What are you listening to now?

[Quijote]

Last Night’s listening:

Bach Suites for Solo Cello – Wispelwey:

Suite in G -1007
Suite in E Flat – 1010
Suite in C minor – 1011

Britten:

3 Suites for Solo Cello - Baillie

Great music!

Hello UB1. Which recording by Wispelway? He has made two, as far as I remember. The earlier one I can pass on. The second, well, much more mature.

The Britten Suites for solo 'cello are a must. Britten knows how to write for the 'cello, but a certain Russian did help him.

[Quijote]

I'm listening to a strange combination on my balcony : disco (there is a marriage party going on just across to where I live in a famous hotel-restaurant called the "Kammerzell") and a band of bagpipe players busking in the street below. One in G (the disco song) and the bagpipes about a tritone apart. This time, I curse Cage.

[Roehre]

Yesterday:

Hoddinott:
Welsh Airs and Dances (1975) (R3)

Stravinsky:
Symphonies for Winds (R3)

Leighton:
Symphony no.1 opus 42 (1964) (R3)

Liszt:
Piano sonata
2 Elegies
Gretchen (from Faust Symphony, piano version)
6 Consolations

Today:

Tchaikovsky:
Piano concerto no.2 op.44
Capriccio Italien op.45
(The BBCMM CD of this month, nice performances, a pity the recordings [especially the concerto]are not as good as they could have been, due IMO to the hall acoustics)

Tonight:

Larcher:
Still(viola+chamber orchestra)(2002 rev '04) (R3)

Feldman:
The Viola in my Life IV (1971) (R3)

Puw:
Hologram (2009) (R3)

Andrew Lewis:
Number Nine Dream (2009) (R3)

Adrian Williams:
Cello concerto (2009) (R3)

[Quijote]

[...] Adrian Williams:Cello concerto (2009) (R3)

Tell me something about this work, Roehre. I do not know it.

[Roehre]

Tell me something about this work, Roehre. I do not know it.

Tonight was the broadcast of its premiere, last March here in Bangor.

Impressions:
a lyrical modern-romantic cello concerto.

One movement with (IIRC) 5 segments + short coda, arch shaped (except for that coda): slow-(cadenza)-quick-slow-scherzo-slow-coda. I wouldn't be surprised btw if studying the score would show that the piece is a kind of theme and variations, at least there are some stong thematic relationships between the sections.

Begins with a slow kind of duet between cello-solo and saxophone, with which it (almost) ends as well, bar from a grand romantic upwards gesture for the last minute or so from this 37 minute work.

The cadenza is located between the first and second sections and uses all the tricks of the trade. Further a big-band inspired scherzo-like movement as well as a song like slow movement and a rhythmically minimalist-inspired other quick movement.

Well balanced and delicately orchestrated, avoiding the (rather large) orchestra overpowering/overshadowing the soloist. Some nice instrumental/orchestral effects, as there is the cello in duet with the xylophone over long sustained chords in higher strings plus saxophones plus lower brass, and the horns being the driving force upwards in the coda.

Generally speaking it shows a kind of grandeur. I like it, IMO in the same league as Lutoslawski's cello concerto.

[Zevy]

Hello UB1. Which recording by Wispelway? He has made two, as far as I remember. The earlier one I can pass on. The second, well, much more mature.

Dittos about that earlier recording. I gave mine away

[Peter]

Gone over our 5 page limit so this thread now closed.