an attempt at a general "What are you currently digging re. classical music" thread

This one: http://www.amazon.com/Johannes-Brahms-Sextet-Piano-Trio/dp/B0000029LE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1259882547&sr=8-1

xpost

I think the Rakowski <-> Boulez association is a bit misleading. Rakowski has closer ties to American post-serialists like Martino and Imbrie, with a clearer sense of pulse and syncopations that make some contact with jazz (versus the metrical obscurity of some Boulez). You don't find things like Boulez's radically volatile dynamics (variation between loud and soft on a note-by-note basis) or the sometimes pointillistic textures, or the resistance to melody-plus-accompaniment textures. But Rakowski's harmonic sense is as refined as Boulez, and he has a similar knack for effective orchestration.

Scott I am a molelike obsessive when it comes to Liszt's ocean-sized piano oeuvre. So so much to discover with him. That Lazar Berman box is a good intro to the Annees De Pelerinage. Berman is especially good in 'Year One'. In Year Two I like Brendel a little more. Follow up Year One with Year Three if you want to hear the stark difference between wide-eyed young philosopher Liszt and weird, bitter yet beatific late Liszt.

There's another not-uncommon Lazar Berman 2LP on Columbia/Melodiya of Liszt's famous 'Transcendental Etudes'-- quite a raging roaring performance if you want to hear the hyper-virtuoso flip side of the Liszt coin.

T**t-- start with the longer Choros first (can't remember which numbers in the series exactly) if you wanna hear the wildest stuff.

They're on emusic, FYI.

'key! Thanx. :)

Oh-also: Bach pieces arranged by John Lewis, for MJQ, I've enjoyed greatly too. Think that counts as classicak, too. At least partly.

("classickal", was wot i meant)

I think the Rakowski <-> Boulez association is a bit misleading. Rakowski has closer ties to American post-serialists like Martino and Imbrie, with a clearer sense of pulse and syncopations that make some contact with jazz (versus the metrical obscurity of some Boulez). You don't find things like Boulez's radically volatile dynamics (variation between loud and soft on a note-by-note basis) or the sometimes pointillistic textures, or the resistance to melody-plus-accompaniment textures. But Rakowski's harmonic sense is as refined as Boulez, and he has a similar knack for effective orchestration.

― Monophonic Spree (Paul in Santa Cruz), Thursday, December 3, 2009 11:29 PM

Ah okay thanks. I'm actually bent on exploring that generation of US composers (Carter, Babbitt, Martino, Shapey, maybe Wuorinen should be included, et al) at the mo'. One hears this stuff called "academic" and "dry" all the time so I take it as a challenge to prove them wrong.

AFA Boulez goes I tend to like his sensory overload early-mid pieces (that would fit your description) like Structures and le marteau more than his friendlier new stuff like Répons (though "explosante-fixe" might be my absolute favorite Boulez).

Pangs of regret dept-- There was an all-Kajia Saariaho concert at Columbia's Miller Theater a couple weeks ago in their Composer Portraits series and I couldn't go. So bummed. I think she's my favorite working composer right now (of those I've heard). Any fans of Saariaho up in this piece?

xpost explosante-fixe is v v beautiful.

Big fan of those same American composer you mention! Mel Powell is especially bright star in the same constellation. (And I sort of lump Wolpe in, too, although he's sort of European?)

And my Boulez picks are pretty much the same as yours -- with a soft spot especially for the first two piano sonatas.

My fave Saariaho is Lichtbogen, although I've just now realised I haven't heard a note she's written since 2000. Any recently highlights I should seek out?

As seldom as I get the urge to actually throw on any of my Boulez discs, I would go see a performance of any of his big pieces in a hot minnit. Also, I really want to see the guy conduct before he can't any longer...

xpost I really like Graal-Theatre, which I THINK is after 2000...

