Sorry, more Brahms...



Brahms: The Symphonies
Chailly/Concertgebouw

Brahms: Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8; Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87
Isaac Stern, violin; Leonard Rose, cello; Eugene Istomin, piano
SONY (CD #1 of 3)
The youthful and melodic Op. 8 (actually amended by Brahms in later years) juxtaposed with the mature and expressive Op. 87 made for a very nice top o' the morning prelude to this surprisingly frosty mid-May morning in southeast Michigan. This is merely another example of why I feel Brahms is best experienced in his chamber works. The intimate mid-'60s recording is clear and vivid; however, instead of the blended sound exemplified today, Stern's violin is hard left, Rose's cello is hard right, and Isomin's piano is recessed and firmly in the middle. Still, the ensemble playing is beautifully complementary with the violin perhaps a tad prominent.

Bernstein/London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; Jerry Hadley, Candide; June Anderson, Cunegonde; Adolph Green, Dr. Pangloss/Martin; Christa Ludwig, Old Lady; Nicolai Gedda, Governor/Vanderdendur/Ragotski; et al.

I really like this. Just got it today.

I love the Overture, stares Rossini in the face! ashamed to say I'm not familier with the complete Opera. Then I aint no 'Opera' buff.-kp

kullervopete wrote:

I love the Overture, stares Rossini in the face! ashamed to say I'm not familier with the complete Opera. Then I aint no 'Opera' buff.-kp

The whole opera is really really Haydn-esque, more so even than Shostakovich. It's really entertaining, though there are some parts that are existential almost on the level of Mahler. It's very interesting. And it uses an idiom that is kinda neo-classical but with a hint of West Side Story in it. Most interesting is that these two works were composed at about the same time (West Side Story having actually been laid aside for about a year; Candide took precedence!), yet more different the two scores could really hardly be. I think comparison between these two concurrent scores is very intriguing.

I do have both a CD and DVD 'The making of West Side Story' with Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras. Of course Lennie directs and its absolutely riveting stuff--great tunes.--kp

Never could get into Bernstein the composer. Now, Bernstein the conductor, that's different...

Bernstein was a great conductor, but he was much more. He was probably the most versatile musician of the twentieth century. He was prolific in symphonic music, ballet and jazz. He was a fine pianist, a gifted poet and a teacher of rare talent. Some people look down on his foray's into Broadway musicals, but surely in 'West Side Story' themes such as 'Maria', 'Tonight' and my favourite 'Somewhere' can rank with the best. 'Somewhere' even makes me think of that great cantable theme in the finale of Sibelius 5. I'm not saying that Bernsteins music is on the inspired level of Sibelius, but this searching music comes from the heart.-kp

kullervopete wrote:

Bernstein was a great conductor, but he was much more. He was probably the most versatile musician of the twentieth century. He was prolific in symphonic music, ballet and jazz. He was a fine pianist, a gifted poet and a teacher of rare talent. Some people look down on his foray's into Broadway musicals, but surely in 'West Side Story' themes such as 'Maria', 'Tonight' and my favourite 'Somewhere' can rank with the best. 'Somewhere' even makes me think of that great cantable theme in the finale of Sibelius 5. I'm not saying that Bernsteins music is on the inspired level of Sibelius, but this searching music comes from the heart.-kp

Listening to Candide, I can't help but agree that this music comes straight from the heart. Bits like "Candide's Lament" really go straight for the gut, and absolutely succeed.

I think I'll be listening to some of Michael Tilson Thomas' Mahler CD's today (school is out for the day!).

Mahler 9; Chailly/Concertgebouw

i've been happily listening through my rca living stereo discs.
great fun!

Mahler 9, Berlin PO, Barbirolli.

Ciarain.

Kieron Kirk wrote:

Mahler 9, Berlin PO, Barbirolli. Ciarain.

i have that one!

dj

Kieron Kirk wrote:

Mahler 9, Berlin PO, Barbirolli. Ciarain.

I've got that one too. It's really good, though sometimes it sounds hopelessly rushed...

Then again, I'm listening to the ultra-slow Chailly one, so... yeah.

