What Are You Listening To Now?

[Roehre]

Today:

Dukas (R3: CotW)
Sonnet
Goetz von Berlichingen
La Péri
Villanelle
Plainte, au loin, d’un Faune

Liszt (Hyperion/Howard New Discoveries 3) i.a.:
Romancero espagnol S.695c
2 Pieces from Christus S.498c
Magnificat S.182a
3 Chansons S.510a

Takemitsu:
Requiem for Strings (1957) (R3: Po3)

Larcher:
Violin concerto (2008/’09) (R3: Po3)
[British Premiere of a concerto which IMO lacks harmonic as well as rhythmic tension, and sounds like a 1960s Penderecki piece after André Rieu has ironed out the biting bits)

[Quijote]

Today:
Larcher:
Violin concerto (2008/’09) (R3: Po3)
[British Premiere of a concerto which IMO lacks harmonic as well as rhythmic tension, and sounds like a 1960s Penderecki piece after André Rieu has ironed out the biting bits)

Hah ! Excellent !

[Peter]

Schoenberg piano concerto.
Bartok 5th string quartet.

[Roehre]

Today:

Liszt (Hyperion/Howard vol.34):
12 Grandes étides S.137
Morceau de Salon S.142

Ligeti:
String quartet no.2 (1968)

Ferneyhough:
String quartet no.2 (1980)

De Leeuw:
String quartet no.2 “And Death shall have no dominion” (1964)

Poulenc:
Sinfonietta (1947)
Concert champetre (1928)

[Quijote]

I know we mentioned it recently in another thread but I've also been listening to Bruckner's 8th symphony (Karajan). Bruckner has always been a composer I've not greatly warmed to, but I think the 8th is something special - it has to be his greatest symphony, the slow movement is sublime.

It is special, I have to agree. No doubt you know his 5th? Equally special. I know what you mean when you say "sublime", but perhaps one day we could examine this term in its historical context.

[Quijote]

Schoenberg piano concerto.
Bartok 5th string quartet.

Splendid ! Any comments to make about these two works, Peter? I have never seen the score of the Schoenberg, for instance, and I would be interested to have your opinion as a pianist. How does it "fit" under the fingers, so to speak?

[Peter]

It is special, I have to agree. No doubt you know his 5th? Equally special. I know what you mean when you say "sublime", but perhaps one day we could examine this term in its historical context.

Yes I know the 5th and the finale never fails to make a tremendous impact.

[Peter]

Splendid ! Any comments to make about these two works, Peter? I have never seen the score of the Schoenberg, for instance, and I would be interested to have your opinion as a pianist. How does it "fit" under the fingers, so to speak?

I haven't seen the score of the Schoenberg either but it is an extremely demanding work to play because of its thick textures in an almost Brahmsian manner - the virtuosity required not being of the dazzling Rachmaninov variety, but in bringing out the different parts - I should imagine, like Bach and Brahms it is not the most pianistically comfortable music to play. Brendel is the pianist in my recording and he does a splendid job. As to the Bartok 5th quartet, I do have the score and this work came as a complete shock to me as a 15 year old music A level student as that work was set - at that time I wasn't really that familiar even with the late Beethoven quartets so I was rather thrown in at the deep end. It took a long time for me to really appreciate the Bartok quartets, but instinctively I recognised the greatness of the music even if I couldn't understand or even like it. Now the powerful rhythms and unusual metres are an endless sourse of fascination.

[Quijote]

Something that I'm not listening to now, but I dearly would like to be :
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011...etzlaff-review

[Roehre]

Today:

Liszt:
La Lugubre Gondola for cello and piano S.134 (R3: TtN)

Birtwistle:
Violin concerto (2010/’11)

Poulenc:
Les Biches: suite (1924)

Dutilleux:
Le Loup (1953)

Milhaud:
La Création du Monde (1923)

Ibert:
Ouverture de Fete (1940)
Escales (1922)

Le Royaume oublié I:
Appartition et Rayonnement du Catharisme – L’Essor de l’Occitanie ca.950-1204(Hesperion XXI/Savall)

[Sorrano]

Poulenc: Aubade

[Chris]

I am listening to a series of releases of Beethoven piano rarities by Steven Beck. First up today:

Beethoven's piano arrangement of Die Geschopfe des Prometheus (Hess 90):

I like this a lot. A fresh new way to experience this great music, and great playing by Beck. It's great that someone has taken the time and effort to record pieces like this.


