Brahms - 16 Hungarian Dances

Back from my road trip and glad to see some new entries while I've been away.

Very little classical music works for driving IMO, but for me Bach solo keyboard can't be beat.



On CD

This is a great collection of Bach on the harpsichord and organ (I like the harpsichord for driving, esp. the Partitas).

And Bach's kid, C.P.E.




On CD

This is a remarkable collection of remarkable keyboard music played on the modern piano. Much better than Mozart (YMMV) and while I can't say C.P.E. is better than his dad, he is very different, very individual and extremely interesting. This music should be as well known and J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Rachmaninov, Debussy or anyone else you name who has a reputation for keyboard greatness. And it makes the miles melt away.

Next, and I can only think that I wish I had more than excerpts.

I am trying a different method of saving, posting, etc.


Johann Sebastian Bach - Wilhelm Kempff – Das Wohl Temperirte Clavier I (Auszüge)



Seemed to work.

I really like this one--like all Mario Adnet's work to be honest. Here he is re-arranging and re-visiting pieces by Villa Lobos with "an ear towards" how Antonio Carlos Jobim was influenced by the composer.

As always the sound on this Adventure Music cd is excellent.

Mario Adnet: Um Olhar Sobre Villa-Lobos

Zubin Metha and the LA Phil was the home team for my early years as a concert goer. And in the 80's when I was scoping up everyone else's used LPs for a couple of bucks each I learned they made some really good records. Of course, they were London/Decca's JV, behind the Solti-Chicago varsity, but even taking into account my civic pride I liked the LAPO better, perhaps because they recorded in a better hall. I jumped on this box set when it came out early in the pandemic:

 


On CD

It is still available on Amazon for a cool $1200 .

Just got done listening to Also sprach Zarathustra, which sounds phenomenal, like most of the recordings in this box.

 

That Daphnis et Chloe recording is hot stuff, on many levels. Equally sexy IMO is the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan by Wagner, YMMV.



On CD.

I also went with Charles Munch and the BSO. More great Living Stereo sound and equally great playing.

Sibelius is a favorite and great recordings like these on a great sound system make it easy to get lost in his unique sound world.



Symphonies 3 and 6, on CD

Antal Dorati was a great, and greatly underappreciated, conductor. I suspect because he was not a specialist in the "serious" music in the Austro-Germanic mainstream. But he knew how to make great sounding recordings, first with Mercury:



And even in early digital in Detroit:



Both on CD.

And then there was Brahms. Brahms is of course one the giants, and his reputation is mostly made on only the dozen works he wrote for orchestra: 4 symphonies, 4 concertos, 3 overtures and the Haydn Variations. In fact most of his published output is vocal music, because to the extent he had a day job beyond composing it was conducting various vocal ensembles around Vienna. But to me the great joy of Brahms is his chamber music, which is well known by chamber musicians but much less so by the music listening public. Which is a shame because it is every bit as genius as the symphonies and etc. that most people known. For example:



16/44 FLAC download.

The quintets are beautiful (esp. the second one, YMMV). And wear their genius lightly, relative to e.g. the sting quartets:



16/44 FLAC download

Which some people find a little too serious. Although I don't see how anyone can not be swept away by the slow movement of the 3rd quartet.

Mozart is mostly owned by the "historically informed performance" crowd these days, which I don't necessarily consider progress. Not compared to glorious "big band" Mozart in classic analog sound:



On CD

I like Bernstein a lot. I have the three box sets Sony put out--Symphonic works, chamber works and vocal works. In fact I have duplicates as I bought them for my father as well and grabbed those when he passed. Should sell them one day.

Right now, something I wanted to share with my father but didn't get a chance to: music for piano and/or violin and harp by Joseph Woelfl. Really great engineering which captures the essence of the music so well.

The second disc of this release, Lewis on tenor with a string quartet, the Lutosławski Quartet--my favorite of the two discs. Challenging, emotional . . .lovely!

James Brandon Lewis "For Mahalia, with Love"

I'm playing this one again, the second disc. I especially like the pizzicato sections. Hard to believe "These are Soulful Days" is his first composition for strings.

James Brandon Lewis "For Mahalia, with Love"

I've seen Johann Nepomuk Hummel described as "equal parts Beethoven and water." Which might be pointed in the right direction but doesn't really do the guy justice. He was a very important composer and teacher back in the day who now is mostly known now for writing one of the two major trumpet concertos in the repertoire. But he was primarily a keyboard composer (and virtuoso) and his music, which isn't Beethoven but is certainly worthwhile, should be much better know IMO.



