For Your Listening Pleasure: Recent Episodes
Pierre
Daily (or so) podcast of Classical music from my personal collection and the home of "I Think You Will Love This Music Too". No intros, no voice-overs, just the music, baby! Podcasts are commented in English and French on our blog at the below link. We binge Beethoven every Monday, and until Jun e 30, we continue highlighting programs from the past 10 years of our Tuesday series.
"Szell / Wagner, The Cleveland Orchestra – Great Orchestra Highlights From The Ring" From June 2019 - Before George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones, George Lucas’ Star Wars, and Tolkien’s Middle Earth chronicles, Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen represented the pinnacle in literary or performance arts at creating an entire mythology. This tetralogy of operas is based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied. The composer termed the cycle a "Bühnenfestspiel" (stage festival play), structured in three days preceded by a Vorabend ("preliminary evening"). REad our original post @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2019/06/szell-wagner-cleveland-orchestra-great.html [VR-51]
"Guitar Selections, Once Upon the Internet" From Oct 2018 - This playlist is a series of tracks downloaded mainly off the old MP3.COM between 2001 and 2003. They feature three guitarists. Read the original post @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2018/10/guitar-selections-once-upon-internet.html [OUTI-62]
"Felix Mendelssohn on MP3.COM" From Jan 2015 - A pair of chamber works: a string quartet and a song without words (more about that on our teaser below) set for cello and piano.. From his piano works, a pair of virtuoso pieces, including his variations sérieuses, which compares favorably to his friend Schuman's symphonic variations. Finally, a piece for piano four hands, which he may (or not) have played with his sister. Read our original post @ https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/felix-mendelssohn-on-mp3-com.78015/#post-2288198 [OUTI-33]
"Four Bach Keyboard Suite" From Oct 2017 - Today I dig through some old MP3.COM downloads for a Once Upon the Internet playlist o four keyboard suites by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach composed suites, partitas and overtures in the baroque dance suite format for solo instruments such as harpsichord, lute, violin, cello and flute, and for orchestra. Read the full post @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2017/10/four-bach-keyboard-suites.html [OUTI-58]
Liszt Piano Works on MP3.COM" From Dec 2014, We all know the story about Liszt attending a concert by Paganini, and thus vowing to become his musical equal as a pianist - Liszt was viewed by his contemporaries as the greatest virtuoso of his time and in the 1840s he was considered by some to be perhaps the greatest pianist of all time, period. Read the full post @ https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/franz-liszt-on-mp3-com.78004/#post-2288187 [OUTI-32]
"The Kairos Quartet" From Sept 2016, According to their website the Kairos Quartet, established in 1993, has been the quartet-in-residence at Central Washington University since 1998. "Kairos" is a Greek word for non-chronological time, those special moments when a child is at play or artists are absorbed in their work, when time seems suspended. Read the full post @ https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/the-kairos-quartet.78791/#post-2288974 [OUTI-50]
"Some Vivaldi Concertos" From Nov 2019, The first four concertos come from Vivaldi's opus 4 (1712-1713) known as La stravanganza ("The Extravagance"). The set was first published in 1716 and was dedicated to a Venetian nobleman Signor Vettor Delfino. All of the concertos were scored for solo violin, strings, and basso continuo - what is perhaps most extraordinary about "La stravaganza" is Vivaldi's remarkable inventiveness within a defined framework of instrumental and harmonic forces. These concertos pre-date by 10 years his more famous Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest Between Harmony and Invention") which contain - of course - the four seasons. Read the complete post @ https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/some-vivaldi-concertos.77588/#post-2287771 [OUTI-20]
"Y for (Le Roi)d) Ys - Acts 2 & 3" The lost city of Ys (also spelled Is or Kêr-Is in Breton, and Ville d'Ys in French), is a mythical city that was built on the coast of Brittany and later swallowed by the ocean. According to some versions of the legend, Ys was built below sea level by Gradlon, King of Cornouaille, upon the request of his daughter Dahut, who loved the sea. To protect Ys from inundation, a dike was built with a gate that was opened for ships during low tide. The one key that opened the gate was held by the king. Details @ https://archive.org/details/otf-51b
"Y for (Le Roi)d) Ys - Act 1" The lost city of Ys (also spelled Is or Kêr-Is in Breton, and Ville d'Ys in French), is a mythical city that was built on the coast of Brittany and later swallowed by the ocean. According to some versions of the legend, Ys was built below sea level by Gradlon, King of Cornouaille, upon the request of his daughter Dahut, who loved the sea. To protect Ys from inundation, a dike was built with a gate that was opened for ships during low tide. The one key that opened the gate was held by the king. Details @ https://archive.org/details/otf-51b
“Tchaikovsky / Igor Markevitch, London Symphony Orchestra – Manfred” Tchaikovsky's Manfred is a symphony in four scenes after Byron's Manfred: A Dramatic Poem (1817), composed and orchestrated between May and September 1885. The symphony was performed for the first time on 11/23 March 1886 in Moscow, at the eleventh symphony concert of the Russian Musical Society (dedicated to the memory of Nikolay Rubinstein), conducted by Max Erdmannsdörfer. Details @ https://archive.org/details/LSOMarkevitchTchaikovskyManfred
"In Memoriam André Previn (1929-2019)" From my vinyl collection, I chose to share this 1977 Previn/LSO recording of the “complete” incidental music Mendelssohn wrote for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, complete with his youthful overtire (op. 21) and seminal tracks including the brisk scherzo and the oft-heard Wedding March.. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01amidsummernightsdreamovertu
"Beethoven: Symphonies nos. 4 & 6" Today’s podcastupdate revisits this 2011 musings on the complete Beethoven symphony cycles I own. Since this post, I have acquitted two more, and luckily both are available for download off YouTube. They are the legendary Karajan 1963 cycle with the Berlin Phlharmonic and the 1975-80 recordings by Herbert Blomstedt and the Staatskapelle Dresden. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wo-o-11816
Today’s A la Carte podcast extends a Tuesday post originally issued on April 9, 2019, featuring Ernest Ansermet and his Orchestre de la Suisse Romande performing Bach. Read our commentary on November 25 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast399-Playlist
“Christopher Hogwood (1941 – 2014)” In November, we remember... Christopher Hogwood, mover and shaker in the Historically Informed Performance movement, specialist of baroque repertoire. Works of J.S. Bach and Pergolesi. Read our commentary on November 6 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast346-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #346 - 6 Nov 2020)
"Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cécile" Monsignor Richard J. Schuler (1920-2007) was pastor of St. Agnes Church for thirty-two years (1969-2001). He held a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music (1950) and in 1954, he spent a year of study of renaissance music manuscripts at the Vatican Library on a Fulbright scholarship, after which he taught music and theology at the College of Saint Thomas for fifteen years. He received a doctorate in musicology from the University of Minnesota in 1963. Details @ https://archive.org/details/otf-38a-beethoven-at-st.-agnes
“Beethoven: Complete Piano Trios (Part 3)” The piano trio existed, in other guises, long before Ludwig van Beethoven got his hands on it. But he was the composer who would expand the genre beyond all recognition, using his relentless creativity to exploit the piano trio to its full potential.. Details @ https://archive.org/details/4-01-piano-trio-in-b-flat-major-op.
"X for Xeerxes (Acts 2 & 3)" The opera is set in Persia about 470 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia. On hearing a beautiful voice singing in the garden King Serse, naturally, falls in love. The fact that he is already engaged, and that the singer is actually in love with his brother, are completely irrelevant. He will simply banish his brother, and make the girl’s father an offer he could never refuse. With a plan as stable as his one for the bridge of boats across the Hellespont, Serse never imagines that he will fail. Details @ https://archive.org/details/serse-hwv-40-acts-2-3
"X for Xeerxes (Act 1)" The opera is set in Persia about 470 BC and is very loosely based upon Xerxes I of Persia. On hearing a beautiful voice singing in the garden King Serse, naturally, falls in love. The fact that he is already engaged, and that the singer is actually in love with his brother, are completely irrelevant. He will simply banish his brother, and make the girl’s father an offer he could never refuse. With a plan as stable as his one for the bridge of boats across the Hellespont, Serse never imagines that he will fail. Details @ https://archive.org/details/serse-hwv-40-acts-2-3
This week's Blog and Podcast picks up on a thread we started as part of Project 366 – montages featuring conductors who have more than one string up their bow. In this case, conductor and composer Jean Martinon. Read our commentary on November 18 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast398-Playlist
"In Memoriam -Radu Lupu (1945 – 2022)" When it comes to piano concertos, no two composers wrote more compatible concertos than Grieg and Schumann. Both are in A minor, both are in three movements, and both are ecstatically lyric, tenderly romantic, and amazingly virtuosic. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2012/01/montage-37-grieg-schumann.html. Details @ https://ia601507.us.archive.org/32/items/Pcast037Playlist/pcast037%20Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 37 - January 6, 2012)
"David Zinman Conducts Richard Strauss" Excerpts from Zinman's 7 CD box set with Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich of Strauss' complete Orchestral Works, three selections including Aus Italien and Also Sprach Zarathustra. Details @ https://archive.org/details/c2c-46 [Cover2Cover#46]
Live on CBS, November 14, 1954. Leonard Bernstein and the Symphony of the Air. put together a program about the genesis of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony using sketches discarded by the composer. The scholarly nature of this material could have been impossibly bookish and was something of a gamble for the mass medium of television. Bernstein, however, made the subject seem vivid and vital through his clear, unprententious writing and clever metaphors.. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wo-o-111114
"Britten: War Requiem" Our November “In Memoriam” series of tribute montages continues with a performance of Britten’s War Requiem, in memory of the victims of the World Wars. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2014/11/this-day-in-music-history-14-november.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast173Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #173 - 14 Nov 2014)
"Lelio, Ou Le Retour A La Vie," Berlioz achieved a great success with Lélio, ou Le Retour à la vie, composed as a sequel to his Symphonie fantastique. A semi-theatrical work combining music and monologues to express the idea of an artist’s return to life, love and creative activity after a profound traumatic experience, it links together six separate compositions which reflect Berlioz’s most passionate concerns; friendship, love, Shakespeare, and the healing power of music. Details @ https://archive.org/details/16LelioOuLeRetourALaVieOp.
“Marie-Claire Alain (1926-2013)” Marie-Claire Alain is the youngest child in a family of distinguished musicians. Her father, Albert Alain (1880-1971), a composer and amateur organ builder, had been a pupil of Alexandre Guilmant, Louis Vierne and Gabriel Fauré. Her sister Odile was a promising soprano and pianist who lost her life early in a mountaineering accident; her older brother, Olivier Alain, was a composer, pianist, and musicologist. Her oldest brother was the renowned Jehan Alain, a composer and organist whose teachers included Marcel Dupré, Paul Dukas, and Jean Roger-Ducasse. He numbered Olivier Messiaen and Francis Poulenc among his closest friends and his works for organ - Litanies, in particular - established him as one of the brightest stars among rising French composers in the decade before his battlefield death in 1940, at 29. A twin sense of loss and inheritance informed her studies and career. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2016/05/marie-claire-alain-1926-2013.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast221-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #221 - 13 May 2016)
“Beethoven: Complete Piano Trios (Part 2)” The piano trio existed, in other guises, long before Ludwig van Beethoven got his hands on it. But he was the composer who would expand the genre beyond all recognition, using his relentless creativity to exploit the piano trio to its full potential.. Details @ https://archive.org/details/4-01-piano-trio-in-b-flat-major-op.
"W for Wunder (der Heliane) - Act 3" Heliane is a work that has its share of ”problems” shall we say – many of which have to do with the plot, some of the plot devices and the complexity of coming up with a stage production that can deliver those elements to an audience. One thing we must say, however, is that music isn’t one of the problems of this work. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2
"W for Wunder (der Heliane) - Act 2" Heliane is a work that has its share of ”problems” shall we say – many of which have to do with the plot, some of the plot devices and the complexity of coming up with a stage production that can deliver those elements to an audience. One thing we must say, however, is that music isn’t one of the problems of this work. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2
"W for Wunder (der Heliane) - Act 1" Heliane is a work that has its share of ”problems” shall we say – many of which have to do with the plot, some of the plot devices and the complexity of coming up with a stage production that can deliver those elements to an audience. One thing we must say, however, is that music isn’t one of the problems of this work. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2
“L'Heure Espagnole,” Ravel’s vocal output is surprisingly diverse – from settings of old Greek songs to a pair of short, one-act operas. L'heure espagnole is a one of those, best described as a musical comedy to a French libretto by Franc-Nohain, based on his 'comédie-bouffe' of the same name first staged in 1904. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Track101
"Sergio Fiorentino (1927 –1998)" Hailed by critics for his unusual technical and musical endowments, Sergio Fiorentino showed his exceptional talent at an early age; he was granted a scholarship by the Italian Government at age 11 to study at the Conservatorio "San Pietro a Majella" under Luigi Finizio and Paolo Denza, earning his diploma in 1946. Details @ https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/sergio-fiorentino-1927-%E2%80%931998.77639/#post-2287822
“Beethoven: Complete Piano Trios (Part 1)” The piano trio existed, in other guises, long before Ludwig van Beethoven got his hands on it. But he was the composer who would expand the genre beyond all recognition, using his relentless creativity to exploit the piano trio to its full potential.. Details @ https://archive.org/details/4-01-piano-trio-in-b-flat-major-op.
There is a subset of the Point Classics catalog which credits performers who have never been seen or heard in a live performance. The most prolific producer of such performances was Alfred Scholz. Read our commentary on October 28 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast397-Playlist
A trio of concertos for one and two pianos featuring Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu. In 1776, Mozart composed three piano concertos, one of which was the Concerto in F for Three Pianos and Orchestra ( his no. 7, K. 242). The concerto is often nicknamed "Lodron" because it was commissioned by Countess Antonia Lodron to be played with her two daughters Aloysia and Giuseppa. He originally finished it in February 1776 for three pianos; however, when he eventually revised it for himself and another pianist in 1780 in Salzburg, he rearranged it for two pianos, and that is how the piece is performed here. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2015/08/radu-lupu-murray-perahia-mozart.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast207-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcasy #207 - 07 Aug, 2015)
“Brautigam & Beethoven” Dutch pianist Ronald Brautigam is not necessarily a household name, but as his recordings on the BIS label multiply, he very well should be. Ii’s not Brautigam’s enviable technical polish that sets him apart from many of his colleagues, nor his lofty musical grasp. It is his individuality. He has a searching musical intelligence, a disarming self-effacement before the score, and an astonishing conscientiousness that, in combination, make him sound like no one else.
Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2012/05/montage-56-brautigam-beethoven.html. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast056Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #56 - 25 May, 2012)
"V for Voix (humaine)" La Voix was originally a one-woman play by Jean Cocteau – the same Cocteau who befriended the cohort of French modern composers known today as Les Six, of whom Poulenc was a member in good standing. Cocteau finished writing his play in 1928, and the monodrama was premiered two years later. Cocteau sought to reduce his drama to the "simplest of forms"; the one-act play involves a single character in a single room with a telephone. The character—an anonymous woman referred to only as "Elle" - has been abandoned by her lover and reveals that she has attempted to commit suicide. The play consists of her last conversation with her lover. Details @ https://archive.org/details/PoulencLaVoixHumaine
"V for Violanta" The libretto, by Viennese playwright Hans Müller, has definite echoes of verismo, assorted with the usual devices of revenge, sudden infatuation and – ultimately – sacrifice. Seeking revenge on Alfonso, the Prince of Naples, who is responsible for her sister’s suicide, Violanta hatches a plot and reluctantly enlists her husband Simone Trovai, a military commander, to kill Alfonso. Details @ https://archive.org/details/02Korngold
“Vladimir Ashkenazy & Mozart”The Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503, was completed on December 4, 1786, alongside the Prague Symphony, K. 504. Although two more concertos (K. 537 and K. 595) would later follow, this work is the last of what are considered the twelve great piano concertos written in Vienna between 1784 and 1786. K. 503 is now widely recognized as "one of Mozart's greatest masterpieces in the concerto genre." However, it had long been neglected in favor of Mozart's more "brilliant" concertos, such as K. 467. Read our commentary on January 4 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2019/01/vladimir-ashkenazy-mozart.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast300-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage # 300 -4 jan 2019)
“Clara Haskil & Mozart” A trio of concertos featuring pianist Clara Haskil. The Romanian pianist, Clara Haskil began, her career as a child prodigy and entered at the Bucharest Conservatory when she was 6. At age 7 she was sent to Vienna and profited from the tutelage of Richard Robert (whose memorable pupils included Rudolf Serkin and George Szell) and briefly with Ferruccio Busoni. At age 10, she was sent to Paris to continue her training with Morpain, and, at 12, entered the Paris Conservatoire, officially to study in Alfred Cortot's class, graduating in 1910, age 15, with the Prémier Prix. Read our commentary on July 24 @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2015/07/clara-haskil-mozart.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast206-Playlist
“Beethoven Themes and Variations” A look at some variations by Beethoven, With the exception of the first piece - for cello and piano - on today's montage, all the others are taken from Beethoven's variation catalog for the keyboard.. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2014/01/montage-138-theme-and-variations.html, details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast138-Playlist/pcast138-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast #138 - 10 Jan 2014)
This week’s new podcast features Alfred Brendel in three works by Mozart, including two piano concertos. Read our commentary on October 14 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast396-Playlist
“Géza Anda & Mozart” The debate over which is the best Mozart piano concerto cycle normally revolves around the following: Barenboim, Ashkenazy, Perahia and Brendel. Today, I chose to share examples from another set, that of Hungarian pianist Géza Anda set down with the help of the Camerata Academica of the Salzburg Mozarteum, in sessions from 1961 and 1969.. Read our commentary on August 21 @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2015/08/geza-anda-mozart.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast208-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #208 - 21 Aug 2015)
"Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy – Piano Concertos 5-7 · Concerto For Three Pianos - Part 1” For October, we will survey the complete Mozart Piano Concerti, beginning with the first seven taken from Vladimir Ashkenazy's cycle with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Today's share s the second of two and features concertos 5-7. [C2C-45]
“Beethoven: Transcriptions” This week’s montage features Beethoven in transcriptions and arrangements by himself, Mahler, Liszt and Richard Kapp (with some help from Chick Corea) Read our commentary @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2019/10/beethoven-transcriptions.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast325Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #325 - 25 Oct 2019)
"U for Un (ballo in maschera) Act 3" Based on the events surrounding the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden, but set in colonial Boston, Verdi’s Masked Ball takes creative license in re-framing history by adding the usual dramatic trappings we love in opera: the characterizations, the romance, the fortune-telling, etc. Details @ https://archive.org/details/guiseppe-verdi.-un-ballo-in-maschera-claudio-abbado-acts-1-2
"U for Un (ballo in maschera) Acts 1 and 2" Based on the events surrounding the assassination in 1792 of King Gustav III of Sweden, but set in colonial Boston, Verdi’s Masked Ball takes creative license in re-framing history by adding the usual dramatic trappings we love in opera: the characterizations, the romance, the fortune-telling, etc. Details @ https://archive.org/details/guiseppe-verdi.-un-ballo-in-maschera-claudio-abbado-acts-1-2
“Mitsuko Uchida & Mozart” Born in Atami, a seaside town close to Tokyo, Japan, Mitsuko Uchida moved to Vienna, Austria, with her diplomat parents when she was 12 years old, after her father was named the Japanese ambassador to Austria. She enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Music to study with Richard Hauser, and later Wilhelm Kempff and Stefan Askenase, and remained in Vienna to study when her father was transferred back to Japan after five years. She gave her first Viennese recital at the age of 14 at the Vienna Musikverein. She also studied with Maria Curcio, the last and favourite pupil of Artur Schnabel. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2015/07/mitsuko-uchida-mozart.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast205-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #205 - 10 Jul, 2015)
"Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim & Mozart" Another montage in our Mozart Piano Concerto series proposes three concerti performed by Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy – as solo and duo soloists and conductors. Read our commentary on June 30 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2020/06/vladimir-ashkenazy-daniel-barenboim.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast340-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #340 - 30 Jun 2020)
“Mozart at the Keyboard” A all-Mozart program featuring piano variations and three youthful harpsichord concerti. Read our commentary on August 21 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2020/08/mozart-at-keyboard.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast343-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #343 - 21 Aug 2020)
"Philharmonia Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy – Piano Concertos 1–6 · Concerto For Three Pianos - Part 1” For October, we will survey the complete Mozart Piano Concerti, beginning with the first seven taken from Vladimir Ashkenazy's cycle with the Philharmonia Orchestra. Today's share s the first of two and featyres concertos 1-4. [C2C-45]
“Beethoven: The Seven Sonatas for Cello & Piano, Vol. 2” As we repurpose some tracks from this 2014 Once Upon the Internet share, I have planned two A La Carte playlists that will revisit the two Beethoven cello sonatas performed by Mr. Markevitch with pianist Daniel Spiegelberg. In 1991, the pair recorded the complete Beethoven cello sonatas for the Swiss label Gallo. These were released under two separate CDs, thus volumes 1 and 2. This week’s share is Volume 2 consisting of four sonatas – numbers 1, 2 and 5 and the op. 17 (which is an arrangement of his horn sonata). Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-21-beethoven-the-seven-sonata [A La Carte #21]
“Mahler’s Third” Every conceivable single kind of human, natural, physical, and spiritual emotion that has ever existed can be found in this gargantuan six-movement work, which incorporates material not only from Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" song cycle, but also the Night Wanderer's Song of Nietzsche's "Also Sprach Zarathustra". The first movement alone, with a normal duration of a little more than thirty minutes, sometimes forty, forms Part One of the symphony. Part Two consists of the other five movements and has a duration of about sixty to seventy minutes. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2014/04/montage-150-mahlers-third-symphony.html, details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast150-Playlist/pcast150-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 150 - 4 Apr 2014)
"Mahler: Symphony no. 4" Back in 1958, when this recording was made, Mahler's greatness as a composer was not the foregone conclusion that it is today. Fritz Reiner himself had gone on a figurative voyage of discovery before realizing that this was music worth conducting and recording. He made two Mahler LPs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra: this, and Das Lied von der Erde. Both have stood the test of time well. Details @ https://archive.org/details/03-mahler-symphony-4-in-g-3.-ruh
“Beethoven: Fidelio, Act II (EXTENDED)” This A la Carte post extends Act 2 to Klemperer's studio recording of Beethoven's Fidelio with the addition of the Leonora No. 3 overture as an intermezzo before the final scene. Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-20
“T for Tristan (Und Isolde) Act 3 " The re-discovery of mediaeval Germanic poetry, including Gottfried von Strassburg's version of Tristan, the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, left a large impact on the German Romantic movements during the mid-19th century. Again, we note here subject matter that Wagner has mined to form the core of his epic operas. Tristan took five years to compose with the bulk of the work between 1857 and 1859. Sections of the opera and libretto were composed in Switzerland and Italy.. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wagner_tristan_je_51_muss_i_etc
“T for Tristan (Und Isolde) Act 2” The re-discovery of mediaeval Germanic poetry, including Gottfried von Strassburg's version of Tristan, the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, left a large impact on the German Romantic movements during the mid-19th century. Again, we note here subject matter that Wagner has mined to form the core of his epic operas. Tristan took five years to compose with the bulk of the work between 1857 and 1859. Sections of the opera and libretto were composed in Switzerland and Italy. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wagner_tristan_je_41_mir_di_etc
“T for Tristan (Und Isolde) Act 1 ” The re-discovery of mediaeval Germanic poetry, including Gottfried von Strassburg's version of Tristan, the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, left a large impact on the German Romantic movements during the mid-19th century. Again, we note here subject matter that Wagner has mined to form the core of his epic operas. Tristan took five years to compose with the bulk of the work between 1857 and 1859. Sections of the opera and libretto were composed in Switzerland and Italy. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wagner_tristan_je_01_einlei_etc
“Auferstehung” The genesis for Mahler\s Resurrection symphony is a 1988 tone poem he called Todtenfeier (Funeral Rites). Leaving it for a few months to complete his Symphony No. 1, he finished his funeral piece in September of that year. By 1893 he had decided the piece was really part of a symphony- Friedrich Klopstock's "Resurrection Ode," with additional lyrics by the composer, forms the climax of his second symphony. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2016/03/auferstehung.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast218-Playlist. (ITYWLTMT Montage #218 - 27 Mar 2016)
“Mahler in New York” In a memorable evening at Carnegie Hall on 16 January 1910, Rachmaninov gives the third performance of his Piano Concerto no.3, with the New York Philharmonic under its new music director, Gustav Mahler. Read our commentary on January 13 @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2017/01/mahler-in-new-york.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast237-Playlist (ITYW:TMT Montage #237 - 13 Jan, 2017)
"Mahler: Symphony No. 9 - Bruno Walter Conducts the Columbia Symphony Orchestra " Mahler’s Ninth is his last “complete” symphony (that is, with full orchestration) and was never performed in Mahler’s lifetime; Walter, Mahler’s longtime assistant and colleague to whom the work is dedicated, conducted its first performance on 26 June 1912, at the Vienna Festival. Details @ https://archive.org/details/mahler-symphony-n-9
“Fidelio (Klemperer, 1962) - Act 1” Beethoven wrote and premiered his only opera, Fidelio on November 20th, 1805, in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien. Fidelio takes place in Seville, Spain during the 18th Century. Florestan is a political prisoner in the hands of Governor Don Pizarro. Leonore, Florestan’s wife, wants to free her husband on her own. She dresses up as a man and gets hired under the name Fidelio by the prison ward Rocco. Rocco’s daughter Marzelline falls in love with Fidelio. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Fnao-Fidelioklemperer1962
In this second of a two-part set of montages featuring Hermann Scherchen conducting German repertoire, and in our continuing look at the symphonies 0of Gustav Mahler, today’s Blog and Podcast montage features Scherchen’s 1952 Westminster recording of Mahler’s Fifth symphony. Read our commentary on September 16 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast395-Playlist
“Pierre Boulez Conducts Mahler Symphony No. 6” Mahler’s trio of life-changing events in 1907 – presaged by the “three hammer blows” that mark the symphony’s finale help feed the myth behind the symphony’s subtitle “Tragic”. Mahler did not title the symphony when he composed it, or at its first performance or first publication. In his Gustav Mahler memoir, Bruno Walter claimed that "Mahler called [the work] his Tragic Symphony". Additionally, the programme for the first Vienna performance (January 4, 1907) refers to the work as "Sechste Sinfonie (Tragische)". The sound of the hammer, which features in the last movement, was stipulated by Mahler to be "brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a non-metallic character (like the fall of an axe)." Details @ https://archive.org/details/PierreBoulezConductsMahlerSymphonyNo.6
“Vivaldi - Camerata Romana, Eugen Duvier – L'estro Armonico” L'estro armonico (The Harmonic Inspiration) is a set of 12 concertos for stringed instruments first published in Amsterdam in 1711. L'estro armonico was his first collection of Vivaldi concertos appearing in print. In each consecutive group of three concertos, the first is a concerto for four violins, the second for two violins, and the third a solo violin concerto. This second of two podcasts features concerti 8 to 12. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-c-2-c-44a-vivaldi-concertos-op.
