Classical ♫ Music only | Some you listen now or recently, some you love...

[Titurel]

I am too!
I assume you know/have this wonderful 2-CD full/complete album by Seiji OZAWA and Boston SO recorded in Ozawa's most active and exciting era;
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This CD by Charles DUTOIT & Montreal SO is also nice;
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I also very much love Schubert's "Rosamunde", especially this wonderful complete performance and recording by Kurt MASUR with Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra inviting Elly AMELING;
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I've heard the Ozawa and own a copy of the Dutoit/Montreal. I've also got a sweet spot for the Levi/Cleveland excerpts. I'm also a big fan of Masur.

 

[theREALdotnet]

This is the first piece of classical music I fell in love with. This is the iteration I first heard.

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That cover artwork is very misleading

 

[Andolink]

Undemanding but, nevertheless, charming and well crafted sonatas by a little known composer. Very well peformed and recorded. (available via Bandcamp) - -

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799): Sonatas for violin & fortepiano, Op. 1b (1781)

 

[theREALdotnet]

Undemanding but, nevertheless, charming and well crafted sonatas by a little known composer. Very well peformed and recorded. (available via Bandcamp) - -

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799): Sonatas for violin & fortepiano, Op. 1b (1781)


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Ah, the "Black Mozart", I'm going to check this out. I love myself some nice violin and fortepiano.

Also this:

 

[Pretorious]

Ah, the "Black Mozart", I'm going to check this out. I love myself some nice violin and fortepiano.

Also this:
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I had no idea Bilson recorded some of these violin sonatas. I adore him. Will have to give this a listen; thanks for sharing! Same with Chevalier: his music is always good.

 

[Rednaxela]

 

[Robin L]

Around Christmas time I want to hear Bach's Goldberg Variations and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. Can't explain. Both are pure examples of "absolute music", both are variation sets with underlying structures. Beethoven's set clearly is influenced by Bach's.

Today I heard Angela Hewitt's 2015 set for the first time while baking cookies - one of the best piano versions with a real sense of the dance rhythms that the variations possess:

Now I am listening to Mieczyslaw Horszowski's Vox recording of the Diabelli Variation, one I heard many times when I was a teenager:

Thanks to Tidal I will be hearing a lot more recordings of these pieces during these upcoming two weeks.

 

[KikoKentaurus]

Spoiler: Merry Christmas!

 

[Titurel]

This cut (and the entire CD of Handel arias) is a huge amount of fun and excellent material for fine-tuning frequency response in the critical midrange. When Villazon's "Ah" truly sounds like "Ah" (not Uh) and is without a trace of boxiness, your mid-range is dialed in.

 

[Daverz]

This is the first piece of classical music I fell in love with. This is the iteration I first heard.

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When this LP was issued, back in 1957, what we now know as the New York Philharmonic was called the Philharmonic - Symphony Orchestra of New York. Leonard Bernstein would replace Dimitri Mitropoulos the following year. This was the way Berlioz' most famous work was regarded at the time, full-blooded romanticism, hell-bent for leather. I first heard this back in 1968 when my homeroom teacher happily loaned it to me in the 7th grade. I suppose while other young guys were embracing louder and rowdier Rock I was embracing louder and rowdier "Classical" music.

In any case, I eventually bought the odyssey reprint of this recording and like so many other budget reissues of the 1970s, one of the sides was markedly off-center. Going through the listings in Tidal last week I found a 24/192 remaster from 2022, excellent sound. Either the remastering engineers or the years of my ears have erased the low-level hiss from the recording. Of course, the issues with speed consistency are now gone. I know there are many other recordings of this warhorse - one could say that Colin Davis started the trend of viewing this sort of "Classical" music through the lens of what we now know as "Historically Informed Performance Practice", approaching this music as closer to Haydn than to Liszt. But this performance for me will always be the way this music was intended to be heard, as unapologetic romanticism.

Dimitri Mitropoulos - Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 (2022 Remastered Version)

Listen to Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14 (2022 Remastered Version) on TIDAL

listen.tidal.com

That Odyssey LP was a favorite of mine.

Sony's latest remastering from the master tapes (also from 2022) is in the big Mitropoulos box and can also be downloaded or streamed as an individual issue. For example:

https://www.qobuz.com/us-en/album/b...tique-op-14-dimitri-mitropoulos/kk2pkvyhzhh0b

I'd also highly recommend his Pathetique with New York:

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique" (2022 Remastered Version), Dimitri Mitropoulos - Qobuz

Listen to unlimited streaming or download Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 "Pathétique" (2022 Remastered Version) by Dimitri Mitropoulos in Hi-Res quality on Qobuz. Subscriptions from $10.83/month.

www.qobuz.com

 

[Andolink]

Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) : Violin Sonatas, Op. 4
Igor Ruhadze, Baroque violin
Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya, harpsichord

 

[Tomino]

I've recently come across the cycle of Mozart piano concertos by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet on Chandos. There are plenty of good versions, but I strongly recommend these. The sound is great, with a wide soundstage, and Bavouzet's performance is both understated and compelling. Also included in the cycle are all of the overtures to Mozart's many operas, most of which I had never heard of.

 

[Power Pop 23]

FYI,

Vast Trove of Arnold Schoenberg’s Music Is Destroyed in Fire

An estimated 100,000 scores by Schoenberg, the groundbreaking 20th-century composer, were destroyed when the publishing company his heirs founded burned down.

www.nytimes.com

Apparently there are digital copies of the music but perhaps not the memorabilia.

 

[Joe Smith]

FYI,

Vast Trove of Arnold Schoenberg’s Music Is Destroyed in Fire

An estimated 100,000 scores by Schoenberg, the groundbreaking 20th-century composer, were destroyed when the publishing company his heirs founded burned down.

www.nytimes.com

Apparently there are digital copies of the music but perhaps not the memorabilia.

Very sad news...I am sure the fires will generate many, many difficult losses of this type. It's going to take a long, long time or LA and its people to recover from this...and the fires will, of course, continue to be more possible every year due to climate change affecting their weather, which was a knife-edge thing to begin with...

 

[Power Pop 23]

Now, the title of 'Verklarte Nacht' (Transfigured Night) for Mr. Schoenberg's opus number four composition for string sextet reminds me of the inferno last week.

 

[Andolink]

Affetti Napoletani. 18th Century Neapolitan Music
Estrovagante Ensemble/Riccardo Doni
rec. 2023, Palazzo Cigola Martinoni, Cigole, Italy
Da Vinci Classics