What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[eljr]

Originally Posted by bart

This is a marvellous album.
Sound and performance (even the German diction of Phillips! ), and of course the music.

Thanks for the heads up!

[bart]

Rameau - Pièces de Clavecin en Concerts
Robert Kohnen - Barthold Kuijken - Sigiswald Kuijken - Wieland Kuijken
via Qobuz




A Kuijken week in the practice...

[Antonmb]

Franz Schreker: Complete Orchestral Works, Vol. 1
Symphony No. 1; Intermezzo, Op. 8; Festwalzer und Walzerintermezzo; Valse lente; Suite from "The Birthday of the Infante"

Bochum Symphony Orchestra, Steven Sloane conducting
CPO (2021), via Qobuz

Schreker is new to me. Apparently he wrote a lot of stage music (opera, ballet), and it shows here. David Hurwitz says,

“The First Symphony is not, in fact, all that ambitious. It stands out for the beauty of its orchestral textures (using conventional forces), and Schreker seems never to have composed the finale–or if he did, it’s missing. The Intermezzo features typically warm and attractive string writing, while the Festwalzer und Waltzerintermezzo is an amiable bit of fluff. Valse lente, on the other hand, is a seductive, hot-house flower of a piece, enchantingly scored, and the luminously mellifluous suite from The Birthday of the Infanta is by now almost a repertory item.”

This is an excellent recording of very engaging music overall.

IMG_0677.jpg

[bart]

Originally Posted by AudioNut

Listening to . . . . Buxtehude and Pachelbel - Chamber Music

Musica Antiqua Koln -
Reinhard Göbel - Conductor

An Archiv Galleria recording



Love at first listen . . . Don't play many, new to me, recordings that my first thought is "I really like this thing" . . . Well, I do like this one.

Our church organist played a couple of Buxtehude organ pieces this morning at "virtual church" and I thought I'd like to hear other things this guy had written so, searching Tidal, I found this and I am impressed, both by the music and the performance.

Joining you Julian with this album.
I must say I was quite surprised to hear the first pieces with the prominent harpsichord.
You have evolved in taste!

[bart]

Originally Posted by Antonmb

Donizetti: String Quartets Vol. 1
Mitja Quartet
Urania Records (2021)

I’ve always thought of Donizetti as just an opera composer (which I don’t listen to at all), but learned of his quartets from a Classics Today review. This is a pleasant recording.

Tony, just finished the whole set, while preparing a lecture.
It's beautiful!

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

This was quite ideal music today in my practice:

Arcangelo Corelli - Sonate a Violino e Violino o Cimbalo op. V
Sigiswald & Wieland Kuijken, Robert Kohnen
via Qobuz

I played it again today.

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by bart

I played it again today.

My turn - lovely recording.

[bart]

Arvo Pärt - Miserere
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks
Münchner Rundfunkorchester
œnm. œstereisches ensemble fuer neue musik, Howard Arman
Qobuz 24/48




This is one I'm going to listen to a lot!
Nice booklet also.

The Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, born in 1935, has succeeded in bringing sacred music back to a broader audience, and away from the confines of the church service, more than almost any other contemporary composer. The meditative character of his works, and his return to the simplest and most basic musical forms, convey moments of intense spirituality. Before his emigration from the Soviet Union, Pärt had already invented what he termed the "tintinnabuli" style of composition. He produced an early and important example of this expressive style in 1977 with his Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, scored for string orchestra and bell. It is also a key feature of the choral and instrumental works presented by BR-Klassik on this new album: five works for choir as well as two for instrumental ensemble, covering all of the composer’s creative epochs between 1986 and 2019.

Alongside shorter a cappella choral works such as Tribute to Caesar (1997), Which Was the Son of... (2000), The Deer's Cry (2007) and Ja ma kuulsin hääle... (2017), the highlight of this album – almost 30 minutes in length and with its absolutely spectacular sound effects – is the Miserere for soli, mixed voices, ensemble and organ (1989/1992).

Ever since its premiere in 1989 in Rouen, France, and the recording by the Hilliard Ensemble under Paul Hillier, this is the first time a professional choir has dared undertake a production of this masterful composition – a work conveying the growth, flourishing and transience of human existence in sound. Arvo Pärt had never heard some of these pieces sung by a full choir before - “always only by a small ensemble”. The impressive programme is rounded off by two instrumental works: Festina lente (1986/1990) for string orchestra and harp, and Sequentia (2014/2019) for violin, percussion and string orchestra. © BR-Klassik

[bart]

Mahler - Symphony No. 10 in F-Sharp Major "Unfinished" (Completed by Deryk Cooke)
Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vänskä
Qobuz 24/96




First listen.
Seems like a good version, but I'm not a real connoisseur of this symphony.
Good sound.

Left unfinished at the death of the composer, Gustav Mahler's Tenth Symphony has exerted an enormous fascination on musicologists as well as musicians – a kind of Holy Grail of 20th-century music. Recognized as an intensely personal work, it was initially consigned to respectful oblivion, but over the years, Alma Mahler, the composer’s widow, released more and more of Mahler’s sketches for publication, and gradually it became clear that he had in fact bequeathed an entire five-movement symphony in short score (i.e. written on three or four staves). Of this, nearly half had reached the stage of a draft orchestration, while the rest contained indications of the intended instrumentation.

Over the years a number of different completions or performing versions of ‘the Tenth’ have seen the light of day. One of the most often performed and recorded of these is that by Deryck Cooke. Cooke himself insisted that his edition was not a ‘completion’ of the work, but rather a functional presentation of the materials as Mahler left them. Cooke’s performing version of the symphony is the one that Osmo Vänskä has chosen to use for the seventh installment in his and the Minnesota Orchestra’s "Mahler series", a cycle characterized by an unusual transparency and clarity of sound as well as musical conception. © BIS Records

[bart]

Originally Posted by eljr

Some lute music from a formerly unknown composer, Ferdinand Fischer, masterfully recorded by Northstar.



Hubert Hoffmann
Ferdinand Fischer: From Heaven on Earth - Lute Music from Kremsmunster Abbey

Type
SACD
Label
Challenge Classics
UPC
0608917274028
Catalog number
CC 72740
Release date
04 November 2016

Streaming this wonderful album again.
Fantastic music.
So calm.

PS. I can't imagine a better sound either (except maybe in multichannel - I hear you Kal )