What are you listening to?

[Diapason]

What, pray tell, has brought about this misfortune?

Ah, I just mean an organist with a regular Sunday gig. I haven't hung up my organ shoes just yet!

Some lovely stuff on Gloria this morning as usual, Sean. Delighted that you're enjoying it.

[Diapason]

If I were still an organist, it would be wall-to-wall 'Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland' this morning. There are just so many wonderful settings of that chorale.

What, pray tell, has brought about this misfortune?

I would say that a small child would have a lot to do with that LOL!

Missed this post. Not inaccurate!!

[fergus]

Fergus; I really love your enthusiasm for the Bach cantatas.

Yes indeed, Jared, I love all things Bach as you know and these works are so well crafted and accessible as I have said that they are no burden on the ear. I also like the variety in the music and the sometimes unusual mix of a particular instrument with a voice. He was such a genius I think.
After many years of listening to the music of JS Bach the best analogy that I can draw is that his music is like a quickly flowing, constantly moving, gurgling stream running downhill at a fair pace on a summer’s day. As the water dances and splashes on the rocks it reflects the sunlight that falls on it and flashes of illumination are constantly shot forth. Occasionally it encounters a pool on its journey where it becomes deep and dark and assumes a very profound nature but never brooding, only contemplative and never for long. It always emerges with a positive aspect and it is always anxious to skip along on its joyful way. The onlooker who pauses on it banks to contemplate the scene for any period of time is always the richer for the experience.
All of this can be found in the musical world of the cantatas.

[Diapason]

Nicely put!

[fergus]

Karajan's Mozart Requiem has long been critically acclaimed JB, and it will continue to be so. This is a subject and debate we have talked about a lot over the past few years, so I will say no more, but I think we are mostly in agreeance that having at least one of the finest examples of HIP and traditional performance of large scale choral works is a good thing, for a rounded appreciation of the piece.

A good philosophy; different treatments of any given work certainly do lend to greater questioning and hopefully understanding of a work.

[fergus]

He is now watching episode 509 of Dr Who LOL!!! I think that Darren is just taking a break for a while and I too hope that all is well with him.

You miss him being around though!

On the night I returned to the forum (and therefore when I caught up on posts such as this) I had just finished watching an episode of Doctor Who. It was called Destiny of the Daleks - Episode 4. In transmission order it is recognised as episode number 509.

True story.

SCARY!

[Jared]

^^ beautiful post Fergus, it's a gift to be able to see music in those terms, brought about no doubt by a very intimate, long-term relationship with a particular composer.. in one sense, I would say I envy you, and in another I know that those sensations have been earned by you, in terms of the long hours you have spent, and the quality of active listening you have put in... I take my hat off to you.



I have been enjoying becoming re-acquainted with Dvorak's Piano Trio op.90 'Dumky' this weekend... I work I love very much, here sensitively performed by Frankl, Pauk & Kirshbaum in 1992.

[fergus]

^^ beautiful post Fergus, it's a gift to be able to see music in those terms, brought about no doubt by a very intimate, long-term relationship with a particular composer.. in one sense, I would say I envy you, and in another I know that those sensations have been earned by you, in terms of the long hours you have spent, and the quality of active listening you have put in... I take my hat off to you.

Thank you my friend....some would say that it is the product of a wasted youth and now middle age LOL!!! However, I know that I have only scratched the surface and that there are many more out there with much more and highly tuned knowledge and appreciation, some of whom are on these boards; but I have always enjoyed my music and I seem to have a particular way of expressing it that people sometimes like! Sometimes enthusiasm rubs off so hopefully someone reading these posts who may be slightly reticent may decide to take part and join in.

[Jared]

Brahms:
Symph No.1
Ilan Volkov
BBC Scottish Symph

This isn't Brahms which stirs the blood I'm afraid... it's OK, but nothing exceptional.

Even with the slightly smaller forces of the Scottish, it still sounds a little on the muddy side, not helped by only average recording quality, which is a shame, being as it is a studio and not a live one. The climatictic momentum of the opening movement really is taken at a slightly too pedestrian pace for me... Brahms for a Sunday afternoon, quite literally.

I've heard worse, but I've also heard better...

[Diapason]

All this talk of Nun Komm. I haven't listened to this in ages. I no longer admire it the way I used to, but it'll have to do cos the little one's just gone asleep on my chest!