2016 Rolling Classical Listening Thread

if you are listening to classical, you can make a note of it here. links and pictures are fine. old or mod is fine.

I'm listening to Douglas Lilburn's Symphony no. 2. I've never listened to his stuff before. He's from all the way over in New Zealand, and that's a long way from me. I'm waiting to a hear a little kiwi flavour....though this CD does include his Aotearoa Overture, maybe i'll find it there. Plus, doesn't he kinda look like that Captain who wasn't Captain Kirk from the famous space wheelchair episode of Star Trek in this picture:

http://www.douglaslilburn.org/gallery/atl/PAColl-2547-04.jpg

i also didn't give this thread a punny title so feel free to make up your own if you like. you know:

How I Could Just Telemann: The 2016 Classical Listening Thread

You Can't Handel The Truth: The 2016 Classical Listening Thread

I just don't feel sure of my punning abilities in 2016. I'm getting kinda slow.

(Lilburn's mentor was Ralph Vaughan Williams and it shows in this. I'd like to hear his 60's electronic work!)

recording sounds in a barn, 1963.

http://www.teara.govt.nz/files/16049-atl.jpg

lilburn <3 need to get around to checking that collection of his electronic work that came out ages ago now

if you've got a spare ten or so hours, excellent radio documentary: http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/douglaslilburn

yikes! maybe not all 10 hours...

feel bad i've never listened to him before now. but, you know, i get around to everything eventually, god willing.

now listening to Kodaly conducts Kodaly. CD reissue of an old (1960) Supraphon release. i lucked into a HUGE collection of Czech/Hungarian classical vinyl years ago and i dined out on it for years. it's not like it falls from the trees in the U.S. anyway, Kodaly doing his Concerto for Orchestra is a wonder. the strings really zing.

(If i won the Powerball I would totally start a world-class Stuff That Never Gets Played In The U.S. Orchestra. Kodaly would be in there along with a zillion other people. Though Zoltan probably gets more play here than a lot of folks. and i would build a state of the art music hall of course...)

listening to Magnus Lindberg - Action/Situation/Signification

original 1987 Finlandia CD with the Toimii Ensemble/Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Esa-Pekka Salonen

okay, my Powerball Orchestra would play this on the opening night of our new grand concert hall. never heard it before. very cool.

I think someone already initiated a rolling classical 16 thread but I'll board this one if it helps it stay afloat!

Boulez crazy for a week now over here, reading lots of old interviews, wallowing in his Mahler Bartok and Debussy recordings and of course his own shit, especially in the more sensual dg versions.

Like Bowie, Boulez was as much an ethic and a way of processing information as a maker of art, and in that sense he isn't going anywhere.

i searched for a thread! i didn't see one. if there is one link it and we can use that instead. don't matter to me.

Rolling Classical (Late 2015-)

ah! okay. does that dash mean that the thread is rolling forever...should i post there instead?

The other one is quite short as well so I'm fine with either option. This on has 2016 and the kids love new things...

This one is easier to search for. Let's keep this one, now that the other is linked.

this is true. nothing like a shiny....classical thread to get the kids excited...

x-post

okay, well, i was listening to liszt for a while. (tzimon barto playing the piano...and if you play liszt it helps to have a name like tzimon barto...and then the faust symphony with beecham conducting the hell out of stuff.)

now i'm playing holst's the hymn of jesus/wandering scholar/ode to death/choral hymns from the rig veda.

which is just awesome music. and i love finding good holst recordings that aren't those damn planets. not easy to do!

tzimon before:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BDcNpQrjL._SY355_.jpg

tzimon after:

http://www.surech.ch/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/TzimonBarto.png

dude got swole...

Tzimon took that name for himself as a component of the quest for stardom, actually. His given name was Ted Brown or something. People lolled at him when he came on the scene but I've heard his live Liszt transcendental etudes were pretty sensational. Then he disappeared for awhile and now he records for ondine and specializes is playing everything super slowly. I'd like to hear Dolph Lundgren's take on Liszt.

