Rolling Classical 2012

[Removed Illegal Link]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVNzemi1Fpk&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL7B6040B2EF41C597

huh, weird

the news link: www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/17/145337601/gustav-leonhardt-dies-at-83

I'm glad you gave Rolling CM 12 a generic title. I worried a little that last year's title gave the impression that it was 20th century or even post-war specific and y'know I love to talk Schumann/Liszt/Bruckner/LvB etc.

On the temp Sandbox thread someone had just splurged on the new Chailly LvB symphonies set. Opinion now that you've had it a while?

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

Sometimes I wonder why I listen to anything other than Bach.

Bach-related by way of hommage/extrapolation: I finally got the renowned 60s live recording of Busoni's Fantasia Contrappuntistica, in the two-piano version, by the very young Peter Serkin and Richard Goode.

This was this work's last chance with me. I tried hard over the years with a few recordings of the solo piano version and just couldn't wring any juice out of the thing. Immediately on listening to the Serkin/Goode, it's searingly obvious the thing is an irresistible masterpiece. Fucking A! Poor Busoni seems to be even more at the mercy of pianist-drudges than my man Liszt. At least when Debussy is played by a drudge, you can still tell the music is great...

Also, on last year's thread I and then we had enthused about Othmar Schoeck's Notturno chamber song-cycle. Finally got another Schoeck thing: a captured broadcast of a song cycle called Lebendig Begraben (something like Life in the Grave?) which takes place from the point of view of a dead husband lying in his grave observing the doings of the town. Another knockout from Schoeck. He is THE man for post-Das Lied von der Erde voice-and-ensemble magic.

This week I heard Rued Langgaard's Music Of The Spheres for the first time--a new recording is out conducted by Dausgaard--and was bowled over. For evolution-of-music fans this is an astonishing thing for someone to have composed in 1916; Langgaard tossed his lance WAY into the future with this thing. But far more importantly, it just grabs you by the collar and rocks your world. Let me put it this way: the thing is called Music of the Spheres and it earns the title. Have you ever wanted to hear Nielsen take a journey to the center of his mind? Get this. There are cheap downloads at the usual services and DaCapo has good CD distribution.

Finally, I want to reaffirm that Claude Frank is the secret prince of beethoven piano sonatas.

Dang I didn't know Paavo Berglund had died in January. 82 y.o., so good innings much like Charles Mackerras, but I do have to take a moment to salute the guy. His EMI recordings of Sibelius' Kullervo, Pelleas et Melisande suite and 6th Symphony, Vaughan Williams' 4th and 6th Symphonies, and Shostakovich's 11th still vie for best-ever of those works. His whole EMI Sibelius bargain box probably makes the best one-stop intro to my favorite composer. And quite apart from recording activities, his work in (iirc) the early 70s on a new edition of Sibelius' scores paved the way for an international Sibelius renaissance which shows no signs of stopping 40 years later. Vale Paavo.

been listening to shostakovich's string quartets (borodin quartet) lately after years and years of not having heard them. after spending so much time with late beethoven quartets in the intervening time the sh. #15 hardly has any 'modern' sounds to it at all - it sounds almost totally 'late' and simple and unadorned in the same way.

er, i mean, not having heard them in a long time. returning to them.

Hmm I'll listen to #14 and #15 on the train home tonight. I have neglected those two (my go-to cycle right now is the one by Quatuor Danel).

I LOVE late Shostakovich though. So much of it is bitter and sardonic. I think the 14th Symphony might be my favorite of his symphonies.

well, that was just an impression! don't want to over-sell it. but i recall a stringency that i can barely hear now.

even the 'like flies dropping' comment of shostakovich's doesn't totally make sense to me. maybe he over-rated the potential boringness? or maybe decades of 'boring' music since then have made #15 sound like it's doing something different.

