StateWork : Free Great Classical Broadcast Recordings etc.

Kurtag .concertante. Maestro Saraste, BBC SO live 2011 with dedicatees Kikuchi & Hakii

2012-01-29T21:34:00.011-05:00

a Kurtag double concerto for large orchestra, violin, viola, and more than a few surprises

Béla Bartok

Dance Suite

Gyorgi Kurtág

Op. 42 .concertante. (dedicated to Hiromi Kikuchi & Ken Hakii)

Jean Sibelius

Symphony No.6
Symphony No.7

Hiromi Kikuchi, violin
Ken Hakii, viola
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor

16 December 2011

Live BBC broadcast from The Barbican Centre, London UK

Radio announcements by Martin Handley

If you like the Kurtag work (if?? Did I write IF?) buy it.

earbox brought this to ca, and I couldn't help it. I had to share.

Here is a whole broadcast of a BBC concert including .concertante.. It comes complete with the 26-some minute radio interval and all, nicely tracked by a concertarchive uploader so as not to overly tax your repeated-listening possibilities.

In the announcer's comments, they tell of an affectionate bond between Gyorgy Kurtag and the violinist Hiromi Kikuchi. Kurtag is said to hold her and her spouse as the artists he "trusts most in the world". Indeed, Senor Kurtag has written other things for her such as "Hipartita", and in this piece the dedication is to both her and her husband, Ken Haikii. The two played .concertante. on this evening's recording, performing on their customary violin and viola as well as on 'silent violin and silent viola' which look like "skeletal, half" instruments. These come to bear in the fading last pages of the vast, intimate work.

I really love the two Sibelius symphonies given here, almost regardless of performance, and Bartok is just a constant love but really this is for the greatest love of them all, for Kurtag. I just keep coming back to György and his work keeps revealing more. So, although the whole concert is here, it is for a sense of completion. Besides (as Mesopotamian-era religion points out), hell, why not?

Christopher Gunning has given it a different framing altogether:

"...The [BBC's] programme note waffled about Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, and references to Wagner and Magyar music, but if I was supposed to recognise any of these, I’m afraid I failed miserably. In fact I found this work altogether perplexing; the soloists are not soloists in the conventional sense, and their contributions often seemed inconsequential or inaudible. The music is also extremely discontinuous; at worst it felt like a random series of sounds and gestures, which although frequently interesting in themselves, were largely disconnected. There are welcome periods of greater energy, and some violent outbursts too, but overall this doesn’t make for coherent, let alone pleasant, listening. You may say there’s absolutely nothing wrong in that in itself, of course, but there’s a point at which incomprehension gets the better of me and I must admit to being pretty relieved when it was all over..."

I have to admit, this is exactly one of the central reasons as to why I love Kurtag. Not everybody will like it. And that is OK. I personally find the composer's work to be unflinching and with that, more beautiful. Also (hey, it's a blog, so if it turns into a quotefest just strap in), here I present Tia DeNora's quoting of John Cage most fittingly:

New music:new listening. Not an attempt to understand something that is being said, for, if something were being said, the sounds would be given the shapes of words. Just an attention to the activity of sounds."

Musicweb's Philip Borg-Steely has written something about this work which gets Kurtag in general:

"...Spare, elliptical, austere, Kurtág’s aphoristic pieces or movements, in which no note is wasted or insignificant, create an impact and resonance out of all proportion to their brevity. After listening to one of his typically concentrated works, one may well find much other contemporary music long-winded and self-indulgent..."

Allright then.

Guillermo

Shostakovich 10th, von Karajan & Staatskapelle Dresden, 1976

2012-01-28T12:52:00.007-05:00

Sounds to weather the storm with.

Dmitry Shostakovich

Symphony No. 10 Op. 93

I. Moderato

II. Allegro

III. Allegretto

IV. Andante-Allegro

Staatskapelle Dresden

Herbert von Karajan

broadcast recording of ??-??-1976

Thanks to Progress Hornsby. Check out his blog- it's on the list.

I've been sitting on this one for a loooong time, but I think it's still a 'new' addition to the stuff out there. P.Hornsby and the MetroGnomes sent me this before their own blog was made, and I hope it wasn't put up there in the lee. If so, so much the better; these performances need wider attention.

This performance may or may not be the same as one referenced around the web, from August 15th, 1976 in Salzburg. Maybe someone will comment on that. What is certain is that it suffers from the same thing almost all Shostakovich symphonies have, the way I hear them. The affliction is known in clinical circles as "It's Shostakovich as conducted by not-Mravinsky-or-Kondrashin".

It's just that every time I listen to a Shosta 10th, I have to abolish the 1973 Kondrashin recording where he heads the State Symphony Orchestra, or the furious 1976 Mravinsky take with the Leningraders. Once past these, then I can allow the present recording to take its own personna, but its tough to abolish the impression those two leave.

Call me dogmatic. I do listen to each and allow them thier due, however, and Karajan's conduct here is worth several deep listens. The first movement is especially blessed with some passages of slow burn surprise. Herbie almost makes you forget there are spikes in the emotional arc, so when they are triggered it is unsettling, as seems appropriate. It's a display of mastery of podium skill, no doubt.

Anyway, there are really good sounds here, just the thing to accompany the Internet Inquisition currently underway, with file hosting companies on the rack and such.

Enjoy!

Guillermo

Britten War Requiem 2002 Rostropovich/NDR SO broadcast

2011-05-04T12:37:00.008-04:00

Britten, Benjamin

War Requiem, Op. 66

live broadcast

Turbinenhalle, Peenemünde

28 September 2002

Mstislav Rostropovich, conductor

Andreas Sebastian Weiser, assistant conductor

NDR Symphony Orchestra

NDR Radio Philharmonic Hannover

Elina Prokina, soprano

Anthony Rolfe Johnson, tenor

Andreas Schmidt, baritone

Coventry Cathedral Boys' Choir

Boys Choir of St. Nikolai, Hamburg

Philharmonia Chorus

NDR Choir

BBC Singers

Regardless of the earnest policy-oriented appeal below, this performance is chosen for it's quality. It is not the most impeccably recorded thing sound-wise, but what is here rises beyond the myriad War Requiems I've heard over the years. Uncompromisingly bled by Mstislav Rostropovich, it has none of that furioso impulse of Pappano's take in 2005, nor the scrappiness of a Ringborg broadcast.

What Rostropovich brings to this is a searing, nuanced construction which does justice to the subject.

When Britten composed this War Requiem, heads of state would send their nation's kids to kill another nation's youth.

That procedure has been proving less and less useful. Maybe now we can have fewer large-scale actions; instead of vast amounts of people, machinery going from here to there ( -and the arms manufacturers and suppliers reaping a disproportionate sum of the monetary benefits), there will be more targeted murders of deserving humans. This should be done with concomitant transparency of motives. Fewer deaths, higher "return on investment"?

"...

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori."1

My friend Kelly (who also has a horse in this race, having become a mom recently, congrats!) found a great summation:

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."~Martin Luther King, Jr.

May the recent news allow more of our troops to be brought safely home; if they must remain I want to see their rifles slung on their backs because their hands are full of water-treatment infrastructure, fertile seeds, and some grateful local's donation of a home-cooked meal.

Guillermo

1 Owen, Wilfred (8 October 1917 - March, 1918). "DULCE ET DECORUM EST"

In lieu of actual post (which is forthcoming)

2011-04-25T23:58:00.003-04:00

Statework will continue shortly.

In the interim, and as a valid excuse for not actually posting (!!), I offer the most wicked recommendation in recent music blog memory:

http://panovnik.blogspot.com/

This guy's putting out the most incendiary "I've never seen that performance date before" Mravinsky and Richter recordings ever. I've been in bliss for weeks and weeks.

Brahms 4 Prêtre/Accademia Sta Cecilia 2010 broadcast

2011-02-20T11:07:00.002-05:00

[and more art, soon ...?)

Johannes Brahms

Symphony no. 4 in E minor op. 98

Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Georges Pretre, conductor

1 June 2010

Parco della Musica in Roma

This is the second part of the June 1 2010 Brahms concert broadcast.

Thanks again to Andrea for this. Please see previous post for more info.

Aah, listen to it. It will change your Brahms world.

Brahms 3 Prêtre/Accademia Sta Cecilia 2010 broadcast

2011-02-19T20:54:00.003-05:00

[art, soon ...?)

Johannes Brahms

Symphony no. 3 in F op. 90

[in next post: Symphony no. 4 in E minor op. 98]

Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

Georges Pretre, conductor

1 June 2010

Parco della Musica in Roma

Thank you, Andrea for having posted this. A fellow listener, henryflower found them

"...outstanding. I think it's instantly become my performance of choice for those works. So much energy and drive, such great woodwind detail..."

What am I supposed to write? There are only so many ways to express the rapt satisfaction and untrammeled serotonin production that some of these recordings cause. It's the raison d'étre for this blog.

Here Georges Prêtre, who came into this world in 1924, leads what wiki calls "one of the oldest musical institutions in the world" and together they bring the smackdown in such a way as to shame all comers.

Our contributor laments, "..[u]nfortunately the quality of sound is not excellent only 128 kbs but it is worthwhile to have it !!"

Yes, yes yes.

Mahler 5 Horenstein 1961 Berliner Phil, repaired/completed version

2011-01-10T21:08:00.007-05:00

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 5

Edinburgh Festival

August 31, 1961

Berlin Philharmonic

Jascha Horenstein, conductor

[artwork to be posted. maybe]

I'm a Furtwängler fan, and so I think I hear something of his approach in Horenstein performances, by dint of Jascha Horenstein having been the older conductor's assistant. Something ineffable, the organic feel in the musicmaking makes me imagine that a Furtwangler Mahler 5th joint would be something like what we hear here. I mean no disrespect to Jascha Horenstein by this. Horenstein is another of the sound shapers who consistently make deeply satisfying performances appear out of nowhere! Without much more epicycling, I say this is a very engrossing recording. It just sounded several kinds of terrible from having been poorly sourced.

Now, this is the same recording but with work done to remedy some of that. This Mahler 5th was offered by "a collector who

first posted the original, unrestored files on his blog..." (temporarily closed), MetroGnome Music http://metrognomemusic.blogspot.com/ , which then whas taken by GP 49, who worked on them to improve their problematic sonic profile.

That MetroGnome blog is a treasure trove. I hope it returns soon.

GP49 describes the process of making this particular recording sound better:

There were several items which needed to be addressed:
Several bars were missing from the end of the Finale. [the uploader] had already done a repair to missing bars in the Scherzo,
but he had material to work with within the existing file; in the
finale, there wasn't anything that could be used. Fortunately, for
many years now, I have had a cassette with the only last ten minutes
of the same performance; it sounded just as bad but it had the missing
bars.
A patch job could be done!
The entry of the Scherzo was noisy and abrupt, distorted and
truncated. Some careful and exacting digital editing was needed to
extract enough clean signal to reconstruct just that one first note.
Generally, noise and hum was reduced though not eliminated.
Transitions from silence to movement entries were refined.
There were some loud, bass-heavy THUMPS which sounded like somebody
bumped the microphone during the recording, which Jascha Horenstein's
cousin alleges was made using a microphone in front of a radio
loudspeaker. These THUMPS couldn't be made inaudible; all that could
be done was to filter out the heavy bass.
Gross digital clipping in the loudest segments of all movements had
to be addressed. The overall level was dropped to provide some
headroom, and software was applied to attempt a restoration of the
clipped portions. The results of this procedure are seldom 100%
effective, but they are audible here. Unfortunately some of the
distortion from the digital clipping remains; and there was nothing
that could be done for distortion from analog tape overload, without
severely filtering the treble unacceptably.
If one carefully listens to the original, it sounds like Horenstein
played the fourth movement and the Finale without a pause. But I
couldn't tell if this was a poor edit, long ago, on a previous
generation of the tape. I know someone who was there in Edinburgh at
the concert and he says that there was a definite pause, but a short
one. However, Jascha Horenstein's cousin says that his notes from
other Horenstein performances of Mahler 5 say that the conductor
played through the IV-V transition without a pause. I've retained
the split of the two movements onto separate tracks but have put a
minimal amount of silence after the hall echo at the end of IV, and a
minimal amount before the entry of V. If played consecutively, this
makes the pause very short. For those who prefer a longer silence
between the movements, there is always the PAUSE control.
When played, the original was pitched quite too high: a semitone.
That error is a lot, even for a cheap cassette deck; but I have seen
some that had that degree of speed error. Under the assumption that
the pitch error occurred in the analog domain, this means that the
original also was playing too fast! The semitone down-transposition
and accompanying 5.6% slowdown altered the portrayal of the entire
symphony; compared to known, good-sounding Horenstein performances of
the Mahler Sixth Symphony, this Fifth originally sounded too
"lightweight."
After the pitch/speed correction, the gentleman who actually heard
the concert in Edinburgh said, "it does darken the performance and is
much closer to what I remember at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh."
The result is not perfect; it's no silk purse but it is no longer a
sow's ear, either. Some distorted patches remain, and there are
pitch bobbles that sound like irregularity in reel-to-reel tape feed.
I still hope a better copy turns up that will allow this performance
to shine for all it's worth. Jascha Horenstein's cousin is still
trying to search one out, and we should all hope that he is
successful; but for now, this is what we have.
The downloadable files include an excerpt from the introductory
comments on the 1961 broadcast. The audience's applause with
broadcast exit comments follow the Finale, as in the original
broadcast.

This is a mono recording of an important historic performance.

Enjoy!

Guillermo

Gubaidulina's Glorious Percussion, Berlin Phil under Dudamel. Live in-house/broadcast 2009

2010-11-19T00:15:00.007-05:00

Absolutely well named. Drummers, strap it on.

