What are you listening to now?

[Harvey]

I shall watch Act 2 tomorrow- I have some groceries to get and hurry back home to get ready for tonight. I'm going to see the Escher Quartet play Beethoven's opus 130!

The opening music to Act II is wonderful, and I just love the gravedigging duet.

The Van Stadt / Abbado filmed Cenerentola is one of my most treasured opera productions (I have it on DVD), ...
.

For sure, this is a first class production. Every actor/singer is wonderful. And for a CD I highly recommend the Abbado CD with Teresa Berganza. She has a beautiful voice, similar to von Stade, and Chlorinda, Tisbe, and Don Magnifico are played by the same people as in the DVD.

[Decrepit Poster]

While discussing Mozart's KV397, I forgot to mention having chanced upon a rather fine amateur performance, which utilizes the Uchida ending.

I found a documentary on you tube about the Castrati- I will watch it at some point- saw a few clips of it.

Apparently this guy is the nearest we get to hearing how a castrato would have sounded. Paulo Abel do Nascimento had an endocrine disorder which meant he didn't go through puberty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkBrEkOwXuU

And there is also Radu Marian, another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOoy17PPHRI

You'd think Radu was female!!!!

Thanks for mentioning the castrati documentary. BBC I presume? I watched it just prior to lunch. I'll say no more lest I spoil it for you. Part 3 seems to be missing. I was able to watch some of the missing footage via another poster's upload. As to your links, I wish the second had been recorded in a less resonant acoustic environment so that we might better evaluate the man's true voice. (I'm not talking about talent here. Both performers are obviously top notch.)

For sure, this is a first class production. Every actor/singer is wonderful. And for a CD I highly recommend the Abbado CD with Teresa Berganza. She has a beautiful voice, similar to von Stade, and Chlorinda, Tisbe, and Don Magnifico are played by the same people as in the DVD.

Speaking of operatic vocal performances, I'm partial to one that might raise eyebrows, depending on one's definition of great singing. I refer to Act II of Tosca, as sung by Hildegard Behren's in the title role and featuring Cornell MacNeil as Scarpia. I consider Behren's an excellent vocal and physical actress who is not afraid to sacrifice beauty of sound to achieve dramatic ends. This is nowhere more evident than in the act's closing minutes, where Scarpia gets his comeuppance. I greatly admire Ms Behren's work here, though I can understand if those who prefer vocal beauty above all else might not take to it as strongly as I do. BTW, MacNeil creates one of the most repulsive Scarpia's one could hope to encounter.

[AeolianHarp]

What am I listening to now? The Grosse Fugue!!!
But just having to back and seeing it played LIVE what else could I be listening to?!

[AeolianHarp]

Thanks for mentioning the castrati documentary. BBC I presume? I watched it just prior to lunch. I'll say no more lest I spoil it for you. Part 3 seems to be missing. I was able to watch some of the missing footage via another poster's upload.

Yes, same here- I saw it yesterday.

As to your links, I wish the second had been recorded in a less resonant acoustic environment so that we might better evaluate the man's true voice. (I'm not talking about quality here. Both performers are obviously top notch.)

Yes, interesting voices. I'm not sure I would have liked a true castrato's singing though- it's kind of creepy and cruel to consign a man to such a physical state.

Did you know that Joseph Haydn narrowly escaped this fate?!
His choir master talked him into agreeing to become a castrato- and then two hours before the er "procedure" his father Mathias found out and hurried to find them and angrily put a stop to it! Thank goodness he did!

[AeolianHarp]

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_TNaDNFg5s[/YOUTUBE]

I'm not such a fan of Baroque, but there is something strangely compelling about this.

[Decrepit Poster]

This morning, while preparing a reply to another of our threads, I revisited favored performances of B's string quartets Op.59.No.3 and Op.131. Links to those appear elsewhere.

Did you know that Joseph Haydn narrowly escaped this fate?! His choir master talked him into agreeing to become a castrato- and then two hours before the er "procedure" his father Mathias found out and hurried to find them and angrily put a stop to it! Thank goodness he did!

Yes, I have long been familiar with Haydn's narrow escape, avoiding disaster by a razor's edge as it were. Had it occurred, would history have come to know him by the sobriquet "Papa" Haydn?

<snipped Art of the Fugue Link> I'm not such a fan of Baroque, but there is something strangely compelling about this.

I seldom make forays into baroque these days, but years ago was heavily into both baroque and "early" music. Practiced recorder until I could play some of the easier baroque sonatas...if you didn't mind occasional fumbles and less than perfect intonation. I've not yet listened to much of your Art of the Fugue link, but enjoy what I've heard thus far.

My long time AotF preference, the one I own on CD, might appeal to you as an advocate of period instruments. It's by the group Hesperion XX, eight musicians, four on viols, four playing old winds, as follows:

• dessus de viole
• viole alto
• viole tenor
• basse de viole
• cornet(t)
• oboe da caccia
• sackbutt (trombone)
• bassoon

These are handled as separate consorts. The viols play some pieces, the winds others. I can't recall if the two consorts combine. (I've not listened to AotF in its entirety in some years.)

As with your comments on fortepiano, I find these old instruments lend the work "color". Admittedly, switching from Emerson to Hesperion is something of a culture shock. But my ears acclimate themselves soon enough. I can see myself preferring the Emerson's over Hesperion depending on my mood.

[AeolianHarp]

Yes, I have long been familiar with Haydn's narrow escape, avoiding disaster by a razor's edge as it were. Had it occurred, would history have come to know him by the sobriquet "Papa" Haydn?

