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What are you currently listening to?

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Author Topic: What are you currently listening to?  (Read 96764 times)
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Jolly Roger
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« Reply #225 on: December 05, 2013, 08:42:29 pm »

Aram Khachaturian - Symphony no. 3, & ,later, Richard Einhorn - Voices of Light Oratorio......a couple of days of inspiring music !
The Khachaturian 2nd  is one of my favorites..
Thanks for your feedback cjvinthechair, you can listen to more of  Anhalt, István and many other Canadians
 by joining here and looking up complete holdings under each composer:
https://www.musiccentre.ca/user
Anhalt (1919-2012) was totally unknown to me but apparently was quite esteemed in Canada, he was a Hungarian Jew who expatriated to Canada.
best friends with George Rochberg
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SerAmantiodiNicolao
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« Reply #226 on: December 05, 2013, 08:43:44 pm »


You're the first I ever hear - read - about the piece. I 'discovered' it by chance ten years ago and love it dearly. Gave it away about five times to friends - and again, heard nothing ever after. ;) What's your impression of it?


Really?  That's interesting - I thought it was quite a well-known piece.  It's done fairly regularly around the DC area - I know it's been on the schedule at Wolf Trap on numerous occasions that I can recall.  Can't say as I've heard it live.  I do have a recording - it didn't do much for me, but I may be due for a relisten.

Tonight I have some music for clarinet trio to finish listening to:
http://www.schickele.com/shoppe/psrec/dances3.htm

It's a grab-bag; I bought it for the Schickele, which did not disappoint.  The other stuff is fairly uninspired.  I don't know what I shall listen to next - whatever I pull off the pile, I suppose.  ;D
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cjvinthechair
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« Reply #227 on: December 05, 2013, 08:58:49 pm »

Richard Einhorn - Voices of Light Oratorio......a couple of days of inspiring music !

You're the first I ever hear - read - about the piece. I 'discovered' it by chance ten years ago and love it dearly. Gave it away about five times to friends - and again, heard nothing ever after. ;) What's your impression of it?

Suppose I'd not have been surprised by a rather brash 'Hollywood' treatment - in fact, it's hugely diverse, quite ascetic at times: 'Relapse', 'Jailers', & when it does go 'huge' that seems appropriate in view of the journey we've taken to get there.
Sure it should have a much wider 'fanbase' !
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Clive
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« Reply #228 on: December 06, 2013, 06:16:32 am »

Well, I started off the night with a new purchase: Martinu's Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola and Orchestra and Erkegali Rakhmadiev's Violin Concerto, with two small orchestral pieces tacked on - his is my first Kazakh piece on CD.  The Martinu is a bit of a bore, same as his music often is for me, I'm afraid.  The Rakhmadiev is pleasant enough...it even becomes cracking good fun in places (even if it's shamelessly stolen from Khachaturian at times.)

Now, though, I have a find - I have a disc of Bulgarian music for violin and piano...Pancho Vladigerov, Parashkev Hadjiev, and Vesselin Stoyanov.  The other two are pleasant enough, but I'm bowled over by the Stoyanov.  Not terribly lush, but what a lovely work - well-structured, nicely constructed, with decent melodies.  He's now on my list of to-find-more.  Not bad for a Thursday night.
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« Reply #229 on: December 06, 2013, 12:21:22 pm »

Many thanks, very helpful again!

RE Rangström: I realized that my memory had fooled me soon after posting this.  :-X It was his Second Symphony that I first heard and that's the one that kept me away from all others for long. I played the Third and Fourth later today, and they are indeed the ones I will return to.  :)
That's the one that bored me! I quite enjoyed listening to Rangstrom's symphonies,or perhaps I should say,I found them quite interesting. I can't say I was 'grabbed' by them. It wasn't like listening to Langgaard,Martinu or Brian for the first time! Or even Roy Harris (until I found too many of them sounded a bit the same). I need to have another listen though,to fully make up my mind. I remember a Gramophone review,years ago,being very dismissive. I think that reviewer was unduly harsh;but again,I can't say my reaction was,"Wow! But I think they are worth hearing. Except,No2,I suppose! ;D How often you will want to listen to them again is another matter. Luckily Rangstrom didn't get the 'Plovdiv' treatment,so you have a decent chance to decide? (I'm giving Louis Glass the benefit of the doubt,until he gets a better crack of the old whip! And anyway, I like No's 3 & 5! Come on Cpo/Chandos!)

One additional point! I can't help feeling that Rangstrom No 1,3 & 4 are the kind of thing that Langgaard did much better! (No1,anyway!)
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chill319
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« Reply #230 on: December 07, 2013, 12:02:08 am »

Probably most of us have had the experience of coming back after a time to a piece that made no large impression on us but now, surprisingly, "clicks." That happened to me yesterday with Symphony 2 ("The Sea") by Hakon Børresen. There is a distinctive use in the outer movements of the major-major chord in various inversions, but otherwise nothing unusual about the harmonic language of the 1904 piece. The subjects, however, are rhythmically interesting, melodically distinctive and eminently symphonic, not to mention well worked out. Above all, Børresen has something quite personal to say. I was moved so I listened again and was moved again. If you haven't listened to Børresen in a while, give him another try.
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kyjo
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« Reply #231 on: December 07, 2013, 03:37:50 am »

Probably most of us have had the experience of coming back after a time to a piece that made no large impression on us but now, surprisingly, "clicks." That happened to me yesterday with Symphony 2 ("The Sea") by Hakon Børresen. There is a distinctive use in the outer movements of the major-major chord in various inversions, but otherwise nothing unusual about the harmonic language of the 1904 piece. The subjects, however, are rhythmically interesting, melodically distinctive and eminently symphonic, not to mention well worked out. Above all, Børresen has something quite personal to say. I was moved so I listened again and was moved again. If you haven't listened to Børresen in a while, give him another try.

