Rolling Classical 2012

i like skalkottas and radio 3 should be commended for not just doing delius or handel or whatever for the millionth time

donald mcleod sez nobody he talked to while preparing for the programmes even recognised skalkottas' name

kinda wonder what bawheids are walking around the radio 3 offices

http://www.otherminds.org/shop/Rugglesdisc.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/10/debussy-martyre-saint-sebastien-review/print

ha so we were discussing le martyre, and now there's a recording with....isabelle huppert

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7182/6939551135_01552d5157.jpg

http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on-book-tickets/music/apartment-house-facing-beauty

http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on-book-tickets/music/mark-knoop-artificial-environments

Couple of recitals that are worth going to.

http://c3.cduniverse.ws/MuzeAudioArt/Large/11/1098211.jpg

This is killing me right now.

Weird, wrong image - it's this one
http://c3.cduniverse.ws/MuzeAudioArt/Large/88/1142288.jpg

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

intrigued by the guarineri

really into bussotti's bergkristall atm

from 2011, Novak's 24 Preludes & Fugues is pretty remarkable imo

Whoa, never heard of that composer.

Ooh that sounds fascinating.

On a similar scale of contempo piano massiveness, does anyone know James Dillon's 'Book of Elements'?

I don't but it's on Naxos Online. Would it come across well enough on built-in PC speakers at the reception desk of an office?

Sounding good so far.

I don't know it yet! Been considering buying it for quite awhile, based on reviews in Fanfare.

man oh man this Novak, Book Two, Prelude 10, "Elijah" - it makes me wish I could write music like this - it's atypical of the cycle, more melodic, lyrical in an almost traditional way but still very open - so so good

gonna get that Dillon from eMusic

cool man, report back!

(do you get hooked up w/free eMu creds for writing columns? If so, jealous!)

trying to remember the name of a composer whose name i have forgotten

in my mind he is filed with antheil.....sort of an eccentric american modernist with an emphasis on piano who lived for a long time iirc

Leo Ornstein?

yes! thank you

i am currently digging the hell out of roussel's 3rd symphony

Born ca. December 2, 1893
Kremenchuk, Poltava, Russian Empire
Died February 24, 2002 (age 108)
Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States

that's ornstein

roussel doesn't seem too familiar to me.....i don't think i know french interwar modernism well

king of french interwar modernism for me is Koechlin, seek anything he wrote for orchestra.

Roussel went through some quite distinct phases iirc. I only own a disc from his early impressionist-exotica phase (the Spider's Feast and the Padmavati suite) as I have a deep weakness for that particular strain of CM...

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

he was of an older generation, so any contemporary influences were filtered through whatever language he had developed to that point, but it has a surprising fierceness and an admirable structural reflexiveness.

xp

and koechlin is indeed brilliant

I wrote a paper that discussed Ornstein once. There was this quote from, if I remember correctly, a concert notice from really early, maybe the 1910s:

"I do bewail the murderous means with which Leo Ornstein patrolled the piano. He stormed its keys, scooping chunks and slag and spouting scoria like a vicious volcano. Heavens!"

yeah koechlin i know (via present company)

i hope that writer never got to hear ustvolskaya

i still love alkan alkan alkan

Enjoyed the Roussel.

<3 this, reissued as "Istikhbars & Improvisations" this year.

http://weirdorecords.com/zen/images/13600.jpg

Mustapha Skandrani - "Musique Classique Algérienne - Stikhbar" [Pathé Marconi, 1965]
Really amazing music from Algerian pianist Mustapha Skandrani – music that effortlessly links up European traditions and North African roots – in a blend that's completely sublime, and unlike anything else we can think of! At many points, Skandrani plays with a complex, virtuostic quality that's right up there with Glenn Gould – but the overall setting is a lot freer, too – with these long, drawn-out tunes that are half improvisations – piano lines stretching forth, based on Algerian vocal modes (even though the set is just piano) – in ways that almost illustrate the same sort of African influence that Randy Weston explored with his 60s piano – yet expressed here by Mustapha in a completely different way! Titles include "Mode Araq", "Mode Raml Maya", "Mode Moual", "Mode Zidane", and "Mode Sika" – plus a number of untitled improvisations.

It's almost like a noodlier, sped-up Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. I want more.

Cage night at the Proms was v enjoyable

Looking fwd to this:

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/langham-research-centre-john-cage-tape-electronics.shtm

Don't know about this but is happening in the same week:

http://www.cafeoto.co.uk/john-cage-indeterminacy-stewart-lee-tania-chen-steve-beresford.shtm

Talking of centenaries has anyone caught any performances of Pierrot Lunaire?

Been listening to that Mustapha Skandrani reissue quite a bit

really curious to hear that Novak now—two of my favorite things are cycles of 24 preludes+fugues, and weirdo avant-garde experimentation with traditional forms (a one-voice fugue??? preposterous!!!)

a one-voice fugue??? preposterous!!!

I kind of did a double-take at that too.

some of bach's solo works (for cello, violin) have one-voiced fugues don't they?

I've N=never heard of one but perhaps it may be possible; you can find all sorts of things in his fugues. Do you know of an example? I've always understood fugues to be polyphonic by definition: you need at least a subject and answer, surely? There's a two-voice fugue in WTC, Bk 1 (Em, #10) and even that's pretty wild.

"I've never..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6BjTN25VbE&feature=related

?

??? The answer clearly enters in a second voice around 0:07.

You can see it on the score here: http://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Sonata_No.3_in_C_major,_BWV_1005_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)#Scores

Johann Sebastian’s fugues for unaccompanied violin from the Sonatas, BWV 1001, 1003,

and 1005, play a central role in the violin repertoire. Bach’s conceptualization of the fugues for

solo violin, an instrument that would appear to preclude this sort of contrapuntal writing, is

unique in the Baroque repertoire. This paper identifies precedents to Bach’s creation of fugues

for solo violin. While Bach’s unprecedented and unmatched skill in the fugal genre provided for

the creation of the violin fugues, he drew ideas from existing compositions and techniques.

Specifically, he adopts the formal adaptation of the sonata da chiesa to the solo violin sonata

which occurred in the Italian school of violin playing, notably Arcangelo Corelli. Furthermore,

he builds upon early experimentation with the unaccompanied violin sonata and the development

of virtuoso techniques within the German school of virtuoso violin playing of the late

seventeenth century. Bach’s fugues for solo violin, therefore, represent a synthesis of the Italian

and German traditions of violin playing.

right....multiple voices on an instrument that is conventionally univocal

nb i don't have any theory knowledge

The violin is not a monophonic instrument. Check the score I linked: a second voice enters in m. 4 and a THIRD voice enters in m. 10.

2xpost

no.....but i don't think anybody wrote for the violin like this prior to him? biber maybe?

maybe Corelli