# 2021 Listening Project - Jan 10



## daco (Jan 5, 2021)

Russian Choir School
Valery Polyansky
State Chamber Choir

All (or nearly all) of the sacred acapella music that I've listened to has been in the Western church tradition, and while this is clearly different, it's hard to put my finger on exactly /how/ it is different. One thing is the low bass line (Slavic Bass?) which I really like. I think my favorites are the Blessed the Lord, O my soul (Rachmaninov) and the Appease My Ills (G. Izvekov).

This is a CD that I've had on "in the background" in the past, but listening closely this time I picked up much more that was going on. I'm now very interested in listening to the entirety of both Rachmaninov's Divine Liturgy and Vespers. As well as Tchaikovsky's Divine Litugry!

The liner notes for this CD are good, but too brief. I would really have liked more information about each piece, including the words translated into English.

Brandenburg Concerto 5
J.S. Bach
The English Concert
Trevor Pinnock, conductor
1979

Love this one, especially the harpsichord solo in the 1st movement, which (similar to the Handel movement I listened to on Jan 2) reminds me of a heavy metal solo at times. Like Bach was just up there shredding his mind out.

String Sextet No. 2, Op 36
Johannes Brahms
Violin: Isabelle Faust, Julia-Maria Kretz
Viola: Stefan Fehlandt, Pauline Sachse
Cello: Christoph Richter, Xenia Jankovic

I own the Stern/Lin/Laredo/Tree/Ma/Robinson version, which I've listened to many times. I also enjoyed this recording, but it's difficult to compare to two because the Stern is so etched in my memory. But unlike the Brahms concerto starring Faust, I'll definitely listen to this version again.


----------

