What are you listening to right now? (VOL I)

Sting - Bring on the Night, still not convinced but there is no denying the band's chops. Can't believe this is 20 years old, certainly a lot of water under the bridge since this entered my LP collection.

A good live album i think.

What a voice!

Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy






SJB

quote:

Johnny, Joey, DiDi and Tommy

You can't call Dee Dee DiDi - sounds more like 'Diddy' David Hamilton!

Nigel

quote:

Originally posted by hungryhalibut:

quote:

Johnny, Joey, DiDi and Tommy

You can't call Dee Dee DiDi - sounds more like 'Diddy' David Hamilton!

Nigel

aparently his paternal grandfather was from Cork and that's the original Irish spelling of the name that was in the O'Ramonach family for centuries, but the spelling was changed to keep those execs in Sire happy.


a tradjedy as Sean, Seamus and Tomais decided they had better not show DiDi up and changed their names also.


another little bit of rock trivia for you.



SJB

Accordion Tribe with his most recent - Lunghorn Twist: Great stuff for an accordion junkey like myself. Damn, I had both other of their CD's and can't find one of them. Guess I will have to rebuy (just to find it, then)...


cheers
Stefan

YESSSSSS!!!
FINALLY A CLEAN COPY OF AJA!

Beethoven's 3rd symphony. Colin Davis and the Dresden Staatskapelle. The more of this set I listen to the more impressed I am. Not quite a rival to my benchmark (Mackerras - surprise, surprise) or Jochum, but there is some wonderful stuff here. The textures this orchestra can produce are wonderful but what impresses me the most is the sense of journey Davis gives (of the sort I would more usually associate with a Mahler symphony): I would never have thought the 8th symphony could be draining. I am finding I can only listen to the symphonies one at a time (though in a good way - unlike Toscanini where they become relentless). After the 3rd I had to stop the cd before it ran onto the overture there as filler so I could have some quiet to think. This shows a side of Beethoven I hadn't really seen before. Thoroughly recommended (and £6 for the cycle was money well spent).

regards, Tam

Dear Tam,

I listened to the Eroica Symphony earlier.

VPO Furtwangler in December 1944, live but in an empty Musikverein. Somehow the performance manages to be both cataclysmic and tender all in one go. What thoughts must have been running through the players' minds in those times, with the Russians on miles away from Vienna?

Furtwangler returned to Berlin after the perfoprmance, but was advised that the Gestapo had decided to pick him up, as there was already a huge file against him for anti-Nazi activities. He returned to Vienna, giving one more concert and then quietly walked across the border to Switzerland. Another storm awaited him there, as where ever he went at the time, he was to say the least a controversial figure.

Fredrik

Dear Fredrik,

Thanks for the story (which was unknown to me).

The only Furtwangler 3rd I have is his later 1952 account - same venue and orchestra but not live. And, as the old adage goes, Furtwangler live was in a different league to the studio (or something like that), or, at least, that has been my impression from that excellent live box I picked up a few months back (which everyone should own). I may try and have another listen to it tomorrow.

regards, Tam

Dear Tam,

That 1952 HMV studio recording of the Eroica is an example of how nicely the VPO could play, but it definately shows signs that Furtwangler was not always at his most inspirational in the studio. There are exceptions of course: The Tristan set, or the Emperor Concerto (also with the Philharmonia, who loved him) with Edwin Fischer as inspirational piano soloist, for two examples.

That 1944 VPO Eroica reading is very special. Among so many fantastical details, never have the horns sounded so doleful after the big fugue in the middle of the slow movement, or indeed the sense that the music is literally breaking into pieces in front of our very consciousness, as Beethoven fragments the themes with terrible, terrifying pauses. The very last graces in the winds over the final two chords have never been played as a more desolate piece of resignation in my experience. Who says music has no meaning beside that which we as listeners apply? This is proof if ever.

In fact I think is in performances, on different occasions, by the same artists that make the greatest case for showing that on times the connection to the music is so accute as to be be painfully, and trajically revealing, both of the composer's state of mind and ispiration, and the fact that artists can on times come to a very close realisation of this in the sonority and expressive style of performance. Sure: The Eroica, really is a journey as gut wrenching as any in Mahler in my view, though it essentially is classical in that the end is an affirmation, and the resignation and terror of the first two movements are tidied up in the emotional security and optimism of the last two movements, even if the hint of terror and raw energy never quite dissipate in the finale, introduction and coda.

Indeed for a long while I used to find this symphony difficult, as it seems like Mr Hyde and Dr Jeckil in that order, but it is part of the artistic ethos of an age that still took the nobility of affirmation as the guiding principle in music.

Of the old music, only the Saint Matthew Passion ends in a way that is deeply questing and disturbing in its doubt in the final chorus! Bach was indeed a revolutionary and perhaps 150 years ahead of his time...

ATB from Fredrik

Before work

Break Reform-Reformations LP

Editors-The Back Room LP

Hard Fi-Stars Of CCTV LP



At work(now)

Ed Harcourt-From Every Sphere(waiting for his new release)

The Magic Numbers-The Magic Numbers

India Arie-Acoustic Soul

Saint Etienne-Fox Base Alpha

Lee

On the Briks.

Philip Glass - 'The Hours' Soundtrack from the film. Less minimalist than much of his work. More moving too. Joint favourite with his score for 'Kundun'.

Discs 1A and 1B of the Smithsonian Anthology of American Folk Music.

Matt

David Bowie-Heroes

Pulp Culture. fun! fun! fun!

'sometimes I think'

Late last night

quote:

Originally posted by kuma:
YESSSSSS!!!
FINALLY A CLEAN COPY OF AJA!

Heaven

Diccus

Hollies - Evolution & Butterfly both from 1967 and is some ways the template for CSN&Y and others.

Bach - Disc 2 of 3 from 6 Brandenberg Concertos & 4 Orchestral Suites / The English Concert / Pinnock. ie Concertos 5 & 6; Overture Nr.1.
Ongoing - a pair of Jays tormenting the heck out of a siamese cat out the back!

quote:

Originally posted by erik scothron:
Philip Glass - 'The Hours' Soundtrack from the film.

Dear Erik!
May i suggest the last Godfrey Reggio movie soundtrack?
The movie is very good as the music is!