Current Listening "Studies"

Mike

That box of Haydn piano trios is a true gem. I seem to always play them early in the morning. A lifetime of enjoyment there. Both Hewitt WTC cycles are magic. Have you heard her recording of the Bach toccatas? Have you heard Richter's WTC? I would be interested in your opinion of Krauss' Mozart. I've heard great things. I like Pires and Klein, and of course, Uchida. All very different, but each convincing in it's own special way. There is so much music and so little time...
Enjoy,
BBM

quote:

Krauss' Mozart

Lilly Krauss? If so it is lovely!

ATB from George

Lily Krauss' playing is indeed beautiful, espec. in Mozart.

But, personally, I think Clara Haskil just edges her out....

Clara Haskil is my favourite Mozartian too!

ATB from George

Carmen Piazini is another marvelous Mozartian and she is of our time, fortunately!

One hump I'm getting over is how delicate the Haydn and Mozart seem, requiring a good deal more concentration.

The Stravinsky and the Bach seem much more robust that way. They focus you in a way the Haydn and Mozart lack.

Or at least that is my feeling.

This, for certain, is in me, and not in the music.

It's all so beautiful, things are bound to change.

I agree that both Bach and Igor S are 100% compelling. You start by concentrating and the music envelopes you, relieving of the need to consciously concentrate. You note the end of it, once it bites!

I think the classics are different to this.

You have to work harder to get it. Even with Beethoven, which lacks the concision of Haydn, Mozart, or Bach.

Of the three Haydn is the most enveloping for me, but that is pure personal preference! Except the Piano Concertos of Mozart, which speak to me very directly.

Happy listening! Don't over-do the Haydn. There is so much that it can be too much to rush through.

Bach never seems too much for me ...

ATB from George

PS: I have found that somehow the best performances by Otto Klemperer are so full of continuity and built-up momentum that he makes Beethoven completely compelling for me in a way that other more highly strung and apparently volatile performances do not. The trouble with whipping up too much excitement too soon in Beethoven [and he left the temptation in every single orchestral work] is that there is a certain need to relax before long, and that is the risk. In the relaxation the listener's mind has suddenly drifted off! With Klemperer, the build to the work in question's climax is so inevitable that the relaxation is as compeling as the building up was, that led to it! Klemperer always saw the long view, but strangely his Bach recordings are almost always too big, too square and don't lift the rhythm to the perpectual dance that Bach always makes the basis for his works! One would not predict that Mozart from Klemperer would be compelling, but he makes sense of the Symphonies like a Titan as well, and his Haydn Symphonic recordings are unique in their pressed down tension. Without being even remotely slow they make a very direct parallel with Bruckner [in the sense that one is aware of Bruckner's debt to Haydn], but with concision, and immense inner compositional logic!

We had a listen to the Lilly Krauss Mozart Fantasia and Sonata No. 14 in C Minor.

It is an LP, the recording is very clear and well-voiced and the playing is beyond reproach.

Minor keys are my favorite. In general, they have more "electricity" (i.e. dissonance) and also more available notes in the key, as there are multiple forms of minor keys. The composer has many more options, more liberty.

You can hear the echo of Beethoven approaching in this one, and see clearly the common dramatic sensibility Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven share.

In the second movement, she could pick up the pace a bit, and engage in a more romantic rubato, with a wider dynamic range, but by just an inch, not a yard, and that is just my taste.

I enjoyed very much, my mind straying only in the second movement.

These will get more listens before I commit to a second set, but a second set seems inevitable right now.

All sounds like hard work. Why not just listen to something because you fancy it?

You can always listen to something just because you fancy it, but does that mean you have to deny your curiosity? If you do become curious and ignore it, you're not quite satisfied with the result.

If not, well that's a different situation.