Sofia Gubaidulina

Glorious Percussion

Berliner Philharmoniker

Glorious Percussion Ensemble (Anders Haag, Robyn Schulkowsky, Anders Loguin, Mika Takehara & Eirik Raude)

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Two independent sources of the same event

(1) in-house audience member's recording and (2) live broadcast recording of Musikfest Berlin 09

September 17, 2009

Berliner Philharmonie, Berlin, DE

I prefer, as usual, the bootleg from the seat in the audience. I feel this music especially benefits from this perspective, which is near enough to make out a depth of soundstage that is more detailed than the broadcast version. Maybe the compression to the radio signal does me in, either way me dispiace.

What pleases me so is just the adventure this whole thing takes you on. It lets an unforced myriad of possibilities flow, all based on beating things to get them to make sound. Make no mistake, beat things the 5 soloists do. Sometimes you feel it was almost too hard, then letting the items ring if they can- the air is often rife with delicious overtones, enough to make the most fervent Arvo Part freak drool.

The music never even approaches roteland or unfocussedstan. I am not faint praise-damning, it's just that we are dealing with a new piece of music and there are no boring or obtuse parts! Despite all the recent compositions out there that also share these gifts, this one lets everything happen with an added feel of inevitability as opposed to being pushed forth. Some passages flit way past even the most cynical expectations, like the buildup and release at 23 minutes. It is joy.

And I will add this completely-unnecessary-but-oh-so-gratifying observation:

These visceral, accessible but unflinching sounds were composed this century, but a very much living composer, who is female and is kicking everyone's butt.

Thanks to Messrs. Anonymous for the in-house recording, Thank you Thank You.

Here's a great article chronicling the September 18th performance in Berlin

http://www.tokafi.com/newsitems/concert-review-gustavo-dudamel-berliner-philharmoniker-glorious-percussion-ensemble/

which includes this passage about the music:

"...There are allusions to Jazz, marching bands, classical development and all but unfiltered episodes of pure sound. Frictions between primitive, playful, primordial noises and equally refined and complex textures. Tensions between agitated sequences and almost static passages. Nuances between almost complete silence and furious climactic outbursts of condensed power. „Glorious Percussion“ is the result of a philosophic quest: Gubaidulina has gone back to the origins of music, virtually traveling in time to the point where it all began. To her, the drum is the seed. She is not interested in analysing its sonic potential, even though there is a naive exploratory zest behind some of the events and techniques (such as Loguin throwing a shaker in the air and catching it full-flight). ..."

As Ictus 75 points out, "You can watch the whole performance here:" http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/248

and/or download the audio mp3's from the comments section below, as usual.

Enjoy!

Guillermo

Bruckner 6th, Horenstein/LSO 1963 broadcast

2010-11-18T15:24:00.003-05:00

*This is arguably a better sounding recording than the one available elsewhere*

Bruckner, Anton

Symphony No.6

London Symphony Orchestra

Jascha Horenstein, conductor

live broadcast

November 21, 1963 [please see information below, concerning date]

This is a bit of housekeeping, as this recording was contributed by State Worker GP49 by being posted to the comments section- Thank you GP for this and so many other treasured performances! It lay there in comments limbo for far too long, and so it has it's own post now as it is much deserving of the attention. Again, I must disclose that this is a recording of a night which is available elsewhere but never in this fine a quality of sound.

I just listened to the adagio for the umpteenth time with my infant son, who is staring placidly off into the wild blue yonder. We both were, really. Then the scherzo arrives with it's swooping brass (hints of portamento?), with the satisfying mash of the strident sections. It all brings to mind Billie Holiday's intoning a few words about how, "... the tunes I request aren't always the best, but the ones where the trumpets blare!"

Interesting to note, this symphony was premiered by the Wiener Philharmoniker under Gustav Mahler's baton.

The contributor advises us that, "There is some issue about the orchestra and date, but it has been confirmed that the orchestra is the LSO, not the LPO as some have said; and that the 1964 date often attributed is the BBC broadcast date, not the performance date. The remaining dispute is whether this is from a concert on Nov. 21, 1963 or Nov. 21, 1961. Horenstein's assistant Joel Lazar could not help, but he was only with the conductor from 1970 on.

Included in this download is a bonus spoken-word track, by composer Robert Simpson in 1973 in honor of Jascha Horenstein after his death that year.

Good-sounding mono; four movements plus the Simpson track: five FLACs"

GP posted more about this recording (which certainly deserves a more prominent position in the public eye) :

"...[GP49's] friend ...generously provided the original, dubbed from cassette tape. It's been edited and "freshened"; most dropouts and extraneous noises, some of which sounded like the microphone got bumped, have been repaired or at least ameliorated. In addition, the original sounded like some kind of dynamic range expander had been switched ON during the first minutes of the first movement, then was shut off resulting in an abrupt change in volume. That had to be addressed, so that the "join" would not be audibly evident..."

Great fun for all.

Guillermo

Bruckner 3 Horenstein/BBC Northern SO, 1963 broadcast

2010-09-01T13:22:00.005-04:00

Anton Bruckner

Symphony No 3 (1877)

BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra

Jascha Horenstein, conductor

broadcast

Cheltenham July 3, 1963

Who knew? Until now the Bruckner Symphony 3 to me was a little like the Sibelius, Brian and Shostakovich 3rds: worthy of a polite listen, but I was really waiting for the next numbered one to get played.

This recording brings the symphony into focus for me. The B3 is now in my top five Bruckners for what Horenstein does with it here. He clears up the sonic arguments by making some key voicings come to the fore in a logical, progressive way. It simplifies the large scale connect-the-dots puzzle that most Bruckner symphonies can be made of.

I have a similar debt to Barbirolli, whose Mahler 7th BBC Legends recording (with some of the same forces!!) made the structure of that symphony clear in such a way that it has been my fave by that composer ever since.

It is Horenstein, after all, so expect impetuous surges. His work here and elsewhere frequently deserves the label 'volcanic', but with a firm lower register unity when needed- none of that overdone sfumato in the bass regions. Sometimes Bruckner's tonal world is well served by softer attacks, and those disappear into the fabric without undue attention, but overall this is a performance of the awake, tautly involved sort.

EDIT: My enthusiasm got the better of me here again. I listened a few times, got crazy and did not check the availability. Though my admiration for the BBC Legends series is boundless, lately I've not kept up on the releases.
This is available from BBC Legends, although the recording downloadable here is an alternate broadcast source (as evidenced by the partial announcements) and is in any case too good to miss. Please, anyone interested, use this one as an appetizer before getting the official release!

In any case, thanks to Iodekka for procuring this one and making it available.

Keep sharing, free.

Maria João Pires plays Nocturnes live, July 21 2010 in London

2010-08-26T01:56:00.005-04:00

Frédéric Chopin

Nocturnes (selection)

Maria João Pires, piano

Pic Thanks to minhavidadava1filme.blogspot.com

July 21, 2010

Royal Albert Hall

London UK

BBC broadcast of Proms 2010: Prom 7

Op. 9, Nos. 1-3

Op. 15, Nos. 1-3

Op. 27, Nos. 1 and 2

Op. 62, Nos. 1 and 2

Op. 71 (Posthumous) Lento con gran espresione

Op.72 No.1.mp3

Op. 37 No.1

I hold this music closest to my heart, having listened to them from birth- in Ivan Moravec's recordings from the 60's. One day I will procure a Chopin recital by him and place it here.

Now Maria João Pires is to me the pianist whose recording of the Nocturnes holds equal stature with Moravec's, while mining such different emotional terrain with them; when I saw she had played the Proms this year I flipped out.

So here is the sound. Sit up straight for this music, listen close. Please

Some of The Telegraph's review:

"... unexpected intimacy accounts for some of the intensity of Maria Joao Pires’s recital of Chopin Nocturnes on Wednesday. But it would have counted for nothing without her special poetry. She’s a tiny, almost bird-like figure, and she seemed even smaller in that huge space, which was packed with more people than I’ve ever seen for a late-night Prom. It must be daunting for a pianist, but Pires seemed perfectly at ease, as if she was playing for a few friends at home.

That gives her performances an air of total sincerity. Usually in Chopin performance you can tell that expressivity is being mingled with sheer sensuous pleasure in playing the piano, and a relish for the delicious sparkly sounds that result. There’s nothing wrong with that – Chopin performance doesn’t have to be purist. But there is something compelling about a pianist who just doesn’t care about those things. Pires wants to get at the poetic heart of the music, and here she did that time after time.

The word Nocturne implies something dreamy and indistinct, but Pires’ performances reminded us that the expressive range of Chopin’s pieces is much bigger than that. There was the total rapt stillness of the early Bb minor Nocturne, uncannily clear, like a moonlit landscape. There was the fascinating uncertainty of the G major Nocturne Op. 15, which she poised so perfectly on the cusp between hesitancy and impetuous ardour. The late Nocturne in E major suddenly becomes stormy at its mid-point, but Pires managed to project this while suggesting it was only a momentary flurry – maybe only a dream – while the night-time stillness was still continuing, somewhere beyond our hearing. That is artistry of a very special order."

And The Guardian:

"...

The evening turned out to be a special one for piano fans. The Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires made a rare appearance with a generous selection of Chopin's nocturnes as the late-night event...

Pires's playing was unostentatious but commanding, controlled yet free-flying in its sensitivity to the fluidity of Chopin's lines, and in its responsiveness to the scope of pieces still sometimes marked down as delicate miniatures."

Play it loud and clear, spread it around.

Thank you so much to http://minhavidadava1filme.blogspot.com for the great live picture of Maria João.

Guillermo

Ancerl/Boston SO, Smetana: Ma Vlast. 1969 broadcast, during a very audible thunderstorm!

2010-06-12T03:17:00.008-04:00

I haven't posted any music for a while, and was in a quandary about what next.

The big pause (not only a lion specialty) only heightened the importance of making this selection.

For those who are interested, I've had a beautiful boy, now 2 months old in the while. He's our first. As I've been engaged with microburst volcanic eruptions and impressive blowouts of the rear chassis, thoughts of which and why and how have come up; choosing and posting has been on my mind just not on the schedule. I do have a ridiculous bunch of music on the mental cue however, and it will continue to be brought here.

[Insert Name Here] and an unnamed sonic cleanup collaborator brought this to the groups,

and I freaked out as usual. It concerns the most beloved work by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. Here you go:

"A Tanglewood concert...soul-stirring Má vlast  led by Karl Ancerl (the first complete performance by the BSO) ...[at] the Koussevitzky Music Shed..." 

I hope you find this performance as moving as we have here.

Given the Heraclitean flow that my life has been awash in these past weeks, it seems appropriate. What with the fossil fuel-extraction disaster in the middle of the Americas' waters (which happened to white people this time, so the outrage is suddenly more newsworthy) and its possible upcoming climate change legislation effects, the evocative 'Vltava' is perfect.

Check the real thunder and lighting backing 'Bohemia's Woods and Fields' from outside the building, starting from 3:08 and onwards.

It speaks for itself.

The contributor has gotten some wonderful handed-down stories regarding this performance, especially about one of those who

"...attended this concert, and according to this person, members of the

orchestra were literally in tears at the conclusion of the work. You can tell this was a cathartic experience for all involved...", as well as other reports of folks who were, "...told by a friend that he and his wife left the concert in tears."

The sound of water sluicing gloriously at 12:43 is evidence of an all 'round aquavitae-soaked confluence of sound, emotion and nature. The Berkshire storm even enacts a curious reserve in the adagio moments.

I encourage you to look into conductor Karel Ancerl's history, which will further enrich your listening experience of this piece. It resonates still more upon remembering that when this was recorded the invasion and killings of 'Prague Spring' were still fresh in the Czech homeland.

Bedrich Smetana

Má Vlast (My Homeland)

Karel Ancerl

Boston Symphony Orchestra

August 1969

Live broadcast

1 Vyšehrad (The High Castle)

2 Vltava (The Moldau)

3 Šárka

4 Zčeských luhů a hájů (From Bohemia's Woods and Fields)

5 Tábor

6 Blaník

130.83 MB

Play it loud!!!

Guillermo

Mahler's 9th, Giulini, The Fabulous Philadelphians in 1972: What a ride!

2010-03-17T17:50:00.008-04:00

Statework is ridiculously proud to present (all thanks to Ray):

Gustav Mahler

Symphony # 9

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor

Alan places the recording from either the March 17

(Friday concert) or March 18 (Saturday evening concert)

Philadelphia, PA

1972.

Ray contributed this, "One of the great performances of this symphony. In excellent sound. "

In the crowded football field full of Mahler 9th recordings that exist in the world, here is a standout, a steal, a touchdown.

-Or, as some of my fellow broadcast freaks ahem, expert listeners have effused: "...a gem, indeed...", "As fine as his studio recording is, this is even better. Again, the situation of a live performance is just more tense and intense. Did I hear
Giulini's voice somewhere in the first movement? And forget about that
trumpet intonation at the start of III, the orchestra is flat out gorgeous..."

Tom V, a Statework member, remembers the concerts:

"I was there at the Saturday night concert, up in the $1.50 or $2 "nosebleed" seats in the amphitheatre of the Academy of Music. It was my first live performance of any Mahler symphony and "live" is an understatement.

Giulini's Chicago recording never matched my memories of the Phila concert. Now I know my memory is correct.

Three notes:
1.Giulini conducted the performance w/o a score.

2. I don't recall a dog barking during Saturday's performance, so this must be Friday.

3. The announcer is probably from the late lamented WFLN, which was heavily involved in the production of the Orchestra's radio series for many years..."

My own scribbling from a third hearing (many more have passed since then!) include '...incisive attacks-surging, oceanic but opposite of schmaltz-then a clearing, a respite...3:47 Giulinian stomping ensues-'

Please listen closely to this recording for what you will, not least of which may include the oddball, "...And I thought there was a dog bark in the last movement! Sounded like a little lap thing who woke up in her master's purse"

En fin, a must-have. If it happens to be your first brush with the Mahler 9th or Mahler 's work (gasp!) in general, you couldn't have come across a finer first date. And before this I thought I was taking a Mahler vacation...

