What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[bart]

Miłosz Magin - Żal
Lucas Debargue
Gidon Kremer
Kremerata Baltica
Qobuz 24/96




Great discovery.
What a wealth for music lovers, these streaming services!

How to put something into words that is difficult or impossible to grasp? Something like feelings or thoughts? One possibility would be to turn those emotions into music, as in Victor Hugo's famous quote, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”.Lucas Debargue goes for one simple word - Żal. It describes a particularly complex feeling of sadness, regret, or loss, through which, however, greater enlightenment can be achieved at the same time. With this arguably unusual title, it quickly becomes clear that Żal is not simply a new interpretation of familiar material. Debargue, accompanied by violinist Gidon Kremer and his ensemble Kremerata Baltica, devotes himself in this project wholeheartedly for the first of his time to the works of Polish composer Miłosz Magin.


Almost all aspiring pianists are taught pieces by Bach, Beethoven or Chopin at an early age, and Lucas Debargue is no exception. Eventually, however, thanks to his first piano teacher, Christine Muenier, the latter had the opportunity to explore Miłosz Magin's music from the same beginning. When Debargue played Magin's Nostalgie du pays as an encore at a concert in Paris in 2017, he was contacted by none other than Magin's granddaughter herself. With the support of his close colleague Kremer, he decided to record a total of six of the composer's works, his sixth album to date on Sony Classical.


Beginning with the Andante for violin and piano, the spark of this enchanted music is immediate. The piano and the violin are introduced as equal instruments, dreamy, melancholy harmonies are developing, coupled with dance-like aspects, with the influence of Debussy and Ravel quickly apparent. In the following Piano Concerto No. 3, the impressionistic, partly atonal phrases become even more clear. Debargue proves himself once again here as an outstanding concert pianist - sensitive and sentimental and at the same time powerful and energetic in the middle movements - always serving the composer. This is also the case with Kremer, as he demonstrates in the later Concerto Rustico No. 1. Here the Polish roots of the composer become particularly clear, as Magin incorporates the two traditional dances Kujawiak (slow) and Oberek (rhythmically moving). Via the Four Vocalises and Nostalgie du pays, the performers close the album with the climax Stabat Mater, a highly spiritual work to which the artists pay all tribute and which musically and respectfully takes up its title Żal one last time. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

This is as good as the raving review from Jason Victor Serinus tells us:

ENIGMA
Spectral Quartet
performs
Anna Thorvaldsdottir
Qobuz 24/192




From the same label as the album above.

Already listening again to this fascinating album.
Or how you can use well known instruments to create an entirely new landscape of sounds.

[ehoove]

Telarc Collection Volume 1
18 pieces from the Telarc Digital series LP's
Very good collection
Telarc CD-89101
Regards,
Jim

[ehoove]

Duo Sessions
Julia Fischer
Daniel Muller Schott
Kodaly, Schulhoff, Ravel, Halvorsen
Well played and a suburb recording as well!
OreeO International C 902 161A
Regards,
Jim

[eljr]

Songs

Philip Glass Ensemble, Bernard Fowler (vocal), Michael Riesman (piano), Paul Dunkel (flute), Janice Pendarvis (vocal), Richard Peck (alto saxophone), Jon Gibson (soprano saxophone), Jack Kripl (flute), Kronos Quartet, Linda Ronstadt (vocal), The Roches (vocal), Douglas Perry (vocal), The Roches (background...

Release Date: 1st Oct 2001
Catalogue No: G010001642993G
Label: Sony
Length: 93 minutes

[eljr]

Handel: Solomon

Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano), Carolyn Sampson (soprano), Susan Gritton (soprano), Mark Padmore (tenor) & David Wilson-Johnson (baritone)

RIAS Kammerchor & Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Daniel Reuss


Release Date: 29th Oct 2007
Catalogue No: HMC901949/50
Label: Harmonia Mundi
Length: 2 hours 34 minutes
Editor's Choice
Gramophone Magazine
December 2007
Editor's Choice

[eljr]

Originally Posted by bart

Miłosz Magin - Żal
Lucas Debargue
Gidon Kremer
Kremerata Baltica
Qobuz 24/96

It's in my queue.

[bart]

Originally Posted by eljr

It's in my queue.

Any comments Ed?

[bart]

Mozart / Beethoven - Quintets for Pianoforte & Winds
Anthony Romaniuk, pianoforte
Wolf Ensemble
Qobuz 24/96




Very fresh and transparent sounding performances of these masterpieces.
Recorded in Mechelen (near Antwerp).

"I myself consider it to be the best thing I've written so far" : this is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's own description of his Quintet for Piano and Wind Instruments, K 452. The quintet made such an impression on his contemporaries that the young Ludwig van Beethoven also used it as a template for his own Op. 16. The unusual combination of instruments employed in these pieces, unique in Mozart's case, encouraged them to experiment with genres, blurring the boundaries between chamber music, symphonic writing, concerto, and operatic aria. WOLF's approach to this repertoire is guided by its use of historical instruments; they are joined for these works by fortepianist Anthony Romaniuk.

WOLF is a Belgian wind collective, specialised in classical music, performerd on period instruments. The members of WOLF have all won their spurs with the most prominent ensembles at home and abroad. The specificity and playing style of old instruments are the guiding principle in their approach to 18th- and 19th-century chamber music. © Evil Penguin Classic

[bart]

Joseph Haydn - The last three String Quartets - Op. 77 & Op. 103
Pražák Quartet
Qobuz 24/96




Very solid and good sounding performances!

In 1799, Haydn set out to compose a series of six quartets dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz, Beethoven's future patron. The Quartets, Op. 77 No. 1 and No. 2 are the first results of this great project. Busy with the composition of The Seasons and the Harmoniemesse, Haydn did not manage to complete this work, but at his death he nonetheless left two movements of a third unfinished quartet, Op. 103. Daring and full of humour, these last three quartets constitute the magnificent farewell of the old master, then in the process of making way for his ebullient colleague Beethoven.

This programme, marking the passing of the baton of a compositional generation, pays tribute to the great Pražák Quartet; it is worth recalling that their discography devoted to Haydn has won many awards, and with this recording the Quartet continues the transformation it began in 2015, opening a new chapter in its history. © Praga