Owen, re: Rekašius. Haha I think what you heard might have been "Still not enough" (Saxophone concerto) which mostly fits that description and is of course awesome. Here's an okayish rip of his 7th Symphony, which is one of my favorites, esp. the 3rd movement:

Symphony No. 7, Op. 31 (1987) 'In Memoriam' (perf. by The Lithuanian Philharmonic Orchestra, Juozas Domarkas conducting)

A weirdly translated interview:
http://www.bruceduffie.com/rekasius.html

Here's a very sad article on his death:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3168842.stm

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41W5z6LJetL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Really enjoying Sergio Fiorentino right now.

Also, I really want to see the guy conduct before he can't any longer...

I really regret that I won't be moving to Chicago in time to see him do The Firebird. I just hope there's a "next time". :\

"There's another not-uncommon Lazar Berman 2LP on Columbia/Melodiya of Liszt's famous 'Transcendental Etudes'"

i have this! haven't played it yet. i'll play it tommorow at the store.

hope nobody minds if i occasionally babble about the sonics/sound of my vinyl. i've got about a thousand classical albums and every once in a while i'll pull something out that has me slack-jawed and drooling. right now that is a columbia 360 sound stereo pressing of bernstein/stern doiing bartok's two rhapsodies for violin and orchestra and berg's violin concerto. not only is the music amazing, but gaaaaaaaaaaaaaa the recording is just staggering. the brightness of stern's violin in tandem with the new york phil...if you ever wonder why people still shell out big bucks for vinyl, well, here ya go. and its not a big bucks album. but its worth its weight in gold.

That's interesting cuz those 60s ny phil columbia recordings took a looong time (i.e. many remastering iterations) before sounding good on CD. As recently as like 2000 they were still putting out newly-remastered bernstein/nypo CDs which did not sound great.

The early generation CDs (like mid 80s) of classical Columbia stuff are some of the worst sounding classical CDs imo.

go to the source! the berg is friggin' transcendent!

who DID know how to transfer analog recordings to digital successfully in the 80's anyway? maybe the japanese...

I got interested in the '30s and '40s music by Gian Francesco Malipiero and bought one of the Naxos CDs that has a couple of his symphonies from that period on it (<a href="http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.570879";>this one, with Symphonies 1 & 2</a>).

Also bought old Nonesuch LP with madrigals from Monteverdi's Book VIII a week or so ago.

I left a lot of classical vinyl behind when i moved from the South to NYC in '03, sigh...

Anyway, haha I knew you would have that Transcendental Etudes 2LP! Yeah bump that shit in your store. It will annoy people! Filling out Side 4 on that is the Rhapsodie Espagnole, an absolutely preposterous, outrageous barnstormer in Liszt's best freakout mode, and that recording of it is one of the most notorious.

Berman died a couple of years ago... he never really recorded regularly after the 70s when he was first let loose from the USSR and was an exciting novelty in the west.

xp I fuking love monteverdi Book 8. that's some of the best vocal music ever.

Scott no one did it awesomely in the 80s but i feel like Sony/CBS were among the worst.

Sorry my link didn't work. It's this:

http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.570879

Gian Francisco Malipiero

Discovered his six string quartets earlier this year and found them enjoyable if not really memorable. Oddly the biggest influence I heard in those pieces was Debussy (odd b/c of his reputation as one of the "back to Bach" composers). I will have to give them a relisten this week.

I'm so ignorant of 20c italian composers. I know Busoni and that's about it. Well, Berio...

The only one I really listen to is Scelsi. ._.

okay, here is my project for the year. i have a book entitled *The Collector's 20th-Century Music In The Western Hemisphere* by Arthur Cohn. It came out in 1961. anyway, every chapter is devoted to a composer and MANY of them i've never heard. so, i'm gonna try and look out for the stuff i've never heard this year. here is the full list in the book of composers that cohn feels are important:

samuel barber (i'm a fan.)

ernest bloch (have some stuff, but need to listen more.)

elliott carter (i'm a fan.)

carlos chavez (???)

aaron copland (dig him.)

henry cowell (dig him.)

paul creston (???)

norman dello joio (have a record that i like of his stuff. but not really familiar.)

irving fine (???)

lukas foss (dig him a bunch.)

alberto ginastera (???)

howard hanson (have a symphony i like a lot. but that's it.)