Tchaikovsky's WarHorse Cometh: 1st Piano Concerto with Hough, Vänskä & The Marvelous Minnesotans: Oct 3, 2009

2010-03-06T13:09:00.005-05:00

Pyotr Illych Tchaikovsky

Piano Concerto No.1

Minnesota Orchestra

Osmo Vänskä, conductor

Stephen Hough, soloist

October 3, 2009

Program:

[Wagner Siegfried Idyll- available but not in this post]

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1

including Siloti's de-arrangement of the slow movement as an encore

[Bartok The Miraculous Mandarin- unrecorded]

Hyperion Records (UK) http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67711/2&vw=dc

will offer this recording (mixed in, I imagine, with a few other nights' efforts) officially as a CD in March, but this is a sneak peek in decidedly inferior sound. Huge fun.

Yes, I still love the warhorses. So what. I can enjoy the weirdo, off beaten pathway modern composers deeply, but you've got to get silly and wave your arms around to a tried-and-true stonker every so often as well. Here is the Tchaikovsky First, and if it is your first version of it, you are in for it.

There's a small leap in the sound continuity right in the beginning, but none of it can detract from the happening captured here.

I admit to being an impatient listener to yet another new Tchaikovsky First, usually going straight to the Third Movement's hustle and sprint to see what the pairing of orchestra and soloist is up to by then. No disappointments at all there, and the whole affair holds more delights, even upon repeated listening- what more to ask?

The take is a rip-snort, plunge-taking, ace-at-the-controls barnstorm that brings to mind the epic 1940 Carnegie Hall battle between the young Horowitz and Barbirolli, abetted by a whipsmart New York Philharmonic in that instance.

Though more controlled and cooperative here, the give and take of the Minnesotans and Hough is something I can't wait to hear in high quality sound on official release!

enjoy, best heard at unconscionable volume and with a generous nature towards lo-fi...

Mahler 3: Jansons/Royal Concertgebouw, Fink. 2010 broadcast of a great performance

2010-02-21T16:56:00.007-05:00

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No.3

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Mariss Jansons, conductor

Bart Claessen (trombone), Liviu Prunaru (violin), Frits Damrow (Trumpet)

Bernarda Fink, mezzosoprano

Boyschoir Rijnmond, Sacramentskoor Breda

Groot Omroepkoor

February 5th, 2010

Concertgebouw, Amsterdam

169.91 MB in a .zip folder containing four mp3 files, 'art' and text with information inside. See comments.

This thanks to an upload by Epicóndilo, of the foroactivo Mahler tribe

I think I can make up for the excising of Martinon's Mahler 3 links now.

This Mahler Symphony no. 3 is worth strapping good sound on for (even though the 192 kbps original bitrate does little to support that thought), in part for the detail that Jansons has been able to bring to surface and for the tempos he sustains. How the thing is kept moving so inexorably forward, with that special sense of occasion that marks great performances, is a feat that can only be properly explained in the doing. It is done here. Press play & listen, read no more. But if you must-

Jens Laurson of musicweb has a review of the live event which shows unhappiness with this crew, panning the performance from the night before, Feb 4. The present mp3s record a different night, and a different story. The last of a triumvirate of M3 offerings, I think the Concertgebouw was back in fighting shape for this one, if the musicweb reviewer was right about an off-night just 24 hours earlier.

There's a sequence, a set piece in the final movement which is particularly telling, that came though the headphones at 3AM the first time I listened carefully to this recording. It had not been apparent to me before! [This may be just a confession of heathenness] The movement, which is originally named "What Love Tells Me", has within it a solo violin phrase which blooms supported by the orchestra, is repeated by its cohorts, then again by a larger swath of orchestral textures against the evolving backdrop. The phrase comes back beautifully in various guises thereafter, but I had not been as struck by the concerto-like moment of the soloist until now. This is true even though the violin is sonically set back quite a bit here, and ends up having more room (reverb) around it; it ended up highlighting the experience to me.

Enjoy!

Guillermo

Sibelius 2: Barbirolli & Boston SO 1964 broadcast

2009-12-24T22:17:00.008-05:00

Maestro Barbirolli in a '64 Sibelius Second, one to rival his well-known RPO & Halle accounts.

Jean Sibelius

Symphony Nr. 2, Opus 43

Boston Symphony Orchestra

John Barbirolli, conductor

30 October 1964 broadcast

Symphony Hall, Boston MA

Annie (short for Anonymous) sent me this, when I mentioned being an avowed Barbirolli groupie. Sir John Barbirolli never fails me. His recordings always exude a romantic impulse throughout, which the orchestras respond to quite audibly; such it is in this case as well. The expanses that open at around 6:00 into the first movement have turns on a dime, in ways that cannot be written into a score but must be felt and transmitted though the borderline-fictitious magic of conductorship. His footstamped grunts at 6:45 and 7:08 are the pockmarks, evidence of the presence of authentic leather, it happens.

The snowstorm of tension at 5:40 is a marvel of Boston Symphony string prowess. There are, few and far between to be sure, tiny bits of ensemble discombobulation but these come at times when they are at the service of a set-up for a larger swath of sonic narrative. The conductor sounds like he's taking a few risks and liberties that may not have been completely planned, and they feel right;

these are spurts or colors that add to the enjoyment of a deeply considered, living performance.

Overall, this Sibelius 2 is everything I look for -and so often find- in a Glorious John joint.

So I'm sentimental. I love Barbirolli for it.

The complete program of this concert was

[Berlioz: Carnaval romain, Overture

Delius: A Village Romeo and Juliet

Vaughan-Williams: Symphony Nº 6]

Sibelius: Symphony Nº 2

[++UPDATE: Hornsby's struck again! Progress Hornsby sent me the Delius and Vahugan-WIll

iams from the concert which I will soon post; we wonder if anyone out there has the Berlioz?]

Our generous source for this broadcast recording, who wishes anonymity, notes:

"...This tape has sat in a garage for over 30 years, but the sound is pretty good (a little bright and hissy)..."

Thanks, again, Annie. Sorry I couldn't offer this a few weeks earlier to catch Barbirolli's birthday, but here it is as a late present for that, and an early one for these holidays.

While the performance is, as usual, in the comments,

Joe was kind enough to put the info together into a nifty, ready to print covers inlay, available here:

http://rs552cg.rapidshare.com/files/327461431/9531075/Sibelius-Barbirolli-Sy2.jpg

Enjoy, play it loud and pay it forward!

Guillermo

Mahler Symphony 5: World Orchestra For Peace, Gergiev, 2009 Sweden, Live broadcast rec.

2009-12-23T16:05:00.009-05:00

A seasonal Offering; I hear alot of hope in this version!

Stockholm, Sweden

2nd September 2009 WOP Concert, part of the Baltic Festival

World Orchestra For Peace

Valery Gergiev, conductor

This concert was given at the invitation of Sveriges Radio/ Berwaldhallen as a part of the 2009 Baltic Sea Festival - marking the 70th anniversary of the start of World War 2 in the Baltic in 1939 and 200th anniversary of the peace treaty between Sweden and Finland.

Programme for this concert:

Track 1.

Krzysztof Penderecki

'Prelude for Peace'(WOP commission, Swedish premiere)

Tracks 2-5.

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 5 in C# minor

Penderecki's Prelude For Peace is short, in five minutes it achieves a broad swath of wonder to bask in and press 'repeat' immediately after.

The Mahler is a clean, positive-sounding reading that satisfies greatly. As usual with the Fifth, there are all these gorgeous musical structures spread to the skies only to be destroyed, and rebuilt, and again, the process moves forward thusly. Made up of a pick of crack top flight musicians, the World Orchestra For Peace shows its mettle navigating the big crashes without any undue muddiness of texture. It fits wonderfully for all us knit-browed 'serious music' junkies heading into a new decade!

for more info see

http://www.worldorchestraforpeace.com/concerts/previous-concerts/2-september-2009-stockholm/default.aspx

Thanks to "kurth.johansson" at concertarchive for originally getting this, enjoy and play it loud!

Ivan Moravec, Philadelphia Orchestra with Keene: Grieg Piano Concerto live 1984

2009-11-10T00:25:00.009-05:00

Sometimes I'm silly and try to stick words in here to describe or peddle or even vaguely reflect music.

unnecessary here.

Edvard Grieg

Piano Concerto

Ivan Moravec, piano

The Philadelphia Orchestra

Christopher Keene, conductor

live broadcast, October 19, 1984

I've no other info about this save that it is Ivan's debut with the Fabulous Philadelphians.

Links for this in comments, as customary; if you enjoy this, I must suggest

something that has given more enjoyment with each listen,

from the Czech recording company Supraphon's

collaboration with Mr. Moravec:

Live In Brussels

He plays the Beethoven Pastoral sonata, Some Chopin mazurki, nocturnes, the Scherzo in B minor and a few of his Brahms lagniappes, always twinkling with a watchmaker's focus and brilliance.

As it is an official release, very reasonably priced and relatively available,

here is the link to see it and buy it if you wish

http://www.supraphon.com/en/catalogue/releases/?item=827

With that, I have no other comment than I love Ivan Moravec.

Guillermo

Jack brought the Grieg concerto to symphonyshare, and I couldn't but share- A thousand thanks Jack!

Mahler 6th: Sir Mark Elder and the Russian National Orchestra dig in

2009-10-27T15:11:00.006-04:00

Mahler's Sixth Symphony. A broadcast recording of a performance that's just really enjoyable.

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 6

Russian National Orchestra

Sir Mark Elder, conductor

Live broadcast from Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Moscow

April 17, 2009

After the choices offered on the StateWork blog so far in Mahler symphonies, the specific performance for the Sixth was presenting a greater challenge. There isn't excessive repetition of pieces here, although admittedly there are 'other' recordings of #s 9 and 3 planned for the near future.

Then a few weeks ago this crossed the speakers at State Work, and so here it is. I really love the care with which the orchestra negotiates the myriad turns and expanses of this work. For example, at 6:47 in the Scherzo there is a molar-rattling slowdown and drag though the mud like no other; the strings aren't shy to dig in throughout the performance, when called for. It brings to mind a Barbirolli rehearsal recording where he goads the low strings into really pushing it near the beginning of a Bruckner 7th, repeatedly. I think what Maestro Elder and the Russian National Orchestra achieve here would make Sir John proud- the affinities between the two conductors are more than just a few.

The cover was made from a "...Mark Elder and the Russian National Orchestra rehearsing at the Moscow State Conservatory named after Pyotr Tchaikovsky" photo by Vladimir Vyatkin, STF

Bruckner's 4th in a beautiful, haunting in-house 1993 recording

2009-10-24T16:47:00.005-04:00

If you've already heard some performances of Bruckner 4th symphonies,

please consider pretending you never did. Then press play.

Anton Bruckner

Symphony No. 4 in E-flat "Romantic"

Munchner Philharmoniker

Sergiu Celibidache, conductor

Live in-house recording from Symphony Hall, Osaka, Japan  20 April 1993, shared by Ray (who also made up the art!)

I Allegro molto moderato (Bewegt, nicht zu schnell)

II Andante, quasi allegretto

III Scherzo: Bewegt

IV Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht zu schnell

Ever since I came across this recording, I've been haunted by it. Maybe it's an early Halloween celebration as such. What I mean is it keeps reminding me of some detail or weighting of textures that I want to hear again, then again a week later. It helped to rediscover an already favorite symphony.What I mean in the comment about pretending not have ever known a Bruckner 4th before listening to this one, is to incorporate a bit of Zen philosophy, known to be dear to Maestro Celibidache:

"..Not knowing immediately opens into endless possibilities. When you know, you’re very limited. As Suzuki Roshi says, the beginner’s mind has countless possibilities. The mind of the expert is very small. It shows an unwillingness to really hear anything..."

Ray boils it down:

"...Even for Celibidache, the tempo for the coda of the Finale is glacial  but somehow it becomes almost hypnotic. To my ears it works but you  really must clear your mind of every other performance of the Bruckner  Four you have ever heard and take this one on its own terms.

But shouldn't you really do that with any performance? "

Right on.

Schoenberg: Pelleas and Melisande, with Alan Gilbert's talk. New York Phil, live Sept 25, 2009

2009-09-27T21:49:00.005-04:00

A great performance, with preconcert walkthough of

Arnold Schoenberg's Opus 5.

"My music is not modern, it is merely badly played."- A. Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Opus 5, Pelleas Und Melisande

Johannes Brahms

Opus 77, violin concerto

Alan Gilbert, conductor

New York Philharmonic

Frank Peter Zimmermann, soloist (Brahms)

Avery Fisher Hall, NYC

September 25, 2009

Wondrously placed stereo In-house recording

(coughing humans fall silent quickly enough)

This is my rapproachement with Schoenberg, in the recognition that he always sounds detached to me, somewhat alien. Some performances bring him in though, close, a stark wee-hours stare into the bathroom mirror, if you will. Last time I felt Schoenberg was with the Arditti Quartet's take on the second and third string quartets, and before that his Starry Night (an easy entryway to this composer).

The real reason, besides the performance and the front row acoustic feel, is the inclusion of one of first few talks that Alan Gilbert is giving during the performances- immediately before, not an hour before curtain. You may know that he is the young new mainstay for the New York Philharmonic, and where its previous head honcho, "...Lorin Maazel had no interest in using the Philharmonic music director’s platform as a teaching tool. Mr. Gilbert is good at it...", as The New York Times opined.

It's a great talk and made me feel good to hear an involved maestro and audience here. So I had to share.

the whole NY Times article about this performance is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/arts/music/26phil.html?_r=1

also included is the rest of the program that morning, the Brahms violin concerto. Frank Peter Zimmermann played Joseph Joachim's cadenza.

**Mil gracias to well, you know who you are, for this!**

Enjoy,

You will not sell this at all anyway anywhat anyhow, but spread it far, wide and go to a (non-free) concert soon!

