Playlist

AKA what I've been listening to.

• Sweelinck, Organ Works, Naxos; James David Christie. Beautiful works, beautiful playing.
• Mahler, Second Symphony, Sony; Bernstein & soloists. Glorious, irresistible, gorgeous.
• Symanowski, Symphonies 2 & 3 ("Song of the Night"), Naxos; Wit. Ask me when it's over, since I just put it on.
• Meyerbeer in Paris, Marston; many, many singers. Early recordings of Meyerbeer, made between around 1898 and 1920. Yes, I'd like to hear one of his operas in full, but these excerpts don't give me much hope.

Playlist

• La Boheme, Acts I and II. Toscanini/Peerce, Albanese, McKnight, Valentino. My traditional Christmas Eve music. The good transfer of my favorite Boheme (Gigli/Albanese, need I say more? The conductor is also splendid, among the best, but I can never remember his name.) is at work along with the Beecham, and I couldn't find the bad transfer of G/A, so it was back to the Toscanini. Peerce is servicable and correct, never quite inspired and not in a vocal class with Gigli or Bjoerling, the Marcello and Musetta are not better than okay, but Albanese is as touching as with Gigli, and the occasion - the 50th anniversary of the opera's premier, also under Toscanini - and greatness of the conducting make it worth a spin. For Italian-opera doubters, I suggest following along with the score sometime. I'd rather conduct an act of any Wagner opera than take this on, with its myriad orchestral details, metrical complexity, extended syncopations, and constantly shifting tempos. It's the most-performed opera in the repertory because it's a great, great masterpiece.
  
• O Holy Night, a raft of YouTube performances on Tuesday. My favorites turned out to be the elegant and slightly understated Florez and Bjoering, singing magnificently in Swedish. Fleming is very good but I couldn't watch her because of the smirking. Also notable is Thill, singing in about 1932, and of course, Caruso. Yes, I do like my tenors.
  
• Schmidt, Second Symphony, Jarvi/CSO, Chandos. Whew.

Playlist

• Schoenberg, Gurrelieder; Leibowitz/Lewis, Semser, Tangemann, Riley, Gruber, Gesell; Preiser. From 1953. I've only heard one CD, more later.
• Charpentier, The Judgement of Solomon; Christie/Les Arts Florissants; Virgin Classics
• Tan Dun, Internet Symphony, Eroica. God, what crap. ANAblog has the clip.
• Carter, String Quartet No. 1. Arditti String Quartet, Etcetera
  

Playlist

• Sibelius, Kullervo; Spano; Gunn, Hellekant/Atlanta Symphony, Telarc. Yes, I have two different Kullervos. Kullervi? How do you make a plural in Finnish, anyway? An excellent recording of this early Sibelius symphonic work, a retelling of the story of the antihero Kullervo.
  
• Evans, Sad Pig Dance, Kicking Mule. Out of print, and I am so glad I picked up a copy before it disappeared. Dave Evans is a stupendous guitarist and songwriter, and this is apparently his only recording. (No, he's not the other Dave Evans who is out there.)
  
• Rimsky-Korsakov, The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitzeh and the Maiden Fevronia. A 1950s Soviet recording, now available on Preiser. I got 20 minutes into it and took it off, because the soprano who sings Fevronia has one of those squeezed Slavic voices that always sounds faintly out of tune - and the role isn't written in her best register, either. The music is charming, so some day I will gird my loins and listen to the whole thing.
  
• Dir Ha Tan, Traditional Songs from the Vann Region [of Brittany], Arion. When you order from Berkshire Record Outlet, you win some, you lose some. Mostly I win, but this one was so deadly dull that I took it off after five tracks.
  

Playlist

• Carter, String Quartets 1-4, Arditti Quartet (now if only I can find the CD that has the fifth and some other Carter chamber music)
• Beethoven, Harp quartet, Op. 74; Juilliard Quartet, from the early '60s
• Humperdinck, Hansel und Gretel; Rother/Berger,  Schilp, Waldenau, Nissen, Arndt-Ober. This set, recorded in 1944, is a marvelous performance with wonderful, very idiomatic singing. It appears to have been recorded in one day. Berger and Nissen are perfect, Arndt-Ober, both scary funny, singing with enormous authority. What's even more impressive is that Arndt-Ober was 59 and had been singing professionally since 1906. The sound is acceptable, but considering the greatness of the set, you wish it had been made a few years later and in stereo.
• Carlos Gardel, songs
• French cafe singers

Playlist

• Mahler, Eighth Symphony; Bernstein, passel of soloists, Sony.
• Salonen, Wing on Wing, Insomnia, L.A. Variations; Salonen, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, DG
• Stravinsky, Les Noces; Stravinsky, Columbia. Very surprised to find that this performance is in English. It is also less wildly primitive than the two live performances I've heard of the piece, both of which I liked better.
  
• Hartmann, Symphonies (see last week's playlist)
• Harp Music of the Italian Renaissance; Andrew Lawrence-King, helios
  

Playlist

I really ought to do a better job of tracking what I listen to.

• Conchita Supervia, vol. 3, Marston Records. The inimitable Spanish mezzo, the most charming singer ever, in the third volume of a series of her complete recordings.
  
• Franz Schmidt, Symphony No. 2, Neeme Järvi, CSO, Chandos. I missed the recent SFS performances of Schmidt's Fourth, and Jeff Dunn kindly sent me a shrink-wrapped copy of the Second. Thank goodness it's Järvi and not the CSO's former music director, who would have made an overblown hash out of this gorgeous explosion of late Romantic extroversion.
• Aulis Sallinen, Kullervo, Ulf Söderblom, Finnish National Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Ondine. Sallinen is the best Finnish composer whose work you've never heard. Really. Born in 1935, he's a couple of generations past Sibelius and a generation before the young (ish) Turks, Saariaho, Salonen, and Lindberg. Kullervo derives from a particularly brutal story in Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. The music itself feels ancient, relentless, and epic. Give it a try.
• Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Complete Symphonies, Rieger, Leitner, Kubelik, Macal; Wergo. Resuming a project I started...uh...in 2007 some time, when my friend Mike lent me his set. Another of the great underperformed symphony cycles of the 20th century.