“Beethoven: The Seven Sonatas for Cello & Piano, Vol. 1” As we repurpose some tracks from this 2014 Once Upon the Internet share, I have planned two A La Carte playlists that will revisit the two Beethoven cello sonatas performed by Mr. Markevitch with pianist Daniel Spiegelberg. In 1991, the pair recorded the complete Beethoven cello sonatas for the Swiss label Gallo. These were released under two separate CDs, thus volumes 1 and 2. This week’s share is Volume 1 consisting of three sonatas – numbers 3 and 4 and the op. 64 (which is an arrangement of his trio for vioin, viola and cello, op. 3) [ALC-19] Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-19
"S for (Gianni) Schicchi" Gianni Schicchi is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, based on a story that is referred to in Dante's The Divine Comedy. It is the third of the trio of operas known as Il trittico. Its first performance was at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918. The opera is best known for the soprano aria, "O mio babbino caro" (Oh, my dear papa). Details @ https://archive.org/details/PuccinisGianniSchicchicomplete
"S for Suor (Angelica)" Banished to live in a convent after having an illegitimate child, Sister Angelica has not heard from her family in seven years. Finally a visitor is announced: it is Angelica’s aunt, the princess. Rejecting Angelica’s gestures of affection, she explains that when Angelica’s parents died, she was made guardian of both her and her younger sister. The sister is to be married, and the princess demands Angelica sign her share of the inheritance over to her. Crushed by her aunt’s cruelty, Angelica asks about her little son. The princess coldly tells her that he died two years earlier. The devastated Angelica signs the document, and the princess leaves. Angelica grieves that her child died without her mother by her side (“Senza mamma”). She drinks poison, then suddenly realizes that suicide is a mortal sin. Praying for forgiveness, she dies with a vision of her son greeting her in heaven. Details @ https://archive.org/details/ppyjc61_yahoo_02SA
“Mahler Symphony No. 8 (Solti)” Mahler’s Eighth is the last of his works to be premiered in his lifetime. The occasion was a triumph—"easily Mahler's biggest lifetime success," according to biographer Robert Carr. The nickname “Symphony of A Thousand” comes from the amassed forces in Munich. It is not in fact certain that more than 1,000 performers participated in the Munich premiere. La Grange enumerates a chorus of 850 (including 350 children), 157 instrumentalists and the eight soloists, to give a total of 1,015. However, Carr suggests that there is evidence that not all the Vie
“Lied der Nacht” Of all Mahler's symphonies, the Seventh is the most enigmatic, and in its musical language the most radical and forward-looking. Schoenberg regarded it as the work that signalled the end of romanticism, the historic moment at which all the tenets that had sustained music for the previous century began to crumble away. Read our commentary @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2018/09/lied-der-nacht.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast291-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage # 291 - 21 Sep 2018)
""Vivaldi - Camerata Romana, Eugen Duvier – L'estro Armonico" L'estro armonico (The Harmonic Inspiration) is a set of 12 concertos for stringed instruments first published in Amsterdam in 1711. L'estro armonico was his first collection of Vivaldi concertos appearing in print. In each consecutive group of three concertos, the first is a concerto for four violins, the second for two violins, and the third a solo violin concerto. Part 1 features concerti 1 to 7 [Cover2Cover #44]
“King Stephan and Late Choral Works” In the mid-1970’s, a then freelancing Michael Tilson Thomas – in the midst of a Beethoven cycle with the English Chamber Orchestra – recorded many of Beethoven’s late choral works, including the incidental music to Konig Stephan (op. 117), the brief cantata Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt (op. 112) and a few more works for chorus, and instrument combinbations, with the help of the London Symphony and the Ambrosian Singers. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2012/08/montage-69-concluding-beethoven-project.html. Details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast069-Playlist/pcast069-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 69 - 31 Aug, 2012)
This week’s new podcast the first of two featuring German conductor Hermann Scherchen. Works by Bach/Vuataz and Haydn. Read our commentary on September 2 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast394-Playlist
“Mahler in Boston” Alsatian conductor Charles Munch (who was Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1949 to 1963) is often thought of as a master of French music – which he undoubtedly was – but we must not forget that he worked his way through the ranks as a violinist and later as concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler and Bruno Walter (1926 to 1933). It should not be a surprise that Munch is no slouch when it comes to the German repertoire… Read our commentary on September 7 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2018/09/mahler-in-boston.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast290-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #290 - 7 Sep 2018)
“The Threepenny Opera” A milestone of 20th century musical theatre, The Threepenny Opera rolls on unstoppably into the 21st. In their opera "by and for beggars", Weill and Brecht transformed old-fashioned opera and operetta forms, incorporating a sharp political perspective and the sound of 1920s Berlin dance bands and cabaret. Weill's acid harmonies and Brecht's biting texts created a revolutionary new musical theatre that inspired such subsequent hits as Cabaret, Chicago, and Urinetown. Details @ https://archive.org/details/03Intro
"Beethoven Concertos on YouTube" From 2012, a pair of works that onclude the Choral Fantasy and the Violin Concerto.
"Beethoven Takes the Stage "Some stage music by Beethoven for Egmont and the Ruins of Athens. Read our commentary @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2020/12/beethoven-takes-stage.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast349-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #349 - 18 Dec 2020)
“R for Radamisto (Act 1)” London’s Royal Academy of Music was formed in 1720, with sixty-two original subscribers, a place on the stock market, a royal subsidy from George I, and annual subscribers for each season. Their financial resources were secure and the directors sought to engage to best singers from Italy, and they hired composers in residence as well. George Frederic Handel was hired as master of the orchestra and given an annual salary. Between 1711 and 1740 Handel wrote upwards of 40 Italian operas, most of which are stunning masterpieces of the form. Radamisto, was Handel's first opera composed for the Academy. Details @ https://archive.org/details/rada-04
“R for Radamisto (Act 3)” London’s Royal Academy of Music was formed in 1720, with sixty-two original subscribers, a place on the stock market, a royal subsidy from George I, and annual subscribers for each season. Their financial resources were secure and the directors sought to engage to best singers from Italy, and they hired composers in residence as well. George Frederic Handel was hired as master of the orchestra and given an annual salary. Between 1711 and 1740 Handel wrote upwards of 40 Italian operas, most of which are stunning masterpieces of the form. Radamisto, was Handel's first opera composed for the Academy. Details @ https://archive.org/details/rada-04
“R for Radamisto (Act 2)” London’s Royal Academy of Music was formed in 1720, with sixty-two original subscribers, a place on the stock market, a royal subsidy from George I, and annual subscribers for each season. Their financial resources were secure and the directors sought to engage to best singers from Italy, and they hired composers in residence as well. George Frederic Handel was hired as master of the orchestra and given an annual salary. Between 1711 and 1740 Handel wrote upwards of 40 Italian operas, most of which are stunning masterpieces of the form. Radamisto, was Handel's first opera composed for the Academy. Details @ https://archive.org/details/rada-04
This week’s new podcast the second of two featuring piano concertos and symphonies by Camille Saint-Saëns. This week, we feature Piano Concertos 3 and 4 and the Second Symphony. Read our commentary on August 19 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast393-Playlist
“Organ and Orchestra” Organ music, this time with Orchestra, from Richard Strauss, Vivaldi, Handel and Saint-Saens. Camille Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony is probably the most played of his symphonies, and certainly the most famous work in its genre. The London Philharmonic Society commissioned the Symphony No. 3 from Saint-Saëns, who conducted its first performance in London on May 19, 1886. Although he lived until 1921, Saint-Saëns would not compose another symphony. He later explained: "With it I have given all I could give. What I did I could not achieve again." Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2012/03/montage-46-organ-and-orchestra-orgue-et.html. Details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast046playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #46 - 09 Mar, 2012 )
“PTB Classic - Glenn Gould Plays Beethoven Piano Sonatas nos. 12, 16 & 17" Today's PTB Classic post is the second set of Beethoven sonatas in out three part series, which we also trust to Glenn Gould. Last month, we considered five sonatas, this week three sonatas, recorded in 1973 and 1983, respectively. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-piano-sonata-no.-12-i-andante-c
"Q for (Don) Quixote" Music inspired by the legendary Cervantes character by Ravel, Richard Strauss and others . Read our bilingual commentary @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/06/montage-109-don-quixote.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast109-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 109 - 14 Jun, 2013)
"Q for Québec (sait chanter)" The title of today’s post, Québec sait chanter (loosely translated as Quebec can sing), makes reference to an old television show from my youth, where host Yoland Guérard would welcome great operatic voices, share anecdotes and would feature their voices in studio. Names like Raoul Jobin, Robert Savoie, André Turp, Huguette Tourangeau and the husband and wife duo of Pierrette Alarie and Léopold Simoneau – most of whom featured today – had their turn on television with Mr. Guérard. Read our commentary on June 28 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2019/06/quebec-sait-chanter.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast315-Playlist. (ITYWLTMT Montage #315 - 28 Jun 2019)
This week’s new podcast the first of two featuring piano concertos and symphonies by Camille Saint-Saëns. This week, we feature Piano Concerto #1 and the un-numbered Symphony Is A. Read our commentary on August 12 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast392-Playlist
“Kovacevich & Beethoven” Born in California in 1940, Stephen Kovacevich made his concert debut as a pianist at the age of 11; then, at the age of 18 he moved to London to study under Dame Myra Hess on a scholarship and has been a London resident ever since, currently living in Hampstead. In 1961 he made a sensational European debut at the Wigmore Hall, playing the Sonata by Alban Berg, three Bach Preludes and Fugues and Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. In 1967, he made his New York debut and since then he has toured Europe, the United States, the Far East, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2015/05/en-recital-kovacevich-beethoven.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast198-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #198 - 15 May, 2015 )
“A Montage of Second.. Concertos” This montage features four second concertos, for three different instruments: the horn, the violin and the piano. Works by Richard Strauss, Szymanowski, Liszt and Saint-Saëns. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.ca/2013/02/montage-92-montage-of-second-un-montage.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast092-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #92 - `5 Feb 2013)
“Concertinos” The term “concertino” is proposed as a “diminutive” term and some of the works programmed in this listener guide are “short” concertante works. As you would expect, “short:” is a subjective term… Read our commentary on August 19th @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2016/08/concertinos.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast228-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #228 - 19 Aug 2016)
“Beethoven Piano Sonatas (P. Jumppanen) ” From the Music Library of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, pianist Paavali Jumppanen performs three Beethoven piano sonatas in recital, including the Pastoral and the Hammerklavier. Details @ https://archive.org/details/isgm-07-beethoven-piano-sonatas-p
"P for Porgy (and Bess) - Part 2" This weekend we propose two visions of George Gershwin's grand American opera. The fsecond is the legendary Verve studio recording featuring Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. Details @ https://archive.org/details/outi-40-louis-armstrong-ella-fit
"P for Porgy (and Bess) - Part 1" This weekend we propose two visions of George Gershwin's grand American opera. The first is an early recording featuring voices from the original stage version. Details @ https://archive.org/details/outi-40-louis-armstrong-ella-fit
This week’s new podcast feeds our Haydn series with a quartet of symphonies. Read our commentary on July 29 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast391-Playlist
“The Dark Continent” The Dark Continent has long been associated with adventure, immense deserts, fierce predators and a population that lives in the extremes of riches and poverty. Africa has also been the stage of colonial expansion, followed by self-governance and (often times, it seems) civil war, unrest and despots. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.ca/2013/08/montage-118-dark-continent-le-continent.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast118-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Poscast # 118 - 16 Aug, 2013 )
“Otto Klemperer & Haydn” This penultimaye Haydn podcast takes us back to a familiar place: Haydn’s London Symphonies. Our triptych completes the “even set” with symphoniesm100, 102 and 104. Read our commentary on April 16 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2021/04/otto-klemperer-haydn.html/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast355-Playlist
“Vladimir Ashkenazy – Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Moonlight / Appassionata / Waldstein” Every master pianist brings something slightly different to the fore in rendering Beethoven's work, and in Ashkenazy it is the striking amplitude changes and rhythmic power of the works that take center stage. This said, his work on such lyric movements as the first in the Moonlight Sonata, and the middle in the Appassionata are well done. Details @ https://archive.org/details/7-01-beethoven-piano-sonata-21-in
“Saint-Saëns‘ cello” This montage looks at concertante works for the cello penned by Camille Saint-Saëns, as we begin a new series on the composer. Read our commentary @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2020/10/saint-saens-cello.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast345-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #345 - 9 Oct, 2020).
This is the second of two posts repurposing Haydn symphony recordings from the 1950's featuring Hermann Scherchen and Viennese orchestras in studio recordings. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-alc-18-haydn-the-london-sympho
“Glenn Gould Plays Beethoven – Piano Sonatas 5-10” The two discs featured today – six sonatas in total – cover two complete sets (op. 10 and 14), plus the more familiar Pathétique sonata. Details @ https://archive.org/details/08-sonata-no.-7-in-d-major-op.-10
"O for Otello Acts3 & 4" Jonathan Vickers was born in the prairie hamlet of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the suxth if eight children if a devoutly religious family. Jon's father was a teacher - a school principal no less - and the children were involved in their community, singing and performing music at church and in the local jail! Many critics praised his interpretation of Verdi's Otello, which he recorded twice: in 1960 with Tullio Serafin and 1973 with Herbert von Karajan. As we remember the great tenor, I am sharing today a complete recording of the former (1960) recording. Details @ https://archive.org/details/203Act3DioTiGiocondi...Este
"O for Otello Acts 1 & 2" Jonathan Vickers was born in the prairie hamlet of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, the suxth if eight children if a devoutly religious family. Jon's father was a teacher - a school principal no less - and the children were involved in their community, singing and performing music at church and in the local jail! Many critics praised his interpretation of Verdi's Otello, which he recorded twice: in 1960 with Tullio Serafin and 1973 with Herbert von Karajan. As we remember the great tenor, I am sharing today a complete recording of the former (1960) recording. Details @ https://archive.org/details/203Act3DioTiGiocondi...Este
This is the first of two posts repurposing Haydn symphony recordings from the 1950's featuring Hermann Scherchen and Viennese orchestras in studio recordings. Inserted here is a concert recording of Haydn's 95th with the Montreal Symphony from another old share. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-alc-17-haydn-the-london-sympho
"Artur Schnabel plays Beethoven sonatas" For the this next installment in our look at Beethoven piano sonatas, let’s turn to a pianist who made the first-ever recording of the entire corpus, and evaluate how well these interpretations have stood the test of time. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05-beethoven-piano-sonata-no.-26-in-e
French composer Erik Satie is one the most enigmatic composers of the 19th century. Like many creative people, he had his own weird habits and features that may seem way too strange today. Read our commentary July 8 https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast390-Playlist
"Haydn: The London Symphonies (Nos. 94, 96, 98)" In 1985 Tate was appointed the first Principal Conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra and began a major recording programme for EMI which included the complete Mozart symphonies as well as a number of Haydn's. Tate's Haydn and Mozart are in a class of their own. Using modern instrumental forces and often adopting tempi which are much broader than we have come to expect from period orchestras, Tate achieves a lightness and lyricism which make every note compelling. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2017/11/in-memoriam-sir-jeffrey-tate-1943-2017.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast265-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #265 - 24 Nov 2017)
“Vladimir Ashkenazy & Beethoven” Our ongoing survey of piano sonatas continues with a bonus all-Beethoven post featuring Russian-born pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy. Read our commentary @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2019/07/vladimir-ashkenazy-beethoven.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast318-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #318 - 30 July 2019)
"N for Nozze (di Figaro) - Acts 3 & 4" The Marriage of Figaro is a continuation of the plot of TheBarber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" (la folle giornata) in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to obtain the favors of Figaro's bride-to-be, Susanna. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. He responds by trying to compel Figaro legally to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she is really his mother. Through Figaro's and Susanna's clever manipulations, the Count's love for his Countess is finally restored. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2_201507
"N for Nozze (di Figaro) - Acts 1 & 2" The Marriage of Figaro is a continuation of the plot of TheBarber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" (la folle giornata) in the palace of the Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to obtain the favors of Figaro's bride-to-be, Susanna. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. He responds by trying to compel Figaro legally to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she is really his mother. Through Figaro's and Susanna's clever manipulations, the Count's love for his Countess is finally restored. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2_201507
“Haydn: The 'Tween' Symphomnies (Part 2)” Haydn's final contract with the Court of Esterházy provided him more freedom to compose for other orchestras and for other sponsors. The Paris symphonies (composed for the Comte d'Ogny) and the London symphonies (composed for impresario Johann Peter Salomon) are of course two major sets of works that stem from that newfound freedom. But there is a set of 5 more symphonies (numbered 88 to 92) that were composed between those two landmark sets - I call those the "Tween" symphonies - that are also worth listening to and discussing in that same context. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wo-o-130521b-haydn-the-tween-sym
“Haydn: The 'Tween' Symphomnies (Part 1)” Haydn's final contract with the Court of Esterházy provided him more freedom to compose for other orchestras and for other sponsors. The Paris symphonies (composed for the Comte d'Ogny) and the London symphonies (composed for impresario Johann Peter Salomon) are of course two major sets of works that stem from that newfound freedom. But there is a set of 5 more symphonies (numbered 88 to 92) that were composed between those two landmark sets - I call those the "Tween" symphonies - that are also worth listening to and discussing in that same context. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wo-o-130521b-haydn-the-tween-sym
"Richard Goode & Beethoven" For the next few weeks, we will be binging on Beethoven's piano sonatas starting with Beethoven played by American pianist Richard Goode. Read our commentary on May 3rd @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2019/05/richard-goode-beethoven.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast311-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #311 - 3 May 2019)
“Brahms Symphony #2” Our look at the Brahms symphonies concludes with Leonard Bernstein and the Second symphony. In addition to the Academic Festival Overture, some vocal works fill out this listener guide. Read our bilingual @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/01/montage-87-festival-brahms-festival.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast087-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #87 - 11 Jan 2013)
This week’s new podcast feeds our Brahms series with a pair of symphonies. Read our commentary on June 24 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast389-Playlist
"Sir Adrian Boult / LPO – Brahms: Serenade In A / Variations On A Theme Of Haydn" A modest man who disliked the limelight, Boult felt as comfortable in the recording studio as on the concert platform, making recordings throughout his career. His recording career stretched from the days of acoustic recording until the beginning of the digital era. Although widely recognized as a champion of British music, the exceptional breadth of Boult's repertoire has left some well-regarded recordings of works not immediately associated with him; in the core continental orchestral repertoire, Boult's recordings of the four symphonies of Brahms, and the Great C major Symphony of Schubert were celebrated in his lifetime and have remained in the catalogues during the years after his death. Details @ https://archive.org/details/variationsonathemebyhaydnop.
“Brahms’ Fourth Symphony” Our look at the Brahms symphonies begins with Eugen Jochum and the Fourth symphony. To complete the listener guide, the First serenade. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/01/montage-89-brahms-festival-btahms-part.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast089-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 89 - 25 Jan, 2013)
“Violin and Cello” There really isn’t anything uncommon about the format of a concerto for two soloists per se. This formula typically involves two of the same instrument, fewer concertos are set for two different solo instruments. However, the combination of two instruments who play at two different registers (violin and cello in Brahms’ case) are much rarer, and provide a unique opportunity to exploit the orchestra “fighting off” two opponents – one at the hands, the other one at the feet! Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.ca/2012/04/montage-53-violin-and-celloviolon-et.html. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast053Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #53 - 27 Apr, 2012)
“Wolfgang Schneiderhan (1915 –2002)” Schneiderhan was born in Vienna where he primarily studied under Julius Winkler. In the late 1920’s, he moved for a time to England before returning to Vienna to become the first Concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra from 1933 to 1937, and from 1937 to 1951 led the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. He nevertheless maintained his career as a soloist in concerts and recordings - He was the soloist in the Viennese premiere of Elgar's Violin Concerto in 1947, and in September 1952 he made his benchmark Deutsche Grammophon recordings of all ten Beethoven violin sonatas with Wilhelm Kempff in the Konzerthaus, Mozartsaal, Vienna. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01ConcertoForViolinAndOrchestra
"M for Mignon Act 3" As a composer, Thomas left about twenty operas, most notably Raymond (1851),Hamlet (1868) and today’s feature, Mignon (1866) . Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts with an original French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Thomas' goddaughter, English operatic soprano Mignon Nevada, was named after the main character. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Fnao-Mignonpelletier145
"M for Mignon Act 2" As a composer, Thomas left about twenty operas, most notably Raymond (1851),Hamlet (1868) and today’s feature, Mignon (1866) . Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts with an original French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Thomas' goddaughter, English operatic soprano Mignon Nevada, was named after the main character. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Fnao-Mignonpelletier145
"M for Mignon Act 1" As a composer, Thomas left about twenty operas, most notably Raymond (1851),Hamlet (1868) and today’s feature, Mignon (1866) . Mignon is an opéra comique in three acts with an original French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Thomas' goddaughter, English operatic soprano Mignon Nevada, was named after the main character. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Fnao-Mignonpelletier145
“BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 9 (Weingartner) (1935)” To conclude our #Beethoven2020 series on the Tuesday Blog, we consoder Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Consecration of the House overture, which were both premiered at the same concert, on 7 May 1824. The recording I selected today is a historic recording featuring Felix Weingartner, a contemporary to Mahler and Toscanini in one of the earliest available recordings of this seminal work . Weingartner was respected as much for his musical scholarship as his conducting. In 1906, he proposed a monograph on the performance of Beethoven symphonies that in some respects became the progenitor of new editorial research on the composer leading to the radical quests of period instrument performance in the latter part of the twentieth century. Details @ https://archive.org/details/beethoven-consecration-overture
“Haydn: The Paris Symphonies – Part 3 ”Haydn’s sponsor for the Paris symphonies was Claude-François-Marie Rigolet, Comte d'Ogny, an aristocrat and France’s Postmaster General. The ensemble intended to create the symphonies was the Paris-based Concert de la loge 'Olympique' (trans. Orchestra of the 'Olympic' (Masonic) Lodge), made up of well-over 50 professional and amateur musicians - an extraordinary size of orchestra for the time. (Haydn's own ensemble at Eszterháza was never larger than about 25 total.). According to composer Luigi Cherubini, who participated in the orchestra, the finest musicians in Paris performed in the premieres of the symphonies, and received them with "rapture". Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/05/montage-106-haydn-paris-symphoniesles.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast106-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 106 - 24 May, 2013 )
To complete the ollection after The Four Seasons, we have an all-Vivaldi podcast featuring the remaining eight of the concertos from his Opus 8. Read our commentary on October 19 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2018/10/il-cimento-dellarmonia-e-dellinventione.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast293-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #293 - 19 Oct 2018)
Today’s A la Carte podcast extends a Tuesday post originally issued on October 4, 2015, featuring Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Read our commentary on June 10 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast388-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #388 - June 10, 2022)
""Haydn: The Paris Symphonies – Part 2 Haydn’s sponsor for the Paris symphonies was Claude-François-Marie Rigolet, Comte d'Ogny, an aristocrat and France’s Postmaster General. The ensemble intended to create the symphonies was the Paris-based Concert de la loge 'Olympique' (trans. Orchestra of the 'Olympic' (Masonic) Lodge), made up of well-over 50 professional and amateur musicians - an extraordinary size of orchestra for the time. (Haydn's own ensemble at Eszterháza was never larger than about 25 total.). According to composer Luigi Cherubini, who participated in the orchestra, the finest musicians in Paris performed in the premieres of the symphonies, and received them with "rapture". Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/05/montage-105-haydn-paris-symphoniesles.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast105-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 105 - 17 May 2013)
“Corey Cerovsek plays Violin Sonatas (Part 3)” This revised Tuesday Blog post from 2012 was originally part of "The Summer of the Sonata" with public performances featuring Corey Cerovsek from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum;s music library. This expanded set features six of the 10 Beethoven piano sonatas. Part 3 features sonatas 7 and 9, with Mozart’s K. 306 sonata as a bonus. Details @ https://archive.org/details/isgm-06c
"L for Louise, Acts3 & 4" Paul Dukas once wrote of Louise: "The first and last acts are those of a master; the other two are those of an artist; the whole is the work of a man." Louise is an opera that may be known today as a work with only one hit "Depuis le jour" to its credit, but at one time it was a staple at the great opera houses of the world and was reputed to be a favorite of the Metropolitan Opera's Sir Rudolf Bing who could never remember its name and referred to it as "the one with the girls and the sewing machines." Details @ https://archive.org/details/G.Charpentier-LouiseCotrubasDomingoBacquierBerbiNpo
"L for Louise, Acts 1 & 2" Paul Dukas once wrote of Louise: "The first and last acts are those of a master; the other two are those of an artist; the whole is the work of a man." Louise is an opera that may be known today as a work with only one hit "Depuis le jour" to its credit, but at one time it was a staple at the great opera houses of the world and was reputed to be a favorite of the Metropolitan Opera's Sir Rudolf Bing who could never remember its name and referred to it as "the one with the girls and the sewing machines." Details @ https://archive.org/details/G.Charpentier-LouiseCotrubasDomingoBacquierBerbiNpo
Today’s A la Carte podcast extends a Tuesday post originally issued on March 22, 2016, featuring works by Mozart and Schubert conducted by Otto Klemperer. Read our commentary on May 31 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast387-Playlist [Quarterly Tuesday Podcast]
“Beethoven - Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra – Symphony No. 7 In A / Symphony No. 8 In F” According to the Penguin Guide, Klemperer recorded his first cycle of Beethoven symphonies for EMI with the Philharmonia orchestra from 1954 onwards, in mono. He made another series from 1961, recording in stereo. About a decade later, under the moniker of the “New Philharmonia” he had another crack at the symphonies. Because the mono recordings were remastered in Stereo and reissued in the 1980’s, based on the available recording dates, these would have been originally issued in Mono, but could have been recorded in Stereo or remastered. Details @ https://archive.org/details/beethoven-symphony-n-7-philharmon
“The Paris Symphonies Part One” Haydn’s sponsor for the Paris symphonies was Claude-François-Marie Rigolet, Comte d'Ogny, an aristocrat and France’s Postmaster General. The ensemble intended to create the symphonies was the Paris-based Concert de la loge 'Olympique' (trans. Orchestra of the 'Olympic' (Masonic) Lodge), made up of well-over 50 professional and amateur musicians - an extraordinary size of orchestra for the time. (Haydn's own ensemble at Eszterháza was never larger than about 25 total.). According to composer Luigi Cherubini, who participated in the orchestra, the finest musicians in Paris performed in the premieres of the symphonies, and received them with "rapture". The performances were attended by royalty, including Queen Marie Antoinette, who particularly enjoyed the Symphony No. 85, giving rise to its nickname. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/05/montage-104-haydn-paris-symphoniesles.html, details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast104-Playlist/pcast104-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast #104 - 10 May 2013)
"Haydn: Paukenmesse (Mass in Time of War)" In the mid 1790's, Haydn's principal obligation was to provide a Mass to celebrate Princess Marie Josepha Hermenegild’s name-day in September each year. The second of these works (there are six in total) is the Missa in tempore belli, known in German as the Paukenmesse or Kettle Drum Mass, which was first performed in Vienna on St Stephen’s Day (26th December) 1796. This is one of Haydn’s finest compositions, with a particularly striking balance of sound. Then on 29th September 1797 it was given at Eisenstadt in honour of the Princess’s name-day. Details @ https://archive.org/details/otf-38a-beethoven-at-st.-agnes
Today’s A la Carte podcast extends a Tuesday post originally issued on May 18, 2018. The concludes our week-long review of Nielsen’s symphonies with the second and fourth. Read our commentary on May 27 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast386-Playlist
“Carl Nielsen, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Jascha Horenstein – Symphony No.5, Op.50 / Saga-Drøm, Op.39” Today’s vinyl share was the first version of the Nielsen's Fifth that I ever heard. I've heard other fine performances but it remains the best: dark, powerful, weighty, full of depth, this interpretation underscores Horenstein's uncanny understanding of Nielsen, a composer he knew personally. The pacing is superb; from the quiet opening to the final cadence, when the last notes of the melody fly off into space on their own momentum. It's also the only drum solo - ferocious side drumming of Alfred Dukes - in the versions I have heard that is powerful enough that it might disrupt the orchestra. Saga Drom is a nice filler. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01NielsenSymphonyNo5Op50
“Nielsen - San Francisco Symphony / Herbert Blomstedt – Symphonies 1 & 6” Lyrically, Nielsen demonstrated his talents very successfully in his first symphony, and this at 27! The Sixth Symphony may be partially autobiographical; the composer had just experienced a tremendous success with his Fifth symphony, but had also suffered a series of heart attacks He was to write several more works, but in the remaining six years of his life, the atmosphere of his works began to change. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01SymphonyNo.1InGMinorOp.7F
“Carl Nielsen (1865-1931)” Nielsen wrote his Symphony No. 3 "Sinfonia Espansiva"between 1910 and 1911 following his tenure as bandmaster at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. Nielsen himself conducted the premiere of the work (along with the premiere of his Violin Concerto) on February 28, 1912 with Copenhagen's Royal Danish Orchestra. The symphony is unique in Nielsen's symphonic output for having vocal parts, specifically wordless solos for soprano and baritone in the second movement. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2018/04/carl-nielsen-1865-1931.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast276-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage # 276 – 06 Apr, 2018)
“Corey Cerovsek plays Violin Sonatas (Part 2)” This revised Tuesday Blog post from 2012 was originally part of "The Summer of the Sonata" with public performances featuring Corey Cerovsek from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum;s music library. This expanded set features six of the 10 Beethoven piano sonatas. Part 2 features sonatas 4 and 6, with Faure’s sonata in A as a bonus. Details @ https://archive.org/details/isgm-06c
"K for Kindertottenlieder" The Skandalkonzert of March 31st 1913 (as it has been referred to since), was a concert of the Wiener Konzertverein conducted by Arnold Schoenberg . The audience, shocked by the expressionism and experimentalism of the music created by members of the emerging Second Viennese School, began rioting, and the concert was ended prematurely. Read our commentary on November 25 @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2016/11/skandalkonzert.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast235-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #235 - 25 Nov, 2016)
"K for Des Knaben Wunderhorn" The collection of love, soldier's, wandering and children's songs was an important source of idealized folklore in the Romantic nationalism of the 19th century. Selected poems from this collection have been set to music by a number of composers, including Weber, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, and Webern, but it’s Mahler’s settings that have endured. He numbered the collection among his favourite books and set its poems to music throughout much of his career. The text of the first of his four Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, begun in 1884, is based directly on the Wunderhorn poem "Wann [sic] mein Schatz". Details @ https://archive.org/details/MahlerSongsFromDesKnabenWunderhorn
"Stravinsky's Rite of Spring" This listener guide recreates the recital of les Ballets Russes at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées on 29 May, 1913. Stories abound about the reaction of the public that night, including the ensuing riots. So what was it that outraged the public to the point where we witness such a reaction. We should also note that Paris is no stranger to bad behaviour on an Opening Night – ask Claude Debussy and the reception that Pelleas had… Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/05/montage-107-this-day-in-music.html, details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast107-Playlist/pcast107-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 107 - 29 May, 2013 )
“Stravinsky & Balanchine” As a young ballet student at the Imperial Theater School in Petersburg, Georgi Balanchivadze was immediately drawn to Stravinsky's vibrant music. By the time of his death in 1983, he had choreographed many of the composer's most important works. The powerful pulse of Stravinsky's music flowed relentlessly forward, begging to be placed into physical motion, to be visualized, to be danced. Even through those electrically charged Stravinskyan moments of silence that so powerfully jolt the music's continuity. No matter what the piece, the genre, the instrumentation, the choreographer declared that “every measure Eagerfeodorovitch ever wrote is good for dancing”. Read our commentary on April 30 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2019/04/stravinsky-balanchine.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast310-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage #310 - 30 Apr, 2019)
“Stravinsky: Petrouchka, Temirkanov/Leningrad PO” Shrove Tuesday is the day preceding Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent), which is celebrated in some countries by consuming pancakes. In others, especially those where it is called Mardi Gras or some translation thereof, this is a carnival day, and also the last day of "fat eating" or "gorging" before the fasting period of Lent. Pétrouchka tells the story of the loves and jealousies of three puppets. The three are brought to life by the Charlatan during the 1830 Shrovetide Fair (which we would equate to Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras) in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Details @ https://archive.org/details/StravinskyPetrouchka1911Rev.