I was very sad to find out today that Tony Duggan, an amateur yet very influential Gustav Mahler scholar whose huge survey of Mahler CDs began to appear online in the late 90s, died in late February at age 58. I never exchanged emails with Mr. Duggan, but the personality that comes across so well in his Mahler writing made me think of him as a friend. His Mahler project remains essential reading today for anyone who wants to start coming to grips with this intimidating yet singularly satisfying body of life-music. The latter 90s were, in my memory, a wonderful time to be online as a novice classical music listener, exactly because of generous, quixotic projects like Tony’s. Though my own tastes often differ from his strongly-held and clearly-voiced positions, I’ve learned a tremendous amount from his survey. In fact, I only googled Duggan’s name today because yesterday I listened for the first time to his favorite recording of Mahler’s 3rd—and now it’s my favorite recording of Mahler’s 3rd. I was hoping he had some new writing online. RIP.

http://www.musicweb-international.com/Mahler/index.html

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/festivals-series/impossible-brilliance-the-music-of-conlon-nancarrow

Nancarrow fest anyone? Been to many concerts but I am really not sure how this is going to pan out.

Unique, once in a lifetime showing tho' - definetely worth 2-3 concerts.

I had also read Mr Duggan's words many times over. RIP sir!

Of course I wait to mention this until it's probably no longer on the racks anymore... but the issue of BBC Music with the Debussy cover is very much worth buying for its cover disc, the best and most coherent recording yet of the music for The Martyrdom Of Saint Sebastian, the bizarre multi-media kinky-christ 'happening' put together by the decadent Gabriel D'Annunzio, for which Debussy composed his own fully-transmogrified take on the Parsifal vibe.

"Let he who loves me best shoot first!"

le martyre is one of my alltime faves

http://i.imgur.com/a15jz.jpg

excellent lp

Nakh, here is where I reveal that the copy of BBC Mag i bought had doubles of the cover disc included for some reason. If you haven't/don't get a copy let me know and I can send you my extra one. It's a stunner.

Have not heard that LP, Nakh - love all of those pieces. Don't think I've ever heard an orchestral version of Verklarte that I liked more than the chamber arrangement, though!

I've been getting into Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" lately. Packs a lot into 30 minutes.

^^^if you ain't heard the solo piano original, get hold of it post-haste!

xpost Yes on Verklarte Nacht the shimmery bits toward the end are so much more palpable in the chamber version.

JELZ of your Nancarrow festival, that is *so cool*.

xp o. nate check out the original two pianos version for interest. Ravel's orchestration is real cool, landmark even, but it over-emphasizes the stylistic disparities between each movement. As a piano piece I think it's untouchable.

I have four recordings of "Concord Sonata" (John Kirkpatrick, Aloys Kontarsky, Gilbert Kalish, Manfred Reinelt) and I'm listening to them all today to decide if anybody did better than Kirkpatrick (so far no but I still have Kalish to go)

I really like the different colors that Ravel gets out of the orchestra, but it would be interesting to compare the piano version. I'll look for it. Thanks.

I'm listening to them all today to decide if anybody did better than Kirkpatrick (so far no but I still have Kalish to go)

the objective answer to this is no, no one did it better than Kirkpatrick

Owen have you heard the newish Jeremy Denk one? I have an mp3 of him playing it live a few years ago and it's quite good...

re: Pictures, O Nate, everyone everywhere will tell you to go to Richter live in Sofia for this, and they're right, but be ready for dire sound quality.

jon you are a mensch, but i should be able to get a copy of that via internets assuming it doesnt get an official release

it's seemingly a live recording from wales from a concert which got 4/5 from thegraun

re verklärte, i prefer the string orch arrangement because i really like that heavy lugubrious austrogerman heaviness in the early movements
(levine's siegfried idyll is pellucid and supple tho)

tonight I start learning movements 4 & 5 from Bach cantata 32

eek

DJP I thought you were a baritone? @ Jon: I'll check it out! I lucked out, I live next to a classical vinyl store and got three copies of Concord in one pull (all the non-Kirkpatrick ones, I had to eBay the Kirkpatrick).

v psyched to get to see some Saariaho performed next month for the first time(her Bergman tribute, Lanterna Magica)! The rest of that evening's program, well... I am totally up for Shostakovich's 6th but I have a feeling Franz Welser-Most is a conductor who is best pitted against bristlingly difficult post-wwii fare and might not bring the goods in dsch. And Brahms 2nd piano concerto would excite me too except yefim bronfman, meh.

Also next month Crumb's two orchestral colossi Starchild and Echoes Of Time And The River in one night! He's been performed a LOT in nyc the last several years which is great for me cause I love him. The downside: Leon Botstein conducts...

Fuuuuck I wish I could be in NYC for that.

