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

Just finishing:
Greg Tannen "Rocket"




Next up:
James Taylor "October Road"

Pet Shttp://forums.naim-audio.com/groupee_common/platform_images/blank.gifhop Boys: Please
Remember the West End Girls?

Via Headline2 + AT W5K

Excellent. Thanks for the intro John, (JN).

Karine Polwart - Fairest Floo'er

Some vinyl :-

Brilliant album.

Blackfield - Blackfield II

John Mellencamp ROCKS. YEEEAHH!



(Oh, vinyl by the way, if I'm allowed to say it... )

After a challenging(?) day at work !! I'm unwinding with Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.

on vinyl...what a great album!

quote:

Originally posted by Jeff Anderson:
Robert Plant-Alison Krauss
"Raising Sand"



"Somebody said that they saw me
Swingin' the world by the tail"

Jeff, i love this album and you may be pleased to hear that in a Sunday Times interview this week RP hinted at a second album.

quote:

Originally posted by JamieWednesday:

Jamie, I've never seen this album before. Is it any good ? easily avilable ?
Thanks
Alan

Yes , familiar songs with a slightly different arrangement but great orchestra and what a voice!!!!

I presume it can be got from the usual suspects? Mine came from an amazon shop.

I've just spent quite a while sifting through the clips of Led Zepp at 02 Arena on Youtube - about as close as I got to the event unfortunately - looks like it was an unbelievably fantastic show. But I would say that!

Peter

Chilling (literally!) with a nice glass of red...White Bird...Ahhhh



The coffin album is Iron Butterfly btw

quote:

Originally posted by von zipper:

That album brings back memories - you'll be listening to Uranian Circus by The Flock next

Meanwhile, I've just put on



- remastered CD of To Pagham & Beyond by Skin Alley

My sis had 'It's a Beautiful Day', I played it to death as a ten year old.


Right now it's :




Magnificent. But I have to admit I don't really understand Bach's choral works very well. Maybe when I'm older.

Dear Unstoppable,

I never really know which I like the best, the B Minor Mass, The Saint Matthew Passion or the Saint John, and it really depends on my mood. I listen to the Mass the most often. Four or five times a year, though more this last twelve months.

I used to have that HMV set, and my goodness it has some good points. It is not really very close to modern thinking on Bach performnance practice, but it has something not so easily defined as correct style is!

It is a spiritually almost shatering experience to really contemplate the music as Klemperer conceives its rendering! One day I will get it again on CD. I wore the LPs out! One thing it is definately not is a romanticised way. Severe, and incredibly clear, it seems to manage to be deeply expressive by the almost miraculous means of not trying to be expressive [in the normal ways] at all, and it all comes from the music, not ideas applied to it!!!

ATB from George

George,

Is there a recording of the B minor mass you consider definitive ? Klemperer's way is beautifully restrained, lucid and clear eyed.


US

Dear Unstoppable,

I suppose I have two favourites and neither are PC - sorry I meant HIP - type performances! Otto Klemperer on EMI, and George Enescu live in 1951 at Broadcasting House in London.

Both are serious, clear eyed, and spiritually a real journey. I don't think HIP perfmance styles often manage these essential elements. The music is Universal rather than actually tied into its Baroque period!

Of course others will disagree on that, but provided the result is not a romanticised or interventioist style of performance, but one which lets the music unfold clearly and with enough spirit, the message is overwhelming in my view. Neither Klemperer nor Enescu use large forces, and both are just so for me, though the old BBC recording is nothing like as good aas the EMI recording. It is worth having though, for the music making. Enescu is out on Ariadne at the moment, and for some more on it see the linl below.

B Minor Mass.

ATB from George

quote:

Originally posted by Voltaire:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jeff Anderson:
Robert Plant-Alison Krauss
"Raising Sand"
Jeff, i love this album and you may be pleased to hear that in a Sunday Times interview this week RP hinted at a second album.

I like it better every single time I play it !

Dear Unstoppable,

Both Klemperer and Enescu have the admirable BBC Chorus in their peformances! I had not registered that parallel till now.

I wonder what Klemperer would have made of it in the 1950s? He was very old by the time he made the EMI set, and certainly the Gloria would have benefitted from another take, though there is no doubting the sweep of it for all that. It is fifteen years since I had the LPs. I wore three sets out, and never once noted the performance beyond the Gloria, which worried very little as the whole thing seems so natual. Natural and monumental, but so apt.

Yep, I must get this again!

I have had Leonhardt's DHM CDs for years, but have tired of them, plus there is a fearful blunder in it. "Et In Terra Pax," is the same basic pulse as the music which preceeds it! No slowing, nor as Klemperer and Enescu demonstrate any need to alter speed at this point. The maintainance of a basic "tempo precendente" throughout that section really does make the result all the more moving in its implication.

Strange to find Leonhasrdt in an HIP style performance making a real romanicising blunder of that order - in slamming on the brake and halting the compelling forward momentum of it! It completely destroys the performance for me. A basic flaw of the simplest and most avoidable kind.

ATB from George