....exemplary playing from Brendel!
What are you listening to?
Re: What are you listening to?
On vinyl....
....exemplary playing from Brendel!
....exemplary playing from Brendel!
To be is to do: Socrates
To do is to be: Sartre
Do be do be do: Sinatra
To do is to be: Sartre
Do be do be do: Sinatra
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Jose Echenique
- Posts: 1323
- Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:33 pm
Re: What are you listening to?
What a coincidence, I heard the same work this morning, but in Ton Koopman´s new recording:DaveF wrote:
This is actually Koopman´s second recording of the work, the first was made about 20 years ago for ERATO. As you would expect from such a fine musician, this new recording is extremely beautiful and well understood, all in all a very fine recording. Now there are so many version of this superb cantata that it´s impossible to keep track of every recording. I own about 15 different versions, being my favourite the Knabenchor Hannover recording for the special color of children voices. But I haven´t heard a poor recording of this Easter work, so it´s really up to each personal likes and dislikes.
Re: What are you listening to?
I have recently been expanding my knowledge of Berlioz' choral music, both sacred and secular, through these excellent recordings.
Re: What are you listening to?
On vinyl....
To be is to do: Socrates
To do is to be: Sartre
Do be do be do: Sinatra
To do is to be: Sartre
Do be do be do: Sinatra
Re: What are you listening to?
More vinyl this afternoon....
To be is to do: Socrates
To do is to be: Sartre
Do be do be do: Sinatra
To do is to be: Sartre
Do be do be do: Sinatra
Re: What are you listening to?
Little Suite for String Orch
Symphonic Rhapsody
Helios Overture
Violin Concerto
all the music on this disk is both accessible and very enjoyable...
Re: What are you listening to?
Over the past week I’ve been listening to a recent purchase, a box set comprising Clifford Curzon’s complete recordings for the Decca label. This has been an uncommonly nourishing and enriching experience. I rate Curzon very highly as one of the great musicians of the 20th century. A modest, unassuming, self-effacing man who exercised a very severe sense of artistic quality control over what he recorded in the studio and what he deemed acceptable for release, this sense of perfectionism was born out of a sense of duty to the great music that inspired him. He could have been commercially minded to expand his repertoire to include material that did not inspire him to the same Parnassian heights as what we hear in this box, but he appeared to consider that a tawdry vulgarisation of his art. What I hear in his performances is a distillation of the music to its essential qualities, an avoidance of virtuosic pyrotechnics and an attempt to communicate in a direct way the very essence of the composer’s inspirations to the listener. There is no sense of grandstanding emotionalism here or any manner of self-indulgent egotism, but, rather, a compulsion to unlock the emotional truths behind the music. This is music-making that is lit from within by humanity, wit, pathos and a very special kind of joyful intensity.
It is the unique achievement of the master musician to make you think that there is no other way to play this great music other than how he/she plays it. Ultimately, though, this is a temporal illusion that deceives the listener into thinking that there exists no other performances apart from what is being played in the here and now (despite the undeniable fact that there exists a multitude of memories of other recorded performances of the same piece embedded in the reservoir of the listener’s subconscious). Just as the musician performed the piece of music “in the moment”, so too do we, as listeners, experience this performance as a singular event, the subjective impression of which can - apparently - never be defaced by any other performance. Perhaps it is the creation of these temporal illusions in our ever-receptive subconscious which is the overriding achievement of these great musicians. Certainly, when listening to the many great performances which constitute this career-spanning box, it is something that struck me with great force time and time again, but it is the peerless performance of Schumann’s Kinderszenen that stands out vividly in my mind with resounding force because it not only represented my first introduction to Curzon (coupled with his equally rewarding performances of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasie and Schumann’s Fantasie), but also the first time the childlike innocence of these beautiful vignettes were unlocked to me and instilled forever in my heart. I had heard other equally revered versions of Kinderszenen before (those of Horowitz, Kempff, Argerich and Brendel) which I respected but could not love. It was Curzon who really evoked the world of the child’s innocence as refracted through the sense of the adult’s regret. (To recall Proust: “the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment”.) This is music as dreamlike glimpses of fleeting memory, lost as soon as sensed, and which requires a gossamer-light tone to successfully conjure up its nuances of emotional frailty. To listen to Curzon’s recording is akin to a visual eavesdropping on a lost world that can never be regained, that of the child clouding the sweet-shop window with his breath, a world long ago and far away. There is no overweening emotionalism or mawkish sentimentality, but simply a sincere expression of emotional truths, unspoilt by needless artifice. It is a magical and timeless achievement.
Curzon once commented that many people don’t fully appreciate just what a musical phrase costs. He was referring, of course, to the level of attentive care that he devoted to his playing, but also, I believe, reflecting on how a composer agonised over a particular phrase in his mind before wringing it out on to the page where it would be continually refined and moulded into shape until he pronounced himself satisfied with the result. I think that Curzon felt a strong sense of moral duty to repay that level of artistic commitment with playing that communicated a commensurate sense of the internal dramas that formed the music. As I believe Jacqueline du Pre once said, “You have to give, give, give of yourself until there’s nothing left”. To illustrate that point in a visual way, the box set includes a particularly cherishable DVD which collects all of the recitals that he gave for the BBC, the highlight of which is one of the great versions of Schubert’s final piano sonata, one of the masterpieces of the solo piano literature. To observe the pianist in performance is to witness a man utterly consumed in the moment and suffused with a radiant joy, eyes shining wildly and apparently lost to the world around him. It is a humbling experience which awes me to silence and reduces me to tears and, really, what more can a great composer ask of his interpreter?
