mikeweil

Last night we witnessed the presentation of the baroque cello class at the Frankfurt Music High School. One half of the evening was three sets of songs by Henry Purcell with various modes of accompanikment, from long cello ostnatos to basso continuos to counterparts in dialogue fashion between voice and cello. Purcell was a pioneer of the use of cello in English chamber music. Four different soprano singers, all great, and a fine harpsichord player directing the groups (Leonhard Klimpke, a name to watch, if you ask me). The other half was music by Italian composers who migrated to England: Francesco Geminani, Giuseppe Sammartini, and Giacobo Cervetto. A virtuoso solo sonata with cello harpsichord, and duet and a trio with cellos - very entertaining music, fun to watch and, as it seemed, to play. These young players were much more enchanting as the russion virtuso we saw on Monday. The moderator encouraged the audience to make up their own opinion as if there was something like "English" music, considering the great French influence on Purcell and the Italian fashion in the 18th century. One of the string players just reported on facebook they just finished the recoding sessions of the pieces. Looking forward to their releae next year.

Very interesting. This one, too, has four tracks with harp:

As it turns out that Anastasia Kobekina is an already established artist studying baroque cello in period performanve practice on top of her standard education. That explains why the hall was packed to the last seat - her fans came although she did not announce the exams on her web or facebook pages. She has chops, but I was not really charmed by her playing, in part because of the extreme technical nature of the pieces chosen. She lacked playfulness and humour. I am always skeptical when classical players wnat to do both modern and historically informed performance practice - they underestmate the intricacies of period performance. https://www.kobekina.info

Last evening we witnessed the first part of the baroque cello concert exams of Anastasia Kobekina - pieces by Vandini, Barrière, Triemer, and Bach - technically extremely difficult pieces. She sure had the chops.

Discs 1-3

For a group of friends that are interested in early music.

Been listening to two dozen ciaconas and chaconnes from as many 17th century composers during the last few hours, to prepare a lecture on this type of "dance" .....

The weekend bottle: Cigalus Rouge Bio* 2019, Aude Hauterive, Indication Géographique Protégée

Same here, and I'm twenty years ahead!

2005 Mighty Quinn reissue CD. In such a rather modern context, Lionel Hampton sounded pretty much like Bags in many phrases, especiallly in blues changes. It show how much Bags came out of Lionel.

I have the original double LP nd the CD reissue that was released some years ago. That was a really good band. Consider selling the LP as it goes for good money. Webster Lewis never got the credit he deserved for his great organ playing with Tony Williams, Herbie Hancock and others. At that time synths took over and he never decided on one or the other, it seems.

Okay - one can go here and look for the date. I was just curious.

This year I selected my first jazz CD to listen to very consciously, as I have not been playing much jazz last year - too occupied with my research in baroque music. But this time I longed for some swinging music. What was yours? Only the first one ot two, I do not wnat to derail the "Listening to now?" thread. Mine was the elegant swing of John Lewis:

Jaut saw my regular German mail order has it listed. I will put it on the wish list for my birthday in February. Fifty bucks is a reasonable price and it saves me the hassle with customs.

The concert was great. Conductor Felix Koch spoke great entertaining introductions to each cantata, singers, chorus (12 including the soloists), and orchestra were excellent. They will record them in January, CPO will release them in December 2026. Equally excellent music, lots of variation in the treatment of the form and some very original compositional methods that no other baroque composer employed. Highly recommended. Four volumes of this so-called "French Year cycle" have already been released, they are as good and interesting as Bach's cantatas. They were written for Frankfurt am Main in 1714/15, 72 of them, Bach knew some of them and their influence shows in some of his pieces. Telemann was more progressive than Bach in his cantatas. The next concert will be on March 9, 2025 in Offenbach - I will get me tickets. My wife liked it very much, too.