“Igor Stravinsky, Neville Marriner, Academy Of St. Martin-in-the-Fields – Pulcinella (Complete Ballet) / Suites Nos. 1 & 2 For Small Orchestra” This week’s Tuesday Blog is a new installment in our Vinyl’s Revenge series featuring works by Igos Stravinsky performed by the Academy of St-Martin-in-te-Fields, a pair of soloists, all under the direction of Sir Neville Marriner. The main work on this Angel ADD release is Stravinsky’s one-act ballet ballet Pulcinella, one of two ballets inspired by the works of earlier composers. Read our commentary May 17 @ https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/igor-stravinsky-neville-marriner-academy-of-st-martin-in-the-fields-%E2%80%93-pulcinella-complete-ballet-suites-nos-1-2-for-small-orchestra.80225/ Details @ https://archive.org/details/02-pulcinella-ballet-avec-chante-m [VR-73]
"Glenn Gould, Beethoven, Liszt – Piano Transcription: Symphony No. 6 (''Pastoral'')” Today’s share is a Sony re-edition of a CBC Radio broadcast performance recorded: June 11, 1968. At a little over 55 minutes, Gould savoutrs every note, in a very internal performance. As this was recorded in his home studio in Toronto under his manic supervision, one has to think that this is a performance totally aligned with his vision of the work, with ever note in place.
“Edwin Fischer (1886 -1960)” Edwin Fischer was the first pianist to make a complete recording of Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Klavier which he commenced in 1933. Perhaps the best adumbration of Fischer’s musical outlook is his recording of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue recorded in 1931. The Fantasy sounds more like an improvisation with Fischer not fearing to double notes and use extremes of dynamic, his pianissimo being almost hypnotic as it draws the listener in. He makes this Fantasy into an improvisational poem, at times creating moments of aching beauty. He brings the same qualities to Busoni’s arrangement of Bach’s Chorale Ich ruf’zu dir. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2017/12/edwin-fischer-1886-1960.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast266-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #266 - 8 Dec 2017)
“Christophe Rousset Plavs J.S. Bach” This montage features harpsichordist Christophe Rousset in concerti for one and two keyboards by J. S. Bach. This montage of keyboard concertos revisits four concertos often heard as violin concertos – including the pair of double concertos – and allows us to appreciate them in this alternate setting. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2018/07/christophe-rousset-plays-js-bach.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast285-Playlist (ITYWMLTM Podcast # 285 - 27 July 2018)
This week’s new podcast concludes our Mendelssohn series with a pair of double concerti. Read our commentary on May 13 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast385-Playlist
"Riccardo Muti - Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy - New Philharmonia Orchestra – Symphony No. 3, "Scotch" - Overture, Calm Sea And Prosperous Voyage" We conclude our Menslssohn symphony cycle with Vinyl’s Revenge, and an old all-Mendelssohn EMI recording featuring Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonia. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-symphony-no.-3-in-a-minor-scotti
“Felix Mendelssohn: Lobgesang” Mendelssohn’s Second symphony ('Lobgesang' or 'Hymn of Praise') was commissioned by the city of Leipzig to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing in 1840, and has elements of the symphony, cantata and oratorio. Read our commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2015/01/felix-mendelssohn-lobgesang.html, details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast181-Playlist/pcast181-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast #181 - 16 Jan 2015)
This A La Carte playlist revisits our Montage #273 that featured works by Mendelssohn recorded in London, this time featuring Mendelssohn's First symphony from the same Abbado/LSO cycle. Read our commentary May 10 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-13
“Corey Cerovsek plays Violin Sonatas (Part 1)” This revised Tuesday Blog post from 2012 was originally part of "The Summer of the Sonata" with public performances featuring Corey Cerovsek from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum;s music library. This expanded set features six of the 10 Beethoven piano sonatas. Part 1 features sonatas 1 and 3, with Bach's BWV 1018 as a bonus. Details @ https://archive.org/details/isgm-06c
"J for Jahreszeiten (Part 2 - Autumn and Winter) " Haydn was led to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation, which had become very popular and was in the course of being performed all over Europe. The libretto for The Seasons was prepared for Haydn, just as with The Creation, by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an Austrian nobleman who had also exercised an important influence on the career of Mozart. Van Swieten's libretto was based on extracts from the long English poem "The Seasons" by James Thomson (1700–1748), which had been published in 1730. Details @ https://archive.org/details/haydn_jahreszeiten_ff_25_ih_etc
"J for Jahreszeiten (Part 1 - Spring and Summer) " Haydn was led to write The Seasons by the great success of his previous oratorio The Creation, which had become very popular and was in the course of being performed all over Europe. The libretto for The Seasons was prepared for Haydn, just as with The Creation, by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, an Austrian nobleman who had also exercised an important influence on the career of Mozart. Van Swieten's libretto was based on extracts from the long English poem "The Seasons" by James Thomson (1700–1748), which had been published in 1730. Details @ https://archive.org/details/haydn_jahreszeiten_ff_06_se_etc
"Virgil Fox Live at Riverside - 'Soli Deo Gloria' (Part 2) " This is the previously unreleased 2 1/2 hour live concert recording of the world's most revered pipe organ master, the late Dr. Virgil Fox, and his "Return to Riverside" appearance - May 6, 1979... 'back where it all began'. Part 2 features works by Alain and Liszt. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wo-o-140408b-virgil-fox-live-at-rive
"Virgil Fox Live at Riverside - 'Soli Deo Gloria' (Part 1) " This is the previously unreleased 2 1/2 hour live concert recording of the world's most revered pipe organ master, the late Dr. Virgil Fox, and his "Return to Riverside" appearance - May 6, 1979... 'back where it all began'. Part 1 features works by Bach and Durufle. Details @ https://archive.org/details/wo-o-140408b-virgil-fox-live-at-rive
Young Mendelssohn composed extensively for the piano. From early concertos and sonatas he quickly established his ‘mature’ style in works such as the Rondo capriccioso, and the Andante cantabile e Presto agitato. The masterpieces that followed include the famous Songs without Words/Lieder ohne Worte. On this complete recording, these piano 'songs' are played by Dutch pianist Frank van der Laar. Part 2 includes books 5-8. Details @ https://archive.org/details/1-19-book-iv-op.-53 [Cover2Cover #43]
Young Mendelssohn composed extensively for the piano. From early concertos and sonatas he quickly established his ‘mature’ style in works such as the Rondo capriccioso, and the Andante cantabile e Presto agitato. The masterpieces that followed include the famous Songs without Words/Lieder ohne Worte. On this complete recording, these piano 'songs' are played by Dutch pianist Frank van der Laar. Part 1 includes books 1-4. Details @ https://archive.org/details/1-19-book-iv-op.-53 [Cover2Cover #43]
"Beethoven/Liszt: Symphonies nos. 4 & 5" Beethoven was a formidable pianist in his day, so it should not be too surprising that his symphonies have a very “pianistic” character. Piano and Forte passages are rendered by different sections of the orchestra (brilliantly, you will agree) but subtle, sometimes lyrical passages remind us of Beethoven sitting at his piano, playing around with note combinations. There are certainly many study scores and piano reductions of these symphonies intended for orchestral preparation, but there exists only one set of transcriptions that fully exploit the full measure of the piano as a worthy platform to render these symphonies, and they are from another legendary pianist and composer – Franz Liszt. Details @ https://archive.org/details/beethoven-liszt-symphony-no.-5-in
“Brandenburg Perspectives (Concertos 4 -6)” Angela Hewitt and Herbert von Karajan provide their perspectives on the Brandenburg Concertos. HIP or not, I thought it would be at least interesting to indulge in some “not so HIP” Bach, and Brandenburg 6 by Karajan and his Berlin Philharmonic sounded like something worth exploring. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.ca/2012/12/montage-83-brandenburg-perspectives.html, details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast083-Playlist/pcast083-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast #83 - 7 Dec, 2012)
“Brandenburg Perspectives (Concertos 1 -3)” The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Wendy Carlos provide their perspectives on the Brandenburg Concertos. Carlos is a unique combination of music prodigy and technological guru, earning degrees in Music, Physics and Composition from Brown and Columbia Universities. She is, quite frankly, a pioneer in electronic music, and studio recording artistry. Remaining in New York after graduation, Carlos was introduced to Dr. Robert Moog and became one of his earliest customers, providing advice and technical assistance for his further development of the Moog synthesizer. Carlos convinced Moog to add touch sensitivity to the synthesizer keyboard for greater dynamics and musicality, among other improvements. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.ca/2012/12/montage-843-brandenburg-perspectives.html, details @ https://archive.org/download/pcast084-Playlist/pcast084-Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast #84 - 14 Dec 2012)
This week’s new podcast revisits a Tuesday Blog post originally issued January 24, 2012, featuring works curated by “The Piano Society”. Read our commentary on April 29 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast384-Playlist
“Menotti: The Consul Acts 2 & 3” This opera, which premiered in 1950, is a contemporary period piece, set in a very topical back-drop: the Cold War. The Consul earned Menotti the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the 1950 New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best Musical. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2_20150416
“Menotti: The Consul Act 1” This opera, which premiered in 1950, is a contemporary period piece, set in a very topical back-drop: the Cold War. The Consul earned Menotti the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Music and the 1950 New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best Musical. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2_20150416
"Invitation to the dance" This week's music montage is dedicated to 'dance'. In classical music, we find dances in several forms â as pieces that exemplify specific dance styles (waltzes are a good example of that), as dance suites (such as, say, the Bach partitas), as national or folk dances and â of course â as dance numbers within larger stage works. Read our commentary @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2011/06/montage-9-invitation-to-dance.html
Details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast-009-playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast #9 - June 10, 2011)
“Budapest String Quartet - The Complete Beethoven Quartets (Part 6)” There are three complete recorded cycles of the 16 Beethoven string quartets by the Budapest Quartet. My favourite is still the set they made for Columbia in the early 1950s, playing the magnificent instruments owned by the Library of Congress. I was pleased to find the complete recordings of the Budapest String Quartet’s 1950’s Beethoven complete corpus of quartets on YouTube, and assembled them for you here. Part 6features quartet nos 14-16. Details @ https://archive.org/details/sq-14-16
"I for Idomeneo, K. 366 - Act III" Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante (Italian for Idomeneo, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante; usually referred to simply as Idomeneo, K. 366) is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it might have been Mozart. Details @ https://archive.org/details/IdomeneoReDiCretaK.366
"I for Idomeneo, K. 366 - Act I & II" Idomeneo, re di Creta ossia Ilia e Idamante (Italian for Idomeneo, King of Crete, or, Ilia and Idamante; usually referred to simply as Idomeneo, K. 366) is an Italian language opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The libretto was adapted by Giambattista Varesco from a French text by Antoine Danchet, which had been set to music by André Campra as Idoménée in 1712. Mozart and Varesco were commissioned in 1780 by Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria for a court carnival. He probably chose the subject, though it might have been Mozart. Details @ https://archive.org/details/IdomeneoReDiCretaK.366
[A la Carte #12] This week’s new podcast revisits a Vinyl’s Revenge post originally issued in October 2016, featuring a pair of works. Read our commentary on April 22 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast383-Playlist
“Mendelssohn - Berliner Philharmoniker - Lorin Maazel – Symphony No. 4 & 5)” Today’s recording dates from that same early 1960’s period, this time conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in Mendelssohn’s Italian and Reformation symphonies. This recording was part of a compilation reissue from 2004 “Complete Early Berlin Philharmonic Recordings 1957 — 1962” , though I acquired it originally as a vinyl reissue in the late 1970’s on the DG Resonance series. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05-symphony-no.-5-in-d-major-op.-10
“In Memoriam: Lorin Maazel (1930 - 2014)” Lorin Maazel was born to American parents living abroad (Paris, actually), and starts off as a winderkind: violin lessons at five, conducting lessosns at seven, and as a pint-sized conductor, he's invited to lead the NBC Symphony (at Toscanini's invitation) at twelve. But the life of a child musician isn't what Maazel has in mind - playing outdoors and doing what other kids his age do is more his speed, and so he "retires" at 15. One has to think that this second kick at music, and encounters with some of the great conductors and artists making t through Steel town, give Maazel the bug, and he chooses to study early music (as a Fulbright scholar) in Italy. He moves to Europe, and from there re-launches a career as conductor. Details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast174
“Mahler, Maazel, Orchestra Del Teatro La Fenice – Das Lied Von Der Erde” For this month’s lone Tuesday Blog share, my Vinyl’s Revenge selection is a live recording by Maazel of a 20th Century German work, Mahler’s Song of the Earth, but with an unlikely orchestra, that of the Teatro La Fenice in Vennice, Italy. Read our commentary @ https://www.talkclassical.com/threads/mahler-maazel-orchestra-del-teatro-la-fenice-%E2%80%93-das-lied-von-der-erde.79923/ Details @ https://archive.org/details/vr-72-mahler-das-lied-von-der-erde [Vinyl's Revenge #72]
“Back to Bach – Vokalwerke” Although this may sound quite simplistic, we can divide the bulk of Bach’s vocal works into two great categories: sacred and secular works. Though Bach didn’t compose operas, he did compensate by writing cantatas that can be staged, as well as writing a number of monumental sacred works – the four passions come immediately to mind here. Read our bilingual commentary @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/2013/10/montage-128-back-to-bach-vokalwerke.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast128-Playlist. (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 128 - 25 Oct 2013)
"H for Hérodiade - Acts 3 & 4” There are surprisingly few operas that find their basis from Biblical sources, and it is interesting that a single biblical episode serves as the inspiration for two operas. The episode in question is the death of John the Baptist. Hérodiade is an 1881 opera by Jules Massenet, based on the novella Hérodias (1877) by Gustave Flaubert. Details @ https://archive.org/details/ppyjc61_yahoo_Act3_201502
"H for Hérodiade - Acts 1 & 2” There are surprisingly few operas that find their basis from Biblical sources, and it is interesting that a single biblical episode serves as the inspiration for two operas. The episode in question is the death of John the Baptist. Hérodiade is an 1881 opera by Jules Massenet, based on the novella Hérodias (1877) by Gustave Flaubert. Details @ https://archive.org/details/ppyjc61_yahoo_Act3_201502
This week’s new podcast revisits a Once or Twice a Fortnight post originally issued in February 2012. Today’s post focuses on the sacred and secular works of spiritual inspiration by French composer Francis Poulenc. Read our commentary on April 8 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast382-Playlist