Scott is that the holst album on decca/argo? That thing is so good. I got it on the eloquence cd reissue. The Rig Veda hymns are a slice of heaven to me, that harp writing yesss

Np Shostakovich Viola Sonata with Kim kashkashian and Robert levin. I love this piece so much. So sardonic and pitch black.

The Holst i was playing was an 80's CD reissue of 70's recordings on EMI. London Philharmonic/London Symphony Chorus/Sir Charles Graves - English Opera Group/English Chamber Orchestra/Steuart Bedford.

and it sounds amazing. a great CD sound-wise and great performances.

also Choristers of St. Paul's Cathedral Choir on The Hymn of Jesus. can't forget them!

Oh huh yeah I've never heard those! Groves is good. I love some of his delius recordings a lot. There was just a big emi box of all his recordings of British music.

Keep an eye out for anything holst on the Argo or decca labels conducted by his daughter Imogen Holst. That series is awesome. And recorded in the 60s by decca geniuses.

Also in regard to less famous holst you need to hear Egdon Heath, it's an almost twenty minute tone poem evoking the opening pages of a Thomas Hardy novel where hardy is just describing the landscape. It's practically ambient.

bookmarked

<3 u Jon

this is more minimalist and it probably belongs in the boomkat classical music thread (awful thread title by the way), but last year julien marchal's insight was in my top 5

<3 u too sleeve lol when you listed your permaGOAT five bands in that thread yesterday I was like "wait are you me???"

aw

you are an endless fount of pressing/conductor/recording wisdom regarding classical. One of my "serious" pre-marriage relationships was with a classically trained (Interlochen etc) violin gal, and I have a distinct memory of being with her in some classical CD store circe 1991 and asking her "why are these CDs so cheap?" and having her explain the whole "it matters which orchestra, which conductor, which take, which engineer" thing to me. it's daunting! your recommendations really help.

A re-release of R. Murray Schafer's Loving is coming up on Centrediscs. This clip sounds great: https://soundcloud.com/centrediscs/scene-1

listening to Mendelssohn. nothing really exciting to say about that. i mostly listen to Mendelssohn cuz i love Brahms. i'm a romantic at heart...

I never listened to the mendelssohn cello sonatas until a few months ago. They are super great.

boulez's scriabin
kreisleriana
murail's piano work

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/07/arts/music/marino-formenti-fully-engaged-at-ny-phil-biennial.html

who in kreisleriana?

My faves: martha argerich dg, wilhelm kempff (mono not stereo), horowitz (sony not dg), perahia (sony)

Does anyone have any classical guitar recommendations?

argerich :)

this too....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1_Yjqj9xSY

her recording of kreisleriana is the one solo recording i know of hers where i really feel the impact of THE LEGENDARY ARGERICH tbh. Several of her concerto recordings do it for me too.

evan i think sund4r will have words for you

Evan, are you looking for recommendations of guitarists/recordings or compositions? For playing or listening?

Guitarists/recording/listening. I love classical guitar but I know almost nothing about what's out there.

Segovia of course, but beyond him.

Chihara's guitar concerto
George Crumb's chamber pieces written for David Starobin (Songs Drones and Refrains of Death, Mundus Canis and Quest) (the first one is electric, the other two not)
Boulez Le Marteau Sans Maitre has some sweet ass guitar writing in it
Jerry Goldsmith's film score for Under Fire is virtually a classical guitar concerto

I bet the solo guitar arrangements made by takemitsu are good

Another pseudo guitar concerto film score: John Barry's Deadfall

Will be back later this evening with recommendations.

Thanks Jon! And thanks in advance Sund4r

Found this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-yLS9tz1Xc

I'll focus on players first, since that's what you asked about:

If you're a n00b, you'll want to get your hands on some Julian Bream. Along with Segovia, he was probably the most important guitarist of the 20th century. He had better taste in composers, though. This is one collection I've listened to a lot but sometimes there are huge and very affordable collections available on iTunes.

