What are you listening to now?

[Bonn1827]

Yes, Peter, good idea. Transfer this one if you want to as I'm interested to hear the views of others.

[Quijote]

Nobody wants to play my little quiz? Here it is again, all on one posting to help you :

1) Name me a composer that tastes of a certain Black Forest schnapps.
2) Name me a very famous music analyst of Beethoven's works whose name has a slightly "caramelized" flavour.
3) Name me a composer who - paradoxically - wants to release you from the prison of your ears.
4) Name me a famous electroacoustic composer whose name reminds you of a famous Italian cheese.
5) Name me a composer who won't come out of the shadows.
6) Name me a composer who spends his time in "temples of consumerism".
7) Name me a composer who was probably born on a verdant hill.

[Peter]

Nobody wants to play my little quiz? Here it is again, all on one posting to help you :

1) Name me a composer that tastes of a certain Black Forest schnapps.
2) Name me a very famous music analyst of Beethoven's works whose name has a slightly "caramelized" flavour.
3) Name me a composer who - paradoxically - wants to release you from the prison of your ears.
4) Name me a famous electroacoustic composer whose name reminds you of a famous Italian cheese.
5) Name me a composer who won't come out of the shadows.
6) Name me a composer who spends his time in "temples of consumerism".
7) Name me a composer who was probably born on a verdant hill.

Again it's a thread mix up! This belongs in the composition quiz thread!! Copy and paste.

[Peter]

Yes, Peter, good idea. Transfer this one if you want to as I'm interested to hear the views of others.

I can't transfer individual posts, only whole threads so it's best to copy and paste your original post into a new thread - it is an interesting topic.

[Decrepit Poster]

I've done a good bit of listening lately, mostly to opera and concert DVDs along with various online classical-music snippets. I'll list highlights below, and link YouTube clips when appropriate.

From my disk-based music-on-video collection

Mozart: "Don Giovanni" – Siepi/VPO/Furtwangler (DVD). An old favorite that, in my opinion, still can't be beat.

Mozart: "Magic Flute" – Ingmar Bergman's film adaptation (Laserdisc).

Rossini: “La Cenerantola”- Ponnelle film adaptation, Frederica von Stade, Araiza, Montarsolo, Deseri, La Scala, Abbado (DVD).

Mozart: Symphonies 35&36, piano concerto no 22, horn concerto no 1 – Berlin Philharmonic, Barenboim (DVD). This might be my favorite orchestra DVD. Audio, video, venue, camera work, interpretation are all top-notch. My one nitpick is that the finale to symphony 35 could be more fiery.

Beethoven: Symphonies no 1, 6, 8 – Berlin Philharmonic, Abbado (DVD). Decent performances, though I'm not overly taken with this interpretation of the first symphony.

Schubert/Liszt: "Schwanengesang" (last 14 songs transcribed for piano) – Valentina Lisitsa (DVD).

I was recently turned on to these vocal clips on another forum.

Mozart: "Batti, Batti..." from Don Giovanni - Hei-Kyung Hong (Zerlina) MET/Levine.
My allegiance to the above mentioned Siepi/VPO/Furtwangler Don Giovanni performance on DVD remains rock soild. But this Batti, Batti is yummy.

Offenbach: "Les Oiseaux dans la Charmille" (the Doll Song) from Les Contes d'Hoffmann - Natalie Dessay/Bastille.
Ms. Dessay is a personal favorite for this sort of thing. The rendition seen here (there are a number of others, it being a specialty of hers) floored me, and the audience as well. (It becomes deliciously naughty near the end.)

Lehar: "Meine Lippen sie Kussen so heiss" (My Lips Kiss with such fire) from Giuditta - Anna Netrebko during the Last Night of the Proms.
Ms. Netrebko sells the piece for all it's worth and then some!

And now for something completely different...

Gottfried Huppertz: score to “Die Nibelungen”, Fritz Lang's 1924 silent two-part take on the same myths that inspired Richard Wagner's “Ring of the Nibelung” opera cycle (DVD).
I'll link two YouTube excerpts below. They interconnect. Combined they contain the entirety of what I consider the pivotal scene of the second film, “Kriemhild's Revenge”.

I suppose a brief summary of preceding events is in order. The first film, “Siegfried”, is roughly equivalent to events depicted in Wagner's “Siegfried” and “Gotterdammerung”, ending with the betrayal and death said hero at the hands of Hagen. Film two concerns itself solely with Kriemhild's relentless desire to bring the murderer of her dead husband to justice. Hagen is protected by Kriemhild's clan, the royal family of Burgundy. To accomplish her goal, Kriemhild marries Attila the Hun and eventually manipulates him into inviting the family to court. At the same time, through bribery and oaths of fealty she has, unbeknownst to Attila, set in motion events that will result in Hagen's discreditation in the eyes of Attila. The first linked clip begins after the family arrives at Attila's court, and prepares to enter the Hun palace to celebrate Summer Solstice with Attila and his allies.

