The what are you listening to thread?

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From Handel's Messiah "If God be for us"
sung bt Daniel Taylor with violin soloist Monica Huggett and Arion

[Chaszz]

This morning, excerpts from 'Fidelio' with Kirsten Falgstad, Bruno Walter conducting at the Met. Stunning.

Last night, on public TV, a great production of Verdi's 'Otello' taped at the Royal Opera House in London with Georg Solti conducting. Placido Domingo was extraordinary not only in his singing but in the greatest acting performance I've ever seen in an opera, and one of the greatest I've seen anywhere. He could teach some Othello actors I've seen a few lessons. His emotions and facial expressions were extrordinary. I have never really enjoyed this as a play (sorry, Lysander), because Othello's motivation seems somewhat artificial and overblown. Maybe I haven't seen the right verisons, although Orson Welles's movie is one of them. But Domingo made Otello fully believable, frustrated, frightening, tragic and sympathetic.

Kiri Te Kanawa, the soprano who is a full-blooded Maori islander from New Zealand, also did a great job as Desdemona. Sets and staging were also superb, reminding one of neoclassic painting of the late 18th century in spare and stark classicism. The opera is Verdi's next-to-last, and shows the influence of Wagner in the harmony and through-writing (no pauses in the music). Although it was good for me to get away for awhile from Wagner's cockamamie plots and see something that could be fully enjoyed as drama as well as music.

This series, Opera New York, is something I've been recommending to watch out for on public TV, but I'm not certain it's ever shown anywhere but in the NY area. If so, too bad, it's a superb series.

Chaszz

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"People become civilised, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt."

[lysander]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
This morning, excerpts from 'Fidelio' with Kirsten Falgstad, Bruno Walter conducting at the Met. Stunning.

Last night, on public TV, a great production of Verdi's 'Otello' taped at the Royal Opera House in London with Georg Solti conducting. Placido Domingo was extraordinary not only in his singing but in the greatest acting performance I've ever seen in an opera, and one of the greatest I've seen anywhere. He could teach some Othello actors I've seen a few lessons. His emotions and facial expressions were extrordinary. I have never really enjoyed this as a play (sorry, Lysander), because Othello's motivation seems somewhat artificial and overblown. Maybe I haven't seen the right verisons, although Orson Welles's movie is one of them. But Domingo made Otello fully believable, frustrated, frightening, tragic and sympathetic.


Chaszz,

Although I too love Shakespeare, it is my husband who is the real Shakespearean.
A few years ago he was struck not so much by the impression of Othello as a great play but as 'Iago' as the greatest evil creation in the whole of literature.
Really a frightening figure of hatred, cunning and resentment who plays on the idiotic, immaturity and gullibility of Othello and Roderigo, and brings about their deaths. The latter crime memorably as he is stabbed by Othello.
I agree the greatness is not so much Othello, who is really rather imature and naive. But the brooding menace and terror of IAGO!
We have always wondered why the play shouldn't be called IAGO.
An utterly mesmerizing portrayal of evil.

"Oh! damned Iago, Oh! inhuman dog"


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I would love to see the Opera, though we have heard it on radio.
I also have a breathtaking production of Fidelio, produced by The Royal Opera House on DVD, which we have also seen.

Regards
Lysander.

Kiri Te Kanawa, the soprano who is a full-blooded Maori islander from New Zealand, also did a great job as Desdemona. Sets and staging were also superb, reminding one of neoclassic painting of the late 18th century in spare and stark classicism. The opera is Verdi's next-to-last, and shows the influence of Wagner in the harmony and through-writing (no pauses in the music). Although it was good for me to get away for awhile from Wagner's cockamamie plots and see something that could be fully enjoyed as drama as well as music.

This series, Opera New York, is something I've been recommending to watch out for on public TV, but I'm not certain it's ever shown anywhere but in the NY area. If so, too bad, it's a superb series.

Chaszz

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited June 12, 2003).]

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by lysander:
I would love to see the Opera, though we have heard it on radio.
I also have a breathtaking production of Fidelio, produced by The Royal Opera House on DVD, which we have also seen.

