What are you listening two?

[cybot]

What's it like Mark? More of the same? Stunning cover. Reminds me of the groove walls of a record :) Sounds loud and angry!

Sorry for the delay in replying - only just saw your posting.

The album comprises music for a contemporary ballet - Woolf Works - with themes from Mrs Dalloway - Orlando - The Waves and comprises orchestral and instrumental pieces, including electronica, with narrated pasages.

The last track is a very beautiful extended piece opening with Woolf's moving suicide note, hypnotic and as melancholic as you might suspect.

Points of reference for me would be Richter's earlier Blue Notebooks and Fordlandia by Johannsson.

Mark

No worries Mark! Thanks for the info. Looks like I'll be getting it so.....on vinyl of course :)

[markof]

[mcq]

I've really enjoyed these two releases this year featuring the violinist Lina Tur Bonet, impassioned and thoughtful performances of beautiful, inventive and endlessly rewarding music. I look forward to hearing her recording of Biber's Rosary Sonatas.

[markof]

[mcq]

Here are the classical CDs which have given me the deepest, most profoundest joy this year.  I have tried to prune this list down, believe me, but I cannot.  Each of these CDs are remarkable and are testament to a truly wonderful year of recorded classical music in 2017.

Rameau: Pygmalion - Christophe Rousset w/Les Talons Lyriques (Aparté)
Couperin: Ariane consolée par Bacchus - Chrstophe Rousset & Les Talens Lyriques (Aparté)
Monteverdi: Madrigali Vols. 1 to 3 - Paul Agnew & Les Arts Florissants (Harmonia Mundi)
Cherubini & Plantade: Requiems pour Louis XVI et Marie-Antoinette (Alpha)

Various composers: Music for the 100 years war - The Binchois Consort & Andrew Kirkman (Hyperion)
Giaches de Wert: Divine Theatre - Stile Antico (Harmonia Mundi)
Jean Guyot: Te Deum laudamus  - Cinquecento (Hyperion)
Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame - Graindelavoix & Bjorn Schmelzer
Gesualdo: Terzo Libro di Madrigali - La Compagnia del Madrigale (Glossa)
Ribera: Magnificats & Motets -De Profundis & David Skinner (Hyperion)
John Taverner: Western Wind Mass - Andrew Parrot & Taverner Consort (Avie)
Alessandro Scarlatti: Missa defunctorum - Paolo da Col & Odhecation (Arcana)
Compère: Missa Galeazescha - Paolo da Col w/Odhecation (Arcana)
Various composers:The ear of the Huguenots - Paul van Nevel w/Huelgas Ensemble (DHM)

Various composers: Serpent & Fire - Anna Proaska & Giovanni Antonini w/Il Giardino Armonico (Alpha)
Various composers: Visions - Veronique Gens & Hervé Niquet w/Münchner Rundfunkorchester (Alpha)
Various composers: Agitata -Delphine Galou -Ottavio Dantone w/Accademia Bizantina (Alpha)
Rossini: Si, Si, Si - Opera Arias & Duets - Marie-Nicole Lemieux

Weinberg: Chamber Symphonies & Piano Quintet - Gidon Kremer & Kremerata Baltica (ECM)
Bartok: String Quartets - Heath Quartet (Harmonia Mundi)
Bloch, Dallapiccola & Ligeti: Suites & Sonatas for solo cello - Natale Clein ( Hyperion)
Grazyna Bacewicz: The String Quartets - Silesian Quartet (Chandos)
Elliot Carter: Late works - Aimard, Currie, Faust, Queyras, Knussen (Ondine)
Peter Maxwell Davies: The Last Island - Late Chamber Music - Hebrides Ensemble (Delphian)

Rachmaninov: Preghiera -Piano Trios - Kremer, Trifonov & Dirvanauskaité (DG)
Schubert: Fantasie & other piano duets - Andreas Staier & Alexander Melnikov (Harmonia Mundi)

Buxtehude, Hassler, Praetorious & Schneidemann: Organ music & Vocal works - Kei Koito & Il Canto di Orfeo (DHM)
Buxtehude: Seven Sonatas -Jonathan Cohen & Arcangelo (Alpha)
Carbonelli: Sonate da Camera - Bojan Cicic & The Illyria Consort (Delphian)
Dowland: Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares - Phantasm (Linn)
Telemann: Works for recorder - Giovanni Antonini w/Il Giardino Armonico (Alpha)
Telemann: Works for solo flute (transcribed for recorder) - Lorenzo Cavasanti (Arcana)
Various composers: Dresden - Ensemble Zefiro w/Alfredo Bernadini (Arcana)

[markof]

[mcq]

One of my favourite releases of last year.  Graceful, elegant, refined and deeply felt music that could easily have spilled from Corelli's pen.  Very highly recommended.

[mcq]

Another favourite release from last year.  The distinguished viol consort, Phantasm, released their latest recording dedicated to the complete consort music of Christopher Tye.  There is a studied refinement about the best 17th century English viol consort music which I find continually rewarding.  It is a deeply thoughtful, immaculately crafted and a uniquely cerebral pleasure which is beautifully realised here in these finely articulated performances from Phantasm.

[Diapason]

Loving the last few posts here, lots of recommendations that are right up my boulevard. I know it sometimes feels like posting into a vacuum on these threads, but I have to say I appreciate it. Thank you gentlemen!

[mcq]

My pleasure, Simon, and a belated Happy New Year to you.  

Listening this evening to two CDs of music by one of my personal touchstones, Claudio Monteverdi.    

First up was Eternal Monteverdi,  which centres upon the posthumously published Messa a 4 voci et salmi and interpolates this work with a selection of motets and sonatas from contemporaries of Monteverdi in a re-imagined Vespers setting.  The result sounds coherent and integrated and not at all like an artificial pastiche.  This is an exquisitely realised listening experience, tonally refulgent, aurally seductive yet retaining a devotional ascetism at its core.



Next up was The Mirror of Claudio Monteverdi, which takes a fresh look at the Missa in ilio tempore by presenting it within the context of works by Renaissance composers such as Giaches de Wert and Luca Marenzio.  The conductor is the very experienced Paul van Nevel who, together with his Huelgas Ensemble, has proved to be among the most consistently rewarding of guides to the Renaissance choral repertoire.  This is an emotionally gripping performance, beautifully structured and continually alert to the ever-shifting palette of emotional expression utilised by Monteverdi.