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#11
Composers & Music / Re: Giovanni Bottesini
Last post by Maury - Yesterday at 21:50We all have our preferences as well as things we like and dislike without being able to explain it too. But unlistenable is a strong term. Is it the sound of the instrument itself that you dislike or something about the melodies if I may ask. For me orchestral cymbals are unlistenable but they don't have much musical structure or melody. 
#12
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Chausson Concert & Lekeu V...
Last post by eschiss1 - Yesterday at 21:14Do you mean the coupling Lekeu+Chausson specifically? Separately, Presto lists at least a half-dozen physical CDs of the Lekeu, and.. something like 2 dozen of the Chausson work? (I'm assuming you don't mean this specific recording, it's just come out.)
#13
Composers & Music / Re: Giovanni Bottesini
Last post by Alan Howe - Yesterday at 21:11I must admit I've tried Bottesini's music for double bass and found it unlistenable. My loss, no doubt.
#14
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Enescu Symphonies 1-3/etc.
Last post by eschiss1 - Yesterday at 21:10re alternative versions of the 3 numbered symphonies, I forget if I've heard Lintu's set, but I think I've heard Foster's set on EMI and a couple of others too. Fortunately this triple of symphonies has had several very good advocates and recordings over the years (despite very, very belated publication, in the case of symphonies 2 and 3, both published around a half-century after they were composed.)
#15
Recordings & Broadcasts / Chausson Concert & Lekeu Violi...
Last post by Alan Howe - Yesterday at 21:09...hard to find here on CD, but available as a download, this is one of the most luscious recordings of chamber music I have ever heard:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9599108--chausson-lekeu
Try it if you don't know the music!
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9599108--chausson-lekeu
Try it if you don't know the music!
#16
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson
Last post by Alan Howe - Yesterday at 20:53By the way, for those curious to know, Samson plays for just over three hours - longer than The Flying Dutchman, but shorter than Lohengrin; about the same length as The Sicilian Vespers. In other words, it's a 'big listen'.
#17
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson
Last post by Alan Howe - Yesterday at 17:48It has been a privilege to receive my copy of this landmark recording and a pleasure writing about it this afternoon. The weather outside may be dreary, but I have a wide smile on my face!
#18
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson
Last post by Mark Thomas - Yesterday at 17:26Thank you Alan. FWIW, having had the privilege of already getting to know the recording for a month, I agree with everything Alan has written, so much so that I'm not going to post the review I'd already written as it would mostly be repetition.
This is as good a recording as we've any right to expect and it really does Raff proud. Schweizer Fonogramm deserve to have Samson sell by the shed load.
This is as good a recording as we've any right to expect and it really does Raff proud. Schweizer Fonogramm deserve to have Samson sell by the shed load.
#19
Composers & Music / Re: Giovanni Bottesini
Last post by Maury - Yesterday at 17:11Regarding the "development" section of sonata I'm reminded of the joke that we have Time so that everything doesn't happen at once. Conceptually there is a certain structural relationship between Sonata form and an expanded Rondo form and composers used that latter form fairly often.
Going back to Bottesini, I hear enough variation of melodic and rhythmic elements in the Italianate style of his movements that I don't get bored with it, as I often do with less capable Italian composers. And of course his double bass music is simply breath taking.
Going back to Bottesini, I hear enough variation of melodic and rhythmic elements in the Italianate style of his movements that I don't get bored with it, as I often do with less capable Italian composers. And of course his double bass music is simply breath taking.
#20
Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson
Last post by Alan Howe - Yesterday at 16:15So: the 'Swiss Lohengrin' is here! And a most welcome arrival on the operatic scene it is too. Samson was completed in 1857, some seven years after Wagner's Lohengrin (1850); other important operas written in roughly the same period include those of Verdi's early maturity (Rigoletto, Il Trovatore and La Traviata) and his grand opera The Sicilian Vespers (1855), Meyerbeer's Le Prophète (1849), Schumann's Genoveva (1850) and Berlioz's Les Troyens (1856-8); Gounod's Faust (1859) lay two years in the future. Raff's opera, however, was never staged in the composer's lifetime.
How, then, does Samson stack up? In a word: excellently. It's simply amazing that music of such quality should have remained unperformed and unrecorded for so long. In common with Wagner's operas up to this point, Samson would surely have seemed very modern: although it has some of the trappings of Grand Opera, it sacrifices mere crowd-pleasing to the dictates of music drama just as seriously conceived as Lohengrin. This is no Meyerbeerian spectacle; neither, however, is it a mere imitation of Wagner, although Raff does employ musical motifs - such as, for example, Samson's triumphant fanfare. In terms of structure, Raff is actually more consistent than Wagner in creating a continuous musical narrative. A CD of highlights might be tricky to devise!
As in so much of his compositional oeuvre Raff is the consummate synthesizer of musical opposites – in this case, Grand Opera and Wagnerian music drama. The result is something typically Raff, albeit in a synthesis he was soon to abandon altogether.
The performance does this fine work proud. Philippe Bach conducts the Bern Symphony Orchestra with a sure sense of the need in Raff for taut rhythms and clarity of expression. The cast is good, although not of the very highest class, I think. The best singing comes from the powerful, gleaming soprano of Olena Tokar as Delilah and the firm bass-baritone of Christian Immler as the High Priest. As Samson, Magnus Vigilius is better in lyrical passages than in the strenuous sections where his tenor is sometimes sorely taxed, but he certainly doesn't let the side down. The best of him is probably to be heard in his ardent singing in Act 2 scene 2. The chorus give an excellent account of themselves (and they have a lot to do!)
I don't imagine that this release will ever have a commercial competitor. It is the reference recording that Samson so urgently needed – and deserved.
Prosit Raff! Prosit Schweizer Fonogramm!
How, then, does Samson stack up? In a word: excellently. It's simply amazing that music of such quality should have remained unperformed and unrecorded for so long. In common with Wagner's operas up to this point, Samson would surely have seemed very modern: although it has some of the trappings of Grand Opera, it sacrifices mere crowd-pleasing to the dictates of music drama just as seriously conceived as Lohengrin. This is no Meyerbeerian spectacle; neither, however, is it a mere imitation of Wagner, although Raff does employ musical motifs - such as, for example, Samson's triumphant fanfare. In terms of structure, Raff is actually more consistent than Wagner in creating a continuous musical narrative. A CD of highlights might be tricky to devise!
As in so much of his compositional oeuvre Raff is the consummate synthesizer of musical opposites – in this case, Grand Opera and Wagnerian music drama. The result is something typically Raff, albeit in a synthesis he was soon to abandon altogether.
The performance does this fine work proud. Philippe Bach conducts the Bern Symphony Orchestra with a sure sense of the need in Raff for taut rhythms and clarity of expression. The cast is good, although not of the very highest class, I think. The best singing comes from the powerful, gleaming soprano of Olena Tokar as Delilah and the firm bass-baritone of Christian Immler as the High Priest. As Samson, Magnus Vigilius is better in lyrical passages than in the strenuous sections where his tenor is sometimes sorely taxed, but he certainly doesn't let the side down. The best of him is probably to be heard in his ardent singing in Act 2 scene 2. The chorus give an excellent account of themselves (and they have a lot to do!)
I don't imagine that this release will ever have a commercial competitor. It is the reference recording that Samson so urgently needed – and deserved.
Prosit Raff! Prosit Schweizer Fonogramm!