Tír Na HiFi

fergus wrote:

Seán wrote:I have rediscovered the Rhenish and this is very good indeed:


Robert Schumann
Symphony No. 3
Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich
David Zinman conducting.
Rich textures in a very fine performance of Schumann's finest symphony. Recommended.

Good for you!

Thanks Fergus. I am now listening to his Fourth which is probably the easiest to listen to.

Who knows, Sean, one day you might have a similar epiphany with RVW. :P

Diapason wrote:Who knows, Sean, one day you might have a similar epiphany with RVW. :P

Ah there is substance, depth and beauty in Brahm's music. One never knows though, If my tinnitus gets bad enough perhaps I might fall in love with Yawn.

Seán wrote:
Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 2
Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich
David Zinman conducting.


This is a splendid performance, I have had it on repeat play over the weekend.

I must get around to investigating Zinman's Brahms at some stage.

Diapason wrote:Who knows, Sean, one day you might have a similar epiphany with RVW. :P

There is No Hope and Bob Hope and I think that Seán liking RVW would fall into either of those two categories LOL!!

These interpretations and performances are filled with such vibrancy and drive that it is a delight to experience how they bring new life to these works. The playing is wonderful and the tempi are brisk and sometimes very brisk but this drives these electrifying performances . This is a very exciting set and very warmly recommended.

Finishing up with Dvorak's Piano Quartets played by Domus....

More Dvorak chamber music....

Elgar: Symphony No.1....

First listen tonight to Teodor Currentzis' take on Cosi fan tutte.  I loved his Le Nozze di Figaro last year and was looking forward to hearing his thoughts on this work.  Cosi fan tutte is a work that has received its share of criticism on account of the libretto's inherent absurdities but, like all farces, there are dark undercurrents rippling underneath the surface and this opera shows its true colours, I believe, when this darkness is exposed rather than trivialised as a light, frothy ensemble comedy of manners (which it most certainly is not).  Perhaps the key character is the scheming Don Alfonso who openly mocks the innocence of the young lovers.  The plan he concocts, purportedly to test the fidelity of Fiordiligi and Dorabella and to reassure Ferrando and Guglielmo of their lovers' devotion, ultimately robs them of their innocence.  The real tragedy of Le Nozze di Figaro is that Susanna and Figaro are doomed to grow into, respectively, the sad, unfulfilled Countess and the insecure, womanising, pompous Count, and so too will the young innocents in Cosi grow up in this way.  Both operas gradually become damning indictments of a cynical and soulless contemporary society and this is where DaPonte's and Mozart's genius lies.  Currentzis' interpretation of this masterpiece bristles with breathless energy and a sense of pace and drama that befits the work and yet there is no sense of the music being unduly rushed but simply a sense of onward momentum that is as mercilessly savage as the loss of innocence that the young lovers endure.  I look forward to his take on Don Giovanni which is promised this autumn.