roy harris (???)

alan hovhaness (big fan! one of my big discoveries of recent years. always need more.)

charles ives (charles ives/youth of today/bunnybrains my danbury connecticut holy trinity.)

leon kirchner (???)

gian-carlo menotti (only know the music appreciation stuff like the medium.)

walter piston (???)

silvestre revueltas (???)

wallingford riegger (???)

william schuman (???)

roger sessions (heard him, but...???)

harold shapero (???)

virgil thomson (dig him.)

edgar varese (big fan.)

heitor villa-lobos (dig him lots.)

ben weber (???)

so, if you have anything to say about any of my question marks, go right ahead! or anything about any of them if you feel like it.

Ginastera — I know two ballets and two piano concertos. The ballets (Panambi, Estancia) are brash, opulently orchestrated, but maybe owe a bit too much to Ravel/Stravinsky.

The first PC was made semi-famous by Emerson Lake and Palmer who did a version of the Toccata movement. Neither PC is IMO very memorable, but I pretty much dislike piano concertos as a rule.

I predict that Revueltas will be the most fun of those question marks to explore. Mexican mid-century modernist, one-of-a-kind.

I know folks who will rep for the Harris symphonies; they're skillfully written, and the guy had a flair for long, flowing melodies, but they don't appeal to me all that much. The Schuman symphonies do a bit more for me, although I haven't listened in ages -- along the lines of more abstract Copland. Meat and potatoes music.

I associate Riegger with the Crawford/Seeger/Ruggles/Becker group. He was not very prolific, mainly because he died an early death (bizzare cause: he was caught in the middle of a fight between two leashed dogs).

I feel like there's no point in commenting on the rest -- I don't have strong opinions and Arthur Cohn presumably does!

Re: Revueltas, "Ocho por radio" is a good place to start

Re: Composers who died bizarre deaths, sorry to drift off topic, but three stick in my mind together: along with Riegger there's Charles Alkan (crushed by a falling coat rack) and Ernst Chausson (lost control of his bicycle on a steep hill)

Claude Vivier being murdered by a male prostitute is pretty bizarre.

Indeed! Adding him to my mental list...

What about composers who killed other people? All I can think of is Gesualdo.

Scriabin (died of an infected zit on his lip)

Berlioz was all set to kill his mistress and her lover, then decided not to go through with it. If you believe Berlioz on the matter...

Oh and of course one of the most tragic of these unusual deaths is Anton Webern, who stepped out onto his porch after curfew for a smoke and was shot by an American soldier. Which brings me back on topic a bit. I had always ignored the two late cantatas of Webern but have recently fallen in love with both. I only know them from the Boulez/Sony box set recordings, which seem fine. Still haven't studied the scores.

Yes, I've been giving the late opus numbers another try after thinking them dry hitherto. I especially like the string trio and the Op. 28 quartet. At first the relative rhythmic stodginess put me off, but now I see it as just another attribute rather than a failing. It's almost like an aural equivalent of those Klee paintings that are just regular grids of colors with varying hues and brightnesses.

"I feel like there's no point in commenting on the rest -- I don't have strong opinions and Arthur Cohn presumably does!"

felt like that's what was interesting about the book. how many of those guys would be in a similar book about 20th century composers today? like, half? and the other half would be...um, glass, crumb, feldman, cage, uh, i'm blanking on popular late-20th century north american types, but stuff like that.

lots of arvo part lately, esp 'fratres' and 'alina'
i picked up a valentin silvestri cd the other day
gorecki's 'miserere'

speaking of 20th century north american types, i need more lou harrison in my life. i haven't heard enough. i dig his stuff.