They were obviously different but imo both played in a style that emphasized the player, with significant liberties in interpretation. Younger players are often more a little more faithful to the score, which I sometimes prefer. Some to look for: Christopher Parkening, Marcin Dylla, Thomas Viloteau. I have Dylla's Chittarra Giocosa, which includes the Ginastera sonata. Parkening's recordings of Villa-Lobos's "Douze Etudes" are v good imo. "Etude 11" is my favourite guitar piece to play and possibly even to listen to.

A couple of the Latin American greats: Roberto Aussel, Alvaro Pierri. Aussel's recording of the Ginastera sonata (some people's OPO for 20th c guitar music) is definitive. Pierri might have my favourite sound of any classical guitarist. This is a good album: it gives a good sampling of compositions by Leo Brouwer, one of the key 20th century guitar composers.

One piece that is hugely important to me that can be hard to find recordings of is Reginald Smith Brindle's "El Polifemo de Oro". Bream recorded it on an LP called something like "20th Century Guitar Music" but I believe that recording is OOP. There's a perfectly good recording by Eduardo Pascal that's out there.

I got to see the ginastera piece live in a concert here, preceding a crazy vocal and percussion piece. It was impressive.

*often a little more faithful

IMO:

There should be a limit on # of nominations per ilxor, but since there won't be that many is us it should be a generous limit. But that will still keep the nom list from being just everything any of us like ever.

Works which are sets of smaller pieces but clearly packaged by the composer as a cycle to be performed as such should count as one work (Debussy preludes book I: a single work; Chopin nocturnes: not a single work; Chopin nocturnes opus 33: a single work; Bach Partitas: probably a single work since he did publish them at once as a set, even though probably did not expect anyone to play through all 6 at a go? Bach Easter Cantatas: not a single work). Career-spanning symphony cycles do not count no matter how coherent we think they are.

People should footnote their favorite recordings of the works they nominate if they want to, but it should be made clear to voters that the noms are for the work not the recording and not tied to any specific performance.

Voters should also stump for favorite recordings on their ballots!

Jon I went down that road too, specifically wondering how I was going to treat Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas -- but then I remembered 20th/21st Century!

I thought the poll was limited to modern/contemporary classical? So no Bach or Chopin.

xpost

No Bach or Chopin please.

Yeah starting it at 1900 would probably be the most straightforward.

I thought I'd start it at either 1900 or 1890 (after the Paris expo; dawn of Debussy's modern style).

I'm trying to work out about how much of a time investment this would be. (Anyone who has done this before, it would be great to hear your experience.) I might hold off until May, depending.

I think 1890s would be a better starting place too.

In my experience, running these polls will take some of your time, but not an indecent amoung, if you plan it properly. Limit the amount of nominations so you won't end up with a list of 10,000. Add the stuff people nominate to your excel table daily, so you won't have to do it all at once, once the nomination time is over. And do the same with vote tallying. IME doing the results thread is the most time-consuming part of it, unless there'll be a huge amount of voters, but I doubt it'll be so in this poll.

30m/night, tops?

1890 IMO, too much epochal shot gets cut off using 1900

Ugh prudish iOS autocorrect

We're still allowing film compositions right? If only so that I can make xyzzzzz unhappy

Yeah, my idea was to include any music that was composed and primarily stored in notated form. I was kind of assuming that ILM wasn't going to fill the poll with Tin Pan Alley hits but I'm willing to accept the possibility.

Happy with film music, its all post-1900 :-)

Integrate Your Series and Fill a Cloud-Chamber POLL: Ballot Poll for Notated Music Since 1890

Cool, working on noms!

I encountered another 20th century guitar concerto for this thread, by a composer I already like a lot -- Ohana's concerto titled Trois Graphiques. There's a great recording on DG by narciso yepes with fruhbeck de burgos conducting the LSO

Busy first month here and then not much doing! Playlist is updated with that Narciso Yepes track tho'.

People are getting excited on the poll thread basically. I am meaning to do a playlist of the noms... Or at least of MY noms and the noms I'm rooting for, lol

Posted this on time travel thread as well: Deerhoof + Marcos Balter. Seems interesting.

