What Classical Music Are You Listening To Tonight?

[Antonmb]

Mozart: Piano Concertos K.456 No.18 & K.595 No.27
Alfred Brendel, Neville Marriner & the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields
Philips (1975), vinyl

Brendel’s Mozart concertos with Marriner are always enjoyable. The Philips sound is excellent.

[bart]

Sibelius - The Symphonies
Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Okko Kamu




SACD 2: Symphonies 2 & 5

[bart]

Carl Nielsen - The Symphonies & Concertos
New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert
Nikolaj Znaider, violin
Robert Langevin, flute
Anthony McGill, clarinet




SACD 2: Symphony 4 & 1


Staying in Scandinavia.
I think I'm starting to like Nielsen as much as Sibelius...

[For The Love of Music]

Mesmerizing, simply mesmerizing!

IMG_3543.jpg

[bart]

Some high quality Christmas music:

Originally Posted by bart

Like every year, I listen to this work from a composer who wrote more pieces than Bach and was more popular during his life than his colleague.

Christoph Graupner - Ein Weihnachtsoratorium
Ex Tempore - Mannheimer Hofkapelle, Florian Heyerick




A very beautiful work.
I'll probably continue to play this every Christmas for - at least - the next 3 decades.
This time is a bit special though, I'm posting this while traveling under the sea (Chunnel).

Playing it again.
This time through our living room system.

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Bach - Weihnachtsoratorium
La Petite Bande, Sigiswald Kuijken




My favourite version of this splendid work.
4 voices only, and it makes for a very transparent sound.
Listening in 5.0 at the moment to be fully immersed.

I liked this review:

Listeners may be surprised by the spare, transparent textures of this new version...An exquisite lightness pervades: rhythms lilt and dance, intricate passagework sounds fleet and agile, and the text is cleanly articulated even within complex contrapuntal textures...the singing at times [is] instrumental in quality and a far cry from the quasi-operatic displays of some recordings. (BBC Music Magazine)

And this one:

This reading of the Christmas Oratorio exhibits many of Kuijken's most compelling qualities with his quietly authoritative, steady and organic understanding...The understand what underpins Kuijken's serious approach to Bach is to be reminded that his pioneering historical instincts are increasingly left to speak for themselves. The arias are often outstanding. (Gramophone)

You have high quality classical Christmas music, then higher, and finally highest.
Bach's Weihnachtsoratorium belongs to that last category.
This interpretation remains my favourite.

[Antonmb]

Brass United - Pitch Black
Music of Monza, Pergolesi, Gallo, Wassenaer, Parisotti, Berio, Albeniz, MacMillan, Jacob TV, Bartók
Channel Classics (2017), via Qobuz

A very nice collection of pieces.

[ehoove]

Die Rohre - The Tube
Stuttgarter Kammerorchester - Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Wonderful collection of works by Corelli, Biber, Vivaldi, Boccherini and Sammartini. Tube only no transistors from Microphone (Neumann M49) to board, to master tape to Cutter.
Tacet L74 Tube only / Transistorfrei (1999 German Pressing)
Regards,
Jim

[bart]

Originally Posted by bart

Mozart - Horn Concertos Nos. 1-4
Barry Tuckwell
Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner



Delicious music, with the brilliant horn player Tuckwell and the ever good Sir Neville Marriner conducting his famous orchestra.
Good remaster.

After our first Christmas dinner in a row, filled with the appropriate Christmas music, I'm very happy to return to some "normal" music!
This is just wonderful.
Mozart touches me in a way other composers can't.
Uplifting could be a word (one of many) to try to describe this.

[bart]

Sandrine Piau - Si J'ai Aimé
Le Concert De La Loge, Julien Chauvin
Qobuz 24/96




I'm a fan of Piau.
She has a good, agreeable voice.
The works she brings here are delightful.

Sandrine Piau invites us for a stroll through the heart of romantic French melody with the musicians of the Concert de la Loge playing on period instruments. Known at the beginning of her career as a prominent performer of Baroque song, Sandrine Piau admits that she was nourished by 19th and 20th-century French music from an early age, at a time when she dreamed of becoming a harpist. Palazzetto Bru Zane are therefore going back to their roots, co-producing this album with the Alpha Classics label. Most of the tracks on this album are real discoveries, like these exquisite mini-works by Massenet, Pierné, Dubois, Godard or Guilmant. And what a wonderful idea to have also slipped the real gem that is Aux étoiles between these melodies, the short night-time instrumental that Henri Duparc wrote in 1910. Almost blind, the composer had dictated the orchestration to the very young Ernest Ansermet, who created it shortly afterwards, conducting the Montreux Kursaal Orchestra. A departure from the usual piano accompaniment, these melodies take on an additional grace and elegance in their orchestral setting, under the subtle and diaphanous direction of Julien Chauvin. © François Hudry/Qobuz