Monthly Archive: February 2018
MICHAEL TIPPETT: Symphonies 1 & 2—BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins—Hyperion
New recordings of Sir Michael Tippet’s first two symphonies reveal their warmth and complexity. MICHAEL TIPPETT: Symphonies 1 & 2—BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins—Hyperion CDA68203—74:44, ****: What attracted me the most upon my first hearing of these two Michael Tippett (1905-1998) symphonies was their exuberant spirit and rhythmic vitality. There is a level of musical complexity that motivated me to listen often, a key to understanding Tippett’s musical genius. Emotional depth and moments of transcendent beauty make Tippett one of the great British composers of the 20th century. This new recording of his first two symphonies by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins illuminates these qualities. Sir Michael Tippett’s youth was formed by his rural English childhood (early works use English folk material) and the influence of his independent parents. He went to the Royal College of Music for compositional study, but taught French for a couple of years before returning for further study. Yet he learned almost as much from numerous attendance of concerts. In the 1930’s a break up with a gay lover led him to a lifelong journey with Jungian analysis (people can achieve full potential through individual growth) that became a basis for the […]
Streams and Podcasts, 2 Feb 2018
The featured artist on The Music Treasury this week is the Czech conductor Jiri Walhans. Walhans did much to broaden the scope of the Brno Philharmonic, introducing foreign tours, expanded activities for the chamber ensembles and choir, and more interaction with other symphonic orchestras. The show’s host, Dr Gary Lemco, will be presenting orchestral works by Delius, Anton Arensky, Zdenek Fibich, Vitezslav Novak, and Josef Suk. The show can be heard this Sunday, 4 Feb 2018, on the host radio station at Stanford University, KZSU, from 19:00 to 21:00 PST, as well as concurrent streaming on the Internet at kzsu.stanford.edu. On Saturday, The Score will open its new season, with the ongoing theme of “Music from the Movies”. This week, The Score will explore music from movies built around culture clashes—Lost In Translation, The Terminal, Zorba the Greek and others. Edmund Stone, the show’s host, will be broadcasting/streaming from Portland’s All Classical station, www.allclassical.org from 14:00 to 15:00 PST. On Sunday at the same time slot, there will be an encore presentation of last week’s show, “Piano Works Written For Movies”. More information can be found on its web site www.thescore.org.
Editorial for February, 2018
John Adams is one of the USA’s most important musical voices. In his works, Minimalism is combined with imaginative orchestration and a jazz-inflected spirit to create a cosmos full of energy and colour. During the 2016/2017 season, John Adams accompanied the Berliner Philharmoniker as their Composer in Residence. The orchestra gave acclaimed concert performances of both well-known works and exciting new discoveries – and these are now available in an exclusive edition on CD and Blu-ray. This box set includes 4 CDs of this music, along with a 2 Blu-ray discs of the performances. The Blu-ray discs also include a documentary and an interview with Adams. [metaslider id=64299] This exceptional offering is sponsored by Naxos and Audiophile Audition. All that is required to enter the drawing is to fill out the promotional form here: Register To Win More information may be found at the Berliner Philharmoniker page for The John Adams Edition. AUDIOPHILE AUDITION began as a local program in San Francisco and then in 1985 as a weekly national radio series hosted by John Sunier, and aired for 13½ years on up to 200 public radio and commercial stations. In September 1998 its web site for program […]
The Tchaikovsky Project, Volume 2 = TCHAIKOVSKY – Manfred Symphony‒ Czech Philharmonic / Semyon Bychkov ‒ Decca
Bychkov’s interpretation may be slightly cool, but it is perfectly paced, beautifully played. That equals staying power. The Tchaikovsky Project, Volume 2 = TCHAIKOVSKY – Manfred Symphony, Op. 58 ‒ Czech Philharmonic / Semyon Bychkov ‒ Decca 483 2320; 59:19 (8/25/2017) ****: The Manfred Symphony has an odd and interesting genesis. It’s plot line is based on Lord Byron’s dramatic poem of 1817. Manfred tells the story of a man who wonders the Alps tortured by guilt over the death of his love, Astarte. What that guilt involves is never made clear, but there are hints that their affair was incestuous. (Byron himself was accused of incestuous relations with his half-sister.) A necromancer, Manfred calls up a series of spirits from whom he seeks forgiveness, but ultimately he rejects forgiveness, choosing to die unrepentant. A typical Romantic anti-hero, whose antecedents included Faust and whose progeny traveled all the way to America as characters from the pages of Poe (Roderick Usher) and Hawthorne (Goodman Brown, Ethan Brand). The Russian music critic Vladimir Stasov, presumably having read Manfred in a Russian translation, sketched out a plan for a dramatic symphony based on the poem, giving it to Balakirev for consideration. Balakirev, a […]
Rosanne Philippens Plays PROKOVIEV = PROKOFIEV – Violin Concert; Violin Solo Sonata; Five Melodies; “The Love for Three Oranges”, March ‒ Rosanne Philippens, violin / Julien Quentin, piano / Sinfonieorchester St. Galen / Otto Tausk ‒ Channel Classics
A beguilingly varied program that’s a showcase for violinist, composer, and orchestra alike. Rosanne Philippens Plays PROKOVIEV = PROKOFIEV – Violin Concert No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63; Violin Solo Sonata in D Major, Op. 115; Five Melodies, Op. 35bis; March from “The Love for Three Oranges,” Op. 33 (arr. Heifetz); Piano Sonata No. 4, Second Movement: Andante, Op. 39bis (arr. for orchestra by Prokofiev) ‒ Rosanne Philippens, violin / Julien Quentin, piano / Sinfonieorchester St. Galen / Otto Tausk ‒ Channel Classics CCS 39517 (11/17/2017) [distrib. by Harmonia mundi], 65:23 *****: It’s not unusual for recordings to pair one or other of the Prokofiev violin concertos with one or more of the sonatas. And Five Melodies often shows up on recordings of the sonatas. The current recording, however, offers even more variety, with an arrangement of the ever-popular “March” from The Love for Three Oranges and—surprise!—a turn by the orchestra alone in Prokofiev’s own arrangement of the slow movement from his Fourth Piano Sonata. To boot, we thus get a sampling of Prokofiev from his earlier years of exile to his years in the Soviet Union. Some listeners were puzzled when Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto (completed in 1917, […]
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