I'm listening to Douglas Lilburn's Symphony no. 2. I've never listened to his stuff before. He's from all the way over in New Zealand, and that's a long way from me. I'm waiting to a hear a little kiwi flavour....though this CD does include his Aotearoa Overture, maybe i'll find it there.

“I want to plead with you the necessity of having a music of our own, a living tradition of music created in this country, a music that will satisfy those parts of our being that cannot be satisfied by the music of other nations.” (1946)

With that in mind, these recent pieces might be the Kiwi-est music possible:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/upbeat/audio/201758203/phil-brownlee-and-adriana-tikao-concerto-for-taonga-puoro

https://soundcloud.com/philbrownlee/te-hau-o-tawhirimatea

^ Phil Brownlee and Ariana Tikao – "Ko te Tātai Whētu" ("The Constellation"*), concerto for taonga pūoro and orchestra, 2015
& Brownlee – "Te Hau o Tāwhirimātea" ("The Wind of Tāwhirimātea"*) (Richard Nunns - taonga pūoro, Bridget Douglas - flutes), 2010

Taonga pūoro are traditional instruments – in the concerto, Ariana Tikao plays among others pūtātara (conch shell trumpet), pūtōrino (a flute-trumpet), and pahu pounamu, "a gong made of South Island greenstone", as well as singing. The premiere was in 2015, by the CSO in Christchurch. It harks back to Māori myths and legends: "A big part of the concerto was based around a waiata [song] concerning the story of Hinetitama and Tāne, who lived as husband and wife. Hinetitama discovers Tāne is also her father and leaves him to reside in the underworld. When Tāne comes after her, she tells him to go back to raise their children and to take the stars to adorn the cloak of Raki, the Sky Father."

The pieces themselves are quite lilting and steady. Bear in mind, this is music written to suit these instruments and these stories, and not westernized expectations – so, me expecting a big crescendo finish? Not very reasonable. The hybrid form of western and traditional Māori music is especially new, and full of possibilities. Taonga pūoro have been revived only in recent decades after almost dying out, and it seems likely they'll appear in more popular music here as time goes on.

Interview with Phil Brownlee And Ariana Tikao here:
http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/upbt/upbt-20150612-1440-phil_brownlee_and_adriana_tikao_concerto_for_taonga_p_oro-064.mp3

And some more info about the concerto:
http://www.cso.co.nz/news/1433903220-worlds-first-taonga-puoro-concerto

Gillian Whitehead's music has definite Kiwi flavour, although I'm not too familiar with it yet.

Likewise I should listen to more Lilburn, he sounds pretty cool. (The quote above is from him, from this article about his 100th anniversary.) The Aotearoa overture is great, but it sounds to me more "Europa" than "Aotearoa". Not his fault – the country was extremely Anglicized at the time he wrote it (still is, in many quarters). Even using that title in 1940 was quite forward-thinking, 35 years before Māori was recognized as a national language.

* my translation, so prob not great

Branca's Hallucination City was finally released officially a few days ago

*47 years, duh (xp)

I am finally getting around to hearing the Christine Goerke/Jamie Barton "E un aeterna!" duet at last year's Richard Tucker Gala:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFR1OqT64js

...holy shit

WTG Julia Wolfe

i didn't see her name on the list; good for her!

I just saw this programme: http://worcesterchambermusic.org/into-the-abyss

I was expecting to like the Messiaen but I was actually surprised by the Schulhoff and Copland pieces, which I didn't know before. The Copland is a serial work from 1950 and great!

I've just started really spending time with Copland, like just these past couple of days. It's an exciting prospect -- large body of work, a lot of interesting phases, super interesting to read about

I am shocked and incredibly bummed at the news that Zoltan Kocsis, indisputably one of the most talented and distinctive pianists playing, has died in his early 60s.

I don't know how much of his large Philips discography is in print right now and thus on Spotify etc but his massive unparalleled solo Bartok cycle, Bartok Two-piano Sonata with Dezso Ranki, Debussy Images and Estampes, and Liszt transcription of Wagner's Parsifal are huge peaks in piano history.

