What are you listening to?

[Jared]

[Jose Echenique]

These partitas are glorious music. It´s strange that it took so long before the first recording appeared in 1994 with Tafelmusik on SONY. Now we have 3 more recordings: the Purcell Quartet, the Rare Fruits Council and the Musica Antiqua Köln. All are superb, but I have a special affection for the Rare Fruits version with Manfredo Kraemer. Reinhard Goebel brings his usual accuracy and formidable technique, and in spite of coming in 2 cds it sells for the price of one.

[Jose Echenique]

But Jared is right in playing some Britten. Let´s not forget that this year we will celebrate his Centenary on november 22nd, St. Cecilia´s Day!, how appropriate. Even though predictably most of action will focus on Verdi´s and Wagner´s bicentennials, we can surely expect some Britten recordings.
After Biber I will play his Peter Grimes with the great Jon Vickers. Britten didn´t like his performance, but that surely was because of his affection for Peter Pears. Vickers brutal, granitic Grimes couldn´t be more different from Pears´. But I absolutely love his performance, it´s something to rank with Callas´Norma or Nilsson´s Isolde, one of the finest operatic portrayals of the 20th Century.

[Jared]

^^ another interesting post Pepe... I am intending to spend a little time during 2013 improving my knowledge of Britten's works (thus far, I have only really skirted the edges).... if I don't post here this evening, it will be because I have invited a neighbour around to come and watch Derek Jarman's 'War Requiem' on surround sound...

I also have the above, Britten's original War Requiem, Cello Symphony & Sinfonia da Requiem, Cello Suites & Sonata and String Quartets lined up for my January considerations...

[Jose Echenique]

^^ another interesting post Pepe... I am intending to spend a little time during 2013 improving my knowledge of Britten's works (thus far, I have only really skirted the edges).... if I don't post here this evening, it will be because I have invited a neighbour around to come and watch Derek Jarman's 'War Requiem' on surround sound...

I also have the above, Britten's original War Requiem, Cello Symphony & Sinfonia da Requiem, Cello Suites & Sonata and String Quartets lined up for my January considerations...

And don´t forget the operas Jared. Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw and A Midsummer´s Night Dream are perhaps the only contemporary operas that have really entered the repertoire, that is, they are not occasional curiosities, but operas that are performed again and again by most important opera houses around the World like Tosca or La Bohéme.
And what about the marvelous Serenade for tenor and Horn. I have been fortunate to have heard live performances with Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Philip Langridge and Neil Mackie.

[Jared]

And don´t forget the operas Jared. Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw and A Midsummer´s Night Dream are perhaps the only contemporary operas that have really entered the repertoire, that is, they are not occasional curiosities, but operas that are performed again and again by most important opera houses around the World like Tosca or La Bohéme.
And what about the marvelous Serenade for tenor and Horn. I have been fortunate to have heard live performances with Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Philip Langridge and Neil Mackie.

the latter I already own:



I also enjoy this recording with IB...



the Operas, I will do visually at some stage in the future.... (although I have heard quite a bit of Peter Grimes in the past...)

[bombasticDarren]

Beethoven - String Quartet No.3 (Amadeus Quartet, Deutsche Grammophon)

how do you find that set as a whole Darren? I have the Alban Bergs and the Budapests....

I must have missed this post somehow :(

I have no qualms over these performances Jared. I haven't really developed the tools as yet to analyse a string quartet when compared to another. I can differentiate between orchestras and some soloists, and be critical, but not string quartets yet. I also have the Alban Berg Qt. cycle, along with the Takacs Qt. I like both those sets.

[bombasticDarren]

Beethoven - Symphony No.6 Pastoral (Roy Goodman, The Hanover Band, Nimbus)

[fergus]

Many years ago I played recorder (badly!) so I was always very interested in listening to recorded music for that instrument. Then I discovered the whole world of period performance and one of the people that I really liked playing back then was....





....so my initial exposure to Frans Bruggen was as an instrumentalist before he became a famous director/conductor which is interesting because I still go back to listen to him playing now and again.

[Jose Echenique]

Many years ago I played recorder (badly!) so I was always very interested in listening to recorded music for that instrument. Then I discovered the whole world of period performance and one of the people that I really liked playing back then was....





....so my initial exposure to Frans Bruggen was as an instrumentalist before he became a famous director/conductor which is interesting because I still go back to listen to him playing now and again.

I also discovered Frans Brüggen first as a recorder player and flautist long before he became a conductor. In fact the very first recording I bought with him as a soloist had Corelli´s La Folia played on the recorder. It was, and still is, an amazing performance, with Gustav Leonhardt at the harpsichord and Anner Bylsma at the cello. Brüggen also contributed in dozens of Bach Cantatas as flautist with the Leonhardt Consort. He is one amazing performer, and as a conductor he is the period instrument equal of Rafael Kubelik or Carlo Maria Giulini. What a guy!!!!