What are you listening to now?

[Roehre]

This morning:

Cornelius Dopper's 7th Symphony, "Zuiderzee". I did not catch the opening (on the radio) so I was trying to guess who the composer was. I had no idea!

Dopper was a long time the 2nd principal conductor of the Concertgebouw orchestra, together with Mengelberg as its first.
Willem Mengelberg promoted Dopper's music (and recorded the Zuiderzee as well, btw), and premiered most of his orchestral works, including this 1917 composed Zuiderzee-symphony.
Personally I think its finale is a too long straightforwardly four-in-a-square piece, but it certainly shows craftmanship.
The fact that you didn't recognize the composer shows btw that he certainly created a kind of an own voice.

Some of his other symphonies (no.3 Rembrandt, no.6 Amsterdam) are available on Chandos records, as are the three symphonies of his teacher Bernard Zweers, whose 3rd symphony "Aan mijn Vaderland" is a portrait of the Netherlands à la Smetana's Ma Vlast (My Fatherland).

[Roehre]

Today:

Weill:
Kleine Dreigroschenmusik

Wittinger:
Irreversibilitazione per violoncello e orchestra op.10 (1968)
OM per orchestra op.12 (1968)
Tendenze per tre snonatori op.14 (1970)
Strutture simmetrichi per flauto solo op.17 (1969)

Carron:
Bachianas (1987/’88)

Novak:
In the Tatras op.26 (1902)
South Bohemian suite op.64 (1937)

[jamesofedinburgh]

It was, but I was at work waiting for things to finish that did not require much attention from me. I put one on and just had to keep going!

At the moment: Continuing with Sonata No. 9!

Oh no! Listening to them all together, in as short a time as possible, is heaven, or near enough. But yes - you have to be in the right frame of mind for it.

Wait till you get to #10, the coda of the first movement is marvellous. Kempff is my favourite performer here. Beethoven takes the codetta theme from the exposition (basically a 3 note figure within an octave) and takes it through wonderful and unexpected harmonic changes. When Kempff plays this, the movement acquires a sudden gravity, in a movement that has been largely comic there is now a touch of 'something else'. It helps that in the following slow movement, the voicing of the chords, their register on the piano - at one point, the precise harmony of a climactic chord - corresponds to those of the coda to the first movement. So Kempff is foreshadowing this in his playing, connecting up the movements, suggesting that the clearly tragic (the slow movement) and the predominantly comic (first movement) are not that far apart - the Shakespearean touch, the Fool rubbing shoulders with Lear, Yorick's skull recalling to Hamlet the man who carried him on his back. This is audible to the listener (with or without a score) and is an early example of how Beethoven creates music where the movements are inter-connected through many different musical parameters - themes, motivic development, harmonies, and very subtle resemblances of sound.

[jamesofedinburgh]

Now you've given me something to look up on Amazon, including MP3 files.

[jamesofedinburgh]

This morning on the radio it was Mozart's variations on Ah vous di...Ah vous...that French thing, but everyone calls it Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

And the Hammerklavier sonata has infected me once again, so this will no doubt be listened to many times over the next few days...

Do you know the Jeno Jando performance on Naxos? The slow movement is too fast by far, but the fugue has extraordinary clarity. The recording engineer, the pianist, the piano - somehow you hear a great deal of the bass as individually articulated notes, rather like on a fortepiano.

[jamesofedinburgh]

Today:

Suk:
Pohadka op.16 (1900)

Ravel:
Ma Mère l’Oye (ballet)

Nono:
Fragmente-Stille. An Diotima. (1979)

Beethoven:
String Quartet no.15 in a op.132

Lasalle Quartet - at least in the LP version, it had superb liner notes.

[Sorrano]

Dopper was a long time the 2nd principal conductor of the Concertgebouw orchestra, together with Mengelberg as its first.
Willem Mengelberg promoted Dopper's music (and recorded the Zuiderzee as well, btw), and premiered most of his orchestral works, including this 1917 composed Zuiderzee-symphony.
Personally I think its finale is a too long straightforwardly four-in-a-square piece, but it certainly shows craftmanship.
The fact that you didn't recognize the composer shows btw that he certainly created a kind of an own voice.