[Day 218 of 222] "Karl Bohm Conducts Richard Strauss" This old favourite recording of mine, featuring Karl Böhm conducting four works by his friend and mentor Richard Strauss, including two of his oft-heard tone Poems: Till Eulenspiegel and Don Juan. Details @ https://archive.org/details/03StraussRDonJuanOp.20
[Day 213 of 222] "Handel's Messiah (Easter Section)" Handel's Messiah was originally an Easter offering. It burst onto the stage of Musick Hall in Dublin on April 13, 1742. The audience swelled to a record 700, as ladies had heeded pleas by management to wear dresses "without Hoops" in order to make "Room for more company." Details @ https://archive.org/details/214WorthyIsTheLambBlessingAn
[Day 212 of 222] “Henrik Behrens, Organist” I don't know much about the artist - in fact, I have tried in vain to contact him to find out more aboout him and the instrument he is recorded playing. You can, however, find some of his tracks on SoundClick and Last.fm. The play and style are, well, very much in keeping with the style one would hear... at Church. Mr. Behrens plays the works pretty much as written, no flash or sizzle, and that's OK considering that these works from the Great Masters don't need extra spice. Details @ https://archive.org/details/HenrikBehrensOrganiste
[Day 211 of 22] “RACHMANINOV 'In Camara' ” Inspired by the shocking death of Tchaikovsky on October 23, 1893, Rachmaninov responded by beginning a work in his memory two days later. Laboring over it for six weeks, Rachmaninov composed a work in three huge and hugely despairing movements. Taking Tchaikovsky's own elegiac piano trio as a model, Rachmaninov's work consists of a large-scale sonata movement, an enormous central set of variations, and a resolutely defiant concluding fast movement. Details @ https://archive.org/details/205EtudesTableauxOp.33No.5E
[Bruckner, Eugen Jochum, 9 Symphonies (Part 8)] Throughout the month of March on our podcasting channel, we are featuring the Bruckner symphony cycle recorded by Eugen Jochum for Deutsche Grammophon in the mid-1960’s. Today’s quarterly podcast is the third of three “crossover” chapters of that series. Read our commentary on March 29 @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3593-jochum-conducts-bruckner-symphony.html, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast-381-playlist [Quarterly Tuesday Podcast]
“Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957)” From the Japanese site Public Domain Classic, Once Upon the Internet presents some mono recordings by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under its legendary conductor, Arturo Toscanini, including Beethoven's Second Symphony. Details @ https://archive.org/details/2-01-beethoven-symphony-no.-2-toscanini
"G for (Don) Giovanni - Act 2" Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music! Details @ https://archive.org/details/02Act1
"G for (Don) Giovanni - Act 1" Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music! Details @ https://archive.org/details/02Act1
[Bruckner, Eugen Jochum, 9 Symphonies (Part 7)] Throughout the month of March on our podcasting channel, we are featuring the Bruckner symphony cycle recorded by Eugen Jochum for Deutsche Grammophon in the mid-1960’s. Today’s Friday podcast is the second of three “crossover” chapters of that series. Read our commentary on March 25 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast-380-playlist
[Day 205 of 222] “J.S. Bach ‘en España’ ” Organist Michael Reckling, who frequented the Church of Our Lady of the Incarnation of Marbella was impressed with the location’s acoustics, and he took upon himself to engage Monsignor Rodrigo Bocanegra (at that time pastor of the Church) in 1970 to support this initiative. The ambitious project would yield the first large tracker organ and one of the most important instruments built in Spain in the 20th Century: the Organo Del Sol Mayor. The fine construction was carried out between 1971 and 1975 by the master organ builders Gabriel Blancafort and Joan Capella from Collbató, at their workshop near Barcelona. Details @ https://archive.org/details/108ToccataAndFugueInFMajorBWV540
[Day 204 of 222] “ROSSINI: Six Sonatas for Quartet” In the 1940s, composer Alfredo Casella discovered a set of six string sonatas written by Rossini in 1804, when he was still quite young. The pieces were written for his friend, Agostino Triossi, who was an accomplished amateur bassist. Triossi, Morini (Triossi's violinist cousin), Morini's cellist brother, and Rossini performed the pieces, apparently in a less-than-stellar fashion. Rossini says his playing (on the second violin part) was the worst of all. Details @ https://archive.org/details/16SonateNo6
This month, my only Tuesday post is this Cover2Cover share of the great late fifties/early sixties Bruckner symphony cycle by Eugen Jochum. Thanks to this cycle, along with a later cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Jochum has established himself as an authority when it comes to Bruckner’s orchestral output. Part 1 features Symphonies no 9. Read our commentary @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3585-anton-bruckner-eugen-jochum.html, Details @ https://archive.org/details/5-01-symphony-no.-5-in-b-flat-major
“Budapest String Quartet - The Complete Beethoven Quartets (Part 5)” There are three complete recorded cycles of the 16 Beethoven string quartets by the Budapest Quartet. My favourite is still the set they made for Columbia in the early 1950s, playing the magnificent instruments owned by the Library of Congress. I was pleased to find the complete recordings of the Budapest String Quartet’s 1950’s Beethoven complete corpus of quartets on YouTube, and assembled them for you here. Part 5 features quartet nos 12-13 and the Grosse Fugue. Details @ https://archive.org/details/sq-14-16
“J.S. Bach - Mass in B Minor (Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei)” After the death of Augustus II in 1733, five months of mourning followed, during which all public music-making was suspended. Bach used the opportunity to work on the composition of a Missa, a portion of the liturgy sung in Latin and common to both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic rites. His aim was to dedicate the work to the new sovereign Augustus III, a Catholic, with the hope of obtaining the title "Electoral Saxon Court Composer” (Bach eventually was made court composer to Augustus III in 1736.). Details @ https://archive.org/details/12Credo
“J.S. Bach - Mass in B Minor (Kyrie & Gloria)” After the death of Augustus II in 1733, five months of mourning followed, during which all public music-making was suspended. Bach used the opportunity to work on the composition of a Missa, a portion of the liturgy sung in Latin and common to both the Lutheran and Roman Catholic rites. His aim was to dedicate the work to the new sovereign Augustus III, a Catholic, with the hope of obtaining the title "Electoral Saxon Court Composer” (Bach eventually was made court composer to Augustus III in 1736.). Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Gloria
[Day 199 of 222] “Joseph Haydn, András Schiff – Piano Sonatas” As a reviewer to my Haydn montage from 2017 writes, "When compared to the later Mozart, and followed by Beethoven at the turn of the 18th Century, Haydn's keyboard music has been pushed unfairly to the background. [...] You can also hear elements of the early Beethoven sonatas here - yes, he took off from his mentor Haydn, not Mozart, in piano style. Of course, he later surpassed both of them." Details @ https://archive.org/details/10HaydnPianoSonataNo.33InCMin
[Day 198 of 222] “Helmut Walcha - Organ Masters Before Bach” This listener guide provides an overview of the music that stands as a foundation for Bach’s great organ music. Three works on this playlist are by Buxtehude; other composers represented on this disc, which covers the period from the 16th to the 18th centuries, include such well known names as Johann Pachelbel and Georg Böhm, as well as lesser known composers such as Nicolaus Bruhns, Samuel Scheidt and Vincent Lübeck. The wide variety of music presented gives the listener a very good idea of what Bach heard and studied - music which had a great influence on his own compositions. Details @ https://archive.org/details/ppyjc61_yahoo_OMBB
[Day 197 of 222] “Bernstein Conducts Ives” Subtitled “The Camp Meeting” – a reference to the travelling religious revivals of yesteryear when people gathered in fields to sing and listen to preachers - the third symphony has many influences including War songs, dances, and general European classical music. Ives was sentimentally nostalgic, glancing back as a modern composer at a nineteenth-century childhood of hymns, bells, and children's games. The symphony is filled with complex harmonies and meters. In 1947, the symphony was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01SymphonyNo3
This month, my only Tuesday post is this Cover2Cover share of the great late fifties/early sixties Bruckner symphony cycle by Eugen Jochum. Thanks to this cycle, along with a later cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Jochum has established himself as an authority when it comes to Bruckner’s orchestral output. Part 5 features Symphonies no6 Read our commentary @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3585-anton-bruckner-eugen-jochum.html, Details @ https://archive.org/details/5-01-symphony-no.-5-in-b-flat-major
“Yevgeny Mravinsky - Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3” In 1938 Yevgeny Mravinsky joined the Leningrad Philharmonic and for the next 50 years he gradually transformed it into one of the best orchestras in the world. In respect to the performance of Tchaikovsky and D. Shostakovich symphonies, they start to call it «the model». It joined the class of the great virtuoso orchestras as solid interpreters of Mozart (as invitees to the Viennese festival dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the composer). The orchestra also performed with other famous conductors of the day: Leopold Stokowski, Igor Markevitch, Arvid Jansons, Mariss Jansons, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Evgeny Svetlanov and Kurt Sanderling. From 1942 to 1960, Sanderling was joint principal conductor with Mravinsky of the Leningrad Philharmonic. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05mravinskyconductsbeethovensy
"F for Freischutz (Part 21)" A Freischütz ("freeshooter"), in German folklore, is a marksman who, by a contract with the devil, has obtained a certain number of bullets destined to hit without fail whatever object he wishes. As the legend is usually told, six of the magic bullets (German: Freikugeln, literally "free bullets"), are thus subservient to the marksman's will, but the seventh is at the absolute disposal of the devil himself. Resembling the Faust legend, Der Freischütz is a story of two lovers whose ultimate fate is decided by supernatural forces, a story which Weber brings to life by masterfully translating into music the otherworldly, particularly sinister, aspects of the narrative. Details @ https://archive.org/details/weber_der_frei_ke_31_und_ob_etc
"F for Freischutz (Part 1)" A Freischütz ("freeshooter"), in German folklore, is a marksman who, by a contract with the devil, has obtained a certain number of bullets destined to hit without fail whatever object he wishes. As the legend is usually told, six of the magic bullets (German: Freikugeln, literally "free bullets"), are thus subservient to the marksman's will, but the seventh is at the absolute disposal of the devil himself. Resembling the Faust legend, Der Freischütz is a story of two lovers whose ultimate fate is decided by supernatural forces, a story which Weber brings to life by masterfully translating into music the otherworldly, particularly sinister, aspects of the narrative. Details @ https://archive.org/details/weber_der_frei_ke_01_prelud_etc
[Bruckner, Eugen Jochum, 9 Symphonies (Part 4)] Throughout the month of March on our podcasting channel, we are featuring the Bruckner symphony cycle recorded by Eugen Jochum for Deutsche Grammophon in the mid-1960’s. Today’s Friday podcast is the first of three “crossover” chapters of that series. Read our commentary on March 11 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast79-Playlist
This month, my only Tuesday post is this Cover2Cover share of the great late fifties/early sixties Bruckner symphony cycle by Eugen Jochum. Thanks to this cycle, along with a later cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Jochum has established himself as an authority when it comes to Bruckner’s orchestral output. Part 3 features Symphony no. 4. Read our commentary @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3585-anton-bruckner-eugen-jochum.html, Details @ https://archive.org/details/5-01-symphony-no.-5-in-b-flat-major
This month, my only Tuesday post is this Cover2Cover share of the great late fifties/early sixties Bruckner symphony cycle by Eugen Jochum. Thanks to this cycle, along with a later cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Jochum has established himself as an authority when it comes to Bruckner’s orchestral output. Part 2 features Symphony no. 3. Read our commentary @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3585-anton-bruckner-eugen-jochum.html, Details @ https://archive.org/details/5-01-symphony-no.-5-in-b-flat-major
This month, my only Tuesday post is this Cover2Cover share of the great late fifties/early sixties Bruckner symphony cycle by Eugen Jochum. Thanks to this cycle, along with a later cycle with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Jochum has established himself as an authority when it comes to Bruckner’s orchestral output. Part 1 features Symphonies nos 1 and 2. Read our commentary @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3585-anton-bruckner-eugen-jochum.html, Details @ https://archive.org/details/5-01-symphony-no.-5-in-b-flat-major
“Budapest String Quartet - The Complete Beethoven Quartets (Part 4)” There are three complete recorded cycles of the 16 Beethoven string quartets by the Budapest Quartet. My favourite is still the set they made for Columbia in the early 1950s, playing the magnificent instruments owned by the Library of Congress. I was pleased to find the complete recordings of the Budapest String Quartet’s 1950’s Beethoven complete corpus of quartets on YouTube, and assembled them for you here. Part 4 features quartet nos 9-11. Details @ https://archive.org/details/sq-14-16
"The Bach Partitas Played on the Viola" Bach himself transcribed many of his own works into different keys for different instrumentation-- including several movements from the Sonatas and Partitas. Bach, the master of polyphony, clearly felt technically freer with the violin to write more complex works. Whether we're talking about the three-part fugues, the Chaconne, or the beautiful slow movements of the sonatas, the additional lines that are close to non-existant or just hinted at in most of the Cello Suites really add to the beauty and interest of the violin sonatas and partitas. Details @ https://archive.org/details/213PartitaNo.2Chaconne
“J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Solo Violin” The complete set of solo violin works by J.S. Bach consists of three sonatas da Chiesa (or church sonatas), in four movements, and three partitas (or partias), which are “dance suites”. The set was completed by 1720, but was only published in 1802 by Nikolaus Simrock in Bonn. Even after publication, it was largely ignored until the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim started performing these works. Today, Bach's Sonatas and Partitas are an essential part of the violin repertoire, and they are frequently performed and recorded. Details @ https://archive.org/details/110SonateNo.3EnUtMajeurPour
[Day 185 of 222] "An Unlikely Pairing" Released in 1979, the movie 10 starring Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews and (introducing) Bo Derek told the tale of a Hollywood lyricist going through a mid-life crisis who becomes infatuated with a sexy, newly married woman. The film brought renewed fame to the Boléro by Maurice Ravel. Use of the piece during the love scene between Derek and Moore's characters, with Jenny describing it as "the most descriptive sex music ever written", resulted in massive sales of the work. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05RavelBolero
[Day 184 of 222] "Stravinsky, Bernstein – Symphony In Three Movements • Symphony In C" Today's podcast sits at the confluence of our In Memoriam series and our War and Peace series, commemorating the 30th anniversary of Bernstein's passing and two symphonies composed by Stravinsky daring the War years. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05-stravinsky-symphony-in-3-movement
[Day 183 of 222] “Stravinsky, RSO Berlin • Riccardo Chailly – Symphonie De Psaumes” Unlike many pieces composed for chorus and orchestra, Stravinsky said that “it is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing.” The work was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Stravinsky.StravinskySymphonyOfPsalmsEtc.
