Show #34

***update

No show last week because I was in Michigan and tight security refused to let Gerry downstairs. Boo. I think, hopefully, that tonight we made up for the absence with a pretty tight error-free show; we brought in some interesting and strange music from Vainberg and some modern arrangements of 17th century English and Italian works by John Potter.  But the best thing about the show was the R. Strauss piece Gerry played which I had never heard. First-class second-rate composer mein arsch***. 

***Marc Geelhoed , as I see here, calls this "Strauss at his most inispid. It's a collection of ballroom dances, and it's all light and fun, I guess, but there's only so long a composer can wink at you before you think he's got something stuck in his eye." 

Ouch.  Hey, maybe that 'light and fun' sounded so good because it followed the relentlessly somber "Care-charming sleep." I love the insipid and want more of it; and this is when I'm most apt to toss out a critical ear. 

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Hour 1

Stefano Landi: "Homo fugit velut umgra," "Man flees like a shadow." L'Arpeggiata/Marco Beasley, tenor. (Alpha)

Arthur Honegger: Symphony #3 "Liturgique" Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Charles Dutoit, cond. (Apex)

Arcangelo Corelli: Concerto Grosso Op. 6, #7. I Solisti Veneti/ Claudio Scimone, cond.

Hour 2

Mystery Piece not guessed: Rachmaninoff Suite #1 for 2 pianos, 3rd movement (tears).  Vladimir Ashkenazy and Andre Previn, p (London). 

Vainberg, M.: Concerto for Trumpet and orchestra op. 94.  Sergai Nakariakov, trumpet.  Jena Philharmonic, Andrey Boreyko, cond. (Teldec). 

Hour 3

various composers, Care-charming Sleep.  The Dowland Project, arr. John Potter and co.  (ECM)

Richard Strauss: Suite from LeBourgeois Gentilhomme, Op. 60.  CSO, Fritz Reiner, cond. (BMG)

Haydn, Nocturne #8 in G.  Music Party, Alan Hacker (London)

John Ireland: minuet from A Downland Suite.  English String Orchestra, William Boughton, cond.  (Nimbus)