Bartok and Gypsy music by Sebestyen, Muzsikas and Takacs Quartet

2009-08-28T10:19:00.007-04:00

BARTOK: From The Fields To The Concert Hall

A live concert interspersing his compositions

with the inspirational sources,

including Bartok's own recordings

of Roma Musicians

Having always felt intimate with Bartok's as well as gypsy music of the roma, I've thoroughly enjoyed playing this recording, loud. It helps to have recently read "Bury Me Standing"- comes from the saying, 'Bury me standing, I've been on my knees all my life'.

"We have music, and if somebody doesn’t have music, then they’re nothing."

-Šelja Bajrami, Plemetina

"The acclaimed Takacs String Quartet joins the Hungarian folk ensemble Muzsikas (with singer Marta Sebestyen, whose inimitable voice you may recall haunting the soundtrack to "The English Patient") to celebrate Hungarian composer Bela Bartok...

When the members of the Takacs Quartet and Muzsikas combine for a concert, they delight in making clear the connections between Bartok's own music and his folk-music obsessions. For example, they alternate movements from some of Bartok's best-known pieces (Romanian Folk Dances, String Quartet No. 4) with the real village dances he collected in the field — both the actual old scratchy records and their own live versions thereof..."

The rest of the source material is on

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103733863

May 6 2009

Jordan Hall, in Boston

Takacs String Quartet

Muzsikas with Marta Sebestyen

Bela Bartok's field recordings

CONCERT PROGRAM

Bartok: Violin Duos (with source tunes)

Track 01

- Torontal Dances (Muzsikas)

- "Ardeleana" (historic Bartok field recording)

- Duo No. 44

Track 02

- "Shoe of My Horse" (Marta Sebestyen)

- Duo No. 28

- Duo No. 32

- "Jocul Barbatesc" (Marta Sebestyen)

Track 03

Bartok: Sonatina (with traditional tunes)

- Bagpipes (Takacs Qt.)

- Bear Dance (Takacs Qt.)

- Bear Dance from Gyimes (Muzsikas)

Track 04

Traditional: Ballad of the Murdered Shepherd

Track 05

Bartok: Romanian Folk Dances (with source tunes)

- Bota es Invertita (Muzsikas)

- Stick Dance (Takacs Qt.)

- Waistband Dance (Takacs Qt.)

- "Pe Loc" (Muzsikas)

- Hornpipe Dance (Takacs Qt.)

- Romanian Polka (Takacs Qt.)

from NPR internet radio, rec. @256 kbps

Enjoy, spread far and wide, and please attend these performers' events when they're in town!

Kondrashin and Moscow forces at the 1972 Munich Olympics play the Shostakovich Sym.#15

2009-06-28T19:54:00.013-04:00

A refusal to stop the peaceable tousles between nations:

Shostakovich's Symphony no.15

at the 1972 Munich Olympics

Shostakovich, Dmitry

Opus 141

Symphony no. 15

September 14, 1972

Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Kondrashin, conductor

As you may note, this is different than the Melodyia recording made a few years later, and it certainly has a separate 'feel' to it.

The symphony was recorded live on September 14th, 1972 in the Kongresshalle, Munich, West Germany during the Summer Olympics there. The performance cannot be but impacted by the events just 9 days prior, when a group of humans calling themselves Black September snuck into the Olympic Village and attacked members of the Israeli Olympic team, eventually murdering 11 of their fellow humans.

Shostakovich, Dmitry

Opus 99

Violin Concerto no. 1

November 27-28, 1964

Leonid Kogan, soloist

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Erich Leinsdorf, conductor

The source of these two tapings, Maestro Hornsby tells us,

"...as a filler I've included a dynamite performance of the 1st
VC with Leonid Kogan with Leinsdorf & the BSO from 1964..."

Some filler! The early movements of this performance take a few moments more than a later recording (1966, with the same forces) which surfaced from Soviet archives a decade ago. These moments run out to a minute more in the last two movements; I never felt any drag. Whatever was added is mordant and seething, as channeled through Leonid Kogan's alarming fluency in Shostakovich.

All Thanks to Progress Hornsby for these recordings, fine artwork, uploading of flacs and generosity.

even includes traycard!

Mahler 1. If you're new to the music of Gustav Mahler, start here: Runnicles, DSO Berlin 2009 live

2009-05-29T12:18:00.004-04:00

Mahler, Gustav

Symphony number 1

Donald Runnicles, conductor

Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin

January 18, 2009

Live broadcast from Berlin Philharmonie, Grosser Saal

If you're new to the music of Gustav Mahler, start here.

If not, there is still more previously unnoticed detail to cull from his first symphony, as Runnicles brings out in a tight, bounding playpen of cacophony from the DSO Berlin.

After running around between a dozen other contenders for a favorite broadcast Mahler 1, this one beat out the pack. Barenboim's East-West youth assault had some great frisson, but so does this and with more focussed string textures to boot. Overall, the clarity of the interacting lines of sound impressed and delighted here; I hope you find as much in this interpretation as I have.

Prokofiev series by Gergiev/LSO live 2009 at Lincoln Center: Russian Dreams II

2009-05-07T12:21:00.006-04:00

PART TWO: VOLS. 3 & 4

And the last two nights of this mostly outstanding series (Volumes 3 & 4, continued from previous post):

Vol. 3/4:

March 29, 2009

in house recording

Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall

"Russian Dreams: The Music of Sergei Prokofiev"

Sergei Prokofiev

Symphony No.3 in C minor, Op.44 (1928)

Moderato
Andante
Allegro agitato--Allegretto
Andante mosso--Allegro agitato

Piano Concerto No.4 in B-flat major, Op.53 (1931)

Vivace
Andante
Moderato
Vivace

Encore Alexei Volodin

Symphony No. 4 in C major, Op.112

(revised version) (1947)

Andante assai--Allegro eroico--Allegretto
Andante tranquillo
Moderato, quasi allegretto
Allegro risoluto

Encore: Dance of the Knights from

Romeo and Juliet

Vol. 4/4:

March 30, 2009

Sergei Prokofiev

Symphony No.4 in C major, Op.47

(original version) (1929-30)

Andante assai--Allegro eroico
Andante tranquillo
Moderato, quasi allegretto
Allegro risoluto

Violin Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op. 63 (1935)

Allegro moderato
Andante assai
Allegro, ben marcato

Encore

Vadim Repin and Andrew Haveron

Symphony No.5 in B-flat major, Op.100 (1944)

Andante
Allegro marcato
Adagio
Allegro giocoso

Encore: March from the Love of Three Oranges

London Symphony Orchestra

Valery Gergiev, conductor

Andrew Haveron, guest leader

Vadim Repin, violin

Alexei Volodin, piano

Prokofiev series by Gergiev/LSO live 2009 at Lincoln Center: Russian Dreams

2009-05-05T17:01:00.005-04:00

PART ONE: March 23 & 24, 2009

The whole Lincoln Center "Russian Dreams" Series is so ridiculously embarrassing in it's overflow of vividly performed riches that here it is:

A miniseries with almost all of it (what I could find, at least)...

Try this one through some good headphones; it's worth it, being a from-the middle-of-the-audience soundpoint!

in house recordings

Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall

London Symphony Orchestra

Valery Gergiev, conductor

"Russian Dreams: The Music of Sergei Prokofiev"

Vol. 1/4:

March 23, 2009

Sergei Prokofiev

1-4 Symphony No.1 "Classcial"

5-7 Piano Concerto no.2

Encore:

Johannes Sebastian Bach (trans. Alexander Siloti)

8 Prelude in B minor, BWV 855a

Vladimir Feltsman, soloist

Vol. 2/4:

March 24, 2009

Sergei Prokofiev

1-2 Symphony No.2

3-5 Violin Concerto no.2

Encore:

8 Scherzo from Violin Concerto no.2

9-11 Symphony no.7

Encore:

12 March from "Love For Three Oranges"

Vadim Repin, soloist

---------

Read what the NY Times reviewer felt about this series HERE

Purchase the studio recordings of this conductor/orchestra in Prokofiev HERE

The last two concerts from this series coming soon...

Mahler Symphony 2, Dudamel y la Sinfonica dlJ Venezolana, Septiembre 9 del 2008

2009-04-07T12:36:00.005-04:00

Mahler, Gustav

Symphony no.2

"Resurrection"

Orquesta Sinfónica de la Juventud Venezolana

Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Janice Watson, Soprano

Jane Henschel, Alto

Chor der Staatlichen Hochschule fur Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim

Landesjugendchor Rheinland-Pfalz

Live broadcast recording of September 9, 2008

from the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Ludwigshafen, Germany

A youthful, edge-pushing conductor for a symphony with similar characteristics. This sounds like fun, and just in time for spring.

thanks to Maddrax (of the DIME tribe) for this!

Xenakis: The Total Immersion concert 2, London, March 7 2009

2009-04-02T13:20:00.005-04:00

Total Immersion:

Xenakis, Iannis (1922-2001)

Tracées 7'

Anastenaria 23'

Sea-Nymphs* 8'

Mists 12'

Nuits* 9'

Troorkh 16'

Antikhthon 19'

Christian Lindberg, trombone

Rolf Hind, piano

BBC Singers

Men of the BBC Symphony Chorus

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Martyn Brabbins, conductor

Stephen Betteridge, conductor*

Broadcast live Saturday 7 March 2009 on BBC Radio 3

Barbican Hall, London

These are drop-dead gorgeous sounds to revel in from the Greek master, like some mashup of Tibetan Buddhist Temple music and, I don't know. Everything. If Mahler wanted a symphony to encapsulate the world, this is an alternate approach to that impulse.

Andrew Maisel of www.classicalsource.com gives a review of the performance (a complete version is included in the info file):

"There couldn’t be a more mind-blowing introduction to Xenakis’s music than the opening juggernaut of a work, Tracées...

Christian Lindberg commissioned Troorkh, a concerto for trombone and orchestra. ... After close on 20 years, Troorkh seems no easier for Lindberg, requiring superhuman levels of stamina to get through the rapid-fire glissandos and writhing complexities, accents frequently pushed to a full three-and-half octaves. Watching Lindberg in action is an event in itself. In between passages he would be limbering up, sucking in large amounts of air ready for the next assault. A Herculean effort, too, from the trombonists of the BBCSO, pushed almost to the same extremes in passages mirroring the soloist....Full marks though to Martyn Brabbins and the BBC forces who continually displayed their versatility, discipline and sheer staying power over this very long evening."

from the archives (CA1327) originally, all thanks to Maestro Greene there.

Prokofiev 2nd PianoConcerto, Bronfman and Gergiev, Vienna Philharmonic live in Carnegie Hall, 2008

2009-03-30T14:59:00.006-04:00

Bronfman in rip-roaring slowburn concerto mode,

backed by some of Vienna's finest

I never indicated a preference for squeaky clean cd quality recordings. Although this was digitally taped recently, it is the performance behind the occasional pops and deep-in-the-audience perspective that commands involvement.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Piano Concerto No.2 in G Minor, Op. 16 (1912-13)

1. Andantino--Allegretto--Tempo 1

2. Scherzo: Vivaca

3. Intermezzo:Allegro moderato

4. Allegro temperstoso--Meno mosso--Allegro tempestoso

Encore: Scarlatti (I think. But I don't know which )

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Valery Gergiev, Conductor

Yefim Bronfman, Piano

The recording attendee (thank you!!!) notes, "Another beautiful concert with the Vienna Phil...The audience was stunned into silence at the end and

did not begin to applaud until the maestro turned around to face us."

In-house recording

March 1, 2008

Carnegie Hall

Poulenc: en su Gloria, con Concertos. rec.2008-1961

2009-03-24T13:00:00.004-04:00

Poulenc in vital broadcast performances, including a World Premiere!

If you haven't listened to much Poulenc, these are the mp3's to begin to remedy that with!

Here is a folder containing three live performances of Francis Poulenc's work. The version of Gloria is its 1961 World Premiere, with the composer attending, after having played his concerto there. He obviously had to have been hanging around to hear this, too, as the announcer (included in the sound files) relates to us that he is in the venue. Thanks to Ray for this, it is a great moment of music as well as a relevant historical document.

The Concerto for Two Pianos is given a characteristically mischievous run at the hands of the Labecque Sisters, egged on without remorse by Antonio Pappano who was debuting with the New York Phil that night.

And then the Organ Concerto; it is a wild, weird piece. I find it too complex to describe, other than the admonition that you just cannot play it as background music.

This is music that is fun and bright while never becoming vacant or emotionally uncommitted.

Tracks 1-3:

Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D minor (composed 1932)

Antonio Pappano, conductor

New York Philharmonic

Katya & Maria Labecque, pianos

Recorded from the WQXR-FM NYC broadcast by Statework

February 19, 2004

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Tracks 4-6:

Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani in G minor (composed 1938)

Mariss Jansons, conductor

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra

Leo van Doeselaar, organ

Recorded from the Philharmonie, Berlin, DE

September 2008

from fadoze's "FA2008-197" recording of the broadcast

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Tracks 7-9:

Gloria (World Premiere; composed 1959)

Charles Munch, conductor

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Adele Addison, soprano

Chorus Pro Musica

Recorded Symphony Hall, Boston MA

on 21 January 1961

"Nice sound, discreet remastering by...Ray"

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Play it loud!

Beethoven Sym. 8 by Paavo Jarvi & The DKP Bremen, 2009 at the Alice Tully Hall reopening festival

2009-03-16T23:39:00.007-04:00

A Spirited Symphony Eight, to say the least!

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Opus 93, Symphony no. 8 in F major

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen

Paavo Jarvi, Conductor

March 2, 2009 at 7:30 (& 10:30)

Alice Tully Hall, NYC

Opening Nights Festival

Thanks to A. ( last name Nonymous) for the in-house recording

The Beethoven Symphonies have to be brought out now. Great performances are being tossed about and you've got to hear them! Here's a Symphony Eight, in a living, breathing, rousting version by The Deutche KammerPhilharmonie Bremen led by Estonian conductor Paavo Jarvi, who has CDs available now of these symphonies in must-get studio versions, recorded around 2006. The link (click this) takes you to the orchestra's own page to purchase in Euros, though the cycle is widely available elsewhere.