Well the Papa wasn't literal- he never fathered any children- he didn't have a happy marriage. He was called Papa as he had such a kind fatherly persona towards people. Would he have been a composer if he'd ended up as a Castrato? Maybe some little compositions as some Castrati did compose, but Haydn as we know him today, with his huge output and contribution to music- no. Thank goodness his father put a stop to it! Just not for the sake of music, but also for the sake of Haydn's manhood.

Thanks for the video DP! Listening to it now whilst I clean my music bookcase! I almost clicked on that video before- I should have! Gravi has a good channel- I'm subscribed to his/her channel.

This Fugue is so versatile isn't it! So many ways to play it. I read earlier on wiki that it was written to be so.

I seldom make forays into baroque these days, but years ago was heavily into both baroque and "early" music. Practiced recorder until I could play some of the easier baroque sonatas...if you didn't mind occasional fumbles and less than perfect intonation.

Have you still got the recorder?

As with your comments on fortepiano, I find these old instruments lend the work "color"

An astute observation DP! Eben Goresko describes HIP and unequal temperaments as just that!

[Decrepit Poster]

In the mood for B's second symphony, a auditioned a good many YouTube performances before settling on Thielemann/VPO. Audio/video quality are top notch, as is camera work. Orchestra choirs are very well balanced throughout, with nothing slighted. Interpretively, I'm most sold on Thielemann's outer movements. They are suitably fast and deliver quite a dynamic punch. I consider these two movements on par with the best I've heard. The second movement is old-school slow...I prefer the faster approach many have converted to since the birth of the period instrument movement. Thielemann does well at his chosen tempo, though other surpass him. Conversely, I found his scherzo too fast for my taste, especially its trio. Too, I felt more could have been done with that movement's closing measures, which seem rather perfunctory. Grumbles aside, remember that this is the performance I most enjoyed out of those I auditioned.

Also heard/watched was the last movement of Mahler's first symphony as performed by the Orchestre de Paris Christoph Eschenbach. Divided between several uploads, here are its concluding ten and a half minutes.

Have you still got the recorder?

Aye, I still possess five recorders; sopranino, soprano, two altos and tenor. All but one alto has been in storage for years. The alto might as well be. I've not touched it (musically) in ages, and doubt I will. Not with my gimpy lungs. (I also keep three euphoniums. One horrid small-bore student instrument, really an American baritone-horn more so than a true euphonium. One eastern European oval-style medium-bore euphonium, such as might be ideal for the opening of Mahler's seventh symphony. One full-bore compensating euphonium such as most modern day soloists and top notch brass/military bands employ. Can't get a buzz out of 'em any more, but they do make nice shelf/floor displays. Har.)

BTW: Back when I was really into early music I came very close to buying a set of these.

[Harvey]

... This is nowhere more evident than in the act's closing minutes, where Scarpia gets his comeuppance. .

That is certainly dramatic, but it is too intense for me. I like operas where nobody gets killed, which certainly limits my selections.

Here is my latest opera selection and this one a real treasure. See if you can guess who the bass is. You are familiar with him:
Clip with subtitles.

Here is the full opera (no subtitles in this one): Pergolesi - La Serva Padrona 1958

[Chaszz]

I've been listening to Brahms' First Symphony on and off for several months now. I keep coming back to it. The first and last movements particularly fascinate me in their large scale structures and the heavy muscularity of the music and its rhythmic propulsion.

To me Brahms is one of the most original composers in three ways. First, the way he builds gigantic movements on the shortest themes, often just three or four notes. I know that other composers like Beethoven did this also, and I know that Brahms sometimes uses melodies rather than short riffs, as in the lovely melody which opens the First Piano Trio. But more often, and obsessively, he seems to want to take the shortest sequence of notes he can find to make a theme and use that to build a giant structure, of course usually in connection with other themes.

Secondly, the excursions he takes into unprecedented reaches of traditional tonality. I play jazz guitar and know theory and can usually infer by ear more or less what the note sequence and chord progression are in passages by other pre-modernist composers, but with Brahms I can often not do this and for long passages, have no idea what he is doing technically or what the chords are. Sometimes I don't even know if he's in major or minor. The note and chord sequences seem to me entirely original and unprecedented yet make entire sense organically as they unfold. This ability to expand the possibilities of tonality may have been one of the reasons Schoenberg titled an essay on him "Brahms the Progressive." (Although of course Brahms never actually crossed the Rubicon into tonality's breakdown. There is a quote from him to the effect that if he read a bit from the score of Tristan in the morning, it ruined his day.)

Third, the rhythmic vitality. I once heard Brahms compared to an elephant dancing. This is apt if we imagine an agile elephant who knows exactly what he's doing on the dance floor. The rhythm is so strong and creative as to remind me of jazz.

In the 4th movement of the First Symphony, I find the Beethoven-9th-like "joy" theme kind of corny and sort of grit my teeth, or ignore it, during the two times it is stated in full. But I am still fascinated after all these hearings at the wonderful variations he wrings out of it. And the long drawn-out Swiss horn call also never fails to move me, along with the many changes he manages to wring out of that. And the way all these variations propel the musically rhythmically, advancing, retreating, then advancing again relentlessly toward the shattering climax.

[Harvey]

The finale of La Sonnambula with Eva Mei (what a wonderful voice):
You Tube Clip

[Michael]

"Leroy Anderson Favourites", St. Louis SO, Leonard Slatkin.

[Harvey]

I have not been listening to a lot of Beethoven lately, but just listened to the 6th symphony. It is amazing how wonderful this master work really is. What a beautiful symphony.

[Rocco]

Rossini's La Cenerentola by Abbado.

[Peter]

Mahler's 7th - this has always been considered the least successful and most problematical of Mahler's symphonies due largely to the first and last movements - the inner 3 movements though are a delight, especially the two hauntingly evocative nachtmusik movements and the Scherzo is highly effective and original.