[Sticky] What are you listening to tonight?! 🤔

This recording of K421 by Cuarteto Casals is also worth a listen. For example, I loved the way they shaped the first movement, starting in a very matter of fact way before building up the intensity.
Mozart: String Quartets Dedicated To Joseph Haydn - Harmonia Mundi: HMM902654 - CD or download | Presto Music

Posted by: @hugh

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This recording of K421 by Cuarteto Casals is also worth a listen.

Oh, that’s a great recording, thanks for suggesting it!

I too like the way they shape each movement, and their playing is so beautifully articulated and nuanced. It’s hard to imagine a better performance… except I’d still prefer the final movement to be a bit less allegro 😊

I’ve been listening to this rather extraordinary album of choral works by CPE Bach:

https://app.idagio.com/albums/carl-philipp-emanuel-bach-litaneien-motetten-psalmen

It was recorded in 2007, but somehow had flown under my radar.  Reviews suggest that it’s really only for fans of CPE and everyone else should ‘approach with caution’.  I disagree!

The four 4-part motets from Wq 208 are delightful, and Bitten in particular stopped me in my tracks. Why aren’t these motets better known?

And then there are two astonishing pieces: Litanies new and old, each more than 20 minutes long and of a structure that seems two centuries ahead of its time.  Both Litanies are formed from a tiny germ of a phrase, perhaps two bars long, repeated over and over for the whole work, each repetition with a shifting harmony (often discordant, in a manner so typical of CPE), and dramatic changes in the dynamics. How much of the latter is CPE and how much Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam I do not know - there are no album notes, and I can find no other recordings.  There is no development, but the result is hypnotic.

Definitely worth a listen… if only once. And I challenge anyone to listen to Bitten only once 😊

Wow! Almost all of these are new to me, so thanks for bringing my attention to them, @Jen. CPE is always full of surprises; certainly my favourite of JS's progeny.

I can see that the litanies might be for CPE fans, but the other works deserve far wider recognition. Alas! we have very unadventurous programmers on our local classical stations.

Bitten also appears on an interesting collection called Motets of the Bach Family, which includes music by JS and CPE, as well as J, JC, JE, JL, JM and H, plus gatecrasher Adam Drese.

This is a new world for me.

I've found texts with translations for some of the works on this website:

https://www.vmii.org/wq-194-geistliche-oden-und-lieder-mit-melodien

This is an interesting review of the album

http://www.musica-dei-donum.org/cd_reviews/Sony_82876705432.html

Thanks, Hugh for the links.  That review is very illuminating!

Hi Everyone!

I’ve just re-registered, after several years away - thanks, Rose Vines, for the invite!

Today, I’m watching Stravinsky’s The Nightengale, on Medici.tv.

Ravishing music!

@cfitzsimmons Good to see you again!

Thanks for the suggestion about Nightingale - I’d completely forgotten that Stravinsky had written this… and am listening (sadly, audio only) as I write. You are right: it’s splendid!

@jen so glad you like it! For me it’s bit of a a return to his earlier style that I like so much.

I’m actually looking forward to the audio only! 

I’ve just discovered that Stravinsky also wrote an orchestral version, a tone poem, Le Rossignol  (although the opera is sometimes misnamed that). Will save that until tomorrow 😊

In the ol’ Primephonic days, on the users’ interchange, someone recommended the music of Swedish composer Allan Pettersson.

I thought it was marvelous, and I’m listening today: his Concertos for Strings, Nos. 1 and 2.

Such passionate, unmistakably 20th Century music.

@cfitzsimmons I've put those concertos on my weekend listening list.

@cfitzsimmons So glad you're back on board! There are only a handful of us active here, but I get plenty of suggestions of what to listen to next.

I've been doing a Spem in Alium round-up, listening to some of the many, many recordings. The variations in tempi, keys, number of voices per part (up to 5 or 6 for each of the 40 parts), colour, and approach are wonderful.

My preference is for a clear open sound in those first bars, the notes should float in the air, with no voice sounding too individual; and then an eventual dunking in the huge waves of sound as the work develops. Cathedral and college chapel acoustics certainly help. 

One version I hadn't listened to before was with Mike Brewer and The National Youth Choir of Great Britain.

https://streaming.prestomusic.com/#/album/7976741

Not my favourite performance, but I loved the pairing with Sanctum est verum lumen, Gabriel Jackson's homage to Spem in Alium.

Posted by: @capriccio

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Not my favourite performance, but I loved the pairing with Sanctum est verum lumen, Gabriel Jackson's homage to Spem in Alium.

Yes, I prefer to hear Spem in Alium sung one voice to a part (or even to sing it that way, however scary 😳) and there are just a few too many voices here. But many thanks for the pointer to Jackson’s homage (which I hadn’t heard before).

Will you be sharing your Spem round-up here?  Hope so!