Mr. Jarvi, as in the studio and evidenced here (although in lesser sound quality), "...clearly prizes highly charged music making, often at top speed, with thoughtful phrasing and sharply punched accents. And the use of valveless trumpets; woodwinds with a bright, astringent sound; and hard timpani mallets, combined with a reduced string section, yielded unusual balances that revealed each score’s inner workings, usually without unreasonably skewing the balance between theme and accompaniment.

When the orchestra plays at its best, these qualities yield refreshing, powerful performances. That was consistently the case in the late-night concert, when the orchestra played hardest, perhaps in the vain hope of coaxing some reverberation from the hall..."

The reviewer goes on to describe the other symphonies played in this manner,- which describes the Eighth presented here as well- as

"... weaving threads of rustic playfulness into an overwhelmingly courtly fabric. But Mr. Jarvi and his players reconsidered that balance, making vehemence and drive absolute values and letting the courtly charm fend for itself. It was a risky approach, but it worked."

from The New York Times review of this concert,'The Mainstream Flows Into Alice Tully Hall and Is Hushed', by Allan Kozinn

Maria Joao Pires plays Chopin 11/25/2008 in Chile

2009-03-15T21:54:00.007-04:00

Chopin Piano Concerto 2 & cello sonata

Chopin

Piano Concerto N° 2:

1. Maestoso (14:01)

2. Larghetto (8:25)

3. Allegro vivace (8:39)

Etude op. 25 N° 7 (arr. for cello & piano by Glazunov) (5:31)

Sonata for cello and piano

1. Allegro moderato (16:55)

2. Scherzo. Allegro con brio (5:31)

3. Largo (3:50)

4. Finale. Allegro (7:24)

Pau Casals: Traditional catalan piece for cello & piano (2:54)

Please check out El Corsario's wonderful blog for this recording he made of Maria Joao Pires and the Camarata Universidad under Santiago Meza, playing Chopin's Piano concerto no.2:

Click here for the link, which is on El Corsario's blog "Aires Chilenos"

He also puts the download info in the comments section under the post, in case you don't grok Spanish (either way music is universal)

Beethoven 9th , Charles Munch & his Boston SO, 1958 broadcast: Op.125 as it should sound more often.(?)

2009-03-14T12:36:00.006-04:00

Self-recommending. A unique, fiery night in Boston is preserved here,

with some of the 1958 broadcaster's announcements included. *This is a different performance from the "Great Conductors..." CDs*

Beethoven, Ludwig van

Opus 125, Symphony no. 9

Leontyne Price, soprano ; Maureen Forrester, contralto  

David Poleri, tenor ; Giorgio Tozzi, baritone

New England Conservatory Chorus

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Charles Munch, conductor

Recorded Symphony Hall, Boston, MA  20 December 1958

Ray said,"I found this 10" open reel in my library..."

Enjoy!

Thanks Ray for the recording, and Constantine Manos for the "Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra" photo (cover).

Isabelle Faust plays Mendelssohn's violin concerto live: Feb 24, 2009

2009-03-06T12:46:00.005-05:00

Marek Janowski leads Isabelle Faust and the RSO Berlin

From the first sounds of this recording, it has it.

I think it can be called "the grain of the voice", as Barthes referred to the peculiar ability of some artists to create meaning in voice itself, in this case though Ms. Faust's fingers, soundboard, chin, whatever and however it happens. It's been explained by Robin Markowitz that

..."Every rare voice that has a grain is socially subversive by nature. Although it stands apart from mere representation, it is implicated in whatever social context within which it's produced and received. Its very physical realness forces everyone in its presence to experience whatever truths the grain reveals..."

Having been a fan of Isabelle Faust since her Bartok duets CDs, she's been a powerful presence, eschewing bombast and trickery in favor of something urgent and clean. Yet she doesn't shy away from Jimmy Page-style hearty dirt and grime when the whole show is careening forward at speed.

The support structure of the RSO Berlin and Janowski are light footed, responsive partners, giving no undue heft to the proceedings, making it a delicious juxtaposition of depth and grace.

Felix Mendelssohn

Op. 64 Violin concerto

Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin

Marek Janowski, conductor

Isabelle Faust, soloist

Live broadcast

from the Philharmonie Berlin

February 24, 2009

Thanks to Wolfgang for the original radio recording and upload

Kurtag: Akhmatova Poems, Splinters, Troussova Messages live from Carnegie Hall Jan 31, 2009

2009-02-27T13:54:00.015-05:00

If you're not familiar with Gyorgy Kurtag,

Hurry Up Please Its Time .

Eotvos Conducts Kurtag at

Carnegie Hall, 2009

Peter Eötvös,conductor

Natalia Zagorinskaya, soprano

Katalin Károlyi, mezzo-soprano

Ildikó Vékony, cimbalom

Miklós Perényi, cello

UMZE Ensemble

Amadinda Percussion Group

Zankel Hall, New York City

(alt. art thanks to Arno)

January 31st, 2009

MR3 Bartók Radio internet stream 320 kbit/s

recorded and uploaded by KaKa (thank for the good s.. uh, stuff)

The concert included Ligeti performances, which KaKa has linked in the comments.

Messages of the Late R.V. Troussova, Op. 17

Splinters, Op. 6c

Four Poems by Anna Akhmatova, Op. 41- World Premiere:

I. Pushkin (1997) pour soprano solo, dédié à Natalia Melnikova.
II. Alexandru Bloku (1997) pour soprano solo.
III. Plach - Prichitanie (1997), pour soprano et instruments, dédié à Márta Papp.
IV. Voronezh (in progress), pour soprano et ensemble.

Kurtag's music is mostly super short pieces, linked together by many levels of connective tissue. Perfect for the ADHD set hungry for depth. Any given piece feels like an emotional snapshot; it gives some mechanism of my inner life expression in a quick, immediate and faithful language. It feels right.

Bruce Hodges from MusicWeb International's site had some illuminating comments on this concert. Calling the first part "uncompromising", He writes about "Messages of the Late R. V. Troussova, a 21-song cycle using wrenching, hallucinatory texts by Rimma Dalos, a Russian poet living in Hungary. When soprano Natalia Zagorinskaya began "Odinochestvo" ("Loneliness"), her voice seemed a bit small for the job. But then it turned out that her wan tone, capped with a desolate glissando at the end, was merely her strategy for the opening, rather than revealing all of Kurtág's colors at once.

The cycle grows progressively stranger, with a cumulative effect that is harrowing. The introduction to "Chastushka" (which begins, "Bite me on the head, bite me on the breast!") sounds like a deranged marching band. The composer sets "Great misery—that's love. Is there any greater happiness?" with delicate cimbalom strokes, as if the words would somehow be comforting. "Kameshki" ("Pebbles") uses kaleidoscopic instrumental colors to depict the stones, and in "Tonkaia igla" ("A slender needle"), the effect is piercing, like glass breaking. Ms. Zagorinskaya was in complete control of Kurtág's unconventional meldings of music and text, and the UMZE Ensemble provided exquisitely calibrated touches of sound—truly, sometimes that's all they were—to assist her.

In what may have been the night's sleeper hit, Ildikó Vékony gave a virtuoso performance of Splinters, originally conceived for guitar and adapted for cimbalom. In four compact movements totaling seven minutes, it covers a huge array of textures, before reaching a haunting ending with a low D, repeated softly as it fades into the distance. Ms. Vékony's concentration on the instrument was almost supernatural. Only after a respectful silence at the end did the audience break out into whoops of delight. As she took her curtain calls she seemed slightly stunned, as if she didn't quite know what she had accomplished.

Ms. Zagorinskaya and the UMZE musicians returned for the world premiere of Four Poems by Anna Akhmatova, written over the span of a decade. It is brief, gossamer and adds a huge array of percussion instruments to the chamber ensembl

e. The final song, "Voronezh," incorporates a whip and a siren to evoke "…a whole town…encased in ice…Trees, walls, snow, as if under glass."

Rafal Blechacz toca Chopin en el Festival Klara, Bruselas, 2007: Una Transmisión Maravillosa.

2009-02-20T11:56:00.007-05:00

Frydryk Chopin

Rafal Blechacz - piano

Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles (Klara Festival) 12 Sept 2007

This is simply a gorgeous recital. Chopin, played in such a way that dissolves the tightrope act of balancing a subjective interpretation with the replaying of oft-retreaded notes. Rafal Blechacz reminds me of early Ivan Moravec in this. The ungainly, dissonant, stranger side of the works is neither slighted nor paraded, and I feel nary a trace of schmaltzy moping. What is left is a great recital, clean and confident.

The radio announcer (in french, appropriately enough) is there but you can program her out, if you wish.

This concert includes my personal favorite Chopin composition: Barcarolle, opus 60, and a complete, unbroken stream of what James Huneker considers "...Chopin's claim to immortality. Such range, such vision, such humanity! All shades of feeling are divined, all depth and altitudes of passion explored. If all Chopin, all music, were to be destroyed I should plead for the Preludes"...

Barcarolle en fa dièse majeur opus 60

Deux Nocturnes opus 62 (1846)

Trois Mazurkas opus 50 (1841-2)

Polonaise en la bémol majeur opus 53 (1842)

24 Préludes opus 28 (1836-9)

Mazurka en mi mineur opus 17/II (1832-3)

Valse en do mineur opus 64/II (1846-7)

Thanks to fadoze, music (and this artwork) from his torrent "FA2008-154"

fadoze! don't stab me for converting this to the dreaded lossy mp3! Had to spread the wealth...

1942 premiere of the Shostakovich Symphony 7: Toscanini, NBC SO, thunderstorm raging outside

2009-02-16T13:49:00.008-05:00

Toscanini: "I conducted that? I must have been crazy!"

When the going gets wierd the wierd turn pro,

or,

how to keep people's hope alive while not forgetting

how messed up things are and need change;

And that the last time we successfully exited a Depression, it included this.

Dmitry Shostakovich

Opus 60, Symphony No. 7, "Leningrad"

Arturo Toscanini, conductor

NBC Symphony Orchestra, augmented with

15 additional musicians

July 19, 1942

Studio 8-H

NBC Radio City Studios

New York City, NY

Western Premiere performance broadcast, includes extensive interviews and announcements which were given before and immediately after the event.

This recording places most of the elements together which make Shostakovich's Symphony 7 such a cultural touchstone of our human race.

I hope it is enough to relive the event through these mp3s to avoid having to invoke starvation and industrialized murder for such a response.

It is the broadcast of the first time it was played in the West, after unyielding hope and unity made the initial performances in the destroyed halls of the Soviet Union such reaffirmations of life. Dmitry Shostakovich wrote it in between the days spent working as a fire warden, watching his city receive destruction.

The heightened emotional pitch of the times- mid World War - is easily felt though this document. Although the work itself has since undergone critical downgrading (as if!), that sort of thinking missed the point; its relevance as "...music about terror, slavery, and oppression of the spirit..." will continue indefinitely.

The composer also mused about it in terms of questioning, which Leningrad does it refer to?Apparently it is not just about the city under Hitler's physical attack but also the city he remembers as it was before the destructive rule of his government, before Stalin's political empowerment.

As Robert Nylund remembers, this was broadcast live on NBC,"... only to have the radio signals on the New York station nearly obliterated by a severe thunderstorm. Fortunately, the storm did not interfere with the recording that was finally issued by RCA Victor in 1967..."

A good sense of what this is about is from Michael Jones' book, "Leningrad: A State Of Siege", where he tells that it was not just armies that liberated the city finally, but "...how the people of Leningrad found the resources within themselves to endure and to survive...The greatest symbol of this defiance was an extraordinary orchestral concert. On 9 August 1942 the besieged city put on a performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony....The symbolic importance of this concert was enormous...The Germans had boasted that they would capture the city on 9 August and hold a victory celebration at Leningrad's Astoria Hotel. The date for the Seventh Symphony's premiere was thus deliberately chosen...Many years after the war [the conductor] was approached by a group of German tourists, who said that they had come to the city especially to see him. They had been in the besieging army outside the city, so close that they were able to intercept Leningrad's radio signals, and hear the broadcast of Shostakovich's Seventh. Now these veterans said: "It had a slow but powerful effect on us. The realisation began to dawn that we would never take Leningrad."...

Thrilling Rilling rocks the Missa Solemnis. Beethoven Opus 123, Chicago Symphony forces from 2005

2009-02-11T14:53:00.006-05:00

Ludwig van Beethoven

Opus 123, Missa Solemnis

Helmuth Rilling, conductor

Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chorus

Angela Denoke- soprano, Michelle DeYoung- mezzo

Stephen Gould- tenor, Alexander Vinogradov- bass baritone

January 20th, 2005

Symphony Center, Chicago, Il

Always having been drawn to this strangely unpopular Beethoven architectural myriad, I think this performance gives it due brawn, impetus, restraint and balance.

The start is such a hustle. You think "oh, another one of the missa solemnis perfs," and settle in for a snooze. Then, Helmuth nudges the accelerator by the barest hint, bringing it into 'wide awake and playing for keeps' territory. His command over the orchestra is Mengerbergian at moments. While backing the solists in the Kyrie he keeps injecting just enough storyline details to make it hard to lose attention, and that sets the standard throughout.

Listening in the wee hours of the dark, I heard an incredible treatment of my favorite episode in the Missa, the "war interruption", always about eight and a half minutes into the ending movement. Here, even upon a repeat listening to it in the light of day (and with the fancy HD590 cans on), the set piece was intact: a far off hint of the change to come in the Agnus Dei.

Then the clear, rude drumblasts, held off by increasingly fervent spasms of focused yelling, the apparent understanding and cooperation of the martial elements, then, a giant rearing up -and brutal, inexorably paced ritardando- which is done by rending the surface sheen of spacetime... the uneasy compromise that follows leads to the fugal dissociation, more fury and the restatement of warlike intent, renegotiations,..

whew.

