listened this afternoon. they’re lovely (have never sung them), but…leave me a bit cold.
I’m tryin’ here…
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Don’t try too hard…there are a number of composers that after years of trying to like them, much leaves me cold, too.
However, one last shot might be the ‘Te Deum’, which barely sounds religious to me, especially in the first movement, unless it is in the Janacek sense.
This was an award winning recording…may be worth a listen.
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Yes it is!
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This the real cover as released
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Thank you. My box looks awfully real with a bit more seasoned Mr. Perahia on the cover. So many label changes. The music (like the dude) abides.
Changing musical tack, recently listened to Gabriela Ortiz’ Revolución Diamantina (for a nice Kate Wakening review see Sept. BBC Music, pp. 72,73), featuring Granada’s María Dueñas (Fernández) on violin in the stunning Altar de Cuerda, with Gustavo Dudamel/Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. If you enjoy Alberto Ginastera’s compositions, you will greatly enjoy this piece. Yehudi Menuhin Competition winner (2021), Ms. Dueñas is superb on superb material. Mr. Dudamel and the Orchestra give an excellent and balanced performance. The darker Revolución Diamantina is harmonically and percussively wonderful and thoroughly enjoyable to this listener (and therefore will be sedulously avoided by many on this blog). C’est la musique. À chacon son goût.
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A hot summer day is the perfect time for The Nutcracker.
Even though I’m not really a fan of Simon Rattle, this is among my favorites:
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can’t go there until after thanksgiving.
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As the BPO leave Salzburg, and head to London for the Proms, I decided to pursue further the ‘best’ Bruckner 5. William Mival, on BBC Radio 3 in 2009 chose this, and it is a revelation. (Wish I could have heard the discussion, but it is not available.)
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@DDPS Emil Berliner Studios produced an interesting video about the “Original Source Vinyl” project of this cycle.
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I wonder if this series might also be released digitally, as there seems to be a thorough remastering process? It’s a great series.
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Very nice. Thank you.
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I don’t know how I was led to this excellent 2024 Toshio Hosokawa recording of commissioned works performed by Jeroen Berwaerts (trumpet), Paul Huang (Violin) and the Resident Orkest The Hague conducted by peripatetic German Jun Märkel on Naxos Label, but I’m delighted that I was. Like going for a hike and having an unexpected vista open up before you as you reach an opening. Mr. Hosokawa is probably Japan’s leading composer and these commissioned works are wonderfully reflective of both Japanese and German (his training) traditions. Contemplative works that surprise down to the faintest of details. I particularly found Uzu a revelatory piece of music. Now going backwards to listen to his first three recordings for the Naxos label, all conducted by Jun Märkel, each with a different orchestra.
Another off the beaten path recording I have recently enjoyed is composed by American Lou Harrison and recorded with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (whose work I often greatly admire). If you enjoy actual gamelan music, rather than the allusions to it several 19th century French composers used in their superb works, you will likely enjoy this recording. This is a wonderful and unheralded music.
Many tributaries to the river of music, some of surpassing beauty.
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The music and the performance are both good. Well worth a listen.
The sleeve notes are hilarious. It reads like a sociology journal article. Strange album name too.
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Managed to catch the BPO in London, and under Petrenko, Bruckner 5 seems to anticipate Mahler, Sibelius, perhaps Nielsen, even Bartok (the climaxes in the Adagio were alongside ‘the 5th door’). Outstanding event. To hear it live, a privilege, but more importantly it changed my view of Bruckner as following Wagner and Beethoven, to that of an a forward looking revisionist.
To listen to the works in that way lends them a very different meaning, rather than ‘Parsifal’s gone wrong’.
That’s not to say they are not problem pieces, but they start to become so because of the sheer amount of ideas may be too much for each piece.
(As an aside, Petrenko must be the most entertaining conductor to watch, currently. Gestures and facial expressions were at time hilarious, especially in the previous account of 'Ma Vlast.)
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Ólafsson is certainly a unique pianist, and at the BBC Proms, two days ago, wowed in the Schumann Piano Concerto, but even better, played the Andante of Bach’s Organ Sonata No. 4 as an encore (track 5, here). If I didn’t know it was Bach, I might think it was Satie(?) or certainly a more recent composer. If you don’t know it, it is really worth a spin.
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lort, I’m tryin’.
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Fear not, once the bicentenary anniversary passes on Wednesday 4th September, I will need a break from Anton. But this has been quite a journey for me, seeing him now as a proto-Modernist as this review acknowledges. I keep thinking how it was more like listening to ‘The Rite of Spring’ or Sibelius No. 7.
But come the weekend, I am going to enjoy a CPE Bach Cello Concerto, of which more later. Until then, I will see what Rattle does with Bruckner 4. 
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