What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

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You can't go wrong with Argerich!

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Antonio Vivaldi - 6 Sonatas for Violoncello and Basso Continuo
Anner Bylsma, Hidemi Suzuki, harpsichord
Jacques Ogg, harpsichord




Hot day to work (I'm on duty), but this 'light' music can cheer my patients up.

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Originally Posted by cma29

Just got this as well...

Beethoven: Missa Solemnis in D major, Op. 123
Ann-Helen Moen (soprano), Roxana Constantinescu (mezzo-soprano), James Gilchrist (tenor) & Benjamin Bevan (baritone)
Bach Collegium Japan, Masaaki Suzuki



A very satisfying performance by Suzuki and his Japanese forces. The small ensemble manages to pack a punch which is very nicely captured by the very natural and transparent BIS recording. Almost as good as their recent Mozart Mass in C minor SACD which is saying something.

Here is a video

https://youtu.be/uoap54sLvm4

Streaming it at this moment.
I think it is one I want to own.

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Bach - Das Musikalisches Opfer
Il Gardellino
Qobuz 24/44.1




Very good interpretation of an old warhorse.
Sound is excellent too.

[cma29]

Entrez, Le Diable! The Virtuoso Cello at the Concert Spirituel
Juliana Soltis – Baroque cello
Adaiha MacAdam-Somer – viola da gamba
Lucas Harris – theorbo
Justin Murphy-Mancini – harpsichord





I saw this reviewed in Gramophone last year (see review below) and put it on my wish list. I finally got the disc this week and enjoyed listening to the program. The recorded sound is good.

It’s almost unfathomable that a cello could provoke a scandal, but this appears to have been in the case in the 1730s in France. Stepping to the fore in place of the elegant viola da gamba, the temperamental cello shocked ears at an admired concert series, compelling the French viol player Hubert Le Blanc to declare the offending instrument ‘a miserable canker, wretch, and poor Devil’. Thus this illuminating disc’s title, ‘Entrez, le Diable! The Virtuoso Cello at the Concert Spirtuel’.

The brains (and limbs) behind the programme is baroque cellist Juliana Soltis, who performs works by four French composers with almost diabolical personality and, oui, finesse. The composers’ names wouldn’t trip off the tongue of most listeners but their music reveals why the cello came across as so progressive and dangerous.

Salvatore Lanzetti’s Sonata in E minor thrusts the cello into fierce displays of technique and impassioned rhetoric, while Martin Berteau’s Sonata in G makes enchanting use of ethereal harmonics. Soltis states in her booklet notes that François Martin prompted the cello to face an unusual challenge in the first movement of his captivating Sonata in D: using the player’s chin to produce a pedal tone. Two sonatas by Jean-Baptiste Barrière give the cello ample opportunity to sing and perform acrobatics.

The intrepid Soltis hurls herself into all of the music, producing gritty sounds and explosive passagework when she isn’t caressing lines with poetic grace. Her colleagues could hardly play with more devilish allure.

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Schmitt: Suites from “Antoine et Cléopâtre,” Symphony No.2
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Safari Oramo conducting
Chandos (2018), streaming via Qobuz

Interesting music, if not exactly revelatory. Good performance and sound.

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Bach - Dialogkantaten BWV 32, 49 & 57
Sophie Karthäuser, soprano
Michael Volle, bass
RIAS Kammerchor & Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Raphael Alpermann
Qobuz 24/96




I knew the ensemble and Karthäuser before, so it is no surprise they perform so well here.
But also Volle is excellent and a nice discovery.
Good album.

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Rameau / Couperin
Clément Lefebvre, piano
Qobuz 24/96




I prefer these pieces on harpsichord, but also on the piano the wonderful melodies are enchanting.

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Scarlatti - Ligeti - Continuum
Justin Taylor, harpsichord
Qobuz 24/192




An interesting marriage that gels remarkably well.
Domenico and György were born 250 years apart but after all, it is the music that matters!

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