He was full steam into a second act career as a conductor and orchestrator in Hungary which was yielding great recordings and I thought we'd get much more from him.

Kocsis came up through the Hungarian scholastic great-pianist machine at the same time as Ranki, Schiff, and Jando, all of whom are still playing; his musicianship probably resembles Ranki the most out of those, kind of an impossible to dissect blend of control and wildness.

This is a pretty cool recent sax quartet: https://battletrance.bandcamp.com/album/blade-of-love

brilliant album and no doubt the best sax quartet in the world right now, well the only other existing one I've heard was the Chicago Reed Quartet the other year.

neetelbaers posts all this great classical stuff on dime and i long ago gave up trying to keep up with it, but today i'm listening to his recording from yesterday's semi-finals of the august-everding percussion contest. helping me get a better understanding of contemporary solo percussion repertoire (the oldest stuff here is scelsi).

that battle trance recording is pretty dope

First performance of a recently rediscovered early Stravinsky piece
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/03/stravinsky-funeral-song-valery-gergiev-maryinsky-st-petersburg

Listened to the first disc of this (Symphonies 1 & 4) today:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51BJpWdCHgL._SS500.jpg

Followed by the first disc of this (Quartets 1, 2 & 3):

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51byLeWSQQL._SS500.jpg

What'd you think of Sibelius 4? (If this was ur first hearing of it)

Oh, I've had the set for a few years. Great stuff.

I was just pointed to this today. Kepler Quartet's recent recording of three of Ben Johnston's microtonal string quartets. They sound amazing imo.

xposted from the bach thread, but this is so fucking good

http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2330767.1440681924!/image/image.jpg

Ha, so, apparently, the set I linked was recorded in 2011. It's still awesome! They recorded #s 6-8 this year.

any more recommendations with age of elegance harpsichord compositions or classical Spanish baroque guitar would be welcome. ^^^ That xp Freiburger/Bach recording is really hitting the spot for me tonight. I was listening to some 18th century classical Spanish guitar whilst quite drunk last week and thinking it almost sounded like fusion in places.

Do you remember what composers or guitarists you were listening to?

It was ensemble kapsberger - santiago de murcia codex. I think these compositions were only discovered in the 40's and might have been a bit out there for the 18th century.

Started listening on Spotify. From what I understand of the AMG review, it seems to suggest that they took a lot of liberties with the compositions, essentially creating a modern ensemble orchestration, so that might explain the fusion feel.

I noticed AMG didn't like it from google, but I'm one of those ad-block babies who ignores ad ridden sites. I suppose that does add some shade, but wasn't this some lost work that turned up in the 40's? i can't remember if I made that bit up. But it does seem fair to interpret a work how you feel does justice to it best is not an approach that should be completely discouraged.

No, you didn't make it up. Pauley and Koonce confirm that it was discovered by Saldivar in 1943 and identified by Lorimer ≈ 40 years later.

By the way, I wasn't passing judgment on the musicians (and I'm finding the recording enjoyable), just saying that the fusion quality (which I also hear) was probably not entirely due to de Murcia being ahead of his time.

You dig any other classical Spanish guitar recordings? I haven't really gone beyond random slsk/youtube searches, it is something I feel would be worth delving into much further.

Well, I'm more of a modern guy but the obvious Classical composer I really like is Sor. I like Sor a lot; "Marche Funebre" is one of my favourite pieces to play. You could try Duro's recording here? There are also the seven pieces on this disc that I've owned for a long time. The Giuliani concerto here is the recording I own. I should pull it out again. It's a recording I've listened to a lot. For the Baroque era, I mostly like Bach tbh.

That's all standard repertoire, though, and doesn't quite sound like the Kapsberger/de Murcia recording.

for baroque harpsichord, pancrace royer's stuff fucking kills. i'm not sure i'd describe it as "elegant" per se, but it's monstrously awesome. rameau does good harpsichord stuff too.