What Classical Music Are You Listening To?

[alankin]

Johann Sebastian Bach – Complete Lute Suites: BWV 995, 996, 997, 1006a — Sharon Isbin, guitar (Virgin Classics)

Edited November 19, 2017 by alankin

[Peter Friedman]

[soulpope]

2 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

Outstanding ....

[soulpope]

[T.D.]

2 hours ago, soulpope said:

Interesting. Her later recording of the suites

was praised on this forum, but I never got round to hearing it. If you've heard both, which do you prefer?

[soulpope]

2 hours ago, T.D. said:

Interesting. Her later recording of the suites

was praised on this forum, but I never got round to hearing it. If you've heard both, which do you prefer?

I bought the earlier Ambrosie recordings as new release but didn`t bother too much about them ..... after the new recording for Aparte drew a lot of praise in 2011 I was curious and re-listened to the Ambrosie platters again and learned to appreciate Gaillard`s unagitated still affluent performances but felt no motivation to buy additionally the new set from her .... btw as the Ambrosie are nearly impossible to find nowadays (the label went defunct) the likely choice is to go via the newer recordings ....

Edited November 19, 2017 by soulpope

[Larry Kart]

2 hours ago, T.D. said:

Interesting. Her later recording of the suites

was praised on this forum, but I never got round to hearing it. If you've heard both, which do you prefer?

I was the one who praised her later recording but haven't heard the earlier one. A commentator on Amazon whose opinion I usually respect said that her earlier version was rougher but agreeably so, though he couldn't chose between them.  Recently I heard the much touted recording of the suites by Jean-Guihen Queyras. Technically, he's remarkable; musically IMO -- blah. BTW, that same Amazon commentator was delighted by the Queyras recording.

[HutchFan]

Rachmaninov: The Symphonies, etc. / Mariss Jansons, St. Petersburg PO (Warner Classics)
Disc 1 - Symphony No. 1 & Isle of the Dead

[Larry Kart]

4 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I was the one who praised her later recording but haven't heard the earlier one. A commentator on Amazon whose opinion I usually respect said that her earlier version was rougher but agreeably so, though he couldn't chose between them.  Recently I heard the much touted recording of the suites by Jean-Guihen Queyras. Technically, he's remarkable; musically IMO -- blah. BTW, that same Amazon commentator was delighted by the Queyras recording.

In the prelude to Suite 4, I compared the later Gaillard, Queyras, Wispelwey (Channel Classics), and an old favorite, Lillian Fuchs on viola (Doremi). Gaillard in the booklet to her discs is asked by an interviewer, "What do you mean when you speak about a sense of rhetoric, when there is no text and the music is secular?" She answers: "Indeed, there is no text in these dance suites. Yet we cannot help being touched by their eloquence, as if the cello were speaking." That's it exactly, or that's it in her recording.

In the prelude to Suite 4, each five-note melodic phrase begins/jumps down into and then off from a lower-register chord, as though from a trampoline: jump ... chord ... bounce ... melody...  jump ... chord ... bounce ... melody... etc. for roughly 4:30, with shadings/variations in emphasis. In Gaillard's performance the lower-register chords tend to be gruff and are fairly clearly differentiated in timbre and by timing and volume from the notes that follow before the next launching lower-register chord arrives. The sense of speech, even of dialogue, that results is quite clear and to me feels just right. Further, listening to Wispelway, who also takes good account of the initial chord-versus-following melodic arc rhetorical structure and even nicely goes on to timbrally differentiate and shade in volume those chords from each other as the movement goes on, one gets the feeling (at least I do) of an interpretation, of a player making the instrument speak in a particular way, while with Gailard it's the instrument itself that seems to be speaking. I know -- booga-booga stuff, but that's the feeling I get.

With Queyras, the lower-register chords in each phrase are almost scamped/nearly inaudible, as though he doesn't quite want us to hear them; thus the movement's rhetorical structure is more or less missing. He does it this way, I would guess, because he wants to play those repeating wave-like melodies in as unbroken a fashion as possible, as a lyrical line, that is -- it's like 4 minutes of melted dark chocolate. But the prelude isn't lyrical per se or lyrical that way; it's about a chord (and an act of rhythm, i.e. the "jump") repeatedly generating (in dlalogue, dancing like a partner with) a melody.  Fuchs gets this too, but her recording, from the early 1950s, is rather close up; thus the initial chord of each phrase isn't as clearly differentiated in timbre and volume  from the notes that follow as with Gaillard and Wispelway. But her performance sure is worth a listen.

[soulpope]

[Peter Friedman]

[soulpope]

[soulpope]

[Peter Friedman]

String Sextet No.2, Op.36

[erwbol]

 

[soulpope]

1 hour ago, erwbol said:

 

Could you pls share your impressions .... ?

[erwbol]

1 hour ago, soulpope said:

Could you pls share your impressions .... ?

New arrival. I just put the first disc in. Sound is fine at least.

My Amazon FR order from a couple of weeks ago got lost in the mail. After my refund was processed I order through the local classical music store.

Comes in a slimline box. Booklet is 40 pages in three languages. Contains an interview where it is explained why the second finale to op.130 was not recorded, but I have yet to fully read it. I prefer the Grosse Fuge anyway.

[soulpope]

1 hour ago, erwbol said:

New arrival. I just put the first disc in. Sound is fine at least.

My Amazon FR order from a couple of weeks ago got lost in the mail. After my refund was processed I order through the local classical music store.

Thnx .... didn`t know about this new release before your post at all .... probably you can drop a line here after your impressions have deepened ....

Edited November 22, 2017 by soulpope

[erwbol]

Here are the only two reviews currently available:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/nov/08/beethoven-the-late-string-quartets-cd-review-quatuor-mosaiques-naive

https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/web-articles/quatuor-mosaiques-excels-in-late-beethoven/

 

I have listened twice to Op.127, Op.131, & Op.135 now. The performances are sublime imo. I do not have as extensive a classical knowledge and library as you do, so there is little to add. Tonight I'll put on Op.130 & 133.

[Peter Friedman]

Op.59/1

[soulpope]

Thereof Symphony 6 ....

[Larry Kart]

My first Tubin symphony. Impressed, I ordered most of the rest.

Sadly deceased at a fairly young age, Lee Hyla, on the basis of these three works, was one heck of a modern composer, with a terrific and to my mind unique sense of timbre and rhythm. One of these works discretely incorporates the bass line of a piece from the AEC's "Le Stances de Sophie." Hyla had a background in that music in his early days in the Boston area.

[Larry Kart]

Lee Hyla obit:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2014/06/10/lee-hyla-former-new-england-conservatory-professor-composed-scores-that-melded-energy-and-complexity-rock-and-classical-music/KlkfuYyA4hDqOMi6ayBvFJ/story.html

[Peter Friedman]

Disc two - Op.33, 41, 50, 56, 59, 63

[alankin]

Johann Sebastian Bach – John Williams Plays Bach — The Complete Lute Music On Guitar (Columbia Masterworks / Sony Classical)
– Lute Suite No.1 in E minor BWV 996
– Prelude Fugue & Allegro for Lute in E flat major BWV998
– Lute Suite No.2 in C minor BWV 997
– Lute Suite No.3 in G minor BWV 995
– Lute Suite No.4 in E major BWV 1006a
John Williams (guitar)