What are you listening to?

[Jared]

Good post Jared. I must confess that Britten's works are thin on the ground in my collection as he never really appeared on my horizon for some reason.

Thanks Fergus. Well, today is the first day of the Aldburgh festival which he founded, with a live performance of Peter Grimes on R3 this evening. This year is of course the 100th anniversary of his birth, which will be in November, so there will be plenty of opportunity to be exposed to his music for free, during the coming months. I certainly don't think everyone should 'like' his music; even in the UK, he is what could be described as a 'Marmite' composer.. he divides opinion like no other... his supporters think he's criminally underrated, his detractors think too much is spoken about him. Isn't that always the way?

I'm not making a value judgement here, I just hoped the above might be of a little interest...

[markof]

1985 vinyl release.

[Seán]

Dmitry Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5
Concertgebouw Orchestra,
Bernard Haitink - conducting.

This is a fabulous performance of the Fifth, it is full of power, delicacy and warmth, Haitink gets the very best out of the Dutch on this Decca recording from 1982.

[fergus]

Interesting....will look to see if I can hear that over on YouTube Mark just to get a flavour of it.

[fergus]

[fergus]

Good post Jared. I must confess that Britten's works are thin on the ground in my collection as he never really appeared on my horizon for some reason.

Thanks Fergus. Well, today is the first day of the Aldburgh festival which he founded, with a live performance of Peter Grimes on R3 this evening. This year is of course the 100th anniversary of his birth, which will be in November, so there will be plenty of opportunity to be exposed to his music for free, during the coming months. I certainly don't think everyone should 'like' his music; even in the UK, he is what could be described as a 'Marmite' composer.. he divides opinion like no other... his supporters think he's criminally underrated, his detractors think too much is spoken about him. Isn't that always the way?

I'm not making a value judgement here, I just hoped the above might be of a little interest...

Ok Jared, spurred on and intrigued by your unbiased post I decided to investigate a recent purchase but unplayed album in my collection....





Result: I was instantly captivated and won over by this music and it left me wanting to hear more!

[Jared]

^^ I'm delighted to read that Fergus...

not wanted to pour any cold water on proceedings, but you appear to have an LP of some of Britten's most accessible music there... not all of it will be as 'plain sailing' (if you can forgive the pun) but he is always worth a listen.

if you don't own his War Requiem, then his own version has never really been beaten, and would be THE CD to own of his, if you only ever intended to own one.

if you would like a disk of him as a performer (he was a fabulous pianist) then the Schubert disk of music for 2 pianos with Richter is also a very important disk to own...

[fergus]

^^ I'm delighted to read that Fergus...

not wanted to pour any cold water on proceedings, but you appear to have an LP of some of Britten's most accessible music there... not all of it will be as 'plain sailing' (if you can forgive the pun) but he is always worth a listen.

if you don't own his War Requiem, then his own version has never really been beaten, and would be THE CD to own of his, if you only ever intended to own one.

if you would like a disk of him as a performer (he was a fabulous pianist) then the Schubert disk of music for 2 pianos with Richter is also a very important disk to own...

Thank you for that Jared. I have one other unplayed LP in my collection of his music (just cannot remember what it is at the moment) but I will listen to it in the near future and I will also keep an ear to BBC Radio 3.

[Seán]

Dmitry Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5
USSR State Orchestra,
Evgeny Svetlanov - conducting.

[Seán]

Dmitry Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5
Gürzenich-Orchester Köln,
Dmitrij Kitajenko - conducting.