Tír Na HiFi

A joyful, charming and lovely performance of Smetana´s youthful comedy. Belohlavek has been working hard on the excellent BBC Symphony to make it a sort of branch of the Czech Philharmonic. Like in the same team´s recent Martinu symphony cycle, the BBCSO sounds throughly idiomatic, and most important, they are so well rehearsed that it seems they have been playing Czech music all their life.
The young Czech cast is very good, but it´s the ensemble work that is admirable.

Schubert - Symphony No.5 (Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Naive)

Beethoven - Symphony No.1 (Monica Huggett, The Hanover Band, Nimbus)

I have just started to listen to this and will continue with it over the course of the day....

fergus wrote:I have just started to listen to this and will continue with it over the course of the day....

The Epiphany Mass? That's another new one on me.

my reason for not having posted much in this thread over the past week or so is because quite simply, I have been engrossed in two box sets, which have some similarities. I have been finishing off my brief survey of Mozart's SQs and becoming more acquainted with Schubert's PSs, the first works in my 2013 pledge:



of course, the later Mozart SQs, like the later Schubert PSs are oft recorded and considered as masterpieces of their respective genres, but both these box sets encompass the full body of works, including the efforts of their teenage years... as a consequence, the full surveys are very interesting, in terms of how we see the mediums of SQ and PS develop as they mature, culminating in the masterful Prussians and D960 respectively.... for me, this has once again been a very rewarding experience.

Seán wrote:

fergus wrote:I have just started to listen to this and will continue with it over the course of the day....

The Epiphany Mass? That's another new one on me.

Great record! They even include part of a sermon by Luther, but only about 5 minutes' worth, not the actual two hours! It's a McCreesh reconstruction, with all the music that might have been played in an Epiphany service during Bach's tenure at Leipzig, including a cantata, some organ music and a Lutheran Mass and various bits of music by other composers and a certain amount of bell-ringing in the background. Very atmospheric!

Ciaran wrote: Great record! They even include part of a sermon by Luther, but only about 5 minutes' worth, not the actual two hours! It's a McCreesh reconstruction, with all the music that might have been played in an Epiphany service during Bach's tenure at Leipzig, including a cantata, some organ music and a Lutheran Mass and various bits of music by other composers and a certain amount of bell-ringing in the background. Very atmospheric!

I remember reading somewhere that the bold Johann Sebastian would frequently leave during these prolonged sermons and take himself off to the local coffee house to partake of some beverage a little stiffer than coffee and would then return before the conclusion of the sermon!

Naples also celebrates the Epiphany. I hope La Befana brought you many toys :-)

Beethoven - Symphony No.2 (Monica Huggett, The Hanover Band, Nimbus)