Børresen's Second is a work which, similarly, has made no large impression on me yet. I have found it disappointingly conservative (sounding more like Schumann and Mendelssohn than Børresen's contemporaries) and not as vividly atmospheric as I had hoped. Thanks for that write-up; I'll have to take another stab at it!
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kyjo
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« Reply #232 on: December 07, 2013, 04:41:33 am »

Trying to gain a greater appreciating for Strauss' music, I listed to Eine Alpensinfonie played by the Minnesota Orchestra under Edo de Waart (Virgin Classics). I certainly like it, and the Summit and Storm sections are particularly exciting. But all of Strauss' music has that degree of superficiality that prevents me from truly loving it.
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SerAmantiodiNicolao
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« Reply #233 on: December 07, 2013, 06:03:17 am »

Listening to some chamber music by Ellen Taafe Zwilich (the Chamber Symphony, String Quartet, and violin sonata) and Eleanor Cory.  So far I'm not impressed; I think Zwilich can do better.  These are very stringent...but they're earlier than anything else of hers I've heard before.  Pity; I usually quite like her music.
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« Reply #234 on: December 07, 2013, 04:29:01 pm »

Trying to gain a greater appreciating for Strauss' music, I listed to Eine Alpensinfonie played by the Minnesota Orchestra under Edo de Waart (Virgin Classics). I certainly like it, and the Summit and Storm sections are particularly exciting. But all of Strauss' music has that degree of superficiality that prevents me from truly loving it.

No, no, no ::)

Some of Strauss's music MAY have a "degree of superficiality". That is at least debatable....and you are fully entitled to argue that. But not "all" of it, surely ???
How can anyone argue that the Four Last Songs are superficial ::) I shall die on the barricades defending them against such a charge ;D :)
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Dundonnell
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« Reply #235 on: December 07, 2013, 04:41:09 pm »

Anton Rubinstein's Symphony No.6 and "Don Quixote": re-release from Naxos of the former Marco Polo cd.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Naxos/8555394

Pleasant, well-constructed....and totally unmemorable-as I find all Rubinstein's music. I am afraid that, if he did not quite deserve the derision in which he was held by the younger generation of Russian composers(his work in establishing the St. Petersburg Conservatory must be properly acknowledged), he is very far from a great composer or, even, frankly, a very interesting composer.

(I shall post a catalogue of his orchestral music....but compiling it was a chore rather than a pleasure :()
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cilgwyn
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« Reply #236 on: December 07, 2013, 05:00:48 pm »

Trying to gain a greater appreciating for Strauss' music, I listed to Eine Alpensinfonie played by the Minnesota Orchestra under Edo de Waart (Virgin Classics). I certainly like it, and the Summit and Storm sections are particularly exciting. But all of Strauss' music has that degree of superficiality that prevents me from truly loving it.

No, no, no ::)

Some of Strauss's music MAY have a "degree of superficiality". That is at least debatable....and you are fully entitled to argue that. But not "all" of it, surely ???
How can anyone argue that the Four Last Songs are superficial ::) I shall die on the barricades defending them against such a charge ;D :)
Die on the barricades?! Better you than me!! :o Maybe for my last fish finger! ;D
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Neil McGowan
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« Reply #237 on: December 07, 2013, 05:28:05 pm »

Anton Rubinstein ...... he is very far from a great composer or, even, frankly, a very interesting composer.

I know you are a great enthusiast for the symphonic repertoire - and there I'll concur with you about A Rubinstein :)

But I have a soft spot for his operas - particularly THE DEMON, which is an outstanding piece of musical theatre. Very probably Rubinstein felt the tide of public expectation, since the work was based on a book (by Lermontov - hardly a slouch in the literary world) that had been banned by the State Censors since the day it was submitted for publication - and had only just come off the 'banned list'. He was on his honour to produce something extraordinary...  and I'd say he succeeded? :)

A conductor friend of mine mischievously refers to it as "Tchaikovsky's best opera" - but you can judge for yourselves?
(YouTube, complete opera, Latvian National Opera).
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SerAmantiodiNicolao
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« Reply #238 on: December 07, 2013, 06:01:17 pm »



But I have a soft spot for his operas - particularly THE DEMON, which is an outstanding piece of musical theatre. Very probably Rubinstein felt the tide of public expectation, since the work was based on a book (by Lermontov - hardly a slouch in the literary world) that had been banned by the State Censors since the day it was submitted for publication - and had only just come off the 'banned list'. He was on his honour to produce something extraordinary...  and I'd say he succeeded? :)

A conductor friend of mine mischievously refers to it as "Tchaikovsky's best opera" - but you can judge for yourselves?
(YouTube, complete opera, Latvian National Opera).


Ach, there I'll agree with you.  It's always been a crime to me that The Demon is not better known outside of Russia.  It's a phenomenal piece of theatre, says this opera nut.
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kyjo
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« Reply #239 on: December 07, 2013, 10:42:09 pm »

No, no, no ::)

Some of Strauss's music MAY have a "degree of superficiality". That is at least debatable....and you are fully entitled to argue that. But not "all" of it, surely ???
How can anyone argue that the Four Last Songs are superficial ::) I shall die on the barricades defending them against such a charge ;D :)

You like Strauss' music and I don't; let's just leave it at that :)
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