The Classical Music Guide Forums

Modernistfan

Typically, particularly because one of my major interests is contemporary music, I tend to buy based on the repertoire. There are certain artists, though, that I may buy even if doing so involves some duplication of repertoire; for example, Gil Rose and his Boston Modern Orchestral Project (I am now...

Modernistfan

As usual, it seems that no conductors born in the United States and no women were ever seriously considered. I have not heard Maestro Mäkelä live and I have not heard any of his recordings, so it is not really fair for me to comment on his conducting. The reviews of his Sibelius cycle on Decca have ...

Modernistfan

I have Bronfman with Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Bronfman is well-suited to these works (also to Prokofiev's concertos). Bartók, particularly in his first two concertos, almost treats the piano as a percussion instrument. (Interestingly, the word for "piano" in Hungarian is the ...

Modernistfan

He will be sorely missed. It is one of my great regrets that he did not get a chance to record a complete set of Stockhausen's Klavierstücke. Perhaps Igor Levit, an intellectual pianist in the Pollini mold, will take them up.

Modernistfan

The musicians have been circulating a leaflet to concert attendees. I agree with some of the points in the leaflet, notably the objections to the discontinuation of the SoundBox contemporary music programs and of educational programs. However, I think that their push for a pay raise in this situatio...

Modernistfan

San Francisco has put itself into an extremely difficult situation. Although the area still has plenty of extremely wealthy people, the "new money," mostly from high tech, has shown little interest in supporting arts institutions, particularly established institutions such as the symphony and the op...

Modernistfan

These tours are a total waste of time and money (and, given that the Met has been dipping into its endowment repeatedly, they do not have money to waste). That does not even consider the environmental consequences of flying something like 100 musicians, their instruments, and the support staff to As...

Modernistfan

I definitely agree. It seems that most of the decision makers in major American orchestras give preference to any random assistant vice-Kapellmeister of the Kleinmachnow Philharmoniker over any potential American candidates when hiring a music director. (Yes, I realize that Kleinmachnow, a small tow...

Modernistfan

Here we go again! The translation of that phrase: "strips Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 of any monumentality, instead infusing the well-known Beethoven symphony with a transparency and a lightness which render it a delicate gem" is "Here is another wimpy, underpowered, excessively tame Beethoven Ninth ...

Modernistfan

The Thomas Adès' "Dante" recording is definitely available. I have had it for at least six months. Like his "Totentanz," this is another example of Adès channeling Liszt.

Modernistfan

This is going to be extremely controversial, and I apologize to anyone whom I may have offended, but I wouldn't touch this set if I could get it for $5.00 with free shipping. Firstly, and probably least important, I have no desire to hear standard repertoire such as Bruckner in mediocre mono sound w...

Modernistfan

There is a new Fanfare review of the last installment of Nelson's Shostakovich cycle with the Boston Symphony, which includes the Second, Third, Twelfth, and Thirteenth ("Babi Yar") Symphonies. Undoubtedly, the most important of these is the Thirteenth, and the review had the following comment: "Six...

Modernistfan

Although I have heard neither this performance of "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" nor any of the recordings in the Nelsons Shostakovich symphony cycle with the Boston Symphony, this review is generally consistent with the reviews of the symphony cycle. The last thing I would want in "Lady Macbeth of Mtsen...

Modernistfan

Agreed--you can't racialize everything in music. I would bet that if you played William Grant Still's "Afro-American Symphony" to an audience who was unfamiliar with the composer or the work (and without mentioning the title, which, of course, would be a dead giveaway), and then asked the audience m...

Modernistfan

A recording of the Gershwin orchestral works, including "Rhapsody in Blue," that I have had for years, is on a 2-CD Vox set conducted by Leonard Slatkin with the St. Louis Symphony and Jeffrey Siegel as piano soloist. The set was dirt cheap. The sound, late analog with the team of Aubort-Nickrenz, i...

Modernistfan

Leave "Rhapsody in Blue" alone. For that matter, composers have been basing works on popular tunes for at least 500 years. The popular French tune, "L'homme armé," dating from the Late Middle Ages, was used as the basis for something like 40 or more masses, including masses by such composers as Dufa...

