What are you listening to now?

[Bonn1827]

The Cole Porter Songbook with the miraculous Ella Fitzgerald. Yes, I have this double CD set too and have listened this afternoon after reading Roehre's music choices. This is music of rare elegance and sophistication!! ("............. do do that voo-doo that you do so well"). I remember crooning that as a valedictory toast to a staff member who was leaving teaching.

Also, this auto-didakt knows comparatively zilch about modernity when it comes to art music, but I'm "watching this space"....

[Roehre]

Today:

Schat:
Etudes for piano and orchestra opus 39 (1992)


Zimmermann:
Die Soldaten (1965)

[Peter]

An excellent performance of the neglected Rachmaninov Piano sonata no.1 by my good friend Yuri which received the gramophone award, available at Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/RACHMANINOV-...8399902&sr=1-1

I can also recommend his recording of the Scriabin sonatas.

[Michael]

Listening to some very early Beethoven:

Trio for piano, flute and bassoon,
Sextet for two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons
WoO 36 Piano Quartets.

I hadn't heard these for a while and was amazed again at the melodic power of the young B, especially in the piano quartets, written when he was fifteen but not published until 1828. Technically, you could argue that B invented the piano quartet because his set actually pre-dates Mozart's by a few months (if I am remembering correctly). He based the opening of the E flat quartet on Mozart's G major sonata, K.379 -the openings bars of both works are very similar. B also used some themes from this set in his first two piano sonatas (Opus 2).
B never wrote again in this medium unless you count his own arrangement of the Opus 16 quintet.

[Bonn1827]

Tonight:

Rebel, "Les Elemens"
"Les Caracteres de la Danse"
"Le tombeau de M. de Lully"

Les Musiciens Du Louvre/Minkowski

[Quijote]

Two CDs tonight :
a) Palestrina, Missa "Aeterna Christi munera";
b) JS Bach, The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (extracts).

I'm doing so for a quick shock immersion as I have recently been informed I am to teach counterpoint and fugue next term (in addition to Bach chorale harmonization and string quartet writing in the "classical" style). Seems like my summer will be dedicated to a fair bit of preparation.

[Quijote]

I'm glad I was reading Fux a few months ago (despite one of our administrator's [the "fisher-of-men"] mockery of my supposèd bedtime reading).

[Roehre]

Today:

Lipatti:
Improvisation for piano trio (1936 ?) (R3: TtN)

Dessau:
In Memoriam Bertolt Brecht (1957)
Music for Orchestra no.2 „Meer der Stürme” (1967)

Butting:
Symphony no.9 op.94 (1956)

[Peter]

Josquin Desprez - Motets
William Byrd - 1st & 6th Pavan and Galliard
Orlando Gibbons - Fantasy in C / Allemande
Sweelinck - Fantasia in D minor
Haydn - String quartet Op.76 no.4
Martinu - Symphony no.4

[Roehre]

Today:

Rachmaninov:
Paganini-variations op.43
(from the latest BBC MM CD, a lovely performance IMO)

Hartmann:
Violin-solo-sonata no.1 and no.2 (both 1927)
Until earlier works emerge (Hartmann is thought to have destroyed all his early works, but these two works, and his two suites for solo-violin of the same year, emerged in the mid 1980s), these are the earliest works of Hartmann’s which have survived.

[Bonn1827]

Tonight:

JS Bach Cantatas, "Herz und Mund und Tat and Leben" BWV147 und
"Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" BWV140

Monteverdi Choir/English Baroque Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner

These cantatas were recorded for me by a dear friend who accompanied this orchestra and choir on part of the Bach Pilgrimage in Europe in 2000. This particular recording was played on air in France and he recorded it onto mini-disc and later onto ordinary CD for me. My friend kept me up-to-date on all aspects of the Bach pilgrimage - in word and image - thanks to the marvels of email!! I still have the rehearsal pictures.

[Chris]

I don't think those works have even been released yet on the official Bach Pilgrimage CDs, have they? Lucky you!

[Roehre]

Today:

Tchaikovsky:
Symphony no.3 op.29 “Polish”

Hartmann:
Suites for solo-violin no.1 and no.2 (1927)

[Roehre]

Today:

Hartmann:
Musik für Trauer (1939)

De Man:
Gramvousa (1995)

Busoni:
Konzertstück opus 31a (1890)

Xenakis:
Tetore (1991)

[Roehre]

Today:

Three times the same theme „for the fallen revolutionaries”
Hartmann:
Concerto funèbre: finale (1939 r‘ 1959)
+
Britten:
Russian funeral (1936)
+
Shostakovich:
Symphony no.11 Mvt.3 (1957)


The Art of the Netherlands.
David Munrow’s anthology of Netherlandish renaissance vocal and instrumental music.