[selfish] I'm flying to London today to oversee rehearsals for my violin concerto. It's my first one. I'm so, so excited. [/]

the fact that the stereo Kirkpatrick is still not available on CD is a painful act of negiligence on Columbia's part.

Last year I got a copy of the original mono Kirkpatrick, but it's so scratchy I almost couldn't listen. I am saving the transfer & cleanup for a rainy day.

I saw Henry Brant's orchestration of the Concord Symphony at SF Symphony with Tilson Thomas on Wednesday night. It's easier than ever to follow certain melodies when you break them across instrumental groups. But at times it becomes almost too transparent, some of those lines are supposed to be inextricable instead of underlined, and the slow, increasingly quiet spiral of the last movement comes across differently when it's 60-80 people following a very tightly wound score. It's far more of a Brant piece than an Ives one; still had a wonderful time but I've been mainlining my favorite recordings of it in the week since.

The pre-concert talk was in fact two actors recreating John Kirkpatrick's initial encounter with Ives, rehearsing the Concord for him in Ives' attic; played up to the hilt, with all the dialogue sourced directly from Cowell's book and Ives' Memos. But the guy playing Kirkpatrick could play pretty well, and the music made it all work; hundreds of people were there by the end of it and you can tell when the Davies crowd likes something; they are completely silent during the music

xpost congrats on violin concerto mr. owen

i was reading botstein's essay in 'franz liszt & his world' which was slightly tendentious and dull, rest of book skimmed but seems rich

congrats ówen!

Really looking forward to hearing your violin concerto on Friday.

I have to admit that over the last couple of years I've found contemporary classical music so much more rewarding to listen to than the other stuff I used to listen to. However, there's so much to explore and so little time!

owen that's fantastic! Which one of London's bazillion 1st class orchs are you working with?

DJP I thought you were a baritone?

I am. 4 & 5 are S/B duets with enough Es in the B part to make a bass angry.

ps re: the violin concerto: baller

Ha, thanks DJP. It's Britten Sinfonia, Pekka Kuusisto is playing it. Thanks for well-wishes!

Can anybody recommend me a Wyschnegradsky?

I still haven't cracked the Concord Sonata — I always fall asleep after the first movement.

I'm listening to Berlioz's Requiem (Inbal, RSO Frankfurt) again.

Going to see Giuseppe Ettorre play Bottessini with a chamber orchestra in a couple hours. New territory for me.

Schubert Sonata D958, Leif Ove Andsnes. This is finally the rendition of this sonata I've been looking for. With the instincts of a snake charmer Andsnes nails the balance between mysterious distance and sudden assertion and achieves terribilitas. The finale's death-dance some serious head-nod shit.

Which reminds me, we were discussing Mussorgsky's solo piano Pictures yesterday; if you have an aversion to 1950s bootleg sound quality, Andsnes is a good hi-fi alternative to Richter (very different interpretation of course).

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g48080-d1026626-Reviews-Ravel_Hotel-Long_Island_City_New_York.html

and http://www.tresbienshop.com/brand/dries-van-noten/ravel-coat-navy

More my scene.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravel_Morrison#Personal_life

I've been getting into Arbiter Classical reissues lately - they just have great taste, and seem to do really nice remastering (assuming there's some kind of remastering going on), plus I love the covers (other than the annoying elephant logo):

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HPNNJ2CTL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61yGtkemVXL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

That Paul Jacobs album is INCREDIBLE. I wish there was more of him on record.

Yeah, it's so fucking good! And I had never heard of him before I discovered it.

You should check out the iren marik stuff - I think you will like her if you like Jacobs.

god bruckner's choral music is so great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6fAT3iGRWc

Spent the weekend working through EMI's "Great Cathedral Organs" 13-CD set with my dad. It was amazing!

Great: Mendelssohn organ sonatas! Holy crap, I had no idea! None of the performances from this CD set are on Youtube (Philip Marshall plays #5 which was my favourite). Here's somebody else instead, this is nice enough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdy17WD-2Zk

Good: Dad loves Cesar Franck and there are several pieces of his on the collection. Franck's harmonic sensibilities rarely work for me. There was a good Elgar sonata played by a guy named Sumsion ("Well, he ~knew~ Elgar, don't you know," says dad.)

I was less impressed by Ives and Reger. The Bach stuff I've heard a million times and it was good. A great collection, it was all recorded in the 70s and they sound hairy and brilliant and bright.

