What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[bart]

Les Sacqueboutiers & Dominique Visse - La Lyre Amoureuse
Qobuz 24/88.2




I could really appreciate this new release.
Well done.

The Lyra in Love: this chiaroscuro program declines the feelings of love in all their diversity, from jubilation to despair, from hope to renunciation, through the intervention of the greatest composers of the 17th century, such as Giovanni Sances, Barbara Strozzi, Luigi Rossi or Tarquinio Merula.
When Claudio Monteverdi invented the "recitar cantando" (from the text comes the music) at the beginning of the 1600s, many composers followed his lead and signed with him this new style, the "seconda prattica", which they combined the perfection of modern music with the ancient style (or "prima prattica"), characterized by a strict observance of the rules of counterpoint, as taught in the middle of the previous century. For the first time, the madrigals also feature a basso continuo, marking the transition from the old style to the new Baroque "stile concertato".

"On the Lyra in Love", a translation of the first line of Tarquinio Merula's piece, Su la cetra amorosa, is the title and the linch pin of this program, illustrating the great variety of amorous feelings that Orpheus expresses on his lyre, to the point of moving wild animals and inanimate beings. It is also combined with this passion for the 17th century repertoire in which the voice and the instruments can dialogue in perfect harmony, blend together in a common colour, or compete in virtuosity to express all the richness of this music.
The greatest Italian composers of the17th century considered the cornett and the sackbut as the instruments most able to imitate the voice. First of all thanks to the timbre and the tessitura (the cornett for the high voices, the sackbut for the low voices), then thanks to the combined action of the tongue and the breath which allows the instrumentalist to articulate the sounds in order to give the illusion of speech.
We have selected in this program the works which appear to us to be the most representative of this school, without however occulting the virtuoso aspect of vocal and instrumental writing. © Flora

[jimtranr]

DXD download. Sergei Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony was completed in 1947, a year before the Zhdanov decrees shredded his (and Shostakovich's, Khachaturian's, and others') "formalism." Its somber sections reflect what the composer called the wounds from the Great Patriotic War that would never heal.

Nicolai Myaskovsky's 27th (and last) symphony dates from 1949. He, too, was a target of the Zhdanov decrees, if a lesser one.

Excellent performances by the Vasily Petrenko-conducted Oslo Phiharmonic.

[bart]

Francesco Rasi - Soleil Noir
I Gemelli, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro
Qobuz 24/96




Another new release that was well worth hearing!

Composer, poet and virtuoso singer, Francesco Rasi (1574-1621) unquestionably influenced the vocal style around the dawn of the 17th century and the birth of opera. He created the title role in Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo; and in the shady ambiguity of his personal character he seems to embody the chiaroscuro atmosphere of late Renaissance Italy. This programme, devised by Emiliano Gonzalez Toro and his ensemble I Gemelli – here in its most intimate, pared-down line-up of solo voice, viola da gamba, lute and harp – displays the art of the tenor at the fruitful period of the canto fiorito, the ornately decorated melody so emblematic of the vocal school of Florence and Ferrara.

"This recording reflects his musical surroundings, whatever he sang or was closely involved in", explains Emiliano Gonzalez Toro. "Soleil noir" brings together the great Italian composers of the period: Caccini, Da Gagliano, Del Biado, D’India, Falconieri, Gesualdo, Monteverdi and Peri. The melodies penned by Rasi are ones he actually sang, accompanying himself on the lute or the harp, and some of their poetic verses are his own too. The artist’s detailed research into the text aims to focus attention on the poetry rather than the instrumental line-up: and thanks also to Emiliano Gonzalez Toro’s flexible range of many-coloured vocal nuances, the singer is once again at the very heart of the music, as he was at that period: ‘the wellspring of all the inflections, tempi and instructions in the continuo part’, and he reveals a world of shafts of light reaching out beyond the darkness. © naive classique

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Coeur - Airs de Cour Français de la fin du XVIme siècle
Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre
Qobuz 24/88.2




Another delicious album.
Composed from 1570 till 1600.
These works breathe calm and quiet.
Shortly after this period, (a lot of the) French music would become more bombastic.

Utterly beautiful...

[Kal Rubinson]

Originally Posted by jimtranr

Excellent performances by the Vasily Petrenko-conducted Oslo Phiharmonic.

Sigh. It seems that LAWO has abandoned multichannel.

[bart]

Originally Posted by Kal Rubinson

Sigh. It seems that LAWO has abandoned multichannel.

They had some terrific offerings in the past.

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Mendelssohn
Enescu - Octets
Gringolts Quartet & Meta4
Qobuz 24/96




Mendelssohn was the 'inventor' of the octet (Schubert had written a double quartet a year before).
His octet is a fantastic, and incredibly mature work - he was 16 when he composed this!
The Enescu work was unknown to me, but also written when he was still very young (19).
Impeccable sound and playing (the Mendelssohn, I can't judge the Enescu).

Two wonderful works, composed by teenagers...

[clpetersen]

[bart]

Johann Pachelbel - Hexachordum Apollinis, 1699
Wim Winters, clavichord
CD




When he came to install the subs, my dealer gifted me this album.
I got number 345/500.

Interesting recording, on a Studer A80r.
Details here: www.authenticsound.org

[bart]

Saint-Saëns - Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 and in A Major
Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Jean-Jacques Kantorow
Qobuz 24/96




Good performances of these beautiful works from a young composer.
This is played by the only Walloon symphonic orchestra, and it's a good one.
Unfortunately the recording is a bit thin and flat.

Prodigiously gifted, Camille Saint-Saëns entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1848, at the age of 13. There he discovered the symphonies of the great German and Austrian composers and soon began to try his own hand at the genre. The Symphony in A major stems from this period and although it was most likely never performed in his lifetime it demonstrates his exceptional talent to the full. Only a couple of years later, in 1853, Saint-Saëns submitted his second attempt at writing a symphony to one of the capital’s concert societies. Praised by Berlioz and Gounod, the Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major was accepted for performance and published shortly afterwards as the composer’s Opus 2. Classical in form, it is an example of Saint-Saëns’ typical clarity, with the lyricism that would later become a hallmark of his music coming to the fore in the two central movements.

By the late 1850s, despite his youth, Saint-Saëns was already well-established: in addition to his activity as a virtuoso pianist, he had been named organist of La Madeleine in Paris. He composed his Symphony No. 2 in A minor quickly: from July to September 1859. The orchestration is transparent, and the first movement unusually features a fugue for three voices. Concise and constantly inventive, the work moves away from the Viennese models Saint-Saëns admired so much, with a finale reminiscent of the tarantella in Mendelssohn’s "Italian" Symphony. The present release is the first of two dedicated to the symphonies of Saint-Saëns and recorded by the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège and Jean-Jacques Kantorow to commemorate the centenary of the composer’s death. © BIS Records