# An all-classical day



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

My big discovery today was Stravinsky's transcription for piano of 3 movements of his ballet Petrushka, as played by Pollini.










The rest of the disk is interesting, but the Stravinsky is mind-blowing. I loved it.

But the most fun I had today was listening to Boulez conduct Varese.










Every work on that album is great. I haven't heard any other recordings of his music, but if anyone isn't familiar with Varese, this is a great way to start.

Another thing I enjoyed today was the LaSalle Quartet's recording of Schoenberg's first string quartet.










Last week I listened to the Webern and Berg disks of that set, and I liked them too, especially the Webern, but not as much as I enjoyed Schoenberg today.

Finally, I started the day listening to Menuhin's recordings of Bartok's music.










There is a lot of great music on those two disks. The 2nd violin concerto gets the glory, but I really like the 1st as well. If it were up to me, the sonata for solo violin and the rhaposdies would all be much more famous.

It was a great music day for me.

It was also a good day for the music store. I'll post all about it in the "recent purchases" thread.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Hi Science, if you enjoyed the Varese consider getting the Concertgebouw's Grammy award winning Complete Works of Varese with Ricardo Chailly.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Thank you! It has been added to my wishlist...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The Pollini disc is probably the best "one stop shop" for some of the finest c20th works for the instrument. All of the works are superbly played. I also love the Stravinsky but the Boulez is also very engaging. Pollini is less flamoboyant that some other interpreters of this seminal Boulez work (Idil Biret on Naxos has more virtuosic swagger), but he brings a sense of structural integrity to the work overall.

BTW, Varese is THE composer that got me into the post 1945 repertoire 3 years ago. His music has become my touchstone in appreciating other composers of the last 60 or more years. He was so influential on a whole lot of composers - from Xenakis, to Stockhausen, to Boulez, to Birtwistle to our very own Australian Peter Sculthorpe. The disc conducted by Boulez must be excellent, but I have got the two Naxos discs conducted by Christopher Lyndon-Gee which have everything that Varese composed (or, rather, what is left to us), except the _Poeme Electronique _(so if you want a fully complete set of his works, buy the Chailly set mentioned above).

I find that I'm moving away from Bartok after being familiar with his music for over 20 years. But I've still continued to explore him in recent years, both in concert and on disc. I recently heard for the first time a number of his solo piano works, including Allegro Barbaro, the Sonata and Mikrocosmos, and also the seminal solo violin sonata which he composed for Menuhin. So since Menuhin & Bartok knew eachother very well (Bartok even gave Yehudi a very expensive violin as a present!), that EMI set you have above must be very fine indeed, and as near as definitive as you'll get...


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