What are you listening to?

[Seán]

I am not familiar with Medtner's music at all.

[Seán]

They were making a lot of noise about Langgaard about ten years ago and I got The Music of the Spheres then. I quite liked it, but only listened once. Unless I make some progress with it and the string quartets I won't be buying the symphonies! The DNSO/Dausgaard 7-SACD set is supposed to be good, but some say the quality of the symphonies themselves is pretty variable: decades of being unsuccessful crushed his talent.

Yes, that's the set that is gathering dust in my Amazon basket, I will get it some day soon.

[Seán]

Winterreise.

It's gorgeous.

[Jose Echenique]

I am not familiar with Medtner's music at all.

A pianist I know described it as "Rachmaninov without the tunes".

I actually like it a lot.

[Jose Echenique]

Predictably, this was going to be a stupendous disc, but it´s to Roberta Invernizzi and La Risonanza´s credit that even you high expectations are amply surpassed.
This is singing in excelsis: charming and commanding, fresh and magisterial, all at the same time.
Cecilia Bartoli should hear Roberta Invernizzi to see that it´s possible to sing fiendishly difficult coloratura without sounding like a machine gun.
Fabio Bonizzoni´s super elegant band play like gods. This is certainly one of the cd´s of the year.

[Seán]

I am not familiar with Medtner's music at all.

A pianist I know described it as "Rachmaninov without the tunes".

Oh dear, that sounds more like a condemnation rather than an endorsement.

I actually like it a lot.

I am curious now.

[fergus]

Predictably, this was going to be a stupendous disc, but it´s to Roberta Invernizzi and La Risonanza´s credit that even you high expectations are amply surpassed.
This is singing in excelsis: charming and commanding, fresh and magisterial, all at the same time.
Cecilia Bartoli should hear Roberta Invernizzi to see that it´s possible to sing fiendishly difficult coloratura without sounding like a machine gun.
Fabio Bonizzoni´s super elegant band play like gods. This is certainly one of the cd´s of the year.

Having listened to a number of Vivaldi operas over the last number of months I have been very taken by my whole Vivaldi opera experience Pepe. Obviously it would not be to everyone's taste but I found the music to be very engaging. Hopefully this music is beginning to come back into vogue if people of such quality as Invernizzi are prepared to sing and record it.

[Seán]

Franz Schubert
Symphony 8 & 9
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Karl Böhm

I love these two performances, I would like to get a copy of the Böhm led Staatskapelle Dresden recording of the Ninth. Does anybody here have it? I think that Darren might, I'm not sure though.

[fergus]

I love these two performances, I would like to get a copy of the Böhm led Staatskapelle Dresden recording of the Ninth. Does anybody here have it? I think that Darren might, I'm not sure though.

Going cheaply here if you are interested in it....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-No-9-F ... 10&sr=1-17

[Seán]

Having listened to a number of Vivaldi operas over the last number of months I have been very taken by my whole Vivaldi opera experience Pepe. Obviously it would not be to everyone's taste but I found the music to be very engaging. Hopefully this music is beginning to come back into vogue if people of such quality as Invernizzi are prepared to sing and record it.

My younger brother, David, loves Mozart, Puccini and Verdi operas. Last Christmas and the one before that I bought CDs of Vivaldi Operas for him and he loved them. He wasn't familiar with Vivaldi's music before I got them for him and and is very taken with them:



and this one too, Pepe recommended it to me after I had mentioned that I love the Biondi recording: