Rolling Classical 2020

Now that the year is slowly drawing to a close, I put together a list of my favourite 2020 classical releases so far, if anyone's interested. A word of warning, however: it skews heavily towards contemporary music, in keeping with my listening habits of late. Oh, and the periodization is a bit iffy at times, but that's almost always the case anyway.

Renaissance

Philippe Pierlot, Lucile Boulanger, Myriam Rignol & Rolf Lislevand – Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe et ses filles

Baroque

Johann Sebastian Bach – Johannes-Passion (Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe)

Classical

Ludwig van Beethoven – Violin Sonatas 1-4 (Frank Peter Zimmermann & Martin Helmchen)
Ludwig van Beethoven & Joseph-François Gossec – Symphony No. 5; Symphonie à 17 parties (Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth)

Romantic

Edvard Grieg – Violin Sonatas (Eldbjørg Hemsing & Simon Trpčeski)
Franz Liszt – Années de pèlerinage (Suzana Bartal)
Franz Liszt – Between Light & Darkness (Vincent Larderet)
Johannes Brahms – Clarinet Sonatas (Jörg Widmann & András Schiff)
Johannes Brahms – The Final Piano Pieces (Stephen Hough)

Late Romantic / Early Modern

Amatis Trio – Enescu, Ravel, Britten
Carl Nielsen – Symphonies 1 & 2 (Seatle Symphony, Thomas Dausgaard)
Célimène Daudet – Messe noire. Liszt, Scriabine
Charles Ives – Complete Symphonies (Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel)
Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2; King Kristian II (Gothenburg Symphony, Santtu Matias-Rouvali)
Ralph Vaughan Williams – Symphony No. 3, ‘Pastoral’; Symphony No. 4 (BBC SO, Martyn Brabbins)

Modern

Constantin Silvestri – Complete Piano Works (Luiza Borac)
Cyrillus Kreek – The Suspended Harp of Babel (Vox Clamantis, Jaan-Eik Tulve)
Daniil Trifonov – Silver Age
Dmitri Shostakovich – Piano Quintet; Seven Romances (Trio Wanderer, et al.)

Postwar / Late 20th Century

Luciano Berio – Coro; Cries of London (Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Grete Pedersen)

Contemporary

Alberto Posadas – Poética del laberinto
Bára Gísladóttir – HĪBER
Benjamin Dwyer – what is the word
Christian Mason – Zwischen den Sternen
Clara Iannotta – Earthing
Enno Poppe – Fett; Ich kann mich an nichts erinnern
Éric Montalbetti – Chamber Music. Harmonieuses dissonances
Gerald Eckert – absence
Gonçalo Gato – NowState
Howard Skempton – Preludes and Fugues; Nocturnes; Reflections; Images (William Howard)
Klangforum Wien – Scelsi Revisited
Leo Brouwer – 30 Estudios sencillos (Thibault Cauvin)
Linda Buckley – From Ocean’s Floor
Liza Lim – Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus
Naomi Pinnock – Lines and Spaces
Outi Tarkiainen – The Earth, Spring’s Daughter; Saivo
Rebecca Saunders – Still; Aether; Alba
Richard Valitutto – Nocturnes & Lullabies
Sebastian Hilli – confluence / divergence
Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble, Andrej Power, Lawrence Power & Christianne Stotijn – Voices of Angels
Thomas Wally – Jusqu’à l’aurore
Timothy McCormack – KARST
Tobias Eduard Schick – Chamber Music
Tõnu Kõrvits – Hymns to the Nordic Lights
Tõnu Kõrvits – You Are Light and Morning (Sei la luce e il mattino)
Víctor Ibarra – The Dimension of the Fragile
Wet Ink Ensemble – Smoke, Airs
Xavier Dayer – Chamber Music
Zeynep Gedizlioğlu – Verbinden und Abwenden

Cross-Era Recitals

Barbara Hannigan & Ludwig Orchestra – La passione: Nono, Haydn, Grisey
Bertrand Chamayou – Good Night!
Élodie Vignon – D’ombres. Dutilleux, Ledoux
Jean-Pierre Collot – The Way to Sound: Spectral Visions of Goethe (Dufourt, Liszt, Schubert)

i will likely go fishing in the contemporary collection. what from that list do you think is most accessible?

Howard Skempton, Leo Brouwer, Linda Buckley, Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble, et al., Tõnu Kõrvits are probably your best bets.

Right now, I'd say the Buckley is my favourite of the lot. Here's a review if you're curious:

https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2020/10/01/linda-buckley-from-oceans-floor/

nice, thanks!

Big up Pom, thanks for that list! Bára Gísladóttir was a wonderful surprise already, so I'm stoked to explore more from your list.

My pleasure! A few more I haven't heard yet but that I suspect are quite good:

Enno Poppe – Stoff
Georg Nigl & Olga Pashchenko – Vanitas: Beethoven, Schubert & Rihm (out Nov 13)
Tigran Mansurian – Con anima (out Nov 13)
Toru Takemitsu – Orchestral Works (Akiko Suwanai, NHK Symphony Orchestra Paavo Järvi) (not readily available in Canada)
Various Artists – Donaueschinger Musiktage 2019 (ditto)

Really enjoyed the Ives set and the Dwyer. Listened to 2/3 of the Hannigan, which is ofc good. Look forward to listening to more.

I also forgot to include Paavo Järvi's excellent Franz Schmidt symphony cycle with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Schmidt has a dodgy reputation because he turned a blind eye to the Nazi regime, although I've come across pieces that claim he was hopelessly naïve and had no understanding of politics, much like Wilhelm Furtwängler (besides, Schmidt died a few months before WW2 broke out). I suspect his legacy was also marred by his audible resistance to modernism, which is less of a dealbreaker for us than for the proto-hipster caste of the interwar and postwar periods. Anyway, the music itself is quite good and very much worth hearing if you're fond of the Austro-Germanic tradition. It's almost on par with the early and mid-period symphonies of Gustav Mahler, under whom Schmidt often played the cello while he was a member of the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra. The elegiac 4th Symphony is the most famous of the four, and rightly so: there's a depth of feeling that reminds me of another instrumental requiem composed in the 1930s: Alban Berg's Violin Concerto (admittedly, this is a bit of a damning comparison).

Interesting! I picked up Neeme Järvi's Chandos set on a whim years ago. (Not the first time the Salvation Army got me listening to things no one seemed to talk about, lol.) I have to remind myself what I liked about it between listens, but I do indeed quite enjoy it when it's on. It gets better in chronological order, I recall. An extremely quick skim through reviews suggests that Paavo J's may be an improvement. Will listen...

Neeme Järvi has always struck me as a merely serviceable and all-too prolific conductor whose recordings lack the extra oomph required to ascend to the top of the pile. Paavo Järvi, on the other hand, is a much cleaner and more dynamic performer, one who almost never gives the sense that his sole aim is to add yet another trophy to an already vast discography. While I haven't heard the father's Schmidt set, I can't imagine it topping the son's.

I dove into a "listen to violin music" whirlpool and remembered this bizarrely spectacular iPhone recording of Hilary Hahn playing the much-maligned Ysaye 6:

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

I can't really describe how incredible this is from top to bottom

Impressive performance and recording both.

I know nothing about the sonata's reputation among violinists, so I'm curious: why is it much-maligned?

I think the consensus is that the difficulty of the work doesn't justify the compositions... and I'd agree with Sonata 2, which is the one that is the most accessible but is kinda dum (but disagree with Sonatas 3 thru 6)

Ah, I see, thanks. I haven't listened to whole set in a long time but that seems like a fair assessment.

1 is weak, 2 quotes dies irae ad nauseam, 3 onward are tricky to present correctly but are sublime when successful

Enjoyed this composition for sine waves, zither, and choir. Very spare but pleasant and spacious: https://martaforsberg.bandcamp.com/album/new-love-music

I find it absolutely hilarious that Eton College (UK) sports a composer in residence and that from 2014 to 2015 it happened to be Christian Mason, who reminds me of a posher and hence twattier Mark Hollis if we go by appearance and affiliation alone, but his Zwischen den Sternen for chamber ensemble is possibly my favourite of the new contemporary classical works that I discovered this year, thanks to the ensemble recherche's recording for Winter & Winter. Soundworld-wise, it reminds me of Peter Maxwell Davies's Ave maris stella more so than the music of Mason's recent mentor, Harrison Birtwistle, and the ensemble recherche/Winter & Winter connection also brings to mind Hans Abrahamsen's marvellous Schnee. Looming in the background are George Benjamin (his PhD supervisor) and Julian Anderson, whom I both very much admire. Like Anderson, Mason has an unabashedly spectralist approach to instrumental writing, with conspicuous folk inflections that recall late Ligeti and especially late Rădulescu, which I thought I was just making up at first, yet, sure enough, upon googling the two names in tandem, I learned that Mason has written an explicit homage to the defunct Romanian expat. Anyway, it's a beautiful and fairly accessible cycle (its German title means 'Between the Stars', after all), one I think even listeners who find 21st century classical music forbidding are likely to enjoy.

And that Marta Forsberg album looks intriguing, Sund4r. I'll check it out soon.

I just watched this video of ensemble recherche playing that Mason piece in Freiburg in 2019. It's quite something, goes a lot of places in half an hour, really gripping and intense at times. The sound is pretty good on the video and the lighting is v cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZccjziC-5k

Haha, I watched that video in a different browser and everything was mauve and green but I see there is just normal white lighting now. I think my partner may have done something with the colour settings in the other browser.

Nice! It was uploaded to the er's official YT channel, so its production values are bound to be superior to the usual fare.

On the other hand, who's to say mauve and green aren't the two dominant colours when you're drifting between the stars? (Don't answer that.)

2 Grammy noms for the Dudamel Ives set.

Good article on the history of Canadian works for guitar and electronics: https://www.musicworks.ca/feature/Canadian-compositions-guitar-electronics

A solid EOY list courtesy of The Rambler:

https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2020/12/08/rambler-releases-of-2020

I haven't heard all of these, but the Liza Lim and Clara Iannotta are undeniable highlights, especially the former.

Fine list to do some cherry picking from, thanks!

Ah, thanks. Listening to the Lim now. The first movement sounds fascinating so far.

The bird call on the piccolo (or flute?) was great.

The "Dawn Chorus" movement is completely acoustic? Wow.

The bassoon solo "Axis Mundi" is really interesting too; a lot of energy and good variety in timbre and dynamics with a clear enough narrative shape. I'd be happy to go back and pick out the form a little more closely.

Her and Richard Barrett are my favourite Elision-affiliated composers.

Speaking of which, I had no idea the latter had released anything this year until TRJ included Mirage in his EOY list. I'll have to seek it out asap.

Nm, it's the same performance as the one xyz posted upthread.

"Songs Found in a Dream" pretty interesting timbrally as well, although I'm having a hard time processing these as 'songs' (or tbh picking out the sectional form with ease). Haha, Rutherford-Johnson did the liner notes? I will admit that the nebulous quasi-spiritual descriptions of the concepts behind the pieces are not really my thing but the sounds override these.

https://www.rarenoiserecords.com/2020/10/03/new-release-october-2020-stephan-thelen-presents-world-dialogue/

The Al Pari Quartet, a Polish, all-women ensemble, heard Kronos Quartet’s rendition of “Circular Lines” and began performing it at their own concerts. News of their interest in Stephan’s work reached him and he went on to collaborate with them as well on the other three pieces in this album.

this is really growing on me.

You can tell the composer is a mathematician.

I hear some Eastern influences in there as well as the math-rock, but I know what yer saying!

DG's video is shameless gothic cheese but how had I never heard this Schubert Lied before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqfp06MLbeM

I hope she'll tackle Winterreise some day. She clearly has the idiom down pat.

Her two 2020 albums for Alpha Classics, Paradise Lost and Bach: Redemption, are likewise amazing.

That was amazing and just what I needed right now, thanks. I don't think I knew that piece either, although I own the 20-CD Schubert Meisterwerke on DG.

It's gorgeous, isn't it?

Turns out she and Eric Schneider skip the first six (!) stanzas. You can hear the full version here, sung by the equally stellar Christian Gerhaher, at a mildly faster clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih43NAQnmMU

One thing led to another and I ended up on a late night Schubert Lieder YT binge. It brought me back to the great Thomas Quasthoff, who never disappoints:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pze4NxCOjg0

Happy birthday Beethoven!

^this!

what do ppl feel are his best works and what are the best recorded performances?

I'm no expert on the guy yet but the grosse fuge and no 32 sonata are total bangers

Lazy answer: all of his works are his best works.

Real bullet-point answer, which is highly subjective:

* 16 string quartets, esp. the late quartets (12-16 and the Große Fuge) – Alban Berg Quartett (live, 1989); Belcea Quartet; Quartetto Italiano
* 9 symphonies (esp. 3, 5, 6, 7 & 9) – countless performances, for a complete set I've always been fond of Claudio Abbado's live renditions with the Berlin Philharmonic; Wilhelm Furtwängler's wartime (1942) recording of the 9th with the Berliners is stupefyingly intense, and not just because of the obvious historical context; Carlos Kleiber's takes on the 5th and 7th are rightly celebrated as well
* Missa solemnis (Beethoven thought it was his best work) – Michael Gielen, et al., with the caveat that there is no single 100% satisfactory recording of this one, unfortunately; Philippe Herreweghe's recent re-attempt at a historically informed performance is also quite good
* 32 piano sonatas (esp. 8, 14, 21, 23, 28-32) – Stephen Kovacevich; Maurizio Pollini
* Diabelli Variations – Stephen Kovacevich; Maurizio Pollini
* 5 cello sonatas (esp. 4-5) – Miklós Perényi & András Schiff
* 10 violin sonatas (esp. 9-10) – Isabelle Faust & Alexander Melnikov
*5 piano concertos (esp. 4-5) – Maurizio Pollini, Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado
* 7 piano trios (esp. 5-7) – Trio Wanderer
* violin concerto – Isabelle Faust, Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado (yeah, I love me some late Abbado)
* An die ferne Geliebte – Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Huber
* Bagatelles for piano – Stephen Kovacevich

As you can see, his late works are almost always best in my book. Performance-wise, these picks tend to highlight a more forceful and dramatic view of Beethoven without ever overdoing it. Basically, I want my Beethoven to be as Romantic and dynamic and transcendental as possible while maintaining a firm foothold in the classical tradition. I dislike genteel takes no less than self-indulgent re-imaginings. Really, though, these suggestions are just meant to get you started – part of the fun is seeking out different recordings and seeing which ones jive with your own ears.

I screwed up the bullet point formatting, but this should be readable enough.

tysm that’s fantastic!!! bookmarked

from what I’ve heard the later works feel more profound but that also makes me a bit scared of them. the earlier stuff goes down easier for casual listening but it doesn’t always stick with me

I fancy tackling the big symphonies first bc they’re so familiar as cultural signifiers/cliches but I’ve hardly ever listened seriously to them (except for 9 which I love 3/4 of). abbado is one of the few conductors I’m a little familiar with so he’s the easy choice

Bitte schön.

Chronologically working your way through just about any single one of these cycles is the most straightforward approach. It makes it easier to tackle the next cycle, and so on, until you hit the Missa solemnis and go 'wtf' because so many of his late creations are downright bizarre, including the finale to the 9th, imo among the most surreal (if you'll allow the anachronism) of normalized/institutionalized classical warhorses and impossible to hear with fresh ears until you suddenly do (that 1942 Furtwängler recording is what did it for me, appallingly bad nazi sound notwithstanding).

Btw finding the exact Abbado set I was talking about can be a bit confusing because it's a live re-recording of a to-him-unsatisfactory studio attempt (and I tend to agree with that assessment).

thank you. it’s hard to just wade in with this stuff when you have no context for it

This is the one:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7965665--beethoven-the-symphonies

It seems to have also been reissued as part of the DG's Abbado Symphony Edition boxset, which is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

cool thx

I don’t hate the 9th finale I just don’t know what the hell it’s trying to do most of the time. I will probably have to listen to the nazi one at some point

I'm not sure I do either tbh. One last thing: I didn't have much of a context for this stuff either when I got started, beyond a few pieces my dad was into when I was a kid. I just thought some of it was really moving and stayed with that feeling. I still can't read a score or play an instrument, but amateurishness is a huge step up from the legions of bougie concert-goers who dgaf about the music to begin with and who just show up to be *seen* and to mingle during the intermission (ye shall know them by their conspicuous absence whenever a post-1900 work featuring a smidgeon of dissonance is included in the concert program).