Rolling Classical 2012

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.

Get yourself Jacobs' Debussy recordings without the slightest delay! Esp the Preludes. He is the king of dry-point Debussy playing (Bavouzet is the king of wet-brush Debussy playing). His Schoenberg disc is wonderful too.

Other recommended Arbiters:

Arbiter 116: Tiegerman: The Lost Legend of Cairo

Arbiter 139: Hindemith as Interpreter · The Amar-Hindemith Quartet

Arbiter 157: Scriabin chez Scriabin

Just noticed that both Decca and EMI have released Delius boxes. Any opinions on either?

EMI offers the wider selection of repertoire but the Decca is largely composed of Mackerras' recordings which are uniformly excellent and superbly recorded. There isn't really any top-tier Delius missing from the Decca set IMO (except the tone poem Eventyr), making it a better introduction to my man. But if you're already obsessed with Delius the EMI is a real feast of rarer stuff. I know I want to get it at some point even though I already have the Beecham and Barbirolli material.

BTW, the Danish conductor Bo Holten has now released three geographically-themed Delius discs ('Danish Masterworks', "Norwegian Masterworks" and the new "English Masterworks") which are all fantastic; he may some to supplant Mackerras as the Delius master of the digital era. The Norwegian one is especially killer: Eventyr and Song Of The High Hills on one disc!

Get yourself Jacobs' Debussy recordings without the slightest delay! Esp the Preludes. He is the king of dry-point Debussy playing (Bavouzet is the king of wet-brush Debussy playing). His Schoenberg disc is wonderful too.

― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Thursday, March 15, 2012 12:17 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That sounds good! I am finding myself increasingly drawn to dry-brush pianists in general, and the concept of dry-brush Debussy is interesting.

dry-point rather

Part of it, of course, is how he's recorded-- that wonderful Connoiseur Society E. Alan Silver type sound where the attack of each note is like a sweet 'ping'. See most everything recorded by Ivan Moravec before the digital era.

Thanks again - sounds like Mackerras is my man!

A further word-- I don't know if you like your Delius on the lively end (a la mono-era Beecham) or on the languorous wallowy end (a la Barbirolli)-- I prefer the former, and that's what Mackerras brings (but unhurried and with plenty of rubato).

Persephone. The one big Stravinsky piece that just fell through the cracks of popularity somehow. But so great. Elliott Carter called it 'the humanist Rite of Spring'. Elliott Carter OTM. It's got so much charm. Maybe it never caught on because it has a narrator.

All-time I don't think there have been more than 5 or 6 commercial recordings of it. My favorite isn't even one of them-- it's a radio broadcast from the BBC I downloaded off a new group, Andrew Davis conducting. Right now I'm listening to the work's second recording-- Andre Cluytens conducting, mono, a vinyl rip off a dude's blog a couple of years ago.

so beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9DJpaxT7wg

Battalia à 10 D-dur, C.61 (1673)
01:43 - 2. Allegro: "Die liederliche Gesellschaft von allerey Humor"

Biber's Battalia (1673) is a rare precedent, with its quodlibet of eight different folksongs in five different keys, representing the songs of the soldiers encamped before the battle.

Wow! A precedent for Ives, yeah? I've been seeing references to this piece for years but never heard it til now (though I have listened to the Rosary Sonatas).

The more I listen to Biber, the more I flip out, this guy was centuries ahead. the alternative tuning work in the Rosary Sonata, the extended technique to emulate Bird & Frog songs in 'Sonata Representiva', and... now this completely bonkers Ives moment

and of course when he plays it straight, which is most of the time, it is just transcendental, been listening to 'Rosary Sonatas' a lot this last year

& posting this to watch it from home later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcW3rL_pV-g&feature=player_embedded

Tony Conrad is a huge Biber enthusiast.