Some of his other symphonies (no.3 Rembrandt, no.6 Amsterdam) are available on Chandos records, as are the three symphonies of his teacher Bernard Zweers, whose 3rd symphony "Aan mijn Vaderland" is a portrait of the Netherlands à la Smetana's Ma Vlast (My Fatherland).

I do recall the announcer mentioning that Dopper was a conductor. I will have to check out the other symphonies that are available.

[Chris]

Do you know the Jeno Jando performance on Naxos? The slow movement is too fast by far, but the fugue has extraordinary clarity. The recording engineer, the pianist, the piano - somehow you hear a great deal of the bass as individually articulated notes, rather like on a fortepiano.

I don't think I've heard Jando's recording of that piece, but I find that his playing often has great clarity. He's great, and very underrated, I think.

[jamesofedinburgh]

Another fine pianist is Anne Oland.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...hs_product_img

Not at all well known and some people say she is very dry. However her Apassionata is very fine. In the development section, where there is a constant 12/8 pulse and fragments of the various motifs are thrown about the piano register, she somehow made this sound very 'modern'. I had just been listening to the Barraque Piano Sonata (from about 1950 or so) which is very abstract, with displacing of lines throughout the piano register as one of several expressive strategies, and the passage to which I refer in the Beethoven suddenly seemed a precursor to this. I am used to the Hammerklavier, as an example, sounding very modern, but not so much Opus 57. Perhaps it was her percussive clarity, I don't know.

Jando occasionally plays live in London. I also like Gulda, but I feel Kempff is about the finest. In the Arietta of Opus 111, in the third variation (the 'boogie woogie' one) he picks out inner lines you never would have known were there and they ring out with such clarity. Brendel I've heard live, magnificent in the concert hall!

[Roehre]

Today:

Weiner:
Serenade opus 6 (1903) (R3:TtN)

Honegger:
Une Cantate de Noël (1953) (to mark that Mrs R has done the Christmas decorations)

This month’s BBC MM CD of choral Christmas Music performed by the Rodolfus Choir.

[Roehre]

Today:

Hannikainen:
Rural Dances Op.39a (R3: TtN)

JSBach:
Cantate BWV 117 (not related to this Sunday, Advent 3, but no cantate for today has survived).

Hindemith:
Tuttifäntchen (1922)

Sibelius:
Christmas Songs opus 1

Rodrigo:
Villancicos y Canciones de Navidad (1952)

Schönberg:
Weihnachtsmusik (1921)

Vaughan Williams:
Fantasia on Christmas Carols

Carl Davis:
A Christmas Carol (after Dickens)

[Sorrano]

Roehre, are these selections from your own collection or from the radio (or a combination)? Most of the ones I've listed are from WFMT Radio (Beethoven Satellite Network) that is fed through a local station during the night hours. They have a good variety of selections and when I get a chance to catch them, I do. The local station has switched to mostly Christmas music, some non traditional, but most based off traditional.

Also, have been listening to Wagner's complete Operas (ha ha!) that I picked up as 5 CD's of MP3 recordings. It gives me something to listen to during commutes and I suspect it will last me for a while.

[Roehre]

Roehre, are these selections from your own collection or from the radio (or a combination)?

Sorrano,

With the exception of the music which is marked by something like (R3: TtN) (i.e. BBC Radio3 Through the Night) or (R3: Ao3) (i.e. BBC Radio3 Afternoon on 3) all music stems from my own collection, either CDs, LPs or Off-air recorded Cassette-tapes.

[Sorrano]

Your variety is very impressive, Roehre!

This morning there was a selection from Casal's "In Dulci Jubilo". It was very enjoyable! (So much for the non-Christmas music, but it is the season!)

[Roehre]

Today:

Eybler:
Christmas Oratorio (Die Hirten bei der Krippe zu Bethlehem HV 138)

Finzi:
Dies natalis op.8

Bridge:
The Christmas Rose (1919/1929)