“Alessandro Deljavan, Chopin – Complete Etudes” The idea of the piano étude conjures up one of two things – a study in composition and harmony or a study in piano performance. We can safely say that Chopin hits both of these objectives. Chopin's études formed the foundation for what was then a revolutionary playing style for the piano. They are some of the most challenging and evocative pieces of all the works in concert piano repertoire. Details @ https://archive.org/details/ChopinCompleteEtudesFullAlbum
“The Creatures of Prometheus” The 1801 ballet music for Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus), following the libretto of Salvatore Viganò, is the only full length ballet by Beethoven. The original scenario of the ballet is lost, making it difficult to establish the precise context of many of the sixteen numbers of the score and leading to different treatments of the music by various choreographers since. Details @ https://archive.org/details/TheCreaturesOfPrometheusBallet
“E for Elisir (d'Amore) - Act 2” L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a melodramma giocoso in two acts. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). Composed in less than a month (according to The New Grove Masters of Italian Opera) l’elisir d'amore was the most often performed opera in Italy between 1838 and 1848 and has remained continually in the international opera repertoire. Today it is one of the most frequently performed of Donizetti's 75 operas. Details @ https://archive.org/details/DonizettiLelisirDamoreLevineBattlePavarotti
“E for Elisir (d'Amore) - Act 1” L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a melodramma giocoso in two acts. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). Composed in less than a month (according to The New Grove Masters of Italian Opera) l’elisir d'amore was the most often performed opera in Italy between 1838 and 1848 and has remained continually in the international opera repertoire. Today it is one of the most frequently performed of Donizetti's 75 operas. Details @ https://archive.org/details/DonizettiLelisirDamoreLevineBattlePavarotti
This week’s new podcast revisits a Tuesday post originally issued in September 2013. Minuets and scehrzi are close cousins both in their form and their use in classical music.. Read our commentary on February 25 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast378-Playlist
[Day 177 of 222] "Kartínki s výstavki" The story behind the work is well known – Piictures is a tribute by Mussorgsky to his late friend Viktor Hartmann, and is a suite of short pastiches that represent some of Hartmann’s artwork, assorted with “glue-like” promenades that depict Mussorgsky walking through an exhibition of Hartmann’s works. I think it is fair to say that we have been equally exposed to the original piano suite by Musorgsky and to the very popular orchestration by Maurice Ravel. As it turns out, Pictures is one of those piano works that has been adapted for other instruments, and for full orchestra. Details @ https://archive.org/details/02MussorgskyPicturesAtAnExhib
[Day 176 of 222] “Amateur Night at Harvard” Our performers are an ecclectic assemblage of musicians and scientists - pianist Irene Chen holds degrees in biochemistry and music, and has pursued a Master’s Degree in piano performance as well as studies in German! Violist Miriam Osterfield has a Ph. D. in Biological Sciences and is on faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern. and violinist Allegra Petti is a research fellow at the McDonnell Genome Institute. Cellist Jonathan Min (who I believe graduated in dentistry) wrote the liner notes for a CD that recorded the 2004 recital for posterity. Details @ https://archive.org/details/03RavelTrioInAIIIIV
We are repurposing the music from this post as a new montage in our ongoing A la Carte series on the For Your Listening Pleasure podcast February 22, 2019. The following notes are an update .
Over the coming months, we will be repurposing several of the Haydn symphonies contained in a pair of Once Upon the Internet posts featuring Herrmann Scherchen. This first post in the series combines a selection from a 2011 “Musical Links” post from our Friday series we called Mozart’s European Vacation” and a third hitherto unpublished selection – Schubert’s Second symphony from Riccardo Muti’s Schubert cycles with the Vienna Philharmonic. Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-09
“Beethoven Two-For: Overtures and Emperor Concerto“This week, I am sharing two vinyl recordings from my personal collection. Rudolf Serkin recorded all of the Beethoven concertos - some of them more than once, under Eugene Ormandy, Bruno Walter and Leonard Bernstein, The Bernstein collaboration on the Emperor concerto was reissued several times, including under the "Great Performances" series. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05-beethoven-overture-leonore-no.-3-op.
“J. S. Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II - BWV 882-893” The Well-Tempered Clavier (German: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier) BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. The Well-Tempered Clavier are generally regarded as being among the most influential works in the history of Western classical music. Details @ https://archive.org/details/ppyjc61_yahoo_889
“J. S. Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II - BWV 870-881” The Well-Tempered Clavier (German: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier) BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. The Well-Tempered Clavier are generally regarded as being among the most influential works in the history of Western classical music. Details @ https://archive.org/details/ppyjc61_yahoo_889
[Day 171 of 222] “Debussy Trilogies” Giulini's much admired 1962 recording of Debussy's La mer and Nocturnes has become highly collectable for its sensitive interpretation and atmospheric sound; according to Discogs there are 15 different reissues of this disc, not counting the CD couplings of this pair of Debussy triptychs with other Debussy and French works recorded by CMG for the EMI label. The works themselves don’t require much introduction, other than to say they are examples of Debussy’s impressionist style and incisive orchestration – from the waves of the Sea crushing the coastline to the ethereal humming chorus of mermaids closing his three nocturnes for orchestra. Details @ https://archive.org/details/06NocturnesTryptiqueSymphonique
[Day 170 of 222] “Respighi, Antal Dorati, Philharmonia Hungarica – Ancient Dances And Airs For Lute - Suites 1,2 &3” In addition to being a renowned composer and conductor, Respighi was also a notable musicologist. His interest in Italian music of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries led him to compose works inspired by the music of these periods. Respighi loved plainchant and Renaissance and Baroque music. His Ancient Airs and Dances suites are his most successful efforts to bring early music to his contemporary listeners, in terms of the taste and imagination of his arrangements as well as audience appeal. Largely deriving from Italian and French music for the lute, the original melody lines and pieces come from seventeenth and eighteenth century. The piece consists of three suites of four pieces each, the first two for orchestra and the third for strings. Details @ https://archive.org/details/suite-no.-2
[Day 169 of 222] “Respighi’s Roman Trilogy” Ottorino Respighi falls into that unenviable category of a composer whose reputation rests unduly on a particular work, or group of compositions. In his case it is the so-called ‘Roman Trilogy’, three separately conceived orchestral pieces penned between 1916-1928, his prime creative period. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05RespighiRomanFestivals
"Rossini/Respighi – La Boutique Fantasque - Suite Rossiniana" This week’s Vinyl’s Revenge digs out an old cassette I acquired in the early 1980’s featuring the music of Ottorino Respighi inspired by music composed by his compatriot, Gioacchino Rossini. Read our commentary February 15 @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3576-rossini-respighi-la-boutique.html Details @ https://archive.org/details/13-respighi-suite-rossiniana-p.-148 [Vinyl's Revenge #71]
“Budapest String Quartet - The Complete Beethoven Quartets (Part 3)” There are three complete recorded cycles of the 16 Beethoven string quartets by the Budapest Quartet. My favourite is still the set they made for Columbia in the early 1950s, playing the magnificent instruments owned by the Library of Congress. I was pleased to find the complete recordings of the Budapest String Quartet’s 1950’s Beethoven complete corpus of quartets on YouTube, and assembled them for you here. Part 3 features quartet nos 7-8. Details @ https://archive.org/details/sq-14-16
This week’s new podcast revisits a Tuesday post originally issued in April 2016. The programme is dedicated to Italian violin virtuoso Salvatore Accardo. Read our commentary on February 11 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast377-Playlist
This classic jazz piano album Night Train was recorded by The Oscar Peterson Trio almost 60 years ago in Los Angeles on December 15 and 16, 1962. It’s a record that belongs in every collection, whether you’re presently a jazz fan or whether you’ve taken a vow against improvised music, thinking it’s incomprehensible and annoying. Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-07
“Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4; Triple Concerto” English classical pianist Michael Roll. Born in the UK to Viennese Jewish parents, Roll was a child prodigy who performed on the concert platform with the City of Birmingham Orchestra at the age of ten and at the Royal Festival Hall aged twelve under the direction of Sir Malcolm Sargent. Roll won the Leeds Piano Competition aged only seventeen; as of 2016, he remains the competition's youngest winner. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01beethovenpianoconcerto4ing
“Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (Book I - BWV 858-869)” Composed about 20 years apart, the two sets of 24 preludes and Fugues that constitute the two books of Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier didn’t start off as one huge collection of 48 works – in fact, the set of “24 Preludes and Fugues” composed in 1742 were not issued as a “sequel” to the original WTC of 1722. Book I exploits the concept that many more composers (from Chopin to moist recently François Dompierre) have followed, that of creating a set of works written in every major and minor key. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04BWV849
[Day 162 of 222] “Richard Strauss: Violin Concerto in D minor; Sinfonia Domestica” The Rudolf Kempe/Staatskapelle Dresden “Complete Strauss” set has been well and justifiably praised since their initial release; the Staatskapelle is one of the oldest and finest of Germany's many outstanding orchestras,and take pride in having premiered several of Strauss' operas and were a favorite orchestra of the composer/conductor. Kempe, who was born and trained in Dresden, began his musical career as an oboist, perhaps explaining why his performances stand out for their transparency particularly in woodwind detail. Listening to his performances of the many popular tone poems, what immediately distinquishes them from the competition is the way he often holds back the brass or tutti ensemble to reveal much of the delicate interior wind writing. In short, both the orchestra and their conductor know their Richard Strauss! Details @ https://archive.org/details/04SinfoniaDomesticaOp.53
“Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (Book I - BWV 846-857)” Composed about 20 years apart, the two sets of 24 preludes and Fugues that constitute the two books of Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier didn’t start off as one huge collection of 48 works – in fact, the set of “24 Preludes and Fugues” composed in 1742 were not issued as a “sequel” to the original WTC of 1722. Book I exploits the concept that many more composers (from Chopin to moist recently François Dompierre) have followed, that of creating a set of works written in every major and minor key. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04BWV849
[Day 157 of 222] “Haydn Cello Concertos D-major & C-major” German cellist Reiner Hochmuth began to play the cello at the age of 10. After winning numerous prizes at German Youth Competitions he chose to study music seriously rather than pursue chemistry. Hochmuth was (and still is) one of the first "internet savvy" cellists, a member of the Internet Cello Society and was featured on the original MP3.COM (In fact, his website still shows signs of that relationship.) Details @ https://archive.org/details/03Concerto
[Day 156 of 222] “The Piano Music of Frederic Chopin” For those of us who remember the original MP3.COM, there were a few "special pages"of classical content, and one of them was aptky titled "The Music of Frederic Chopin" and featured American pianist, and well-known Internet artist, Robin Alciatore. According to her website, Robin Alciatore is one of the most popular classical pianists on the internet. Her recording of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" has been downloaded more than 4 million times. Details @ https://archive.org/details/24BalladeNo.1Op.23
[Day 155 of 222] “Tamás Vásáry Plays Chopin” Chopin wrote four Sonatas: three for piano solo and one for piano and cello and today’s vinyl selection comes from the DG Chopin recordings Vásáry made in the mid-sixties, featuring him in the two most heard Chopin piano sonatas, nos. 2 and 3. Details @ https://archive.org/details/05PianoSonataNo.3InBMinorOp
"Sibelius, Sir Colin Davis, London Symphony Orchestra – Symphonies Nos 5 & 6" For our latest post featuring the symphonies of Jean Sibelius, I am featuring Cover2Cover a disc I acquired (of all places) at the Virgin store at Heathrow Airport about 15 years ago.. Read our commentary February 1st @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3568-sibelius-sir-colin-davis.html Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-sibelius-symphony-5-in-e-flat [Cover2Cover #41]
“Budapest String Quartet - The Complete Beethoven Quartets (Part 2)” There are three complete recorded cycles of the 16 Beethoven string quartets by the Budapest Quartet. My favourite is still the set they made for Columbia in the early 1950s, playing the magnificent instruments owned by the Library of Congress. I was pleased to find the complete recordings of the Budapest String Quartet’s 1950’s Beethoven complete corpus of quartets on YouTube, and assembled them for you here. Part 2 features quartet nos 4-6 Details @ https://archive.org/details/sq-14-16
“C for Così (Fan Tutte, Act 2)” They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, but does it? Maybe it provides an opportunity for another man to whisk her away… That seems to be Don Alfonso’s hypothesis, and he convinces his two paranoid buddies Ferrando and Guglielmo into posing as a pair of lotharios, all to test the Don’s theory that all women are fickle and patently unfaithful. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2_201504
“C for Così (Fan Tutte, Act 1)” They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, but does it? Maybe it provides an opportunity for another man to whisk her away… That seems to be Don Alfonso’s hypothesis, and he convinces his two paranoid buddies Ferrando and Guglielmo into posing as a pair of lotharios, all to test the Don’s theory that all women are fickle and patently unfaithful. Details @ https://archive.org/details/04Act2_201504