Moeran: Violin Concerto; Lonely Waters; Whythorne's Shadow
Lydia Mordkovitch, violin (in concerto)
Ulster Orchestra
Vernon Handley, cond.

Moeran: Cello Concerto
Raphael Wallfisch, cello
Bouremouth Sinfonietta
Norman Del Mar, cond.
CHANDOS

This is my introduction to E. J. Moeran (1894-1950) whom I first read about recently and whose music was described as being firmly entrenched in the "cowpat" school of twentieth century British music, a term derogatorally coined by English serialist composer Elisabeth Lutyens to describe the more idyllically inclined music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald Finzi, Hubert Parry, and the like. Yes, the music here is nothing if not evocative of British and Irish vistas abetted by frequent none-too-subtle allusions to inherently familiar folk melodies and rhythms. One can choose to either love this music for its simple summonings or be aloof to its seeming ubiquity and triteness; there's certainly nothing threatening nor overtly challenging to be heard.

The Violin Concerto of 1937 is probably the most attractive and substantive work here -- three varying movements traversing both a soberly Romantic and homespun musical landscape. Soloist Lydia Mordkovitch produces a somewhat roughhewn sonority, especially in the lower register, but still displays an appropriately sweet-sounding rumination bookending the folksy jauntiness found in the middle movement. In painting this beautiful and amiable picture, she's very well-balanced with the vividly recorded Ulster Orchestra led by Vernon Handley.

Handley and the Ulster also perform the near contemporaneous Lonely Waters and Whythorne's Shadow, the latter's namesake being an Elizabethan-era composer -- together representing about fifteen minutes of flowing, lovely, and mostly innocuous musical buffer.

The program ends with the Cello Concerto, a later work from around the end of World War II. Soloist Raphael Wallfisch is accompanied by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta led by Norman Del Mar in a recording originally released a few years previous to the above in the mid-1980s and compellingly appended here to make for this chock-full 2004 re-release. It's perhaps too easy to say this is musically more of the same as its earlier violin counterpart -- a beautiful and pastorally inspired rumination sandwiching and infused with some lilting Irish folk stylings, this time featuring the deeply rich sonority of Wallfisch's instrument. If, perchance, there's an actual "expression" to be heard in this score, it's mostly latent in this performance, but it melds well with this uniformly peaceable and amiable program -- one, with small effort, I happened to take delight in this particular morning.

Thanks Moldy for yet another first rate review. I would only add that Moerans music is well worth exploring and I have detected the influence of one Jean Sibelius in a number of his works.--kp

I've been listening to Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" practically all day today... jazz is quite addicting given the chance.

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In my Cd player today Dvorak's Sixth Symphony in D major, opus 60 What a joyous piece of music, its a symphony that Sibelius greatly enjoyed when he heard it performed in Berlin in 1890. I picked up two boxed sets of the Dvorak symphonies during a visit to Prague in June 1992. I bought them off a street trader. The Czech Philharmonic under Vaclav Neumann have this music in their blood and the Supraphon recordings are excellent.--kp

listening to my new beethoven/kempff sonata box (50s mono version). it is great! ...duh , of course.

i spent three days last week in another part of the ozarks at a shaped-note gathering. music that is at once fierce and sweet.
the old american tunesmiths are super...go william billings and jeremiah ingalls!!!!

dj

Glière: Symphony No. 3 "Ilya Murometz"
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Harold Farberman, cond.
UNICORN-KANCHANA (2 CDs)
This is an interminable, nearly 100-minute exercise in Late Romantic non-expression. The first hour might make for good background music, but only if one can abide a persistent drone of near-Wagnerian swelling and ebbing of massed strings -- Dramamine is not included. I realize the symphony has a program, but this might work better as a silent movie soundtrack; several grueling listens have failed to convince me otherwise.

Glière's "Ilya Murometz" has its fervent fans, but if one truly wishes to be introduced to this bloated gargantua, I'd feel comfortable in suggesting almost any other recording (though I've yet to hear any of them and am well-nigh loath to do so), apparently all of which are either appreciably amended or reinterpreted for "listening compactness". Farberman's recording is probably best left for cognoscenti...or for someone's extended sessions of morbid self-imposed sleep deprivation.