Now THAT is interesting...

that is wonderful, ty milt

i know only hb's violin work

http://i.imgur.com/Mw3jT.png

Justin Heinrich Ignatz von Bieber

Ahhhhh

Interview grabs from the internets:

Further research into the baroque violin repertoire led him to the “Mystery Sonatas” of Heinrich Biber, whose bold scordatura tunings had a marked effect on the young man: “I perceived Biber’s music as having been constructed according to timbre, not melody.... Biber had completely reformulated the basis for music composition, around timbre.”

...

A chance discovery of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bibers’s “Mystery Sonatas” with their inventive constructions around timbre as opposed to melody had a transformative effect. “For the first time, my violin sounded truly wonderful. It rang, and sang, and spoke in a rich soulful voice – the timbre of the instrument… My body merged with the body of the violin; our resonances melted together in rich dark colors, harsh bright headlights. Slower; slower.”

for the sandbox execrable classical cd covers thread:

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

>Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bibers’s “Mystery Sonatas”

it's just one of those pieces. the Violin Sonatas are just as incredible. and I went on a Biber buying spree after finding 'Battalia' upthread and the one I've been playing the most is Musica Antiqua Köln / Reinhard Goebel's performance of 'Harmonia Artificiosa': http://www.amazon.com/Biber-Heinrich-Ignaz-Franz-von/dp/B0001DQTL0

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B4ztwwZc83U/TfjrUKua7jI/AAAAAAAAB5E/sZL8SILCoPU/s1600/Front%2528110%2529.jpg
Floors me every single time.

How is Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé even possible. Fuck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0w-adjLQ-w

Vivier is one of my all-time favourites!

Listening to Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues these days. Can't get over those.

I always feel bad about not posting to this thread more. It gets hard to do when classical music is, like, what I do at work, you know?

I definitely feel less like talking about classical music online when I'm selling subscriptions. :\

As well as the Delius anniversary sets mentioned above, this year also sees the release of four Debussy boxes. Can anyone offer an appraisal of one or more of them?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Debussy-Collection-Various/dp/B006VKKAXU

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Edition-Various-Artists/dp/B00742LLKU

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Piano-Edition-Various-Artists/dp/B00751JXQ4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Complete-Piano-Signature-Edition/dp/B0079J283C

The Decca piano set is comprised of previously released Thibaudet recordings IIUC. Would be tempted, given the rosaries and star accolades, etc. were it not for the fact that I've been tracking down Paul Jacobs' recordings on the back of this thread...

Don't bother with the Sony IMO. The only first rate performances in there are the Boulez Pelleas + orchestral works.

The DG/Universal Debussy Edition surprised me, but then I remembered DG now folds in the Decca and Philips catalogs as well, and this box includes things from some independent French labels too. A lot of great recordings and very intelligently anthologized. This is the best of these 4 sets IMO.

The mostly Thibaudet piano box-- for great modern Debussy playing I would urge you toward the Bavouzet discs on Chandos. There were five of them. If they haven't boxed them yet I'm sure they will. Thibaudet is really good too, but not on Bavouzet's level.

Leave that Gieseking set til later. In the Preludes, the sound quality almost kills some of the most inspired piano playing ever. I hate you Walter Legge for engineering WG in a cardboard box. EMI keeps remastering these but they'll never sound alive. Seek the Gieseking volume in the Great Pianists Of The 2oth Century series-- one disc has his 1930s Debussy recordings and they sound much better than EMI's 1950s ones.

Sund4r what is your day job is it's ok to ask?

Thanks again - might wait a while before wading in... Maybe listen to a few of the performances in the DG box first while continuing my Jacobs odyssey.

Jon: lecturer in music theory and music history. Teaching 20th c music analysis right now so if I'm online, it's usually because I'm taking a break from Debussy or Bartok or Schoenberg etc (or from trying to write music to get a composition job).

I realize every job is a grind, but damn that is v cool to me.

And your own instrument is gtr iirc?

Yes, but I'm a composition/theory specialist, not a professional virtuoso classical performer.

Thanks for the Kancheli reminder, Turangalila.

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-)