What are you listening to now?

[Megan]

Husband and I are both ill and indoors today, so it's:

Elgar, "Enigma" Variations, LSO/Boult - in a classic performance.

Love that last variation, with its grandeur - designed especially for the Albert Hall, or similar - and its introduction of the mighty organ in the last bars (or, at least, it always seem so to me). I've a weakness for this kind of stuff, requiring as it does both a warm, tender heart and a head to appreciate: ('unconditional love', aye, JoE??) Nothing cold and clinical, ascetic or astringent here.

I also love this composer's "Sea Pictures" sung by the incomparable Janet Baker. Is she still alive?

Bonn, Dame Janet Baker is alive and I learnt recently is one of the trustees or patrons of the 'Life Charity', which has its headquarters in the town in the Midlands where I live. Basically, it exists to support those expectant mothers and it aims to change peoples attitude and behaviour to put and end to the abortion industry.

The Sea Pictures, sung by Janet Baker is the difinitive version with Barbirolli.
It is a haunting and unforgettable evocation of the spirit of Olde England.


I hope you and your husband feel better soon.

[Bonn1827]

Thanks for that interesting anecdote, Megan. She wrote an autobiography too, called "Full Circle" and that would make interesting reading (if only I can get one of the kids to buy it for me for Xmas!). A wonderful, warm, rich voice.

She and Kathleen Ferrier are the great female operatic stars of the UK, IMHO. I have to laugh when that young, blond Welsh soprano appears on Graham Norton show and is touted as "the greatest opera singer in the UK". See, she's so important I cannot remember her name. These "critics" need to get out more, don't you think? She has the voice of a canary, like Sarah Brightman.

[Roehre]

Have you tried Haitink's performance (with the Concertgebouw? I am thinking it is the same version as the Jochum recording, but I no longer have the LPs and do not remember which version. For me it is the "definitive" version from which I measure all others that I hear.

I share you enthusiasm for the Haitink, Sorrano, but AFAIK Haitink uses the Haas editions whereas Jochum turned to the Novak ones during his sessions with the Bavarian RSO/BPO (DGG 1958-1970) already.
For the librarians in the Concertgebouw this was rather confusing in the years during which both Jochum and Haitink were chief conductor (1961-1964).

[for his recording of 3 (1877 version) with the VPO however, Haitink added the then recently discovered coda to the scherzo, though that coda was published in the Novak-edition of 3ii]

[Megan]

Thanks for that interesting anecdote, Megan. She wrote an autobiography too, called "Full Circle" and that would make interesting reading (if only I can get one of the kids to buy it for me for Xmas!). A wonderful, warm, rich voice.

She and Kathleen Ferrier are the great female operatic stars of the UK, IMHO. I have to laugh when that young, blond Welsh soprano appears on Graham Norton show and is touted as "the greatest opera singer in the UK". See, she's so important I cannot remember her name. These "critics" need to get out more, don't you think? She has the voice of a canary, like Sarah Brightman.

Do you mean Emma Kirkby, who has a lovely vioce but very bright and metallic. I think she specializes in Tudor music and early Baroque , which I love. Two other female opera singers that I love to listen to are Jessy Norman and Magdelena Kozena.
I must look out for Janet Baker's autobiography, ''Full Circle'', I am sure it will be very interesting.

[Bonn1827]

No, this young singer is a "cross-over" singer, like Sarah Brightman. She is often on Graham Norton Show and talks about her latest CD and show etc. She has a budgie's voice, like Brightman, but is regarded as an "opera" singer. She's about 29 years old (or young!)

[Megan]

Thanks for that interesting anecdote, Megan. She wrote an autobiography too, called "Full Circle" and that would make interesting reading (if only I can get one of the kids to buy it for me for Xmas!). A wonderful, warm, rich voice.

She and Kathleen Ferrier are the great female operatic stars of the UK, IMHO. I have to laugh when that young, blond Welsh soprano appears on Graham Norton show and is touted as "the greatest opera singer in the UK". See, she's so important I cannot remember her name. These "critics" need to get out more, don't you think? She has the voice of a canary, like Sarah Brightman.

Do you mean Emma Kirkby, who has a lovely vioce but very bright and metallic. I think she specializes in Tudor music and early Baroque , which I love. Two other female opera singers that I love to listen to are Jessy Norman and Magdalena Kozena.
I must look out for Janet Baker's autobiography, ''Full Circle'', I am sure it will be very interesting.

[Bonn1827]

No, it's Katherine Jenkins!! She has the voice of a budgie!!