Military Music for Piano:
Beethoven's piano arrangement of Wellingtons Sieg (Hess 97)
March, Woo 24
Variations on God Save the King, WoO 78
March from the Ruins of Athens
Variations on Rule Britannia, WoO 79
March, Hess 87A
March, Hess 87B
Variations, Op. 76
Ecossaise, WoO 23
March, Hess Anh 4
Triumphmarch, WoO 2a
March, Hess 99

Not so sure about this one, as Beck uses a fortepiano here, which I have never been a fan of. There wasn't really much choice, though, since the transcription of Wellington's Victory calls for cannons, which can only be provided by certain special pedals on certain kinds of fortepianos made back then. Unless you did the sound effects some other way. I don't know, has anyone ever heard this transcription played another way? I must admit, it is an interesting sounding instrument, though.

[Preston]

Listening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor, arranged for orchestra by Stokowski. I have read that Bach possibly did not write it. It sounds like Bach to me. Does anyone have information on this?

To me, for the most part this piece is a much darker piece, though I do feel there is light and good in it also - just not as much, it seems. It also is very serious - unlike the Prelude to the 1st Cello Suite. The TaF in Dm is such a serious, deep, heavy, etc. side of Bach.

This is a piece of classical that I feel very much so. It is catchy, but it is no silly jingle. I actually find it brilliant that for the entire piece the listener is kept at the edge of their seat. And the piece is around 10 min!

I have talked about lack of feeling, for me, in classical and I still have that problem. Sometimes I wonder if the problem is not only me but that while we have the notes we do not have the feeling to play the music of the Classical and Baroque styles? I say Classical and Baroque and not Romantic because it seems that a lot of people are better at feeling the music of the Romantic Era than that of the Classical and Baroque. I am not saying I am right, it is just something I have wondered? Understanding the feeling and emotion of a composers music is probably the most important aspect of music, and if that feeling gets lost after 100's of years then it could be very hard to get back.

Back to the Toccata and Fugue in Dm. The feeling is there and it is booming - note after note. I have not heard one other Baroque piece where I feel as much. Though, I wonder if it is played to fast? Yes, sometimes it seems to be spot on, then other parts it seems should be much, much slower. So, this is a piece I feel but do not understand. By understand, I am talking about the feelings or emotions that the composer has written. I feel all types of things when I listen to it - though it what I felt one time at an exact part could change the next. Concerning the most serious of composers (Beethoven, Bach, etc.) they put thought, great thought, into their music - such as what emotions they would write and why, etc. So, to my mind the eventual goal would be able to feel the exact emotions the composers wrote or are writing - a place where music is no longer subjective but is understood in its entirety.

[Chris]

Listening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-Minor, arranged for orchestra by Stokowski. I have read that Bach possibly did not write it. It sounds like Bach to me. Does anyone have information on this?

It doesn't sound much like Bach to me. Or at least it's rather different from his other organ works. In the early 80's, Peter Williams published a paper identifying several stylistic inconsistencies with organ music of the time and place it was supposed to have been written, such as the use of parallel octaves and true subdominant answers in the fugue. Some of these features were present in later music, though, so Williams suggested that the work may be by a later composer.

Now, that isn't conclusive proof Bach didn't write it, and in my opinion scholars are too quick to declare a work to be spurious based on stylistic considerations. After all, it could be an early, experimental work, or a work meant for testing organs, which Bach did a lot of.

But in this case, there is another possibility. Williams observed that some of these odd features were sometimes present in Bach's transcriptions. Also, the subject of the fugue and other passages seem to be inspired by string music. So it is possible that this work is a transcription, and the original is a violin piece in the vein of Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin. This is not unprecedented, as Bach did make organ transcriptions of works for solo violin (the fugue from BWV 1001 was transcribed for the organ for BWV 539, for example). Williams attempted a reconstruction of this, in A minor, which fits very well on the violin. The well-known Baroque violinists Jaap Schröder and Simon Standage have recorded this, and Andrew Manze has made his own reconstruction.

[Roehre]

Today:

Bruch:
Ave maria – Jubilate opus 3 (1857) (R3: CotW)

D’Indy:
Diptyque méditerranéen op.28 (1888?)
Poèmes des rivages op.77 (1921)

Ohana:
2 Pièces pour clavecin (1982/’83)
Sacral d’Ilx (for clavicembalo, horn and oboe, 1975)

Le Royaume oublié II:
La Croisade contre les Albigeois – Invasion de l’Occitaine 1204-1229
(Hesperion XXI/Savall)