Organ repertoire is a huge, inglorious hole in my otherwise fairly wide-ranging classical knowledge. The specific INSTRUMENT matters so much... it's hard to process!

Oof Nicolas Kynaston on Westminster is a great recital. Two good Franck pieces, an awesome piece by Vierne and Messaien "Combat de la Mort et de la Vie" which ruuuules, I'm gonna do something about this and DM you about that

My father informs me that both the Franck pieces (Choral in a minor, Pastorale in E) are "really, the best things Franck ever wrote" and that the Vierne piece (Carillon de Westminster) is fairly overplayed in his opinion but, yes, beautiful.

Google informs me of an interesting account of Vierne's, ah, show-stopping death: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-houlihan/louis-vierne-concert-organist-tribute_b_1559222.html

have you heard jehan alain? his father studied with vierne, and he himself studied with dupré and dukas. his music sounds like proto-messiaen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQiS_iA6UuE

o yeah, his sister is marie-claire alain (still alive!)

clouds, Jon, DM sent

Thank you v much Mr. flamgoontincl!

yes!

(anybody else is welcome if you message me; it is a delicious organ recital)

one problem with organ music, which usually isn't an issue with other genres of cm is how it seems that so many ppl can never get over the "spooky haunted house" or, more understandably, the "churchy" connotation it has, instead of just hearing it as pure, varied (in a circumscribed way, ofc) music. even ppl who normally have good taste can't seem to get over it. bugs me to no end.

like how can you hear something as sublimely beautiful as bach's "ich ruf zu dir, herr jesu christ" and feel nothing more than "this sounds like a funeral." chalk it up to ignorance i suppose.

That's just an extension of ppls inability to listen to stravinsky/bartok without thinking ~horror movie~ or lieder without thinking 'nooo opera stay away'

can anyone recommend the go-to recordings of the prokofiev symphonies?

1 - Too many choices
2 - The one on Chandos or the Gergiev
3 - Abbado on London/Decca or Gergiev
4 - Kuchar on Naxos
5 - I like Ormandy/Sony for this one but many many choices
6 - Mravinsky on Praga (probably reiss on other labels)
7 - Smetacek on Praga

there is no wholly awesome one-stop box set.

incidentally listening to kuchar's 3 and 7 while typing that post

Love #3 sooooo much, 2 and 3 both hella underrated aggro-modernism.

The Leinsdorf recordings are supposed to be v good as well, but I don't have those.

can anyone recommend a recording of bartok's 'bluebeard's castle'? i'd quite like one that includes the libretto....

Hmmm. The only one of the 3 I own which came with libretto was the Haitink/EMI. But it's not my favorite (though not bad).

thank you!

The justly lauded Kertesz/London one has had a ton of different reissues-- see which one has a libretto and get that,is my advice.

liking this

http://www.pacificaquartet.com/recordings.php?albumName=shostakovich%201,2,3,4

also this ed. of sonatas and interludes by cage

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/7442

apparently there's another out this year too..

Franck's harmonic sensibilities rarely work for me.

Hmmm. Do you like any of the late chamber pieces? Franck is one my favorite composers - would recommend the String Quartet in D and the Quintet in F minor.

the constant roving chromaticism can make his music seem restless but that doesn't preclude my enjoyment

can anyone recommend a recording of bartok's 'bluebeard's castle'? i'd quite like one that includes the libretto....

Get a dvd! Easier to watch than read.. I recommend this one
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bluebeards-Castle-London-Philharmonic-Orchestra/dp/B0011WMWWU/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1351561144&sr=1-1

i got the kertesz/london recording of "bluebeard's castle" (with libretto), as recommended by jon; it's amazing. the first time i've enjoyed opera. hoping it's maybe a gateway...

can anyone recommend a good recording of Delius' powerful joyous climactic choral stuff which I have seen a couple of times on TV programmes but never taken down the name of the pieces ?
All I can find on spotify is more pastoral ( cartoon deer prancing through woods with bluebirds, that kinda thing)
hopefully someone who knows something can advise.

requiem, a mass of life, sea-drift, songs of sunset (look for the vernon handley recordings)

ace, thank you so much. I'll do some youtube digging and then look for the recording you recommend.

