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What Classical Music Are You Listening To?


StarThrower

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44 minutes ago, David Ayers said:

Gould is not for everyone...

A classical version is assessted by me by criteria as: technique (dynamique), are the intentions of the composer transferred as accurate and natural as possible ?

 I am pretty much a purist but . . . sometimes i hear such a natural fluidity in the playing of an artist/artists without changing the intentions of the composer to much that it is forgivable for me.

'Gould' seems to be a hit or a miss for me. 

 

P.S. still learning.

25 minutes ago, David Ayers said:

Just listening now. Apart from the fact that I dislike listening to recorded piano concertos, this is...not for everyone...

Listening to classical music grows, needs training.

40 minutes ago, soulpope said:

I strongly believe this wasn't his vision anyway ....

Right about that.

Edited by Referentzhunter
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24 minutes ago, Referentzhunter said:

 

Listening to classical music grows, needs training.

 

 

Well for sure. With me it is overexposure I am worried about. So many concerts feature a piano concerto, often a warhorse. I quite like to hear them fresh, and in any case am not fond of them, so I have cut out the recorded ones, more or less, so as not to get bored. 

 

 

My next concert includes Rachmaninov 1, which I admit I can’t remember. After that, Tchaikovsky 1, which I can’t forget. After that, Shostakovich 2, Liszt 2 - you get the idea. 

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More Camerata Köln recordings - that Saturday concert sure inspired me to pull their CDs from the shelves. It's rare for such an ensemble to stay together that long, and with four founding members still on board! All other ensembles founded in the 1960's or 1970's have been dissolved or have changed personnel completely, and thus changed performance concepts and, IMHO, their level of playing has decreased. I saw the most recent edition of Concentus Muscius Vienna on TV recently and was disappointed. Camerata Köln still plays as vividly as in their early years, only wiser and more relaxed. 

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A download of William Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony playing in 1952 Darius Milhaud's remarkable 20-minute suite Protee (1917). Far more radical than anything else by Milhaud, it's like a cross between Le Sacre and Varese, and this to my knowledge is its best recording. I also have one on EMI by Abravanel (somewhat bland) and one from 1945 with Monteux and the San Francisco Symphony (I had high hopes, but it's rather dimly recorded and rushed). A highlight is the movement where the seals that disport around Neptune (Protee) are evoked by a choir of blaring, moaning tubas, a sound that once heard will not be forgotten. When the work was premiered in Paris in 1921, it provoked a riot that was said to have eclipsed the one that the premiere of Le Sacre set off. Sadly, there is no in-print modern recording AFAIK. Protee was originally conceived as the score for a ballet of that name conceived  by Milhaud and his friend the poet-diplomat Paul Claudel when both men were living in Brazil, but the ballet was never staged and Milhaud drew his suite from it.

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4 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

A download of William Steinberg and the Pittsburgh Symphony playing in 1952 Darius Milhaud's remarkable 20-minute suite Protee (1917). Far more radical than anything else by Milhaud, it's like a cross between Le Sacre and Varese, and this to my knowledge is its best recording. I also have one on EMI by Abravanel (somewhat bland) and one from 1945 with Monteux and the San Francisco Symphony (I had high hopes, but it's rather dimly recorded and rushed). A highlight is the movement where the seals that disport around Neptune (Protee) are evoked by a choir of blaring, moaning tubas, a sound that once heard will not be forgotten. When the work was premiered in Paris in 1921, it provoked a riot that was said to have eclipsed the one that the premiere of Le Sacre set off. Sadly, there is no in-print modern recording AFAIK. Protee was originally conceived as the score for a ballet of that name conceived  by Milhaud and his friend the poet-diplomat Paul Claudel when both men were living in Brazil, but the ballet was never staged and Milhaud drew his suite from it.

Can you recommend any essential recordings ?

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4 hours ago, Referentzhunter said:

Can you recommend any essential recordings ?

Yes -- The Steinberg download of Protee can be found here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?u1jecvxczzj

It's the only recording AFAIK that does the work justice, though it would be nice to have a performance of Protee that's this good and that was in top-flight modern sound. Though the Steinberg's sound is OK for its time (it's a live performance BTW), the work is, as some record label used to say, a "sonic spectacular." There may be a modern recording around somewhere, but I don't know of it. BTW the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1952 was quite a band.

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cd 1, Claude Debussy's Preludes Book 1 & 2 beginning.

'Dino Ciani'. Alfred Cortot called him miraculously gifted.

'Brilliant Classics', budget label that keeps improving. Little booklet included, nice cover also, cd's in seperate covers with information all conceiled in a nice clamshell-box. Found this in thriftshop for only 1.50 euro and i am very happy with it.

Did forget to mention that the sound on these Brilliant boxes is really good !

 

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