[This message has been edited by lysander (edited June 12, 2003).]

Lysander,

I agree about Iago. The Iago in this production was also very well played and sung. It is a Russian singer, I forget his name.

The video is available thru various online outlets, and perhaps in stores. If you look up on Google or Amazon a combination of Solti, Domingo, Otello, I'm sure you will find it. I've seen it listed at $24.99, which I guess is about 16 pounds or so. I think you and your husband would find Domingo's acting alone worth the whole price. It is truly an acted production where Otello holds his own in fascination with Iago - perhaps a new look at the Bard's conception! And I guess music doesn't hurt in helping to define Otello's intensity.




[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited June 13, 2003).]

[Gurn Blanston]

Bach - English Suite #4 - A marvellous version on clavier performed by Huguette Dreyfus.

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Vivaldi,Violincello Concerto in D.Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

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John Bennet(1599) "Weep O Mine Eyes"sung by the King's Singers.

[Gurn Blanston]

Beethoven - Variations in D for Piano on a Theme from "The Ruins of Athens" Op 76 - Alfred Brendel

[lysander]

Sunday morning.
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Haydn, sympnony no. 16, Hanover Band.

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Shcubert's last mass, written about one month before his death.

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Heinrich Biber, 'Battalia' 1673.

A merry and delightful piece!

***
A typical selection of what is played on BBC radio 3.



[This message has been edited by lysander (edited June 15, 2003).]

[Peter]

Bach's partita no.6 in E minor for keyboard -there is a part in the fugue which is similar to the fugue in the gloria from the Missa Solemnis.

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'Man know thyself'

[Joy]

Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 5 in F Op 24 "Spring"
SOLO Jascha Heifetz, violin
SOLO Emmanuel Bay, piano
RCA/BMG 7705
Written in 1800-01 and
Beethoven's Quartet in F Minor, op. 95 ("Serioso"), written in 1810. "A period of 14 years separated this Quartet from the last five, a period marked by great suffering due to his nephew and failure to achieve complete public recognition."

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Gurn Blanston]

Brahms - Trio in B for Piano , Violin & Cello #1 Op 8 - almost classical! Beaux Arts Trio

[lysander]

Henry Purcell, semi-opera, Dioclesian,
With the Monteverdi Choir / Sir Roger Norrington.


Mozart Symphony no.39. K543


Bach, Violin Concerto, A minor.

Beethoven, An die Hoffnung.

[lysander]

Vivaldi RV335, The Cuckoo.


Beethoven: Three Goethe settings, op. 83

[lysander]

Analysis
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BBC Radio 3's excellent 'Discovering Music' Sunday programme has done it again!

Listening to an analysis of Brahm's,
'Academic Festival Overture'

It seems very likely that one of the student themes in that Overture is a crib from one of the themes in Beethoven's 9th,
and also has strong links to Beethoven's
bassoon writing for the 9th.

The Academic Festival Overture also is an ambiguous piece, because the listner can never quite work out whether Brahm's intends
to send academic of classical music structures, and whether the whole piece is
not tongue-in-cheek.
It has strong overtones of German nationalism. When it was written in 1880, Germany was fairly recently unified.
It is not too strong to say that Brahm's particularly worshipped Beethoven, (like myself). But I wonder whether Ludwig would not have been distinctly uncomfortable with the national agenda.
In Brahms Overture, nationalism is a kind of
snake in the grass that he sneaks in amid all the student high-jinks and satire on learning and academic institutions.
It is a bit like - as the presenter said -
listening to Rule Britania on the last night of the Proms.
We all think is a great hoot!. But do we subconsciously take it in more serious tone?.

Brahms 1st symphony was commissioned by Cambridge University, who conferred on Brahms a doctorate in music, 1877.
But Brahms refused to travel to England because he didn't want to travel by sea, and anyway I don't think he particularly liked the English.

Next Sunday's 'Discovering Music' Radio 3
will be discussing Beethoven's - Archduke Trio - Not to be missed. I hope members on this side of the channel will be able to listen.
The standard of analysis on the programme is of the highest order.



[This message has been edited by lysander (edited June 22, 2003).]