The balance of voices is always palpable, producing a clear texture that I can just tell will continue to withstand repeated listenings, renewing the store of interpretative delights it keeps reeling out.

I found this one while rifling through concertarchives, again! Thanks to those folks.

If you listen to this (loud enough), you'll understand why it is IMPERATIVE to go see the Chicago Sym when they're in town!

Garrick Ohlsson and Ivan Fischer, Budapest Festival O make Bartok's piano concerto 3 breathe.

2009-02-06T12:19:00.006-05:00

Rapt, satisfying negotiations

between a roomful of instruments,

a guy grimacing and waving his arms,

and another fellow at the piano.

Bela Bartok

Sz. 119, BB 12: Piano Concerto no.3

Budapest Festival Orchestra

Iván Fischer, conductor

Garrick Ohlsson, soloist

BBC Proms 2006

No. 44: August 16th 2006

Royal Albert Hall, London

Bartok's gift for his wife.

That gorgeous middle piece, Adagio religioso, is a swath of time I got lost in with this performance. Looking though reviews of the concert, some 'lack of ensemble' was pointed out. Listeing to Garrick Ohlsson's way with my favorite piano pieces, the nocturnes, I think its part of his style. The Pires/Cortot hairtrigger emotional sensiblities on display there are what undergird the quiet power of this recording. Yes, Some accents here and there are impulsively mashed into their spots early, but when the field clears and the orchestra/soloist dialogue is laid bare- as it is for stark stretches in the Bartok 3- they surpass any other recording I have heard, out of a dozen. Hear that whole dealmaking process from 4:30 to 5:17 first movement!

As usual around here, performance trumps sound quality; It's 192 kbps.

This outing kept me listening to the conversation until the end, illuminating new spots and making sense of more than I had ever heard before. I think maybe both this one and the Argerich/Dutoit EMI release I could be sated.

And the last movement sounds like they're having serious fun, tossing ideas back and forth, as if making some of it up as they go.

This came from the awesome folks at the concert archives group. They are something else altogether.

The Legendary Mahler 10th Performance That Started All The Fights and Nonsense

2009-01-28T17:04:00.004-05:00

BBC's Illustrated Introduction to the Tenth Symphony

with Deryck Cooke playing and speaking

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 10

fragments and completions

Deryck Cooke, piano and lecture

Berthold Goldschmidt, conductor

Philharmonia Orchestra

December 19, 1960 broadcast

This is simply invaluable, essential Mahler stuff. If you're a fan, or just interested, then hear this through at least once before your own final hammer strokes resound...

"...Deryck Cooke began work on his score in 1959 in connection

with the impending Mahler centenary, and on 19 December 1960,

Berthold Goldschmidt, who had assisted Cooke, conducted a partial

performance with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. This was a

lecture-demonstration for radio, but the objections of Mahler's widow,

Alma Mahler Werfel, to any sort of "completion" had to be overcome

before there could be a full performance..."

Excerpt from Michael Steinberg's "Symphony no.10 by Gustav Mahler",

found at

www.mahlerarchives.net/archives/steinberg.pdf

Thanks to Psanquin for this rarity.

Vadim Repin. Shostakovich First Violin Concerto. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. 2006, live.

2009-01-27T10:45:00.007-05:00

Repin plays the original intro to the burleske. This guy was never taught that humans generally can't play so brutally well. So he does.

Wiener Philharmoniker steps up to the plate and swings mightily, filling the room with an appropriately Francis Bacon-sounding backdrop at times,

other times making the gentlest waves of soothe. If you're unfamiliar with Vadim Repin please change that now. This may not be the highest quality (192 kbps) recording as far as sound fidelity goes, but none of that matters- It just doesn't. Select the scherzo, pull up on the volume control a bit, get ready to smile.

Shostakovich, Dmitry

Opus No. (77) 99, Violin Concerto 1

Valery Gergiev, conductor

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Vadim Repin, soloist

from the Wiener Philharmoniker's 8th Subscription Concert 2006, April 23

from Musikverein, Large Hall (Vienna, Austria)

Thanks to Manuel for this.

his original links are also in the comments, which include an alternate recording, equally if not more powerful (with concomitantly worse sound, I lament!)

But remember. Your business is rejoicing. Your business is rejoicing. ;)

A Mozart concerto & a Haydn symphonie: Uplifting, crash in a river and still walk away OK, renew your hope music

2009-01-20T15:10:00.006-05:00

Let's have some sounds resplendent with hope, positivity and the constructive interrelations of the elements that get involved!

Franz Haydn

Symphony No. 83

Wolfgang Mozart

Sinfonia Concertante, K.364

Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment

Ivan Fischer, conductor

Rachel Podger (violin)

Pavlo Beznosiuk (viola)

Wednesday 21 May 2008

7.00-8.45pm

from a BBC RADIO 3 broadcast of the concert

Deft, vibrant beats from the Enlightenment crew make for a constantly rewarding experience. They have such a great name, too- fitting for the challenge around us.

A Haydn symphony to begin because, well, it's Haydn. All undertakings should perhaps begin with this sort of thing. Especially with a skewering of overly serious and drama-heavy approaches, as happens in the first movement. The initial theme, with its big knotted brow, and dark, intent stride gets turned onto the "poultry-like waddling of the second subject", as David Hurwitz described it.

Then, the usually period-obsessed violinist Rachel Podger, a personal favorite, is half the soloist team in the Mozart double concerto. Ever since her recording of the Bach Partitas and Sonatas, those pieces get competition in the listening cue, alongside recordings by Szeryng and Kremer (1980), some Grumiaux.

The slow movement of K.364 always holds the most interest for me; here the interweavings of viola and violin create a tapestry of mindful discussion with some really emotionally naked digging in.

Then, the finale! So dancy and bright, makes it all sound like just the beginning...

Mozart

K.364

"Sinfonia Concertante"

01 Allegro Maestoso

02 Andante

03 Presto

Haydn

Symphony No. 83

"Hen"

04 Allegro spiritoso ["Hens are like people, and their conflicts caricature our own"- the composer]

05 Andante

06 Menuetto allegretto/Trio

07 Finale: Vivace

Some notes from the BBC website regarding its broadcast:

"...The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment turn the clock back to Paris on the eve of the French Revolution, in the last concert in their acclaimed The Age of Revolution series, recorded [May 21st, 2008] at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall.

...Haydn...visited pre-revolution Paris in 1785 and his Hen Symphony was one of the six Paris Symphonies he composed for public concerts in the city.

...This is the Paris where vibrant new ideas clashed with the stasis of the Ancien Regime, where philosophers rubbed shoulders with Catholic priests and encyclopaedists with noblemen. Into this environment came a young Mozart, and it was here that he received the impetus to compose his Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola..."

Allright then. On to it.

Julia Fischer dances amidst Maazel's NYPO in Brahms' violin concerto, 2008 broadcast.different than the studio recording with Kreizberg

2009-01-17T17:12:00.009-05:00

Johannes Brahms

Violin Concerto in D op. 77

NY Philharmonic

Lorin Maazel, Conductor.

Julia Fischer, Violin.

Broadcast date: 2007-05-03

I can only offer that I found this to be great. I am already a fan of Julia Fischer's Mozart concerto playing, liking how she unobtrusively infuses the music with life. It reminds me of Pierre Fournier's Bach suite recordings in how the artists balance the injection of personal flair with adherence to the strict written texts.

Maazel starts the journey at an unsurprisingly standard tempo, but the whole affair picks up speed and momentum with a satisfying surety, while letting some romantic impulses nudge and breathe at times. See the last 30 seconds of the First movement for example. The finale is a rollicking good time, and the main reason I thought to make this performance available here.

Ms. Fischer's encore, a clean gorgeous Andante from the Bach Sonata No. 2 in A Minor, BWV 1003, is included.

1 I. Allegro non troppo 24:21

2 II. Adagio 10:22

3 III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace - Poco piu presto 8:11

encore:

Bach: Solo Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor BWV 1003

4 III. Andante 4:17

These recordings were originally offered by DIME's "Antimudshark"

Guilty of transferring to mp3 & manufacturing artwork: Guillermo

Siegfried's Idyll. Wagner unguarded. Kubelik live with his Bayerischen forces in 1973.

2009-01-12T12:03:00.004-05:00

Brings to mind the Tagore quote, "God's great power is in the gentle breeze, not in the storm"

Richard Wagner

Siegfried's Idyll

Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks

Kubelik, Rafael, conductor

Munich 7 December 1973

In this offering, a somewhat complex plea for cease-fire. The Idyll was a birthday present to Wagner's wife, after the birth of their son, here interpreted by my perenially favorite conductor, Rafael Kubelik. His readings never lack warmth to me.

Some key bits from his Wikipedia article:

In 1939, Rafael Kubelík became music director of the Brno Opera, a position he held until the Nazis shut the company down on November 12, 1941. The Nazis allowed the Czech Philharmonic to continue operating, and Kubelík became its principal conductor. (He had first conducted the Czech Philharmonic in 1934 when he was 20 years old.) In 1944, after various incidents, including one in which he declined to greet the Nazi Reich-Protector with a Hitler salute — along with his refusal to conduct Wagner during the War — Kubelík "deemed it advisable to disappear from Prague and to spend a few months undercover in the countryside so as not to fall into the clutches of the SS or Gestapo" (Albert Scharf, in Rafael Kubelík: His Life and Achievement, p. 114).

Kubelík conducted the orchestra's first post-war concert in May, 1945. In 1946, he helped found the Prague Spring Festival, and conducted its opening concert. But after the Communist coup of February 1948, Kubelík left Czechoslovakia, vowing not to return until the country was liberated. "I had lived through one form of bestial tyranny, Nazism," he told an interviewer, "As a matter of principle I was not going to live through another."

Maybe the killing of many persons by other persons, under the excuse of one state against another, ends the violence between them all, as it is claimed by whoever starts it. Rarely so.

Palestine and Israel. Iraq and the US.

I think Barenboim leads the better path forward, with his orchestras that bring together people from opposite sides of the imaginary fence, while they are young. He also reclaimed Wagner, stubbornly and pointedly.

But I am here, in a safe and complacent environment, spreading pirated broadcast recordings...

Kurtag: a random sampling of spare, deep beauty. Three in-concert recordings.

2009-01-04T01:19:00.006-05:00

Gyorgy Kurtag (b.1926):"I keep coming back to the realization that one note is almost enough"

01-06 Six moments musicaux op.44 (1999-2005) (14:04)

Arditti String Quartet

STRASBOURG, France

Palais des FÍtes

26 sept 2008

Festival Musica

fm (France Musique, 26 dec 2008), Uploaded by Uncle Meat (DIME)

-----

07-08 Tre pezzi per violino e pianoforte Op. 14e (7:49)

Patricia Kopatchinskaja - violin

Mihaela Ursuleasa - piano

Conservatoire, Bruxelles (BE)

3 december 2007

uploaded by fadoze (DIME also)

-----

09-14 Messages For Orchestra Op. 34

Cambreling, Sylvain, conductor

Staatskapelle Dresden

Live performance; date, place & provenance unknown (to me!?!)

-----

the txt file includes extended Comments by J. R. Robinson (whose eloquence illustrates feelings I share regarding this wonderful musicmaker), excerpted here :

"...Kurtág is a composer steeped in tradition without himself being traditional... He bares his soul with a [Romantic] sense of drama, but everything expressed is distilled to its essence. Every note is telling, every silence is ripe with anticipation. His uncanny sense of time and proportion and his affinity with the silence between notes allow him to generate and maintain tension with the utmost economy of means.

Aside from the sheer concentration of it all, Kurtág's music communicates in a powerfully direct, speech-like way. It's not analogous to Janacek's overt use of Moravian speech patterns or anything so tangible; it's a subtle, sublimated communication in Kurtág's own uniquely expressive musical language -- a universal language spoken with a Hungarian accent.

You often get the impression that the music is speaking directly to you in an intimate, almost confessional way.

Ligeti once described Kurtág as "intelligent, sincere, and simple in a highly complex way." That description could just as well apply to his friend's music..."

Also, you'll find, in there, a primer on what to buy to hear more Kurtag!

Enjoy,

Guillermo

Mozart's Piano Concerto n.20, The First desks from Wiener Philharmoniker are the elite reduced orchestra. Buchbinder conducts from the soloist spot.

2008-12-31T13:58:00.006-05:00

Virtusosos at play in the fields of Gottlieb

Mozart, Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus
(yes, that's him. at baptism at least.)

Piano Concerto No. 20, K. 466

Wiener Virtuosen
Rudolf Buchbinder, conductor & piano
Groﬂer Musikvereinssaal, Vienna (Austria) 2008-02-04

The sharply delineated arpeggios! The jumpy, wink of th' eye ensemble dances! And the floor-hugging softness at the other dynamic extreme: wow. Mozart doesn't get this treatment often enough. This is just lots of fun.
Throw your door wide open for new year with a stance akin to the attitude in this performance and we're in for a great start!

from fadoze, again a bauble from the treasury...

Thanks! Enjoy.
Guillermo

Four Messiaen compositions in live broadcast versions, giving some idea of the orchestral range of his soundworld...

2008-12-18T14:36:00.007-05:00

Olivier Messiaen

Allright then. Some Messiaen is just modern day soul food, I feel; so here's a quadriplex of broadcast performances that give the range, to me at least, of what I love about Monsieur Messiaen's ouevre. There's always that calm at the heart of the pieces, a la Arvo Part, yet they are shot through with the coruscating faith-haunted digressions of later Pendereski. So, with some words by the original uploaders, we advance:

Olivier Messiaen:

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OZAWA Folder:

Trois petites Liturgies de la prÈsence divine

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Seiji Ozawa, conductor
with
Peter Serkin: piano
Takashi Harada: Ondes Martenot
Tanglewood Festival Women's Chorus
live at Symphony Hall.
Boston, Massachusetts USA
November 29, 2008

FM radio broadcast

Our uploading host, Zootype excerpted from the BSO program notes, that "Former Boston Symphony Orchestra Artistic Director Seiji Ozawa conducts the BSO for the first time in about six years...

