Tír Na HiFi

Mahler: Symphony No. 6....

Listening tonight to Lully's masterpiece, Atys, conducted by Hugo Reyne in an enrapturing, heart-gladdening performance that represents the first serious challenge in over 20 years to William Christie's benchmark recording.  Unlike Christie's version,this new recording boasts no star performers but shares with its illustrious predecessor a wonderful sense of freshness and dramatic panache that communicates beautifully the fizzing effervescence and tender lyricism of Lully's timeless music.  

mcq wrote:Listening tonight to Lully's masterpiece, Atys, conducted by Hugo Reyne in an enrapturing, heart-gladdening performance that represents the first serious challenge in over 20 years to William Christie's benchmark recording.  Unlike Christie's version,this new recording boasts no star performers but shares with its illustrious predecessor a wonderful sense of freshness and dramatic panache that communicates beautifully the fizzing effervescence and tender lyricism of Lully's timeless music.  

I like Lully's music and I have the Christie version but have not listened to it in a long time. You seem to have enjoyed that Reyne version Paul!

markof wrote:

Another one that I have not listened to in a long time. Did you enjoy it Mark?

fergus wrote:

mcq wrote:Listening tonight to Lully's masterpiece, Atys, conducted by Hugo Reyne in an enrapturing, heart-gladdening performance that represents the first serious challenge in over 20 years to William Christie's benchmark recording.  Unlike Christie's version,this new recording boasts no star performers but shares with its illustrious predecessor a wonderful sense of freshness and dramatic panache that communicates beautifully the fizzing effervescence and tender lyricism of Lully's timeless music.  

I like Lully's music and I have the Christie version but have not listened to it in a long time. You seem to have enjoyed that Reyne version Paul!

Yes, it's a beautiful recording, Fergus, but there is just something so life-affirming about French baroque music in general.  I simply adore it.  The best of it - Charpentier, Rameau, Couperin, Marais, Lully - is simply extraordinary and it seems hard to credit the fact that it was once discredited as light, frothy, insubstantial fare that wax not fit for comparison with what was happening at the same time in Germany and Italy.  The textural variety, melodic invention and, above all, the sheer emotional sweep of the music is just breathaking.  We really owe William Christie in particular a great debt for his tireless promotion of this great music throughout his extraordinary career.  Last week I was also enjoying another recent purchase, a wonderful recording of Rameau's neglected Les Fêtes de Polymnie with the great Veronique Gens on imperious form.

mcq wrote:
Yes, it's a beautiful recording, Fergus, but there is just something so life-affirming about French baroque music in general.  I simply adore it.  The best of it - Charpentier, Rameau, Couperin, Marais, Lully - is simply extraordinary and it seems hard to credit the fact that it was once discredited as light, frothy, insubstantial fare that wax not fit for comparison with what was happening at the same time in Germany and Italy.  The textural variety, melodic invention and, above all, the sheer emotional sweep of the music is just breathaking.  We really owe William Christie in particular a great debt for his tireless promotion of this great music throughout his extraordinary career.  Last week I was also enjoying another recent purchase, a wonderful recording of Rameau's neglected Les Fêtes de Polymnie with the great Veronique Gens on imperious form.

I share your feelings for French Baroque music I must say; I love the musical language and textures which have a unique flavour of their own.

Beethoven: Fidelio....Fricsay....





....wonderful!

Listening to the great Ivo Pogorelich tonight in repertoire from Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart and Bach.  All of these discs are present in the superlative Complete Recordings box that was issued by DG earlier this year and which I cannot recommend too highly.  A prodigiously gifted musician whose recorded work is consistently rewarding for its thought-provoking insights into the music, where virtuosic flash is dismissed in favour of a more contemplative mien.  It is a great shame that he has abandoned the recording studio.  His live performances divide people but the recordings available on YouTube are, to my mind, endlessly fascinating and are testament to the questing spirit of a true maverick.  I was privileged to attend his concert at the NCH in 2010 which lingers in the memory as my single greatest concert-going experience.  (Especially the performance of Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit which he explored and interrogated at length for 40 minutes that bordered on the transcendental.)  One day these concerts will be documented more fully and re-evaluated at length with more sympathetic listening ears.  A remarkable artist.

fergus wrote:Beethoven: Fidelio....Fricsay....





....wonderful!

But of course, some like Klemperer´s better, but I take Leonie Rysanek any day as Fidelio over Christa Ludwig. Fricsay´s conducting is almost HIP. First ever DG stereo recording still sounding super after almost 60 years.