What are you listening to right now II

[Joy]

Some wonderful choices people are listening to today! For me it's the Piano Sonata No. 11 in A K 331 by Mozart with Soloist, Alfred Brendel, piano.

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Gurn Blanston]

Pastorali;
You have a Hoffmeister Viola COncerto!!?? Excellent, what a curiousity that is, I have heard nothing by him, but would like to since he is contemporary to Mozart. Sorry about the K 452 and Op 16, perhaps a nice glass of pilsner and some little brown sausages wiould make it better?? (Ha, this is a famous quote of Mozart! )
Joy, great choice, one of my favorites, and not even because of the Rondo!
For me though, it is the incomparable Franz Schubert and his Piano Trio in Eb - #4 - D 929 - Beaux Arts Trio - the first in series of Schubert's greatest hits that is lined up for the evening!


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Jin]

Rigoletto. Mmmmmm.

Anyone have any preferences for what languages librettos are written in?

[Pastorali]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
Pastorali;
You have a Hoffmeister Viola COncerto!!?? Excellent, what a curiousity that is, I have heard nothing by him, but would like to since he is contemporary to Mozart. Sorry about the K 452 and Op 16, perhaps a nice glass of pilsner and some little brown sausages wiould make it better?? (Ha, this is a famous quote of Mozart! )

Gurn
This Hoffmeister Concerto is one of my lucky hits in a S.H.Store! Comes along with Handel, Beethoven S.#8 on this CD and is quite interesting, a really nice piece of music. 1800? Sounds a bit like very early Romantic.
What's your opinion about the two mentioned works? I must continue with them, it will be my fault.
Now listening: Great Rod's mp3 CD: Op.21-27.

Ha! Good quote by Wolfi!!! Yes, would make it better. At least the general conditions!



[This message has been edited by Pastorali (edited 05-04-2004).]

[Gurn Blanston]

Pastorali,
Well, my opinion is very high of those two works. Although they are quite different from each other, yet they are the same unusual group of instruments, the same key, same number of movements, many similarities, it has always been believed that B wrote his in homage to Mozart, although I can't remember ever reading a quote of his saying that it was so. In any case, once you get used to the sound of the winds it becomes easier. They are just not what you expect in a Piano Quintet!
For me now, it is back to Mozart for a bit, with the Sonata in D major for Piano - #9 - K 284c. Molto bene!


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Sorrano]

Originally posted by JA Gardiner:
Just got the Casals set of Bach cello suites that Tony and others mentioned - superb - and, in the same series, a Toscanini recording of Verdi's Requiem, which a friend of mine will be singing soon with the Highgate Choral Society. Main listening today though has been the Brahms violin concerto with Isaac Stern/Zubin Mehta/ New York Phil - part of a fabulous set of the Brahms concertos (Piano 1&2 by Barenboim, Violin and cello by Zukerman and Harrell and with a couple of Rhapsodies played by Glenn Gould for good measure. I think I'm going to be busy for a while.....

[This message has been edited by JA Gardiner (edited 05-03-2004).]

I LIKED the Toscanini version of the Verdi Requiem! Enjoy!

[Joy]

Gurn, Mozart's Piano Sonata #11 is one of my favourites of his. The rondo is wonderful.

For today it's Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major with soloist Frank Peter Zimmermann and the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra with conductor Christoph Eschenbach. Love that last movement!
I believe he wrote this piece when he was 55 years of age. A quote, "The idea of a concerto for the violin, an instrument he did not play, was even more daunting and typically, he was unsure of the quality of his work, writing to the dedicatee and friend, Joseph Joachim, that ``... you should correct it, not sparing the quality of the composition... I shall be satisfied if you will mark those parts that are difficult, awkward, or impossible to play.''

Joachim found the work playable, suggesting only minor changes. Several months of revision and rehearsal followed, with Joachim supplying the first-movement cadenza (as was traditional) for the first performance."





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'Truth and beauty joined'

[This message has been edited by Joy (edited 05-04-2004).]

[Gurn Blanston]

A new direction, into the Early Romantic - Quartet in f minor for Piano and Strings - #2 - Op 2 - Felix Mendelssohn. Great music.


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Pastorali]

This evening is dedicated to the piano...
Maurizio Pollini, Berliner Phil, C. Abbado: Piano Concertos #3&4

Piano Sonatas Op.109, 110 & 1..1..1 (thanks Amalie )

[Tony John Hearne]

We have a friend from Boston in America staying. In honour of her - "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" from Holst "The Planets" Sir Adrian Boult and the BBC Symphony recorded in 1936 but as dynamic and intelligent as anything on offer today. Interesting for me, particularly as I went to a boys school in London (Alleyns)where our same foundation girls school counterpart (James Allen's)literally on the other side of the road, once had the extreme privilege of having Gustav Holst as their music teacher

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Love from London

[JA Gardiner]

Hey TJ - great choice. I've loved the Planets since I was a little girl at school and introduced to it by our enlightened Head - in the East End of Sheffield - who always insisted on playing and explaining classical music to us at assembly and getting us to as many concerts as he could. I remember being about 8 and first hearing Mozart's 40th at the City Hall Sheffield when the Halle were visiting - astounding experience for me coming from a family that had few books and no music apart, oddly, from a few ancient opera recordings that my father had had from his youth and listened to very very occasionally. I have the Karajan recording which, as you'd expect is magisterial but the Boult is my favourite for getting the spirit and the meaning - not surprising because, if I'm right wasn't he its first conductor?

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Beethoven the Man!

[JA Gardiner]

Originally posted by Sorrano:

I LIKED the Toscanini version of the Verdi Requiem! Enjoy!

Thanks Sorrano - I certainly am, as I write!

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Beethoven the Man!

[Gurn Blanston]

Well, life is not long enough to re-record my whole collection of CD's (especially at the speed this works) but today I got a new software that "rips" and encodes mp3's at a phenomenal bitrate, and of course I needed to try it as soon as I got home. I "ripped" and encoded B's Symphony #2 in D Op 36 and am playing it right now. I must say, much to my chagrin, that it is easily twice as good audio quality as my current software makes. This is most disturbing... I was hoping that it wouldn't be a noticeable difference. Oops.


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Regards,
Gurn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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[Pastorali]

Hhhmmm... twice as good? Somehow, that sounds perfect and I also can't imagine myself, it was bad before... be honest Gurn, was it a bit late yesterday night?
But today the weather is 'armaggedonly' and also my mood a little bit. My countermeasure: Johannes Brahms, Four Hand Piano Music of his Symphony #2, Op. 73. hope it works...


[This message has been edited by Pastorali (edited 05-05-2004).]

[Gurn Blanston]

P.,
Well, of course, "twice as good" is the sort of meaningless phrase we like to use when we can't quantify something precisely, but in this case, it sounds discernable better. Of course, one pays the price for quality with space on the hard drive and the time it takes to rip and encode, so nothing is free. And I have ripped about 600 CD's already, so doing it over again has little appeal. Perhpas just the B, and Mozart, and Haydn. Hmmm....
Well, right now, back to Mendelssohn, who, if you haven't listened to his chamber music you are missing out big. The Sextet in D major for Piano & Strings - Op 110 - Quite unique in the literature. Bueno!


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Regards,
Gurn
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That's my opinion, I may be wrong.
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