What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[Antonmb]

Originally Posted by bart

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy - String Symphonies Volume 3

Margot Oitzinger

L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Michi Gaigg

via Qobuz









This is quite lovely chamber music.

The Scene for alto and strings (MWC H 1) "Che vuoi, mio cor?... Lo lo so… Mai, se di lei t'accendi" is simply gorgeous.

Very nice, thanks for the recommendation Bart.

[eljr]

Sebastian Fagerlund: Nomade & WaterAtlas

Nicolas Altstaedt (cello), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hannu Lintu

Release Date: 2nd Jul 2021
Catalogue No: BIS2455
Label: BIS
Length: 58 minutes
Concerto Choice
BBC Music Magazine
October 2021
Concerto Choice

[bart]

Jeannine De Bique - Mirrors
Concerto Köln, Luca Quintavalle
Qobuz 24/96




This lady has a terrific voice!
Nice discovery.

The female protagonists are central to this album’s title and concept. Yannis François, musicologist and concept creator for the album explains: “The listeners can experience different reflections of the same character as if they were looking at themselves through a broken mirror". The arias tell of key moments in the psychological development of the protagonists, illuminate the diversity of the female experience and the relatable perspectives of their lives.

The repertoire, adapts to the extraordinary temperament of Jeanine De Bique's voice, is designed to be rich in contrast and varied, allowing the versatile florescence of colors of her voice to stir and bloom. Mr. François remarks: “Not many sopranos can easily jump from Handel's Rodelinda to Weber’s Agathe to Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music! The possibilities of developing a program for her debut album were endless!"
These bold female characters who, despite strokes of fate, are ultimately rewarded for their tenacity, strength, forgiveness and love. Aroused with awe and compassion, Jeanine De Bique recognizes the unique opportunity to celebrate the diversity of the female experience, using her multicultural background of Trinidad and Tobago. She identifies as a new voice, not only of these familiar characters, but also for women who are still trying to find spaces to free and reclaim their voices. From her flexible expressions to the figures she embodies, she is in fact a mirror within the album.

Her collaboration with the orchestra proved inspiring for her. “It seems as if everything that has shaped me as a person and as a musician has given me the means to meet the musical and emotional demands of the program,” says De Bique. With Concerto Köln and Luca Quintvalle, "I knew I had found the finest performing partners". "Mirrors" explores human relationships in a musically rousing way, allowing the listener to feel exuberance, surprise and delight, discover new music and enjoy the familiar. © Berlin Classics

[bart]

Mozart - Piano Sonatas & Piano Pieces
Lili Kraus
via Qobuz




In his Estelon Forza review, Mike Fremer wrote about this performance from '56.
He found the mono recordings fantastic, and the performances the best he had ever heard.
While I agree she plays these pieces in a marvellous way, I think he exaggerates a bit about the sound. You can clearly hear a bit of distortion. Still, it's a great set. I listened through the whole 6h18' today.

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Schönberg - Fried - Lehár - Korngold - Verklärte Nacht
BBC Symphony Orchestra, Edward Gardner
Christine Rice, mezzo-soprano
Stuart Skelton, tenor
Qobuz 24/96




What a nice new release this is!
Schönberg's masterpiece 'Verklärte Nacht', arranged for string orchestra, is a home run.

Hot on the heels of their acclaimed recording of Britten’s Peter Grimes, Stuart Skelton and Edward Gardner join forces with Christine Rice and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for this fascinating programme of early twentieth-century works. Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht needs no introduction, but far rarer is Oscar Fried’s contemporaneous setting of the same poem.

Composed in 1901 for soloists and orchestra, Fried’s version is a true setting of (as opposed to Schoenberg’s reflection on) the text by Richard Dehmel. Lehár wrote Fieber in 1915 as the closing part of his song cycle Aus eiserner Zeit – he then made the orchestral setting a year later. Korngold’s Lieder des Abschieds ("Songs of Farewell") date from the early 1920s, whilst he was still in Vienna, and shortly after he had completed the opera Die tote Stadt. Setting poetry by Christina Rossetti, Edith Ronsperger, and Ernst Lothar, the cycle is a poignant reflection on the Great War. © Chandos

We enjoyed this again.

[bart]

Louis de Caix d'Hervelois - In the footsteps of Marin Marais
La Rêveuse
Florence Bolton & Benjamin Perrot
Qobuz 24/192




This is very nice music.
Interesting discovery of an unknown composer, and another home run for this ensemble.

After a first harmonia mundi recording devoted to English music, La Rêveuse introduces us to the sound world of Louis de Caix d’Hervelois. As heir to Marin Marais and one of his most brilliant pupils, Caix brought the bass viol new prestige in an era that was gradually abandoning the instrument. This composer skilled in expressing the elegance and grace of the Enlightenment era left us a substantial and varied corpus of music, a vivid portrait gallery in which bass viol, "pardessus de viole" and flute shine with especial lustre. © harmonia mundi

[jimtranr]

Back after a long time for a re-listen to this compilation of Ned Rorem's mid-20th-century symphonies. They're all tonal, extremely ear-accessible compositions, well-conducted by José Serebrier, and as put-the-listener-in-the-hall spacious as just about any recording I've heard.

[bart]

François Couperin - Les Apothéoses
Monica Huggett, Chiara Banchini
Ton Koopman, Hopkinson Smith
Jordi Savall
Qobuz 24/88.2




Very subtle pieces, with each time a spoken introduction in very elegant French.

[bart]

Bach - Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Isabelle Faust
Qobuz 24/96




She recorded this work some 10 years ago and did it again last year.
Fantastic!

[Antonmb]

Enigma Fortuna
Zacara da Teramo, Complete Works
La fonte Musica, Michele Pasotti director
Alpha Classics (2021), via Qobuz

Gorgeous singing and playing, interesting and beautiful Late Medieval music, great sound - what’s not to like?

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