What are you listening 2 now?

[JBS]

Kandinsky is a suite for piano quartet of 11 short movements each linked to a painting by Wassily Kandinsky. Lyrisches, the subject of the first movement, is the artwork on the CD cover.

Trienta y tres formas... (the full title in English is 33 Ways to Look at the Same Object) is just under 29 minutes in length, for one piano four hands, is more atonal than usual among Sierra's works.

All three works were written between 2003 and 2008. This was a first listen, and will need a few more to reach any intelligent opinion.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Erkin: Symphony No. 2, Violin Concerto & Dance Rhapsody "Köçekçe".

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Grieg Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 & 2

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Always a guaranteed pleasure to revisit one of Schubert's masterpieces.

Absolutely! Do you have a favorite performance of Schubert's Octett? I really enjoy these two recent(ish) performances:



And this one, too:



When @Florestan gets up, I'd like to hear from him, too and every other Schubertian here for that matter.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Schubert Schwanengesang, D 957

[brewski]

Tchaikovsky: Capriccio Italien (Ormandy / Philadelphia). I grew up with the old Dorati/Minneapolis recording and loved it, but this has even more refinement, with some fantastic woodwinds.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Henry Eichheim - Bali: Symphonic Variations for Gamelan and Orchestra (1933). Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Brahms 1st



I often forget just how good Solti's Brahms is --- powerful performances.

[JBS]

Erkin: Symphony No. 2, Violin Concerto & Dance Rhapsody "Köçekçe".

I heard Köçekçe for the first time earlier today via this CD

The Erkin is the only one in which the written score is not supplemented with Levantine percussion instruments (although I didn't hear that much of a difference), a ney flute is used in the Caucasian Sketches, and short (17 and 47 seconds respectively) interludes for oud and qanun are placed between some of the movements in Scheherazade.

[JBS]

TD

[brewski]

Haydn: Symphony No. 96, "Miracle" (Ormandy / Philadelphia). Old-school, big-orchestra Haydn, but appealing nevertheless.

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Now playing Delius The Song of the High Hills

[Der lächelnde Schatten]

Last work for the night Chausson Poeme, Op. 25

[AnotherSpin]

Pieces for Sixth-tone Harmonium is a deep dive into one seriously weird instrument — the sixth-tone harmonium, originally designed by Alois Hába to push beyond the limits of standard Western tuning. The two CD album brings together works by Hába himself plus a bunch of contemporary composers. The sound is very microtonal — not just "slightly out of tune," but full-on alien intervals. A lot of the pieces lean into drone and dense tone clusters. That said, there are moments where the instrument really shines musically, showing off what it can do beyond just being a curiosity. Overall, it's a strange but genuinely intriguing listen. Definitely worth checking out if you're into off-the-map sound worlds.

[Roasted Swan]

Now playing Brahms 1st



I often forget just how good Solti's Brahms is --- powerful performances.

I agree - and generally Solti-bashing (fast, superficial and crude) is an easy option these days.  Truth is I'd rather have some Solti fire over the anonymous bland efficiency of so many current conductors.  How many conductors today can you identify by ear alone from the style of their music-making? (HIP doesn't count!)

[vandermolen]

Now playing a smattering of Copland Populist works --- Quiet City, An Outdoor Overture and Our Town

That's a fine old CD!

[vandermolen]

Glazunov: 6th Symphony

[pjme]

Henry Eichheim - Bali: Symphonic Variations for Gamelan and Orchestra (1933). Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Thanks for this post. I suppose that a better recording might do more justice to this "quaint" composition. I had never heard of Eichheim - a most interesting and intriguing figure.
http://www.music.ucsb.edu/projects/eichheim/main.html
I don't know if he knew or met Colin McPhee or Walter Spies - other singular musicians who studied and collected Balinese/indonesian music.

[Christo]

I don't know if he knew or met Colin McPhee or Walter Spies - other singular musicians who studied and collected Balinese/indonesian music.

Another interesting name is that of Dutch-Javanese composer Constant van de Wall (1871-1945) who positioned himself as the 'only representative of the oriental element in music' (1917) and as 'compositeur javanais' (1921), and received favourable reviews in the Dutch, Indonesian, and French press alike. Yet he felt unappreciated by his colleagues, because they often failed to notice or to value 'the work of Indisch composers.' After his death, Van de Wall was soon consigned to oblivion. Yet there exists a small English-language biography of this pioneer: https://athenaeumscheltema.nl/a/henk-mak-van-dijk/constant-van-de-wall--a-european-javanese-composer/500340047?#paperback-9789082063592

[Iota]

Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Heine Lieder, Books 1, 2 & 3
Elizabeth Hertzberg (soprano), Simonetta Heger (piano)


First listen to Castelnuovo-Tedesco and found his music more appealing than I was perhaps expecting. Decidedly tonal, these songs are outside of the core of work for which I read he is most known (guitar music), but I found they had a tone of refined simplicity and sincerity which kept the air clear and fresh, and kept me attentive to the end. Will certainly return to finish the disc.
Very nicely done too by both performers too, who are also new to me.