It's hard to know what you heard; Delius deployed chorus in a variety of ways. Was it chorus unaccompanied or orchestra with chorus? Here are some stabs in the dark:

Appalachia - This is a long orchestral work in variation form which brings in the chorus for a big finale ("Honey I am goin' down the river in the mornin'/Hey-oh hey-oh down the mighty river..."). It's based on a spiritual tune from the american south. I recommend Mackerras or Barbirolli for this.

Song Of The High Hills - Probably the most sublime, mysterious & evanescent thing Delius ever did. The apex of his pantheist mode. Mostly orchestral; the chorus is used as a wordless element of the instrumental fabric a la Debussy's Nocturnes. Recommend Mackerras, Fenby or Bo Holten for this.

A Mass Of Life - This is much more choral-centered in the oratorio style. Big and lumbering, with text drawn from Nietzsche's Zarathustra, it was supposed to be a kind of atheist's mass. I've never clicked with this piece. People usually recommend Hickox for it.

Songs of Sunset/Songs of Farewell - These are structured like songs but the chorus carries a lot of the weight. Extremely chromatic, to a fault if you ask me, but they include some heart-piercing moments. Hickox with Bryn Terfel and Sally Burgess is a good choice for these.

Sea Drift - Included on the same Hickox disc with the previous item, this is a fantastic setting of a Whitman poem about sad seagulls for solo voice plus chorus and orchestra. Definitely deserves its status as a greatest hit.

Also, to roll with Delius at all you're gonna have to come to grips with the pastoralist thing. Replace the cartoon deer and bluebirds with the real thing and get inside their skins; this kind of aural nature poetry was not a quaint picture postcard thing for Delius but a subject of the deepest intensity.

(By the way C I think you mean Hickox not Handley? Handley did his share of Delius but not much of the choral stuff iirc?)

ha yes, you're right. was mixing up my chandos regulars.

and your post is wonderfully informative. will have to do some delving.

my love for the Arbiter label is strong - every time I put on something from them, it's the right thing, hiss and all.

Webern, Beethoven, Kurtag

Cesar Franck continues to frustrate and confound us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOtejkH8jjw

The last 1:30 of the last movement of Shostakovich's last symphony: one of my favorite passages of music ever.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/11/ten-notable-classical-music-recordings-of-2012.html

there is some shitty programme about westminster abbey on tv and all the choirboys are auditioning for the soloist in allegri's miserere and oh god this kid's voice just cuts out for the high c

same programme had zadok the priest all over it and now i can't stop playing zadok the gd priest so i downloaded a couple of oratorios but none of them remotely approximate that awed stately plaintively phasing intro or or the sudden choral exultation (the second half of zadok is no good)

will try to find that

Recs for watching Don Giovanni on Netflix DVD or streaming?

Just got a CD of Philip Glass music - "Metamorphosis" and some selections from Glassworks and the score to The Hours performed on harp by Lavinia Meijer. Pretty nice. Here's a bit of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_54NQciqofU

To bring this thread (almost) full cycle - this is out a week today: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sibelius-Complete-Symphonies-Tapiola-Finlandia/dp/B0091JQH2Q/

Oh that's great! Cheap too! Shame they are not including Kullervo but that Bournemouth recording has already been available for a while.

The Berglund/Bournemouth team is almost always worth hearing. Their Shostakovich 10 and 11, Vaughan Williams 4 and 6, and sibelius Kullervo are all close to top choices IMO. So I'll want to hear these Sib symphonies.

Is there a new thread? (long time reader, first time poster)

the 'an attempt at a...' thread is v active right now and for the last couple weeks!

Rued Langgaard's Music Of The Spheres for the first time--a new recording is out conducted by Dausgaard--and was bowled over

from the bowls of ILM, I resurrect this thread to say this is indeed an amazing piece. Watched a youtube of Per Norgard saying he'd slipped this score to Ligeti in 1968, without L's knowledge of Langgaard's music, and Ligeti immediately confessed to a sudden realization of seemingly having been "influenced" by it. Tone clusters, weird, repetitive motifs, harmony that goes even further than Debussy in its total disregard for typical tension/release. The only thing that really gives it away as being a kind of Romantic tone poem is Strauss-y/Wagnerian orchestration. (It also reminds me a bit of Sibelius' later stuff which might support further Norgard connections)

Is it OK if I c&p this to the thread I just started: Rolling Classical (Late 2015-)