What Are You Listening To?

[stlukesguild]

After our recent move and having built some 8 book shelves I finally have room for many of my CDs that had been boxed up for some 3 years. Since then, I have been rediscovering many recordings I have not seen for years and had even forgotten about. This disc was among these forgotten recordings. Elisabeth Söderström was born in Sweden in 1927 to a Swedish father and a Russian mother. She was a born storyteller… not merely in her roles on stage but also through peppering her recitals with tales and anecdotes. There is a certain irony in this in that she had been rejected in her application to the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts after which she turned to singing.

Currently, I’m listening to disc 1 which collects her recordings of Tchaikovsky songs performed with Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Oh… and Happy Thanksgiving

 

[stlukesguild]

Back to Mozart… and Anne-Sophie Mutter

 

[stlukesguild]

This is a disc I will admit to having purchased almost solely based upon the artwork… although admittedly, Richard Bonynge as conductor may have pushed me over the edge. I was unfamiliar with Rosamund Illing as soprano. Even today I know little beyond the fact that she is a leading Australian soprano… and that this recording with her is deliciously sensuous.

 

[Hermes2020]

Wow, what a wonderful time you've been having rediscovering your music and binge listening. It never gets old!

 

[stlukesguild]

Hilde Gueden is another vocalist who I am rediscovering among the CDs of mine that have been locked away for the last few years. Gueden was born in Vienna in 1917 and died there in 1988. She was one of too many who lost some of their best years due to the Nazis and WWII. She fled Austria in 1938 as it had become unsafe for her to stay as she was part Jewish. In 1939 she made her debut in Zurich. Richard Strauss having seen her performance in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte gave her a photograph inscribed, “To my Sophie Gueden” hinting that she should learn the role of Sophie in Strauss’ opera, Der Rosenkavalier. She became the first Sophie at the rebuilt (post-WWII) Vienna Opera House and the new Salzburg Festspielhaus.

The first half of this disc in made up of her performances from operettas by Lehár, Kálmán, and Millöcker. The rest of the disc is comprised of her performances of Verdi, Puccini, and Richard Strauss. In spite of dating from the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, the sound quality of these recordings is quite good. I’ve already started looking for the other recordings by Gueden that I know I have. I’m going to need to set about organizing my library of CDs and books so that I can find things a good deal easier. I just pulled out this one storage album and found a slew of Recordings of singers from Maria Callas, Beniamino Gigli, and Jussi Björling through Carlo Bergonzi, Richard Tauber, Erich Kunz, Léopold Simoneau, and Gérard Souzay.

 

[stlukesguild]

This one might be more up Hermes’ alley. I’ll assume he is well aware of Takemitsu. If not… the shame! Takemitsu was a Japanese Modernist composer whose compositions are among the most atonal… and yet they are incredibly sensual.

 

[stlukesguild]

I pulled out the first recording from the album I spoke of in the previous post. Carlo Bergonzi was one of the the greatest singers of the 20th century. His voice reminds me in some ways of Fritz Wunderlich: at one powerful and yet lyrical. The first disc of this collection includes performances of some of the most iconic works by Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and Verdi… including highlights from La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Pagliacci, Rigoletto, etc…

 

[Hermes2020]

This one might be more up Hermes’ alley. I’ll assume he is well aware of Takemitsu. If not… the shame! Takemitsu was a Japanese Modernist composer whose compositions are among the most atonal… and yet they are incredibly sensual.

I am indeed aware of Toru Takemitsu and have many works composed by him in my collection, but thank you for your recommendation anyway! I feel a resonance between Takemitsu's music and the sculptures of Isamu Noguchi (coincidentally also of Japanese origin). Not that I see images of Noguchi's work in my mind when I listen to Takemitsu; both artists evoke a similar physical response in me that I can only describe as a visceral trembling, if that makes sense. The artists who cause me to react that way are the ones who inspire me to try to do similar work. There are many other artists I deeply admire and even love, but who do not affect my body in that way. An example of artists in this category would be Sargent and Willem de Kooning.

 

[stlukesguild]

Hermes, yes… there are those artists who I love profoundly… but they do not inspire my own art. In some instances, there are artists who a recognize as being far more minor figures who nevertheless have the most profound influence on my own work. Picasso is an artist whose work I recognize as among the most profound and influential… but I cannot begin to imagine building upon his oeuvre.

 

[stlukesguild]

Back when Brian & I used to frequent this Classical Music forum there was one older member who was profoundly knowledgeable of older performers and recordings. As I was building my classical music collection at the time and was open to suggestions for older performers and recordings, I listened to him quite often. A thread popped up on the forum asking for suggestions for the greatest violinists. He offered a number of names of whom I wasn’t aware. One of these was Alfredo Campoli. I see now that there are a good number of recordings available by him, but at that time this collection of miniatures… frequently played as encores by Fritz Kreisler… was the only one available. Campoli was certainly a marvelous violinist and I should set about to getting more of his work.

 

[stlukesguild]

It’s a crappy reproduction… but the only one I could find. Scelsi is another composer that might be up Hermes’ alley. Scelsi, Tristan Murail, and Takemitsu are both seen as major composers of “spectral” music. The music is often modal… based around a single tone… and in some ways might be seen as a precursor to Minimalism.

 

[stlukesguild]

Like Shostakovich, Schedrin composed under the rule of the Soviets and the notion that everything… certainly all Art… was political. Schedrin’s most famous composition was his Carmen Suite which built upon the music of Bizet’s Carmen as well as his Arlésienne music and music from his opera La Jolie Fille de Perth. Not only was Schedrin’s suite a nod to Bizet’s Carmen but it was also a playful satire of the same. Unfortunately, it met with sharp disapproval following the first performance and was banned from further performances by Soviet officials. Only following intervention by Shostakovich with the Ministry of Culture did Schedrin’s work gradually earn a place into the repertoire.

 

[stlukesguild]

Sometimes Bruckner can feel dense (like Brahms, eh Brian? ). This Karajan recording with the Berlin Philharmonic (not the later recording with the Vienna Philharmonic) conveys a luminosity and sensuality not unlike Karajan’s recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. It’s not surprising that both are considered as classic recordings.