During the Second World War, after he was released from a prison camp in Silesia, Messiaenís next major orchestral work was the "Three Short Liturgies of the Divine Presence". Messiaen wrote the text for Liturgies himself at the same time as the music and declared that it had no literary pretensions, despite the obvious influence of writers such as Paul …luard and Pierre Reverdy. He wanted to express theological truths about God and composed three movements each dedicated to an aspect of the presence - God present in us, present in himself, and present in all things. Messiaen was clear that these inexpressible ideas were not directly expressed in the music but that they remain "on the level of a dazzlement of colors."

01 I Antienne de la conversation intÈrieure 10:20
Anthem of the Interior (God present in us...)

02 II Sequence du verbe, cantique divin 7:02
Sequence of the Word, divine hymn (God present in himself...)

03 III Psalmodie de l'ubiquitÈ par amour 15:45
Psalmody of ubiquity through love (God present in all things...)

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BENJAMIN Folder:

Oiseaux exotiques

Benjamin, George; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Pierre Laurent Aimard, piano

PARIS, France
Salle Pleyel
05 dec 2008
Festival d'Automne

Amidst a conversation about Messiaen, Gerald Levinson recalls an experience with Mr. Aimard, by the way: "...And so the concert ended at 1:15 a.m. with Pierre-Laurent playing. The technicians got mad and dimmed the lights about 1:00 o’clock in the middle of the [Cinq] Danses rituelles. And Pierre-Laurent didn’t miss a beat. Now he’s a great master. Everybody knows Pierre-Laurent Aimard now. He was seventeen then, and an amazing prodigy. I asked him afterwards, ‘How did you keep playing when all those lights went out?’ And he said, ‘The lights went out?’ That to me was a real lesson about what a real master performer does..."

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GATTI Folder:

Un Sourire
Gatti, Daniele; Orchestre National de France

Theatre des Champs-Elysees
18 sept 2008

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CHUNG Folder:

Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Myung-Whun Chung - conductor
Olivier Latry - organ

Royal Albert Hall, London (UK)
21 july 2008
BBC3 rec.

These last 3 Thanks to fadoze, who I am hoping will not come o'er and poke me right in the eye for transmogrifying these treasures to the dreaded MP3 format! It does get to more folks easier as such.

Two sorta violin concertos played live: Eotvos' "Seven" and Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending"

2008-12-17T17:46:00.002-05:00

Intense, Singing Strings (and some other stuff)

at the service of Eotvos and Vaughn Williams

Peter Eotvos
Seven
(UK Premiere)

Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending
(Never played in England before)

Susanne Mälkki - conductor
Philharmonia Orchestra
Akiko Suwanaï - violin

from the Proms 2008 concert
Royal Albert Hall, London, England
27 August 2008

The 2008 Proms 55 included one of those new compositions that caught me immediately, like some of Kurtag's work does, even though this is longer. Peter Eotvos' "Seven" thus runs the usual danger for me of longer pieces where I drift off a bit, yet the instrumental and ensemble lines that emerge are perenially compelling and sometimes transporting one to another plane (more on why that may be below.) Seven can be thought of as a sort of violin concerto.
The Lark Ascending is just plain beautiful music. This performance is wider reaching than most of the usual benchmark rec's under Sir Adrian Boult and, I think, Bryden Thompson.

Fiona Maddocks of London's "The Evening Standard" has more details about the performance, especially regarding Eotvos, who
"should have been at the Proms directing the UK premiere of Seven, his violin concerto commemorating the Columbia space shuttle astronauts who died in 2003. But illness prevented him and the fast-rising Finnish conductor, Susanna Mälkki, stepped in at short notice, drawing playing of flair and subtlety from the Philharmonia.

Eötvös’s two-movement elegy, with soloist Akiko Suwanai, launches straight in on high, with stratospheric violin textures offset by ensemble sounds so tantalising you have to scrutinise each player to work out how the effect is made. Since a keyboard sampler forms part of the mix, you often remain merely bewitched and bewildered.

Creating an unsettling impact, six violinists were positioned around the Albert Hall, their solo voices speaking in signal and response to Suwanai, who continued her journey of poetic rhapsody alone on stage. The sense of figures lost in space was only too vivid, and expertly performed by all.

Suwanai then brought her fluid, seemingly weightless playing to Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. Judging by the large audience this season, Proms director Roger Wright is proving himself an ingenious programme maker. Whether the words “Classic FM” are ever said aloud within the walls of Radio 3 is doubtful, but it won’t have escaped anyone’s notice that The Lark Ascending heads that other station’s Hall of Fame list. To programme this glorious piece of English pastoral next to the Eötvös premiere was nifty, to say the least."

(the program that evening included Ravel's
Scheherazade (w/Sarah Connolly) and Daphnis et Chloe, and Debussy's Prelude a l'Apres-Midi d'un Faune.)

This thanks to fadoze, master of dimeadozen broadcasts, it forms part of his recording #FA2008-179.

Mahler Symphony Number 9, as brought to life by a guy who wants to abolish vibrato

2008-12-15T11:15:00.005-05:00

Roger Norrington makes a "fascinating mess" as it should be, with the SWR Stuttgart forces

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No.9

Sir Roger Norrington
SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra

05. September 2008
Stuttgart, Germany
'Stuttgarter Liederhalle, Beethovensaal'

Live broadcast

Aaah, just listen, With the volume knob set to "you destructive imbecile"

Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition in a vibrant broadcast take, even virulent (in it's image-mongering!)

2008-12-15T00:19:00.003-05:00

Georges Pretre showed the youngster conductors how it is DONE, on October 27, २००८

Modeste Mussorgsky
Pictures From An Exhibition (orchestration by Maurice Ravel)

Georges Prêtre, conductor
Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Recorded at the Philharmonie Berlin on 27.10.08

No talking. just Head (-bangingly glorious playing here). Hartmann's drawings through Modeste's notes, Ravel's coloring and Pretre's searing control and release, thanks to the Deutsche Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin.

(Program that evening included
Johannes Brahms Symphony Nr. 3 F-dur op. 90)

A Mahler Seventh that recalls its artistic muses Rembrandt and Mann through a fired-up Abbado-led Youth Orchestra!

2008-12-09T14:14:00.005-05:00

Symphony Number 7, by Gustav Mahler

Claudio Abbado, conductor
Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester
1999 Edinburgh Festival
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
August 17, 1999

Ah! the M7! My absolute favorite Mahler symphony -for the past 3 years at least...(before that i had protracted flings with the 2nd, 4th, forever the 9th of course, and a real time of it with 3...)

Rembrandt's "The Night Watch"( or "The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch") is said to have been influential to the second movement। It fits wonderfully, as the cacophonous military breakdowns so common to this composer been seldom better served; pace Alphons Diepenbrock, who knew Mahler and is quoted as saying, "...It is not true that [Gustav Mahler] wanted actually to depict The Night Watch. He cited the painting only as a point of comparison. [The Nachtmusik I movement] is a walk at night, and he said himself that he thought of it as a patrol. Beyond that he said something different every time. What is certain is that it is a march, full of fantastic chiaroscuro — hence the Rembrandt parallel..."

And the Andante amoroso? A risky, engaging slant is enhanced by the youth orchestra's edgy feel under Abbado. it almost hearkens to the other cultural reference commonly stuck to this piece: that Adrian Leverkuhn's magnificent violin concerto's ending was really this penultimate movement. (This imaginary composer, Leverkuhn, from Thomas Mann's awesome novel "Doktor Faust", also wrote a "Faust" cantata which is supposedly based upon the second movement of the M7!)

En fin, the youth orchestra plays hard and to win. The bite is there at all times, even in the slower sections. They are nervously present and it sounds as if they refuse to let the performance fall into a rote exercise, even if for the barest moment.

From a broadcast, so it is somewhat hissy. Have a fit then, if you seek purely audiophile quality; just know that the performance gods have waved their magic fingers at this, Through Claudio Abbado. He has commercially released 2 other performances of the Mahler Symphony no.7 , one in 1984 and again in 2001 (Chicago SO and Berlin Phil, respectively). I prefer this one to those as well as to [most!] of the 21 other recordings of this work I, unreasonably and ridiculously enough, own
...
It is, worth it.

**Mil gracias to albanberg at dimeadozen for this!**

A very serious Bartok by Kondrashin recording

2008-12-05T16:46:00.005-05:00

Bela Bartok
Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.
Kirill Kondrashin, conductor
Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra.

This recording is beyond worth it; just listen a tiny bit past the noise that the intruding years present, and a raucous performance emerges to drag you around by the "classical music is nice sleepytime music" hairs. The taper, Alan, stated:

"This stereo broadcast is undated, and is sourced from my own cassette
taped from NYC radio station WNCN on February 17, 1982. The tape is a
bit hissy, which is probably due to the comparatively wide dynamic
range of WNCN at the time. "

Get this.

Shostakovich Opus 47, Symphony Number 5

2008-12-02T00:39:00.007-05:00

"a Soviet artist’s creative response to justified criticism..." in New Jersey. Newark. Of all places.

Estonian maestro Neeme Jarvi (I mention his nationality to suggest his familiarity with Soviet-era abuses and frustrations... and well OK because that's half my bloodline as well- REPRESENT in KALEVI POIG!!!) leads the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

Broadcast From performances May 16-18, 2008
Prudential Hall, New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC)
On the banks of the stolid Passaic River in Newark, New Jersey, USA

That Program also offered:
Bach/Busoni/Steinberg: Chaconne in D minor (orchestration of Partita
for Violin Solo No. 2, BMV 1004)
Haydn: Symphony No. 99 in E-flat major, H 1/९९

Check out the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra when they're in your town!
Keep them going! Although their siblings the New York Philharmonic courted disaster openly (they were slated originally to play on the Titanic, but couldn't go), the NJSO has also had miraculous comebacks time and time again from random and timely donations...

Just so satisfying when played loud, this version, it must have made the much-maligned and industrially mistreated Passaic River chuckle contentedly for the hour it was played near its banks that night.

Thanks to Michael for this recording from KUAT

Bruckner 9th Live and brutish, New York Phil with Christoph Eschenbach

2008-11-28T15:41:00.010-05:00

Bruckner Symphony Number Nine;
check out the slowdown and subsequent incisive tone of the brass around 1:50 in the Second movement!

The Third movement is taken a bit longer than most in a (practically useless) time comparison, yet manages to do better at keeping a sense of purpose, resisting the loss of power that can infect stretches of many respected performances of this always-beautiful piece of dead white european male composition.

The opener to this broadcast was The Beethoven Piano Concerto with Lang Lang on percussion.

Some of The New York Times' Steve Smith review of the November 7th concert, "The Flame of Beethoven, Calibrated" is copied here:

"...
Bruckner’s unfinished Symphony No. 9 followed intermission. Mr. Eschenbach, a compelling Bruckner interpreter, brought a sense of structure and proportion to the music without diminishing the qualities of humility and awe that make it so gripping. His tempos were broad but never leisurely, his instrumental balances impeccable; the orchestra responded with playing of striking power and commitment."

A Beautiful, chaotic ride with Vaughan Williams 4th

2008-11-20T15:59:00.007-05:00

Ralph Vaughan Williams
Symphony Number 4 in F Minor

October 26, 1973 (Broadcast Date)

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Sir Colin Davis, principal guest conductor

Careening from one emotional pole to another, This performance is not 'background music'; Rachmaninoff would have you sit up straight for it's duration.
Maestro Vaughan Williams himself famously said of it " I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant।"

from the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "Broadcast Archives 12 CD Box Set",
available from the Orchestra's website (www.bso.org) at
http://www.bso.org/bso/shop/productDetail.jsp?pid=prod2580045&area=shp&id=bcat12170002

Beethoven Symphony No. 5, pause a moment and find out why this is up here.

2008-11-18T19:27:00.006-05:00

dot dot dot DASH

Beethoven, Ludwig van
Symphony no.5 in C Minor, Opus 67

Live broadcast June 24th, 2007
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Chamber Orchestra of Europe

The original uploader (Scalepet's) comments say what you may need to know:
"...recorded in the course of Harnoncourt's annual music festival, the Styriarte, in 2007, and broadcast just once: Despite the performance getting rave reviews from the press, it was never officially released on disk. Every of the performers got a recording of the concert...
...one of the fieriest, fastest and best performances I've ever heard of this piece, the first movement is barely 6:34 long - with repeat. The phrasing, accents and dynamic contrasts are intense when they need to be, it's remarkably driven, always moving forward with a positive sense of nervousness. But despite the breakneck speed Harnoncourt has total control over the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (who play on modern instruments, only the trumpets and timpani are period instruments), his conducting is firm, but not stiff, there's a terrific sense of chamber musical organization among the musicians, especially in the slow movement. Orchestral color, secondary voices, stereophony - all exceptional, which is why I opted for FLAC this time - you may discover details in the 5th you didn't notice before..."

YES! and then some, este es uno para poner a todo dar, a ver que tanto aguante el sistema de sonido!

Faure's Requiem Mass, the NY Philharmonic led for the first time by a woman (who had "gotten over the initial astonishment" of being one.)