It is the unique achievement of the master musician to make you think that there is no other way to play this great music other than how he/she plays it. Ultimately, though, this is a temporal illusion that deceives the listener into thinking that there exists no other performances apart from what is being played in the here and now (despite the undeniable fact that there exists a multitude of memories of other recorded performances of the same piece embedded in the reservoir of the listener’s subconscious). Just as the musician performed the piece of music “in the moment”, so too do we, as listeners, experience this performance as a singular event, the subjective impression of which can - apparently - never be defaced by any other performance. Perhaps it is the creation of these temporal illusions in our ever-receptive subconscious which is the overriding achievement of these great musicians. Certainly, when listening to the many great performances which constitute this career-spanning box, it is something that struck me with great force time and time again, but it is the peerless performance of Schumann’s Kinderszenen that stands out vividly in my mind with resounding force because it not only represented my first introduction to Curzon (coupled with his equally rewarding performances of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasie and Schumann’s Fantasie), but also the first time the childlike innocence of these beautiful vignettes were unlocked to me and instilled forever in my heart. I had heard other equally revered versions of Kinderszenen before (those of Horowitz, Kempff, Argerich and Brendel) which I respected but could not love. It was Curzon who really evoked the world of the child’s innocence as refracted through the sense of the adult’s regret. (To recall Proust: “the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment”.) This is music as dreamlike glimpses of fleeting memory, lost as soon as sensed, and which requires a gossamer-light tone to successfully conjure up its nuances of emotional frailty. To listen to Curzon’s recording is akin to a visual eavesdropping on a lost world that can never be regained, that of the child clouding the sweet-shop window with his breath, a world long ago and far away. There is no overweening emotionalism or mawkish sentimentality, but simply a sincere expression of emotional truths, unspoilt by needless artifice. It is a magical and timeless achievement.
Curzon once commented that many people don’t fully appreciate just what a musical phrase costs. He was referring, of course, to the level of attentive care that he devoted to his playing, but also, I believe, reflecting on how a composer agonised over a particular phrase in his mind before wringing it out on to the page where it would be continually refined and moulded into shape until he pronounced himself satisfied with the result. I think that Curzon felt a strong sense of moral duty to repay that level of artistic commitment with playing that communicated a commensurate sense of the internal dramas that formed the music. As I believe Jacqueline du Pre once said, “You have to give, give, give of yourself until there’s nothing left”. To illustrate that point in a visual way, the box set includes a particularly cherishable DVD which collects all of the recitals that he gave for the BBC, the highlight of which is one of the great versions of Schubert’s final piano sonata, one of the masterpieces of the solo piano literature. To observe the pianist in performance is to witness a man utterly consumed in the moment and suffused with a radiant joy, eyes shining wildly and apparently lost to the world around him. It is a humbling experience which awes me to silence and reduces me to tears and, really, what more can a great composer ask of his interpreter?
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
Re: What are you listening to?
^^ wow Paul, that is an incredibly insightful and beautifully written post; I'd have to say one of the finest the Classical department here has seen... I only wished that it had a larger audience.
Of course, I'm speaking as a Curzon fan myself... I was turned on to his style back in 2009, when BBC Music Mag released a CD of Mozart Piano Concertos 21&23, remastered from the BBC Archives, with the BBC Symph and BBC Northern Symph respectively (track it down if you can, the performances weren't made for Decca). I felt there was a silkiness and fluency, yet at the same time almost a porcelain fragility about the performances which were wholly different from the only other interpretations I had at the time from Geza Anda.
From the set you own, I have:
both of which I find magnificent... he truly was a gifted performer.
Of course, I'm speaking as a Curzon fan myself... I was turned on to his style back in 2009, when BBC Music Mag released a CD of Mozart Piano Concertos 21&23, remastered from the BBC Archives, with the BBC Symph and BBC Northern Symph respectively (track it down if you can, the performances weren't made for Decca). I felt there was a silkiness and fluency, yet at the same time almost a porcelain fragility about the performances which were wholly different from the only other interpretations I had at the time from Geza Anda.
From the set you own, I have:
both of which I find magnificent... he truly was a gifted performer.
Re: What are you listening to?
Many thanks for your kind words, Jared. I really appreciate them. Curzon was a very special musician whose recordings I find profoundly rewarding. Those Brahms and Mozart concerto recordings are benchmark recordings, touched by wit and warmth and a humble sagacity. The way he attacks the notes in the outer movements is illuminating in how he conveys to the listener a subjective sense of emotional impact rather than anything approximating violence. What we hear is a crisp delineation of the leading edge of notes which strives to articulate as naturally as possible the musical passage under consideration. The breathtaking beauty of the inner adagios is achieved through his innate understanding of sustaining decay, the subtle application of which lends the musical passages their emotional weight - not so heavy as to blur the notated content and not so light as to dilute the music entirely - a precarious balancing act which is difficult to achieve, and in Curzon's hands, channels a sense of spiritual resonance to the listener, an internally realised assimilation of the musical passage which has just been performed.
Gryphon Diablo 300, dCS Rossini (with matching clock), Kharma Exquisite Mini, Ansuz C2, Finite Elemente Master Reference.
Re: What are you listening to?
^^ as usual, I agree with every word... could never have written any of it, though... ;-)
have any of you heard Nielsen's delightful little Wind Quintet?
it's utterly joyous... I have two versions, and it really is one of my favourite pieces by the composer.
have any of you heard Nielsen's delightful little Wind Quintet?
it's utterly joyous... I have two versions, and it really is one of my favourite pieces by the composer.