Today's Listening

JKH, I've been playing with the Archive too and I was intrigued that you could not find the Heifetz, Feuermann, Rubinstein recording of the Tchaikovsky Trio.  I tried very hard without success.  I looked at every other review of performances of the work but did not see it listed anywhere as a comparative version.  I wonder whether perhaps it was nevewr reviewed in Gramophone? Lovely performance anyway!

Chris

Sorry JKH, of course it was Piatigorsky!  In May 1951 the recording is discussed in Harold Schonberg's "Letter from America". My Heifetz discography doesn't show a UK LP number though.  Phew!

Chris

PS: I'm still not sure I've found the best way to limit  a search to selected years or decades.

I wonder which hall it was. Perhaps even the huge cathedral on the hill. That acoustic would not be perfect for Bax's already congested scores, I would wager!

As for the Lloyd-Jones cycle, it is up there with his other superb Naxos recordings of British music so if you like them you will like the Bax.

So, Bazza, what have you been listening to recently? And others here?

Best, Petra

I don't know that work, but I must admit from your description, it doesn't sound like one I should eagerly seek out! Too many other recs for me to try first me thinks. ;--)

Best wishes,

Petra

Shockingly traditional (in the sense of mainstream repetoire) fare today! I listened to Tchaikovsky 5 in a recording from Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO. Tchaikovsky often gets a sniffy response these days (overtly emotional, cheap thrills etc.) but I don't see that myself. It is just wonderful, tightly written music that wears a very large heart on its sleeve.

I have to say that after two listens I think this is a very fine performance. Jurowski presents a sharp edged reading which cuts through any possible hints of sentimentality, strutting along like Vronsky... if you get my drift. My only concern at present would be the final bars, where the strut slips - personally I prefer Mavrinsky, who just hits the end emphatically. But then again, Mavrinsky in this music really has no peers...

That's quite sad news. I think I'll whip out my cd of Ferdinand Leitner conducting the orchestra in Bruckner's and Hartmann's 6th symphonies. Great performances! Leitner's Hartmann may be the best on record and his Bruckner 6 is among the best.

As for my present listening: it's Britten. Never been a big fan but I couldn't pass on that nice dirt cheap EMI 5 cd box with the War Requiem and a lot of other orchestral and vocal works, conducted by Simon Rattle.
Britten is a bit like Shostakovich to me (not surprisingly since they were friends and their styles - specially in their later works - is closely related) in that you have to look for the real gems in his oeuvre among the fluff. The fluff being pompous soviet-realism in Shostakovich' case, and quirky superficiality in Britten's.
In Britten's defense it needs to be said that he had good taste regarding his own music, and he didn't want to have most of the "quirky superficial" pieces on the cd's to be published. I wonder why Rattle found it necessary to record them, it's not like you're doing the composer a favour with it.
The real gem of the box is the recent (2005) cd with the 3 great song cycles (Illuminations, Serenade and Nocturne), recorded in Berlin with Ian Bostridge as soloist. Britten at his very best, and worth the price of the full box alone. I bought the box mainly for the War Requiem (Rattle's Birmingham performance is great and maybe only second to the composer's own recording), but the song cycle cd was a more than pleasant surprise.