What are you listening to now?

[Sorrano]

There were those critics who felt that Beethoven was extreme (over the top?) in the ranges of passion in his music. In reference, too, to the Heiligenstadt period, remember that the end result of this experience was a spiritual triumph, not a defeat. Beethoven chose to live for his art, to move forward, not backward. While the second symphony is, indeed, one of the sunniest of his works it does begin with some of the darkest moments. This smacks of being autobiographical to me.

In order to understand each composer we have to look at the world around him (her). What were the norms and what was considered extravagant in each's own era? I think that as we do study these things that we do find more than just vague autobiographical references in the music. After all, where does the music come from? It comes from the composers own realm of personal experiences and understandings.

[Sorrano]

On the way home there was a pleasant surprise: the scherzo from Bruckner's Quintet.

[jamesofedinburgh]

Perrey: Baroque Hoedown (from the album Revolution for Cembalo, an interesting set of harspichord pieces played by a Japanese woman who is very nimble)

Holst: Nunc Dimitis

Delius: Brigg Fair

Mozart: Quartet in A K. 464

Beethoven (trascribed Liszt): An die Ferne Geliebte

Beethoven: Moonlight Sonata

The Mozart was played in a very dull manner by the quartet I listened to but it was still much more lively and interesting than the Delius. The Liszt transcription was very odd or else it was the interpreter, as every piece was played at a rate of knots which turned 'Wo Die Berge So Blau' into a scherzo and 'Nin sie hin denn diese Lieder' into a mad dash to get the train.

The Moonlight sonata - well, after more than 200 years, it has lost nothing.

Where's Roehre?

[Sorrano]

Telamann: Grillen-Symphonie

Sibelius: Karelia Suite

Schumann: Fantasiestcke

That is a nice start to my day.

[Chris]

Another disc of Mozart works on the organ today, this time on Italian organs by Liuwe Tamminga. Some of these pieces really work quite well on the organ.

[Peter]

Mozart contradances and the Mass in C minor
Tchaikovsky - The Voyevoda

[Sorrano]

I love the contradances!

Today, von Vilm's Symphonic Overture.

[jamesofedinburgh]

I don't know the contradanses at all but I take that as an endorsement to find out.

Delius - A Village Romeo and Juliet
Couperin - 8th Order (Harspichord suite with the famous B-minor passacaille)
Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata

New recording of the Beethoven

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...4326957&sr=1-1

I think it is good - Monica Jakuc holds the pedal down in the first movement. The Mozart Fantasia and Fugue in C minor does not come off as well as Op 27/2 but there is a lovely CPE Bach Fantasia and a Haydn Fantasia in C that are very fine.

[Chris]

Handel - Music for the Royal Fireworks, HWV 351 (Original 1749 version); Concerto in F major, HWV 331/316; Concerto in D major, HWV 335a; Passacaille, Gigue and Menuet; Occasional Suite in D major - The English Concert/Trevor Pinnock

This original version really sounds like it goes with fireworks! 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 9 horns, 9 trumpets, contrabassoon, 9 timpani, and 3 side drums make a pretty epic sound!

[Sorrano]

Today: Tchaikovsky: Finale from the Piano Trio

Gordon Jacob: Suite for Recorder and Orchestra

[Chris]

Volume 16 of Kevin Bowyer's Bach organ works. This is basically a disc of fragments, variants, and misattributed works. Very interesting. Particularly notable are the clock pieces, BWV Anh. 133-150, which I've never heard anywhere else. Not strictly organ music, and possibly not by Bach at all (perhaps composed or gathered by Wilhelm Friedemann), but I'm interested in mechanical clock pieces played on the organ, because that is often the only "organ" music we have by our great Classical era composers, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.

[Peter]

Schumann: Das Paradies und die Peri.
Tchaikovsky: String quartet no.2

[Chris]

I found a series of releases on CPO that contain "Apocryphal" Bach works, and I am going to be listening to these this week. In some cases, the true authorship is now known, and in other cases it isn't. These kinds of pieces always fascinate me, because it's interesting to see what pieces were attributed to a famous composer and why. And I always get curious when there is a catalog number missing from a set of "complete" recordings and wonder what it might sound like it. Sometimes I think modern scholars are too quick to judge a work as not actually by Bach for reasons of "imperfections" in the writing.

In any case, today it is some apocryphal Bach cantatas, BWV 217-222. 218 and 219 are actually by Telemann, 222 is by Johann Ernst Bach, and the composers of 217, 220, and 221 are unknown.

These are good works, though, and worth hearing regardless of who actually composed them.

[Chris]

Continuing with my apocryphal Bach journey today:

Mass in C major, BWV Anh. 25 - Actual composer unknown, but either Italian or heavily influenced by the Italian style
Mass in C minor, BWV Anh. 26 - Actually by Francesco Durante
Magnificat in A minor, BWV Ahh. 21 - Actually by Melchior Hoffman

These are some truly delightful pieces, and it is easy to see why Bach would have had them in his collection.

[Michael]

Mozart's last piano concerto, K595.