[Roehre]

Today:

JSBach:
Cantatas BWV 210 (wedding), 211 (Coffee), 212 (peasant)
Cantata BWV 201 Der Streit zwischen Phoebus und Pan (The contest between Phoebus and Pan), a work which IMO shows what a Bach opera might have been.

Dallapiccola:
Piccolo concerto per Muriel Couvreux (1939/’41)
Tartiniana seconda (1956)

[Roehre]

Today:

JSBach:
Cantatas BWV 202-204
Quodlibet BWV 524

Gershwin:
Rhapsody in Blue

Strauss:
Orchestral songs opp.10/1, 27/2 and 27/4
4 Letzte Lieder

Boyle:
Henry V: suite

Walton/Palmer:
Henry V: suite

[Chris]

Gershwin:
Rhapsody in Blue

Which recording? I love the piece, but I find most recordings of it rather bad. My favorite recording of it is on some no-name CD I found at Wal-Mart...

[Bonn1827]

Dvorak, "Slavonic Dances" on a BBC 3 Podcast from a recent concert.

These pieces are such a joy, with their Dvorakian lilt.

[Roehre]

Which recording? I love the piece, but I find most recordings of it rather bad. My favorite recording of it is on some no-name CD I found at Wal-Mart...

George Gershwin with the Paul Witeman band (Pearl GEMM CDS 9483), a recording from 1927 of the original Jazz-band version from 1924

[Bonn1827]

I used to love "Rhapsody in Blue" when I was young, but I now regard it as American kitsch - sorry! I think Gershwin (because he died at 39 years old) never really made the transition across to larger forms than his theatrical works (except the masterful, operatic "Porgy and Bess"). The Rhapsody had charm for me when I was younger, but I still recall the anecdote about Ravel and Gershwin. When George went to France to meet Ravel he was looking for lessons in composition. Maurice replied, "why be a second rate Ravel when you can be a first rate Gershwin?" I think this encapsulates the problem with the Rhapsody, even though George was composing in a jazz idiom - you never quite escape the feeling he was trying to be much more 'serious', inspired as he obviously was by Ravel's piano writing, in particular. Whenever I hear Ravel's G Major piano concerto I think of George Gershwin. Who knows where George might have gone if he had lived. I've read many Gershwin biographies and one thing emerges clearly - he wanted to be taken very seriously in the concert hall and, in fact, he was a good friend of Arnold Schoenberg (but many of you already knew this!).

I do regard many of the songs written by George Gershwin to be amongst the finest American works of the 20th century, despite their diminiutive forms. Chopin showed us that you compose sublime works in much smaller forms, as did Schubert with his extraordinary songs. I remember an interview once with Saul Chaplin, who was a musical arranger for Hollywood musicals and he said, "I regard Gershwin as Beethoven". I remember nodding my head (like a mad relation!!) in general agreement!

A very poignant "postlude" to this discussion is the fact that when George was suffering from (as yet undetected) brain cancer he was riven with pain and poor co-ordination. One night at dinner Ira's wife, Lenore, ordered George from the dinner table chastising him because he was clumsy in dropping the cutlery whilst he was eating. Ignominious for George, and still painful for us to contemplate.

[Roehre]

Bonnie , IMO Porgy and Bess is a truely full opera, no less.
But it fits the bill of a composer of smaller forms, doesn't it?
I agree with you regarding these, Gershwin's strengths, and I do think he is a truely great composer.

But it goes further: the Piano concerto IMO shows that this work -though eclectic and epigonistic (Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Ravel)- is well composed in terms of what is expected of a "classical" concerto's architecture. The two Rhapsodies are exactly what they are called: rhapsodic pieces with a very loose structure, if any (applies to the 2nd one even more than to the "Blue" IMO).

But what about the Cuban overture, which towers greatly over the overtures (6 of these recorded by Tilson Thomas in the late 1970s), though these are not bad at all to open the musicals for which these were composed. IMO the Cuban with the I got Rhythm variations and An American in Paris show in which direction Gershwin was developing.

As with Schubert: with his early death we lost a great promise.

[Bonn1827]

Yes, your comments are very apt! The Cuban Overture - not one of my favourites, but a work of merit obviously. The structures are all there, as you say, in the bigger works like the Rhapsody - it's just that I don't think these work quite as well for the reasons earlier stated. Thanks so much for engaging with this topic and showing your obvious knowledge, affection and understanding of these works.

I've just returned from Theatre an der Wien and "Castor et Pollux" by Rameau. Fabulous, fabulous music - sung in French with German subtitles (which I didn't have enough Deutsch to understand). I just love Rameau, that theatre of which LvB was once music director and, of course, the classy Viennese. It's all a dream!!