16/44 FLAC download

For my money Beethoven's 2nd is one of his top 3 or 4 symphonies. But trying to choose between pretty much any of the symphonies is what I believe they mean by a "fool's errand." I haven't had much to say about Beethoven... yet. But I will.

Here is my latest acquisition, it is on sale at Qobuz, 7 CDs for about the price of 1. I'm tempted to say Villa-Lobo's best stuff, but certainly his most popular.



16/44 FLAC download. And like most things from BIS both the recording and performance is top shelf.

My post in this thread since I've been listening to my new UFO25s.

I was listening to Bach's glorious B Minor Mass.



On CD.

In a glorious old skool performance. The choir filled my entire room, the soloist floated in space and the orchestra sounded....well glorious. The B Minor Mass was essentially a job application Bach put in towards the end of his life. Much of it is actually recycled previous work but the first two movements, the Kyrie and Gloria (aka Missa Brevis) were newly composed, and usually are enough for me.

FTR he didn't get the gig.

That one does not fall short. I will get through all twenty discs eventually.
Nice find!

Another nice find.
I almost hate to admit this, but earlier in the week, I found this little gem at Goodwill.
I shop there for music, blades of high quality steel, Japanese, Swedish, German, Swiss, Sheffield England, Austrian, etc. or ironware of any sort.

Seventy nine cents, along with eight other classical CDs. I got my old fat man discount, of course, which brought me to that insane price per.

This one is guitar, which I feel a need for now. I was not familiar, but the label had a key word, Bach.

You can preview the album on a little Discogs inset, if you care to.

https://www.discogs.com/release/12548027-Ana-Vidovi%C4%87-Guitar-Recital

This Academy Of Ancient Music is awesome. I played three CDs from that box last night before I switched to the young award winner, Ana Vidovic.

I also started the day with the Academy. Good stuff.

Yes, I have played close to twenty of the Arkive selections. That's not even one third of them so far. No disappointments.
Sorry for not documenting more carefully.
I play a lot more than I post.

CAJ, I have a large appetite. It has always been so. Music, mostly live performance, has been a large part of my entire life.
I enjoy music in the extreme sense.

I will trek past every genre I have access to (I care about) on a weekly basis, maybe most in one day sometimes.

I grew up with bluegrass and country honky tonk playing in my living room or out in the yard. It was an almost constant thing. Generations of my kin have all done the same.
Sadly, I am not a musician; can not make my muscles do consistently what I can do for a few seconds, not in time and keeping rhythym. I went more to the mechanics of it all, then as times changed, the electronic tech.

I think I was eight when I set my first sound post on my grandfather's fiddle. I saw him struggling and I said, "Hey, I can do that!" I got laughed at by several, but he let me try and ten seconds later I had it. I had to move it, because I did not yet know where it was supposed to go. He told me where it needs to be and it just came naturally to me.

I have some chops though. If you heard me getting a specific sound on something you might think, "Wow, he's pretty good." But no, I can't keep rhythym. I can sense it and any lack thereof in almost an X-man kind of way but I can not do it from within my own being.

That is one reason why I was always better behind the board or dancing around a studio between takes or on stage flitting around in the dark to get things just right, fixing fifteen things that needed a tweak.

Music is what is left after we strip away all the things that tire and hunger us and make us fight. Music is one thing left that is real and it makes us better from the inside out.

I enjoy my music, as it is these days.


I began my early morning with Mozart.

Mozart, Camerata Academica Des Salzburger Mozarteums, Géza Anda, this one ...

I do have to curb my own pedantic tendencies at times.

I don't think I can say, "concerti," without looking around the room to see who heard that, either.
My high school sweet heart was a native Mexican flautista. Also an amazing modern jazz dance student from the Latin realm.
I identified with her musicianship more than her dancing prowess. I was proud to refer to her as a fluatista, if the issue came up in conversation.
I was also fluent in Spanish fifty years ago.


I'm maybe a little jealous about that complete set of Mozart concerti.

:looks around:

Mo Mozart.



16/44 FLAC Download.

The Prague Chamber Orchestra plays the Prague Symphony.

The first thing I reached for this morning after being out of town and away from the stereo for a few days:



On CD.

IMO if you want to hear the Chicago Symphony play Mahler 1 (and you'd be crazy not to) this is the recording to get.

I don't know when the Brandenburg Concertos became Christmas Music, but they are some of the finest music ever written whenever you choose to listen to them. I have like a dozen recordings but this is my favorite:



On CD.

Unrepentantly old school, but gorgeously played and recorded, it really makes me wonder why the "historically informed" crowd is always in such a hurry.