2008-11-09T22:15:00.013-05:00

Gabriel Faure
Requiem Mass

live:
Mass for Bruno Walter in NY 17 Feb 1962
Reni Grist (sop); Don Gramm (bar); Vernon deTar (organ); The Choral
Art Society
New York Philharmonic

Nadia Boulanger, conductor

Mono recording
mp3, avg.131 kbps

Nadia Boulanger was one of Gabriel Faure's more noted students.
This is an excerpt from "Time" magazine of February 23, 1962:

"[ On a triumphal 75th birthday trip to the U.S., Nadia Boulanger, Paris' matriarch of modern music, became the first woman ever to conduct a full concert by The New York Philharmonic. Borrowing the podium of one of the few notable American composers who was never her pupil, mercurial Maestro Leonard Bernstein, the "tender tyrant" led the orchestra through psalms by her late sister, Lili, A Solemn Music by Disciple Virgil Thomson, and the Requiem Mass of Gabriel Faure with an authority that convinced the New York Times that "she could hold up her end of the baton with most of her male colleagues." Tactfully shrugging off this bit of male chauvinism, Mme. Boulanger refrained from repeating her response to a similar comment when she led the Boston Symphony in 1938: "I have been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment." ]"

and, incidentally, OT but further reading from that issue:

"[ Out of rural Berkshire to London's Hospital for Sick Children whooshed a police-escorted ambulance bearing the football captain and choir leader of Britain's Cheam School: His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 13. Following a post-midnight appendectomy, the robust Charles recuperated rapidly, was expected to be sprung this week from the TV-equipped private room for which the royal family, which does not take-advantage of the National Health Service, was paying $14 a day." ]

Times the're a changing, no?

Enjoy the tunes. This recording was released commercially as part of a (to my budget and everyone I know) crazily expensive New York Philharmonic Anniversary Box Set, called
"The greatest historical release of them all!" by Robert Cowan, Gramophone. It (the whole set AND this particular bit of it) really is full of wondrous and unexpected depths of performance history galore.

The box set is still available here:
http://nyphil.org/buy/estore/itemDetail.cfm?itemnum=2&itemcategorynum=cds&itemdetail=yes

Mahler Symphony Nr.3 Martinon/Chicago SO (box set version)

2008-11-05T11:32:00.007-05:00

Jean Martinon leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in a performance which does justice to the myriad moods and tempos you expect to have a Mahler Symphony no.3; that is such a relative phenomenon, since the M3 is one of the most philosophically, temporally and sonically ambitious of symphonies in general!
This excerpt about the recording is from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra website, from which you may purchase the incredible box set containing this performance (in better sound) and a host of other rarities:

http://www.cso.org/main.taf?p=4,1,3,7,2&productid=4677

"The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's first subscription concert performances of Mahler's Third Symphony were given at Orchestra Hall on March 23, 24, and 25, 1967, with Regina Resnik, Women of the Chicago Symphony Chorus (Margaret Hillis, director), the Chicago Children's Choir (Christopher Moore, director), and Jean Martinon conducting."

The sound is broadcast quality, Pre-FM.

American trailblazer Charles Ives with another beauty

2008-11-02T17:25:00.006-05:00

The very rarely heard and recorded "General William Booth Enters Into Heaven" was
the other Ives piece from the 2004 Alan Gilbert/NY Phil program which ended with Symphony No. 4, posted below.
General Booth is the founder of The Salvation Army. The piece is a characteristically ambitious Ivesian challenge, built around the sung text of Vachel Lindsay's 1912 poem. I've copied some of it below, and think it an appropriate mechanism to countenance the fears of, frankly, the worst case scenario of our economic reality; the music is simply a very stirring piece:

General William Booth Enters into Heaven

by Vachel Lindsay

[To be sung to the tune of `The Blood of the Lamb' with indicated instrument]

I

[Bass drum beaten loudly.]
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He's come."
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
Walking lepers followed, rank on rank,
Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank,
Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale --
Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail: --
Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath,
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death --
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

[Banjos.]
Every slum had sent its half-a-score
The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.)
Every banner that the wide world flies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes.
Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang,
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang: --
"Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"
Hallelujah! It was queer to see
Bull-necked convicts with that land make free.
Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare
On, on upward thro' the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

II

[Bass drum slower and softer.]
Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod,
Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God.
Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief
Eagle countenance in sharp relief,
Beard a-flying, air of high command
Unabated in that holy land.

[Sweet flute music.]
Jesus came from out the court-house door,
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there
Round and round the mighty court-house square.
Yet in an instant all that blear review
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.
The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.

[Bass drum louder.]
Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole!
Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl!
Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean,
Rulers of empires, and of forests green!
[Grand chorus of all instruments. Tambourines to the foreground.]

To be administered at full volume as tonic and rejuvenative conduit, esp. as one walk out the door to do one's election-related duty! Artwork is the same because it was on the same bill. sorry about the non-inclusion of that text on the cover.

Sibelius Symphony 5 LSO/Davis Alternate rec. (NYC!)

2008-10-31T13:30:00.009-04:00

This duplicates the conductor/orchestra pairing for this work in the same year as an official release. Although it documents a different performance,
it is only an extra sweetener to enjoy the artistry of these workers. This straight to CD Recording of Live Broadcast on WQXR NYC does have a bit of hiss audible in the quieter moments. If you like the performance, please buy the official LSO live CD release, which has vastly better sound anyway;
The London Symphony Orchestra has its own website from which they sell their "LSO Live" CDs:
http://lso.co.uk/detailedrecordinginfo&showdetailstype=recording&detailID=22

That said, this is still a blast to hear! That wierdo ending with the quintuple hangups is never tiring. The LSO and Sir Colin Davis seem to be welded to one another's thoughts sometimes, as evidenced in long stretches of -even for these pros- gorgeous ensemble work.

Ives Symphony no. 4 NY Philharmonic/Gilbert 2004 live

2008-10-29T16:38:00.009-04:00

Charles Ives' raucous Fourth (and last) Symphony, live from Carnegie Hall to get the Estados Unidos folk in the voting mood!

Alan Gilbert, young American conductor at the helm of the New York forces who will take him as their new music director starting 2009, in one of this pairing's most acclaimed showings- so far. Interesting but overreported note: his parents are New York Philharmonic musicians, and on this particular occasion mom was one of the band.
I recorded it from a live WQXR broadcast, straight to cd... Great American Cacophony to rival the election season's cross'd streams of sameness (that simply means that reality is slightly below expectations; you still have the right to vote. Voting could be treated like a Victorian-era unruly child or bad tooth- Ignore it and it may go away.)

links for this in comments

Beethoven Last Sonatas live by Paul Lewis, from a broadcast

2008-10-28T18:40:00.006-04:00

Gandador del Premio Gramophone en vivo:

Otro broadcast de ahora ultimo, como si estuviera renaciendo el arte! Could it be that the Far Eastern curse "may you live in interesting times" is also informing the depth of recent performances?

All thanks to christos e from DIME for this awesome recording of a digital FM Broadcast- DVB-S Radio, 256kb/s. He might poke me right in the eye for putting this up here. (hope not!)

The performance is a testament to Paul Lewis' gifts, so spread it while it's available. As such, it is more than ample argument for keeping his career triumphantly afloat by going to a concert or purchasing a CD of his!!! We are Medici! [sung to the sister sledge tune, in these art funding-starved times]; Please mention that if you Do spread this treasure.

viene con arte y texto informativo. comes with some more info and homebaked art (yea that up there.)
crank it!

The actual studio release, winner of the 2008 Gramophone Award here
(live concert link in comments; as a zip file and, further down, in mp3s individually)

Shostakovich 10th live 19 Feb 2004 NYC broadcast

2008-10-28T17:48:00.002-04:00

Snippet of the performance, you've got to hear it. Es otra tecnologia. pegale el volumen hacia 11 antes de escuchar (para eradicar tendencias facistas en tu vecindario):
http://rapidshare.com/files/158466344/Snippet_from_Allegro.mp3

Shostakovich

New York Philharmonic, Antonio Pappano - Guest conductor
Carnegie Hall, NYC, New York (USA)
19 Feb 2004

WQXR "New York Philharmonic live" broadcast recording

Viene con guia , seis minutos de buenisima informacion antes de escuchar esta obra.
Comes with a Listening guide to Shostakovich Symphony no. 10 (6:24)

QUALITY
320kbps

It's in there!

StateWork : Free Great Classical Broadcast Recordings etc.

Kurtag .concertante. Maestro Saraste, BBC SO live 2011 with dedicatees Kikuchi & Hakii

Shostakovich 10th, von Karajan & Staatskapelle Dresden, 1976

Britten War Requiem 2002 Rostropovich/NDR SO broadcast

In lieu of actual post (which is forthcoming)

Brahms 4 Prêtre/Accademia Sta Cecilia 2010 broadcast

Brahms 3 Prêtre/Accademia Sta Cecilia 2010 broadcast

Mahler 5 Horenstein 1961 Berliner Phil, repaired/completed version

Gubaidulina's Glorious Percussion, Berlin Phil under Dudamel. Live in-house/broadcast 2009

Bruckner 6th, Horenstein/LSO 1963 broadcast

Bruckner 3 Horenstein/BBC Northern SO, 1963 broadcast

Maria João Pires plays Nocturnes live, July 21 2010 in London

Ancerl/Boston SO, Smetana: Ma Vlast. 1969 broadcast, during a very audible thunderstorm!

Mahler's 9th, Giulini, The Fabulous Philadelphians in 1972: What a ride!

Tchaikovsky's WarHorse Cometh: 1st Piano Concerto with Hough, Vänskä & The Marvelous Minnesotans: Oct 3, 2009

Mahler 3: Jansons/Royal Concertgebouw, Fink. 2010 broadcast of a great performance

Sibelius 2: Barbirolli & Boston SO 1964 broadcast

Mahler Symphony 5: World Orchestra For Peace, Gergiev, 2009 Sweden, Live broadcast rec.

Ivan Moravec, Philadelphia Orchestra with Keene: Grieg Piano Concerto live 1984

Mahler 6th: Sir Mark Elder and the Russian National Orchestra dig in

Bruckner's 4th in a beautiful, haunting in-house 1993 recording

Schoenberg: Pelleas and Melisande, with Alan Gilbert's talk. New York Phil, live Sept 25, 2009

Bartok and Gypsy music by Sebestyen, Muzsikas and Takacs Quartet

Kondrashin and Moscow forces at the 1972 Munich Olympics play the Shostakovich Sym.#15

Mahler 1. If you're new to the music of Gustav Mahler, start here: Runnicles, DSO Berlin 2009 live

Prokofiev series by Gergiev/LSO live 2009 at Lincoln Center: Russian Dreams II

Prokofiev series by Gergiev/LSO live 2009 at Lincoln Center: Russian Dreams

Mahler Symphony 2, Dudamel y la Sinfonica dlJ Venezolana, Septiembre 9 del 2008

Xenakis: The Total Immersion concert 2, London, March 7 2009

Prokofiev 2nd PianoConcerto, Bronfman and Gergiev, Vienna Philharmonic live in Carnegie Hall, 2008

Poulenc: en su Gloria, con Concertos. rec.2008-1961

Beethoven Sym. 8 by Paavo Jarvi & The DKP Bremen, 2009 at the Alice Tully Hall reopening festival

Maria Joao Pires plays Chopin 11/25/2008 in Chile

Beethoven 9th , Charles Munch & his Boston SO, 1958 broadcast: Op.125 as it should sound more often.(?)

Isabelle Faust plays Mendelssohn's violin concerto live: Feb 24, 2009

Kurtag: Akhmatova Poems, Splinters, Troussova Messages live from Carnegie Hall Jan 31, 2009

Rafal Blechacz toca Chopin en el Festival Klara, Bruselas, 2007: Una Transmisión Maravillosa.

1942 premiere of the Shostakovich Symphony 7: Toscanini, NBC SO, thunderstorm raging outside

Thrilling Rilling rocks the Missa Solemnis. Beethoven Opus 123, Chicago Symphony forces from 2005

Garrick Ohlsson and Ivan Fischer, Budapest Festival O make Bartok's piano concerto 3 breathe.

The Legendary Mahler 10th Performance That Started All The Fights and Nonsense

Vadim Repin. Shostakovich First Violin Concerto. Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. 2006, live.

A Mozart concerto & a Haydn symphonie: Uplifting, crash in a river and still walk away OK, renew your hope music

Julia Fischer dances amidst Maazel's NYPO in Brahms' violin concerto, 2008 broadcast.*different than the studio recording with Kreizberg*

Siegfried's Idyll. Wagner unguarded. Kubelik live with his Bayerischen forces in 1973.

Kurtag: a random sampling of spare, deep beauty. Three in-concert recordings.

Mozart's Piano Concerto n.20, The First desks from Wiener Philharmoniker are the elite reduced orchestra. Buchbinder conducts from the soloist spot.

Four Messiaen compositions in live broadcast versions, giving some idea of the orchestral range of his soundworld...

Two sorta violin concertos played live: Eotvos' "Seven" and Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending"

Intense, Singing Strings (and some other stuff)

at the service of Eotvos and Vaughn Williams

Mahler Symphony Number 9, as brought to life by a guy who wants to abolish vibrato

Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition in a vibrant broadcast take, even virulent (in it's image-mongering!)

A Mahler Seventh that recalls its artistic muses Rembrandt and Mann through a fired-up Abbado-led Youth Orchestra!

A very serious Bartok by Kondrashin recording

Shostakovich Opus 47, Symphony Number 5

Bruckner 9th Live and brutish, New York Phil with Christoph Eschenbach

A Beautiful, chaotic ride with Vaughan Williams 4th

Beethoven Symphony No. 5, pause a moment and find out why this is up here.

Faure's Requiem Mass, the NY Philharmonic led for the first time by a woman (who had "gotten over the initial astonishment" of being one.)

Mahler Symphony Nr.3 Martinon/Chicago SO (box set version)

American trailblazer Charles Ives with another beauty

Sibelius Symphony 5 LSO/Davis Alternate rec. (NYC!)

Ives Symphony no. 4 NY Philharmonic/Gilbert 2004 live

Beethoven Last Sonatas live by Paul Lewis, from a broadcast

Shostakovich 10th live 19 Feb 2004 NYC broadcast

Julia Fischer dances amidst Maazel's NYPO in Brahms' violin concerto, 2008 broadcast.different than the studio recording with Kreizberg