Modernistfan

Erato Records is issuing a CD recording of Kevin Puts' opera "The Hours" in March 2024. This is apparently a live recording from the Metropolitan Opera featuring Joyce DiDonato, Renee Fleming, and Kelli O'Hara in the major female roles. It is a 2-CD set. (No sign of this on Amazon USA as of yet).

Modernistfan

I don't have a clue as to who is to replace Welser-Möst, but Cleveland will be the third major United States orchestra that is looking or will soon be looking for a new music director, after Los Angeles and Chicago. I sincerely hope that the decision makers for these orchestras will think outside th...

Modernistfan

I have always enjoyed this work and wonder why it is not played more frequently. Leonard Bernstein made a tremendous recording with the New York Philharmonic, which was reissued on CD.

Modernistfan

Too bad, we never did get P.D.Q. Bach's "Spam in Allium."

Modernistfan

I bought the Walker recording. I don't think that I will be in the market for another Beethoven symphony cycle soon, but I might look into Andris Nelsons or possibly Riccardo Chailly. I definitely will not buy any of the Beethoven period-instrument cycles (I can hear Beethoven screaming: "Nein, nein...

Modernistfan

I do not believe that Toscanini ever recorded for Mercury Living Presence (then an independent label). He recorded almost exclusively for RCA until he stopped recording in 1954, three years before his death.

Modernistfan

This is Episode No. 4,373 in the long-running saga "Unnecessary Recordings." The National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., now running its own label, is about to issue a cycle of the Beethoven symphonies. This is hardly needed, to say, the least. Its last recording, which definitely does not ...

Modernistfan

This is hardly a new phenomenon, particularly if you know twentieth-century European history. Mussolini started out as a left-wing socialist. In France, Jacques Doriot started out as a communist and was the Communist mayor of Saint Denis; he eventually broke with the French Communist Party, moved to...

Modernistfan

The Bryce Dessner Double Piano Concerto is on a Deutsche Grammophon CD (481 807-4) with the Labèque sisters and the Orchestre de Paris conducted by Matthias Pintscher. The CD also contains other works played by the Labèque sisters. (I have that CD.) (Don't dismiss Dessner as a serious classical comp...

Modernistfan

BIS Records is to release a complete Allan Pettersson edition in January 2024, with 19 CDs and 4 DVDs. This apparently includes all of the symphonies, the chamber music, the concertos, and the songs. I shall definitely get this; I have some of the symphonies on earlier CPO discs but will almost cert...

Modernistfan

This is an amazing list. Despite all of the gloom and doom, not to mention the effects of COVID, there is still a huge number of excellent recordings being made, including from the majors. It looks like I shall have to fire off another order to Presto prestissimo , if my credit card can stand it (no...

Modernistfan

I picked this up on BIS recently: "Sichuan Image" for orchestra with Chinese instruments and the piano concerto "Concerto of Life" (with Noriko Ogawa as soloist) played by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Jose Serebrier. To say the least, I was very disappointed. The works sounded ...

Modernistfan

What operas, maybe apart from some comedies, could they actually broadcast by that standard? Carmen (where Carmen get stabbed by her old boyfriend whom she dumped for the bullfighter)? The Ring (with incest)? La Traviata (about a courtesan (a fancy word for hooker))? Baroque operas (in which, typica...

Modernistfan

Sorry, Belle, I must respectfully disagree. The fact that the people of Dresden undoubtedly suffered under the reactionary German Democratic Republic, in which the East German Communist Party welcomed into its membership a large number of ex-Nazis, no questions asked, cannot possibly justify Thielem...

Modernistfan

The Padres have been eliminated even from the possibility of making the playoffs via the wild card. Of the so-called "Big Four" players in the middle of their lineup (Tatis, Soto, Machado, and Bogaerts), none of them has even come close to their expected performance (Bogaerts is the closest, and eve...

Modernistfan

There is a really fun story about Mookie Betts. A couple of weeks ago, he was talking to a fan, and the fan said that if Betts hit a home run on his next at-bat, the fan would give his baby daughter who was about to be born the middle name Mookie. Betts said: "Don't do that, man. Don't do that. What...

