For Your Listening Pleasure show

For Your Listening Pleasure

Summary: "I Think You Will Love This Music Too" Weekly (or so) podcast of Classical music from my personal collection. No intros, no voice-overs, just the music, baby! Podcast episodes are commented in both English and French in our weekly blog at http://itywltmt.blogspot.com/

Podcasts:

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #13 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4376

"F for Franck & Fauré" The sonatas in A Major by Cesar Franck and Gabriel Faure are probably one of the most recorded “pairings” of similar works in the same key , other than maybe the pairing of the A Minor piano concertos of Edvard Grieg and Robert Schumann. Unlike the Grieg/Schumann pairing, the works by the Belgian and French composers are contemporary to each other, and the composers were – if not friends – certainly well aware of each other’s work. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast204

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #359 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 5161

"E for Elgar" Elgar was at the height of his fame when the Philharmonic Society commissioned a violin concerto in 1909. The work was dedicated to Fritz Kreisler, the internationally famous violinist who was the soloist at its first performance. The work is long for a violin concerto and expansive in mood but nevertheless compelling and not overblown. It contains none of the pomposity and swagger found in many of Elgar's works which some commentators find disturbing and rather distasteful. The work is firmly established in the classical repertoire although not performed frequently. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast294

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #189 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4825

"C & D for Claude Debussy" Along with Ravel's, Debussy's string quartet stands as a standard bearer for the French quartet, and possibly for the entire genre in the neo-Romantic style. Its sensuality and impressionistic tonal shifts make it a piece absolutely of its time and place while, with its cyclic structure, it constitutes a final divorce from the rules of classical harmony and points the way ahead. Details at our archive page @ http://archive.org/details/DebussyAnniversary-Part2

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #231 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4751

“B for Bela Bartok: The Three Violin Sonatas” These three works represent two different stages of Bartok's creative life: the Two Sonatas for Violin and Piano, from his most radical and experimental early period, and the Sonata for Solo Violin, one of the four last great works written shortly before his death. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/BlaBartkTheThreeViolinSonatas [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #358 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3809

"A for Aida (Acts 3 & 4)" Verdi composed his first opera (Oberto) in 1839 and from then on strung together great works achieving critical and popular success: Nabucco (1842), Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), and the list goes on and on. Probably one of Opera’s most celebrated spectacles of excesses, Aida was a commission by the ruler (Khedive) of Egypt for the great opera house he’d inaugurated in Cairo in 1869. Versi’s Rigoletto was the first production put up at the opera house, and so Verdi was approached to create the spectacular stage work. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/06AidaAct3.OnTheBanksOfThe [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #357 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4837

"A for Aida (Acts 1 & 2)" Verdi composed his first opera (Oberto) in 1839 and from then on strung together great works achieving critical and popular success: Nabucco (1842), Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), and the list goes on and on. Probably one of Opera’s most celebrated spectacles of excesses, Aida was a commission by the ruler (Khedive) of Egypt for the great opera house he’d inaugurated in Cairo in 1869. Versi’s Rigoletto was the first production put up at the opera house, and so Verdi was approached to create the spectacular stage work. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/06AidaAct3.OnTheBanksOfThe [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #356 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3030

"Donizetti: L'Elisir d'Amore (Act 2)" L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a melodramma giocoso in two acts. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). Composed in less than a month (according to The New Grove Masters of Italian Opera) l’elisir d'amore was the most often performed opera in Italy between 1838 and 1848 and has remained continually in the international opera repertoire. Today it is one of the most frequently performed of Donizetti's 75 operas. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/DonizettiLelisirDamoreLevineBattlePavarotti

 ITYWLTMT Montage # #342 – Jean Sibelius – Symphonies No. 1 & 2 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 5144

This week, an all-Sibelius program featuring his symphonies no. 1 and 2. Read our commentary on July 31 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast342-Playlist

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #355 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4090

"Donizetti: L'Elisir d'Amore (Act 1)" L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of Love) is a melodramma giocoso in two acts. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto, after Eugène Scribe's libretto for Daniel Auber's Le philtre (1831). Composed in less than a month (according to The New Grove Masters of Italian Opera) l’elisir d'amore was the most often performed opera in Italy between 1838 and 1848 and has remained continually in the international opera repertoire. Today it is one of the most frequently performed of Donizetti's 75 operas. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/DonizettiLelisirDamoreLevineBattlePavarotti

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #291 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4205

"James Ehnes Plays Bruch and Walton" Known for his virtuosity and probing musicianship, violinist James Ehnes has performed in over 30 countries on five continents, appearing regularly in the world’s great concert halls and with many of the most celebrated orchestras and conductors. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast195

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #290 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 3097

"Michael Rabin plays Wieniawski and Bruch" At his Carnegie Hall debut in 1950 at age 13, Dimitri Mitropoulos called Rabin “the genius violinist of tomorrow, already equipped with all that is necessary to be a great artist.” George Szell described him as “the greatest violin talent that has come to my attention during the past two or three decades.” And Artur Rodzinski added: “Rabin's is not the usual musical prodigy story. No one beat him to make him practice his scales. He was not overprotected and shut off from the world, but managed to enjoy a perfectly normal American boy hood.” Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/04ScottishFantasyForViolin [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #75 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 5816

"The Luna Nova Ensemble" Since its formation in 2002, Luna Nova, a group of artists devoted to the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, has performed in colleges, museums, churches, and concert halls across the country. Its repertoire consists of recognized masterworks as well as works by emerging composers. With concerts, masterclasses and private instruction, Luna Nova maintains a strong commitment to the education of performers and listeners, and to the cause of new music. Luna Nova is currently the core ensemble for the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival held each June in Memphis, Tennessee. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/04QuartetTime2012 [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #270 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4814

"Mahler: Symphony no. 9" Although the symphony follows the usual four-movement form, it is unusual in that the first and last are slow rather than fast. As is often the case with Mahler, one of the middle movements is a ländler. Though the work is often described as being in the key of D major, the tonal scheme of the symphony as a whole is progressive; while the opening movement is in D major, the finale is in D-flat major. As is the case with his latter symphonies, the work not only requires a large orchestra (including clarinets in A, B-Flat and E-Flat, two harps, and a large array of percussion instruments), it lasts well over an hour. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast163

 Project 366 - Listener Guide #212 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 4763

"Pierre Boulez Conducts Mahler Symphony No. 6" Mahler’s trio of life-changing events in 1907 – presaged by the “three hammer blows” that mark the symphony’s finale help feed the myth behind the symphony’s subtitle “Tragic”. Mahler did not title the symphony when he composed it, or at its first performance or first publication. In his Gustav Mahler memoir, Bruno Walter claimed that "Mahler called [the work] his Tragic Symphony". Additionally, the programme for the first Vienna performance (January 4, 1907) refers to the work as "Sechste Sinfonie (Tragische)". The sound of the hammer, which features in the last movement, was stipulated by Mahler to be "brief and mighty, but dull in resonance and with a non-metallic character (like the fall of an axe)." Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/PierreBoulezConductsMahlerSymphonyNo.6 [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

 En Reprise - Lied der Nacht | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 5064

[Project 366 Listener Guide #267] Our three-part look at the middle symphonies of Gustav Mahler continues with the seventh symphony. Read our fresh take on July 24 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast291-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Montage # 291 - 21 Sep 2018)

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