[Day 150 of 222] “Sibelius, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Paavo Berglund – Symphony No. 4 & 7” When Sibelius was in his mid-40s, he thought he was going to die. His doctors had found a growth in his throat and after several operations his prognosis was still not good. He was a hard-living, hard-drinking cigar smoker. For a time, he gave it all up and wrote his dark, inward-looking, modern-sounding Symphony No. 4, a work that baffled not only many listeners but conductors as well. Details @ https://archive.org/details/2063IlTempLargo
[Day 149 of 222] “Three Scandinavian Symphonies” Jean Sibelius wrote seven symphonies; and his Third Symphony represents a turning point in Sibelius's symphonic output. His First and Second symphonies are grandiose Romantic and patriotic works. The Third, however, is a good-natured, triumphal, and deceptively simple-sounding piece which hardly foreshadows the more austere complexity of his later symphonies. The Sibelius is flanked by a pair of symphonies by the early-romantic Swedish composer Franz Berwald. Details @ https://archive.org/details/02Berwald.SinfoniaN3InDoMagg
[Day 148 of 222] “Jean Sibelius, Andrew Davis, Toronto Symphony – Sibelius: Symphony No. 2” The genesis of the Second Symphony can be traced to Sibelius' trip to Italy in early 1901; it was there that he began contemplating several ambitious projects, including a four-movement tone poem based on the Don Juan story and a setting of Dante's Divina Commedia. While none of these plans ever came to fruition, some of the ideas sketched during this trip did find their way into the second movement of this symphony. Details @ https://archive.org/details/Sibelius2DavisFIXED
"Ormandy Conducts Sibelius" This week’s Vinyl’s Revenge post is the first of two Tuesday musings featuring the symphonies o Jean Sibelius. This week, the First with Eugene Ormandy. Read our commentary January 25 @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3564-ormandy-conducts-sibelius.html Details @ https://archive.org/details/symphony-no-1-in-e-minor-op.-39-iv. [Vinyl's Revenge #70]
"Beethoven - Sviatoslav Richter, Philharmonia Orchestra, Riccardo Muti – Piano Concerto No. 3" A quick review of Richter's Beethoven output on record has him performing cello sonatas as accompanist, and as soloist on the piano sonatas (he probably recorded them all in the USSR over a span of 30 years) but no "complete" concerto cycle. From what I could find, he recorded this concerto three times, twice with Kurt Sanderling (in Russia with the Moscow Youth Symphony and with the Vienna Symphony for DGG) and this recording (conveniently reissued for Melodiya in the Russia) for EMI with the Philharmona under Riccardo Muti. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-piano-concerto-no.-3-allegro-co
“Tchaikovsky - Shakespeare Trilogy” This second of teo listener guides isd edicated to what I call Tchaikovsky’s Shakespeare Trilogy, works inspired by the Bard’s plays. The most well-known of the trilogy is the overture-fantasia in B minor Romeo and Julietafter Shakespeare's tragedy (ca.1594), written by Tchaikovsky in October and November 1869, and extensively revised between July and September 1870. The final, definitive version of the score dates from August 1880. Between 1878 and 1881 Tchaikovsky sketched part of a duet scena for an opera on the subject of Romeo and Juliet, using themes from the overture-fantasia. Like it contemporary tone poem Fatum, the first version of the work is dedicated to Mily Balakirev. Details @ https://archive.org/details/02TchaikovskyBuryaTheTempes
“Tchaikovsky Lost & Found” This first of two listener guides dedicated to Tchaikovsky's tone poems considers opp. 76, 77 and 78, where we can see a definite pattern in the site’s contents. It goes something like this: After the first performance the composer destroyed the full score, but after his death it was reconstructed from the surviving orchestral parts and published [posthumously].Details @ https://archive.org/details/04TchaikovskyFrancescaDaRimi
This week’s new podcast revisits a Tuesday post originally issued on November 8, 2011. The programme is dedicated to the USAF Heritage of America Band. Read our commentary on January 21st @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast376-Playlist
[Day 142 of 222] “Joze Kotar, clarinet” Jože Kotar is born in Trbovlje and became principal clarinetist of the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra in 2007 after serving in that role at the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra for 12 years. He is also a tenured professor at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. Kotar is a member, co-founder and artistic director of the Slovenian Clarinet Orchestra and a member of the Ariart Wind Quintet and the MD7 Contemporary Music Ensemble. As a clarinetist, he collaborates with the Slovenian Chamber Orchestra, the Academie Ars Musicae Orchestra, etc.) Since 2007 he is a conductor and artistic director at the Trbovlje Workers Band. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01IntroductionThemeEtVariations
[Day 141 of 222] “Jasper Wood, violinist” Jasper Wood was born into a musical family of six brothers and sisters in Moncton, New Brunswick, where he gave his first public performance at the age of five. Mr. Wood holds Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music. His main teachers have been David and Linda Cerone, Oleh Krysa, and Philippe Djokic. Details @ https://archive.org/details/108Chaconne
The original post, featuring stage music by Grieg, is being “mashed up” into a new programme by adding more stage music by the Norwegian. This A La Carte montage extends our old vinyl share of Vaclav Neumann conducting excerpts Peer Gynt with a rare complete recording of the incidental music from Sigurd Jorsalfar. Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-06
“Budapest String Quartet - The Complete Beethoven Quartets (Part 1)” There are three complete recorded cycles of the 16 Beethoven string quartets by the Budapest Quartet. My favourite is still the set they made for Columbia in the early 1950s, playing the magnificent instruments owned by the Library of Congress. I was pleased to find the complete recordings of the Budapest String Quartet’s 1950’s Beethoven complete corpus of quartets on YouTube, and assembled them for you here. Part 1 features quartet nos 1-3. Details @ https://archive.org/details/sq-14-16
"B for Bohème - Acts 3 and 4" The libretto of La bohème (by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa) is based on Henri Murger's novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, a collection of vignettes portraying young bohemians living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s. Much of the libretto is original; the main plots of acts two and three are the librettists' invention, with only a few passing references to incidents and characters in Murger’s novel. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01LaBohmeAct1
"B for Bohème - Acts 1 and 2" The libretto of La bohème (by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa) is based on Henri Murger's novel, Scènes de la vie de bohème, a collection of vignettes portraying young bohemians living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s. Much of the libretto is original; the main plots of acts two and three are the librettists' invention, with only a few passing references to incidents and characters in Murger’s novel. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01LaBohmeAct1
[The One-Two Punch (Part 5)] To conclude our One-Two Punch series, a pair f violin concerti by the great 19th cntury Polish virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski, Read our commentary on January 14 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast375-Playlist [A La Carte #5]
[Day 135/222] “Brahms, Brahms” Daniel Barenboim made his international debut as a pianist in 1952 in Vienna and Rome. In 1955 he performed in Paris, in 1956 in London, and in 1957 in New York under the baton of Leopold Stokowski. Regular concert tours of Europe, the United States, South America, Australia and the Far East followed thereafter. While visiting many of the great European musical centers as a teenager, Barenboim perfected himself both as a pianist and as a conductor. Today’s featured Brahms concerto performances capture a specific era in time for the industry (the latter years of analog recording), the Philharmonic (as Mehta still is, to this day, the orchestra’s longest-serving Music Director) and the soloist (heard less and less as pianist in a feature role, as conducting took over his recording career). Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-concerto-no.-1-in-d-minor-op.-15
[Day 134/222] “Liszt, Ivan Davis , The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Downes – Piano Concertos No. 1 In E Flat / Piano Concerto No. 2 In A” As a teenager, Franz Liszt created at least two virtuosic concertos for piano and orchestra, scores which are now lost. The two numbered concertos were composed during the 1830's when Liszt’s career as a young, travelling virtuoso was at its height. Liszt revised them extensively before letting them be published some 25 years after their conception. Details @ https://archive.org/details/02-liszt-piano-concerto-no.-1-in-e-fl
[The One-Two Punch (Part 2)] “Chopin / Arthur Rubinstein, Skrowaczewski, Wallenstein – Concertos Nos. 1 & 2" This week’s Cover2Cover share is part of a week-long series on our podcasting channel I have dubbed “The One-Two Punch”, focused on pairs of concerti that follow that numerical reference. Our share is focused on the coupling of Chopin’s two piano concerti featuring the late great Artur Rubinstein.
Read our commentary January 11 @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3555-chopin-arthur-rubinstein-skrowaczewski.html Details @ https://archive.org/details/01-concerto-for-piano-no-1-in-e-mino
[The One-Two Punch (Part 1)] “Beethoven - Radu Lupu • Zubin Mehta • Israel Philharmonic Orchestra – Piano Concertos No.1 In C & No. 2 In B Flat” Today's podcast features Romanian pianist Radu Lupu in a pair of Beethoven piano concertos, taken from his Beethoven cycle recorded with the Israel Philharmonic in the early days of the Digital era. Beethoven’s early career in Vienna, where he settled in 1792 after leaving his native Bonn, established him first of all as a pianist. He had already tackled a piano concerto in 1784, at the age of fourteen, but Piano Concerto No.1 in C major, the third attempted and the second completed, was ready for the composer’s own use by 1795. It was revised in 1800, but is thought by some to have had its first performance either in March or December 1795. Details @ https://archive.org/details/101pianoconcertono.1incmajor
“A for Verdi's Aida – Acts 3 & 4” Verdi composed his first opera (Oberto) in 1839 and from then on strung together great works achieving critical and popular success: Nabucco (1842), Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), and the list goes on and on. Probably one of Opera’s most celebrated spectacles of excesses, Aida was a commission by the ruler (Khedive) of Egypt for the great opera house he’d inaugurated in Cairo in 1869. Versi’s Rigoletto was the first production put up at the opera house, and so Verdi was approached to create the spectacular stage work. Details @ https://archive.org/details/06AidaAct3.OnTheBanksOfThe
“A for Verdi's Aida – Acts 1 & 2” Verdi composed his first opera (Oberto) in 1839 and from then on strung together great works achieving critical and popular success: Nabucco (1842), Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), and the list goes on and on. Probably one of Opera’s most celebrated spectacles of excesses, Aida was a commission by the ruler (Khedive) of Egypt for the great opera house he’d inaugurated in Cairo in 1869. Versi’s Rigoletto was the first production put up at the opera house, and so Verdi was approached to create the spectacular stage work. Details @ https://archive.org/details/06AidaAct3.OnTheBanksOfThe
[Day 129 of 222] “Vivaldi – Trio Sonatas op. 1” ivaldi published twelve trio sonatas his opus one in 1705. This edition has only partly survived; today's performers rely on a reprint by Estienne Roger of Amsterdam which dates from around 1715. However, it is assumed that the 1705 edition was in fact a reprint as well and that the first edition could have been from 1703 and may have been published shortly before Vivaldi had been appointed in his post at La Pieta in September of that year. Today’s share is a World premiere recording authorised and based on the Critical Edition of these 12 sonatas by Fabrizio Ammetto, Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi, Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice. Details @ https://archive.org/details/LArteDellArcoVivaldiTrioSonatasOp.1
[Day 128 of 222] “Khatchaturian: Spartacus Suites 1-3 / Järvi, Scottish NO” For most of us Westerners, Spartacus evokes immediately the Stanley Kubrick-directed epic motion picture starring Kirk Douglas. Though depicting the same slave revolt of Roman times, the Soviet ballet storyline takes considerable liberties with the historical record. Khachaturian composed Spartacus in 1954, and was awarded a Lenin Prize for the composition that same year. Khachaturian extracted and arranged music from the ballet in 1955 into four orchestral suites (opp. 82 a-d). Today’s album shares the first three suites. Details @ https://archive.org/details/01AramKhachaturianSpartacusBa
[Day 127 of 222] “Prokofiev : Love for 3 oranges , Classical Sym Marriner” I own several recordings by Sir Neville, and many of them with ensembles other than the Academy, including the one I am sharing today with the London Symphony Orchestra. On this recording, we hear three works by Sergei Prokofiev: his Classical Symphony, and two suites – from his opera The Love for Three Oranges and the film Lieutenant Kije. Details @ https://archive.org/details/11-lieutenant-kije-symphonic-suite
This A La Carte montage extends our old vinyl share of Dimitri Mitropoulos conducting excerpts of Romeo and Juliet with Ashkenazy conducting selections from Cinderella. Details @ https://archive.org/details/alc-04
“PTB Classic - Xavier Cugat” Xavier Cugat (1900-1990) was a Calatan musician and bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a leading figure in the spread of Latin music. In New York City he was the leader of the resident orchestra at the Waldorf–Astoria before and after World War II. One of his trademark gestures was to hold a chihuahua while he waved his baton with the other arm. Read our commentary December 21st @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3546-ptb-classic-xavier-cugat.html Details @ https://archive.org/details/xavier-cugat-the-best-of-xavier-cugat-hq-music-full-album
This week’s new podcast revisits a Tuesday post originally issued on December 26, 2011. The programme is dedicated to the six versions of Smetana’s Ma Vlast recorded by Rafael Kubelik. Read our commentary on December 17 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast374-Playlist
This week’s new podcast revisits a Tuesday post originally issued on January 2nd, 2012. The programme is dedicated to Sergei Rachmaninov - not as a composer, but as a concert pianist. This is nothing new - Liszt made a fine career as a concertist as well as in composing. Rachmaninov did what he had to do to "feed his family":. Read our commentary on December 10 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/,, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast373-Playlist
[Quarterly Tuesday Podcast] This week’s “Fifth Tuesday” quarterly podcast revisits a Tuesday post originally issued on November 6, 2012. The programme is dedicated to the memory of the late great CBC announcer, Bob Kerr. Read our commentary on November 30 @ https://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/3540
[Beethoven: Complete Piano Trios (Part 4)] Disk 5 of the Trio Elégiaque complete Beethoven trio set is our crossover montage for this week. Read our commentary on November 19 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast71-Playlist