Modernistfan

I am thinking of buying the Ormandy box, but that would result in a lot of repertoire duplication. What I will probably wind up doing, if possible, is to download a few works from Presto Classical of repertoire that I do not have, particularly Richard Yardumian. Sony has been making a lot of individ...

Modernistfan

Despite Ohtani and a few other players (I will name Mookie Betts and Freddy Freeman of the Dodgers), this has been a very dispiriting baseball season. I have been watching some San Diego Padres games, and I am absolutely disgusted by the lack of hustle, intensity, and consistency that I have been se...

Modernistfan

I just ordered the 21-CD Deutsche Grammophon box set from jpc in Germany and it has been already shipped. Interestingly, they have reduced their shipping charges to the United States, running counter to the trend of many suppliers to increase shipping charges, and shipping was only 3.50 Euros, or sl...

Modernistfan

As I had hoped, the Cincinnati Symphony will release a recording of the Symphony No. 6 by the late American composer Christopher Rouse in September on their own label, Fanfare Cincinnati. Apparently, the symphony (about 29 minutes) will be the only work on the recording. It doesn't matter to me--thi...

Modernistfan

There is no real religious or historical basis for these views. It is interesting that a number of ancient synagogues in the Middle East have been excavated and studied, dating from about 200-400 CE, and in none of these synagogues is there any separation between a men's section and a women's sectio...

Modernistfan

Regarding operas dealing with clocks and time, what about Rossini's La Cenerentola?

Modernistfan

I think that the current "diversity, equity, and inclusion" movement, albeit well-intentioned, has done the music of Scott Joplin no favors. I feel that Joplin is being played solely because of his race and not because of the evident quality of his music. Moreover, I feel that there is a tendency to...

Modernistfan

The death of Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, 70 years old, from brain cancer, has just been announced. Saariaho was considered one of the leading Finnish composers. She was particularly known for her operas, such as L'amour du loin . Much of her earlier music included tape or electronics. This is a...

Modernistfan

I do suspect that the business community did weigh in with the diminishing number of Republicans who even take the views of the business community into account, as opposed to attacking it for "wokeness" no matter how many jobs might be lost (see DeSantis's antics in Florida and what he is doing to t...

Modernistfan

Alex Ross of the New Yorker just posted a devastatingly withering review of Dudamel's Mahler Ninth Symphony, calling the performance, among other things, "curiously inert" and stating that, in the last movement, that there was no undertow of valedictory passion, no time-stopping heartbreak at the en...

Modernistfan

There is another good set of the Chavez symphonies that I bought dirt cheap on Vox--a 2-CD set with the much-missed Eduardo Mata conducting the London Symphony Orchestra.

Modernistfan

Sony is releasing a 6-CD box set of Carlos Chavez (originally on Columbia LPs), including the six symphonies and some ballets not otherwise available, such as "Pyramide," "Los Cuatro Soles," and "Xochipili-Maculixchitl," mostly conducted by the composer. Even more exciting is that Deutsche Grammopho...

Modernistfan

Appointing Dudamel the music director of the New York Philharmonic will turn out to be the worst mistake that esteemed orchestra has ever made (and they have made a few).

Modernistfan

Sorry. I stand by my views. It was bad enough to have all that Anglican religious language in an increasingly multicultural and multi-religious country. It was worse to have the pro-Republic demonstrators treated as though they were in Russia or some tin-pot Third World dictatorship.

Modernistfan

I sincerely hope that you are right regarding Dudamel and that he will improve the orchestra, but I fear that it is much more likely to be an unmitigated disaster. Unlike Los Angeles, which has continued to feature contemporary music and new music, New York is much more oriented to standard repertoi...

Modernistfan

Why are they bothering with this? These trips always feature bog-standard old warhorses that are ready for the glue factory. It is almost certain that they will not perform contemporary American music on this junket. It is a huge waste of money and resources, and that does not even take into account...

Modernistfan

FedEx is much more expensive (per Presto's website).

Modernistfan

Lance, I am not sure what is going on with your order. I just ordered three CDs from Presto: two issued by Nimbus, and the third issued by ABC Classics, the Australian label (that is the new Steven Mackey recording "Beautiful Passing"). My total shipping was $10.20 for the three CDs. These are to be...

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