What are you listening to right now?

I didn't try to "put off" anyone here, but I cannot accept that a very minor composer can be hailed as a major revelation, even if one of his works may sound as fine as it can get.

However, Guillaume, if you're interested in some renegade Soviet music, try a late Soviet, later "advanced", composer of Russia, who is still alive and some labels still record some of his "masterpieces": His name is Alexander Knaifel. ECM has honoured him with three recordings. The latest includes the Choral "masterwork" Blazhenstka (The Beatitudes) and a Lamento for Solo Cello. He has been "well-known" by his thrilling Opera "The Canterville Ghost" (now on Briliant). You may enjoy them. (I trust Jarred should know and possibly have them already).

Parla

P.S.: Dear occasional contributor of this forum, thanks for the unwitting compliment about the "comic relief". I won't return it, since I always stick to the message...not the messenger.

Parla, you don't need to try to put people off; it comes naturally to you. I've only just seen, the thread having been revived, your response some time ago to another debutant member inquiring about recordings of an obscure early Schubert opera. I'd have described your reply as disgusting, had it not been so absurd. At any rate that new member has never been back.
Incidentally, Jared didn't claim Knipper's concerto was a "revelation", let alone a "major" one; he merely said that it deserves to be better known. As do many works by "very minor" composers. I know nothing of Knipper, but I'd wager he was a much bigger shot than any of your friends on the committee of experts you've often invoked in your posts.

Jared, this was interesting - I'll look up the Violin Concerto. Had this gone somewhere profitable, I was going to say that as Graham J points out a lot of people know Knipper even when they think they don't - "Meadowlands" ("Polyushka, Polye") is from his Fourth Symphony (ah, the days of Soviet male voice choirs - also endless orchestral transcriptions). 

There is some scattered material out there, though sadly deleted: the Bassoon Concerto on Melodiya, the Third Quartet on an Arte Nova collection, two discs - one with the Symphonietta [sic] for Strings and a Concert Poem for Cello and Orchestra, the other with that 4th Symphony - from Olympia. The easiest thing to hear right now is the Concertino-Monologue for Cello, Winds and Timpani, largely because Rostropovich recorded it.

This stuff is interesting - some of it very Stalin-era accessible, some far gnarlier - and has crept in and out of the catalogue as a result of the tangles connected with Melodiya material which has migrated across labels. It's absolutely ludicrous to claim that its unavailability points to a lack of intrinsic musical interest - the Nesterenko recording of Shostakovich's Michelangelo Suite has been stuck in a void for ages (so glad I got the LP when it came out) but I've never heard that pushed as an argument that it deserves oblivion. I'd also call the slither from Knipper to Knaifel asinine, except that that would be a slur on innocent asses. The two composers' lives overlapped with the Soviet era, but they are a generation and a half apart and have next to nothing in common musically. I diagnose someone who in his usual sad desperation to prove that he's a step ahead of everyone ("been there, heard that, know it all") got his finger stuck on the Kn button in some list of Soviet composers.

Thanks so much for this, Jared. I will hunt up the Northern Flowers CD, and I hope you post more.

Brahms Symphony No.1 with the Helsingborg/Manze combination on CPO. Fascinating in the lean textures and how, with a smaller string section, the 'classical' quality of the orchestration comes out. A really wonderful antidote to the terribly stodgy Brahms that is served up too often...

Though I still think the best Brahms I have heard live is Guilini, whose take was so slow as to be cosmic.

Now CPO - what about getting Manze to try Dvorak with this approach?

Vaughan Williams' Sancta Civitas this morning, an undervalued work by a still-underestimated composer. But awaiting a recording that does it justice. The Willcocks opens dramatically then sags rather. Hickox has excellent soloists (Terfel and an ethereal Langridge in the tenor's cameo) but a peculiar recording, muffled, strings recessed, coping poorly with the work's dynamic range.

Currently listening to Domingo and various others (Vinay, Vickers, King) as points of comparison and contrast after having played the new Jonas Kaufmann Wagner CD, with Deutsche Opera forces under Runnicles.

The disc contains some superlative singing. His In Fernem Land is every bit as glorious as I remember it live, and his Tannhauser and Rienzi excerpts are wonderfully and very sensitively sung. Kaufmann is a considerable vocal actor in my opinion, a facet of his art that gets comparatively little attention. Perhaps that's understandable given the magnificence of his voice.

It's also a thoughtfully compiled recital, and I'm expecting him to bring the same combination of voice and artistry to the Wesendonck Lieder, to which I've not yet listened.

I'm eagerly awaiting hearing him in recital and Don Carlo this coming spring (or what might pass for it here).

I've just taken delivery of the ROH Tosca DVD with him, Terfel and Gheorghiu. I'm steeling myself for some OTT facial histrionics from Terfel (they were obvious in the performances I attended and will presumably be even more obvious in close-up) but it should bring back memories of what was an impressive production. 

 

Tagalie, I think Terfel's Scarpia is excellent vocally and (within the director's conception of the role) convincing dramatically. Personally I think Scarpia should not be an out and out thug and needs at least a hint of the suavity that Gobbi, Ramey and Anthony Baldwin(going back a little) for instance, brought to the role. My main gripe with the ROH dvd is that it is theatre acting and seems a little too 'big' for the camera. The perils of being filmed live, I suppose.

I'm not a fan of the Lehnhoff production, though agree that vocally it's not to be sniffed at. Malfitano is a most underrated singer - her Salome at the ROH with Terfel was very moving, not something one expects from most Salomes. The most most moving Tosca I ever heard live was, surprisingly, Maria Ewing. I could name a dozen sopranos with better voices, but the combination of acting with the voice and her stage portrayal will stay with me for a very long time indeed. 

Yes, the Kaufmann's Werther is superb. I think when one is particularly impressed with a voice, it's easy to slip into the unconscious prejudice that everything the singer does is at an equally superlative level, but I can honestly say that even after repeated listening to Kaufmann with very critical ears, I'm  convinced that he is already one of the true greats.