvos the conductor ... this time some music by Maderna: the first disc of this mixed bag double album.

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Maderna was quite a conductor, himself, and some see him as having been on track to join Boulez as an eminent modernist composer who also became one of the great conductors (not that their approaches to either discipline were very similar) ... but sadly he died in his early fifties. His music was great but we don't have much record of his conducting. Certainly his Mahler 9 recording is one of the exceptional accounts of the work.

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It is interesting how quite a few leading avant garde composers of the last 50 years were also exceptional conductors.

 

[Enthusiast]

Haydn at his most sober ... and (coincidentally) at his greatest.

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[Enthusiast]

With the radio here taken over by Prince Philip memorials, I turned to discs earlier that usual. Again Eotvos has been a theme: I continued it with a Harvey disc in which Eotvos is once more the conductor of two of the three works (Song Offerings is conducted by another favourite composer of mine, George Benjamin) - a great disc.

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Then I went on to a disc that actually includes some Eotvos music - the wonderful piano concerto, CAP-KO - along with Smolka and Zimmermann (the quite well known Violin Concerto).

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[Enthusiast]

Zelenka for a change.

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