YouTube "Kriemhild's Revenge”, Canto 5 beginning.
YouTube “Kriemhild's Revenge”, Canto 5 conclusion.

I deem this pivotal simply because an act by Hagen near the halfway point of clip two makes the Nibelungen's fate irreversible. (Notice how after the deed Kriemhild at first shows remorse, but once Attila expresses the desired reaction, visibly reveals that she instigated and condones the encounter.)

(By the way, I recently rewatched Tim Burton's first “Batman” movie, and was amazed by how much its music track was indebted to Huppertz's Nibelungen score. Too many similarities to be purely coincidental, in my opinion.)

-Decrepit-

[Quijote]

Again it's a thread mix up! This belongs in the composition quiz thread!! Copy and paste.

The magic word "Please" does wonders, I find. Don't you? I will copy and paste to the composition quiz thread.

[Bonn1827]

Tonight:

Stradella, "San Giovanni Battista" (St. John the Baptist)

and

Monteverdi: "The Coronation of Poppea"

[Peter]

The magic word "Please" does wonders, I find. Don't you? I will copy and paste to the composition quiz thread.

Sorry didn't mean to seem brusque - it's this damn technology that frequently gives the wrong impression - had you been here you would have seen what good humour it was meant in!

Listening to myself working on Haydn's last Eb sonata and Mendelssohn's Andante + Rondo Capriccio.

[Sorrano]

7) Name me a composer who was probably born on a verdant hill.

Monteverde; thanks, Bonn!

[Roehre]

Today:

Ralph Vaughan Williams: (R3)
Richard II (extracts)
Three Shakespeare Songs
Henry IV

Cyril Rootham:
2 Shakespeare Songs (R3)

Giles Swayne:
3 Shakespeare Songs (R3)

[Hofrat]

Lindblad:
symphonies 1 and 2.

Svendsen:
symphonies 1 and 2.

[Bonn1827]

Tonight:

LvB Symphony 9 - John Eliot Gardiner's version which is simply magnificent.

I want to correct some comments I made some time ago about Sym. No. 9. It didn't work for me until this latest version and I take it all back about it being "cliched". Though I still don't particularly enjoy the last movement because of the "Ode to Joy" the rest of it is just exhilarating and magnificent to the max!!

I've just discovered podcasts of programs on BBC Radio 3 which celebrate the 200th anniversary of Schumann's birth. The program I'm hearing is superb. REcorded in his Geburtshaus in Zwickau. Wow

[Peter]

Tonight:

LvB Symphony 9 - John Eliot Gardiner's version which is simply magnificent.

I want to correct some comments I made some time ago about Sym. No. 9. It didn't work for me until this latest version and I take it all back about it being "cliched". Though I still don't particularly enjoy the last movement because of the "Ode to Joy" the rest of it is just exhilarating and magnificent to the max!!

I've just discovered podcasts of programs on BBC Radio 3 which celebrate the 200th anniversary of Schumann's birth. The program I'm hearing is superb. REcorded in his Geburtshaus in Zwickau. Wow

Have to disagree here Bonn - it is a while since I listened to my Eliot Gardiner cd of the 9th because I felt irritated by it. The first movement for example I thought entirely lacked the grandeur implied in Beethoven's Maestoso marking - it wasn't majestic, simply how fast can we dash the thing off, even though he was apparently faithful to the metronome markings. Maybe I should give it another go and see if time has altered my perspective.

[Roehre]

Today:

A reconstruction of a concert as was given in the 1870s at the square in Cremona by the local (professional) Town Council wind band with compositions by Amilcare Ponchielli (of La Gioconda-fame), then conducted by the composer, who was the band’s Maestro di Capella 1862-1874.
Such weekly concerts consisted of three more elaborate works plus a phantasy on opera themes, surrounded by an entrance march, and a dance or march to conclude the whole.

Amilcare Ponchielli:
Marcia Principe Umberto op.124
Symphony in b-minor op.153
Fantasia per cornetto sulla La Traviata opus 146
Trumpet concerto opus 123
Cornet concerto opus 198
Adele-waltz opus 161

Tcherepnin:
Piano concerto no.1 op. 12 (1920)
Piano concerto no.2 op. 36 (1922)

[Preston]

Listening to Maria Yudina playing Beethoven's Op. 111. That first movement must be so complexy written, well at least it sounds like it, . It sounds very mathematical in the musical sense. And to imagine playing it, ! That one theme is going all over the place, from high to low and everywhere in between, in so many different ways with so many different combinations!