What are you listening to at the moment? One Post Per hour

[rotobott]

The Motels - Total Control

[Ninjaturtle]

Eddy Grant - I Don't Wanna Dance

[Desert Dream]

The Passions - I'm in Love with a German Film Star
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLn_oMd1DQU

[krixxx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3tS05YROlY

Joseph Moog, Piano
Nicholas Milton, Conductor
Deutsche Staats-Philharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz

I. Moderato Assai
II. Andante
III. Allegro

Anton Rubinstein was a towering figure of Russian musical life, and one of the 19th century's most charismatic musical figures. Rivalled at the keyboard only by Liszt, he was near the last in line of pianist-composers that reached a climax with Liszt, Busoni, and Rachmaninov. Like them Rubinstein's reputation as a composer in his day was more controversial than his reputation as a performer, but unlike them, his vast compositional output, much of it containing music of beauty and originality, still remains relatively unexplored territory. Rubinstein wrote his eight works for piano and orchestra over the last 44 years of his life, with the five concertos dating from 1850-1874. Two earlier unpublished piano concertos, now lost, were written in 1849, and a third "concerto" was revised and published as the Octet, Op. 9. The concertos were enormously popular in the later 19th and early 20th centuries and were not only performed by the composer himself, but by such stellar artists as Hans von Bülow, Ferruccio Busoni, Anna Esipova, and the composer's own brother, Nikolay. Josef Lhévinne chose to make his United States début in 1919 with the Fifth Concerto, and Josef Hofmann, himself a pupil of Rubinstein's, continued to perform frequently both the Third and Fourth Concertos well into the 1940's. The Fourth was at one time in the repertoires of both Rachmaninov and Paderewski. Rubinstein's Third and Fourth Concertos, like Rubinstein the performer, are grand in scope, and seething with passion, brilliance and poetry. In spite of occasional excesses, the listener is never in doubt of Romantic intensity on a huge scale. Both of these works were undeniable influences on Tchaikovsky's later written first two piano concertos.

The Fourth Concerto, with its near ideal balance between the piano and orchestra, has proved the most popular of Rubinstein's concertos, and is the one on which the composer lavished the most care. First written in 1864, after two further published versions Rubinstein finally published a last revision in 1872. The first movement opens with an orchestral statement of the main theme, then leads into an explosive opening cadenza for the piano. The piano then restates the main theme, now clothed in massive fortissimo chords which in the hands of the composer must have overpowered any orchestral sound of the day. After progressing in fairly traditional sonata-form, Rubinstein adds a massive piano cadenza (which was undoubtedly an obvious pattern to parts of Tchaikovsky's later first movement cadenza to his concerto in B flat minor), then rounds off the movement by another massive statement of the main theme and a breathless coda. The second movement is primarily in F major, yet starts in D minor as a tonal link to the preceeding movement. The principal theme is first given by the piano, then is eventually returned for two further embellished and modified statements. Overall this movement contains some of Rubinstein's most serene and lovely writing. Although the last movement has a wild, Russian dance-like character, it nonetheless is closer in character to the krakowiak, which is actually a dance of Polish origin. The opening main theme, first presented by the piano, contains imitations of characteristic shouts and stamping of feet, as would be found in a similar Russian folk dance. The 19th-century Russian composer and Rubinstein's contemporary, César Cui, felt this movement to be "something like those wild dances that Gluck and Righini wrote ... somthing like the alla Turca one finds in Mozart". The breathless dance-like pace, occasionally relaxed with more lyrical passages, continues headlong to a frenzied coda that ends the concerto with an avalanche of virtuosity for the piano.

[nightwing6]

Fever Ray - If I Had A Heart

[nightwing6]

Feeling B - Geh zurueck in dein Buch

[Desert Dream]

XTC Sgt Rock (Is Going To Help Me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6qvPacZ9UA


XTC - Senses Working Overtime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-skUS_z-q5U


XTC - Generals and Majors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCuZ11IW1CY





XTC - Ball And Chain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXPq0mkNvY8


XTC - Making Plans for Nigel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZjZBCZWxpg

[rotobott]

Furniture - Slow Motion Kisses

[trailmaster]

Here is an unusual disc of music by the Baroque master Joseph Bodin de Boismortier. It is his six concertos for five flutes. Normally a concerto uses one or two solo instruments and either a string or full orchestra. In this case Boismortier uses 5 flutes as the solo pieces and the orchestra. The flutes play individually or together.

[Brecht]

Living in a Box - From Beginning to End (1987)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BO2MQmjyhS8