@Daruton - that's a very good analogy with Klee. It does for him what it does for Webern, foregrounding (visual or harmonic) color and pattern. I've always like this quality in the first movement of the Variations for Piano, and the first Cantata has passages that seem to work very similarly. But the second cantata, like the Variations for Orchestra immediately before it, is leaner and more fragmented again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4LN_AF8r7s

With Harrison, my favorite recorded pieces are scattered across various CDs. Also, there is a tendency for every Harrison CD to be a compilation of pieces in very different styles, off from completely different phases in his career (e.g., a 1940s percussion piece, a semi-traditional piece for symphony and oratorio, and a piece for microtonal guitar). I wish there were more recordings where like material was grouped with like material, because I don't remotely like all his sub-styles equally. Maybe there are now, I haven't been keeping track. I'm at work, but from what little I listened to it with the volume way down, that live recording you just posted sounds lovely, Paul.

scott, you have or have heard "Three Pieces for Gamelan," I assume? That was on a CRI compilation. "Perilous Chapel" is good, esp. the version of an Albion records compilation. Also Rhymes with Silver is good overall. I can't remember in detail what I like and don't like about it, but it works better as a listen straight through than most of the other Harrison collections I have.

i've heard gamelan stuff, but not sure of the title? sounded very cool. i will definitely look for the cri album. found this online and might download tomorrow:

http://vaubu.blogspot.com/2009/03/lou-harrison.html

I think I have that first collection of compositions on a different compilation (not sure if they're the same recordings). I don't care for them quite as much as "Three Pieces for Gamelan" (I don't know if that's the actual composition title--I don't think so--or if they were just put out like that as an EP (?) so to speak.)

i have a great record of concertos for violin and percussion and organ and percussion. like that a lot. later compositions, i think. i'm guessing he was big on the + percussion combo. guitar and percussion. flute and percussion. which is cool, cuz i'm big on that combo too! (what can i say? i'm a rockhead.)

TBH classical warhorses fucking rule for the most part. There’s a reason they’re warhorses; it’s not good to condescend to them. (particularly the planets which is both a warhorse and a masterwork)

Actually can I hijack the thread slightly to ask if anyone has any good reccomendations of classical recordings from the early electronic recording era, say 1926-1938?

Elgar’s own recordings of his symphonies

hmmm, what do i have from that era

the cortot, thibaud, casals trio is great, i have their recording of beethoven's "archduke" and schubert's piano trio no. 1

the early recordings of rhapsody in blue are nice (if abbreviated) - i prefer the acoustic version to the subsequent electric version though

haven't heard elgar conducting his symphonies, but the violin concerto with yehudi menuhin from 1932 is great

pushing bast '38, but schonberg's recording of pierrot lunaire and stravinsky's second rite of spring (both from 1940) are great shit

gieseking's first recording of the emperor concerto (i think it's from '35?) is nice

RAG, are you a fan of Sunn O)))? If yes, I recommend Anna Thorvaldsdottir, a living composer whose albums Aerial, In The Light Of Air and Aequa are all amazing. They don't sound like "classical music" in the Bugs Bunny sense at all; at times they remind me of Autechre or Einstürzende Neubauten.

https://burningambulance.com/2018/12/28/anna-thorvaldsdottir-2/

https://burningambulance.com/2015/09/08/anna-thorvaldsdottir/

willem mengelberg's beethoven symphonies are fantastic (for old recordings)

i've only heard aequa but it rules

Thanks for all the recs.

I really think Havergal Brian's Gothic and Mahler's Das Klagende Lied fit into my "prog rock epic" orifice very nicely. They have that dramatic panoramic quality, big awesome landscapes traversed in exciting ways.

Bartok has long been on my list, Art Zoyd comparisons helped that along.

Went to a performance of Mahler's 9th last night. It was incredible and worth checking out. Surprised how lengthy it was and how fast it blew by.

1st movement of Mahler 9 is about as good as music gets imo

the first person i ever read repping for Mahler was C Bukowski!

Are there many "show must go on" stories like this one?

Five weeks after the outbreak of the Gulf War, 23.2.1991, the audience filled the Jerusalem Theatre: Jewish-American violinist Isaac Stern arrived in Israel as an act of solidarity with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Zubin Mehta.

A deafening alarm sounded in the hall, disrupting Mozart's Concerto No. 3 for violin and orchestra. The orchestra players went offstage to wear their masks, and Stern stepped off the stage, too, wanting to continue with the concert, but it was impossible to continue playing the concerto while the musicians wore masks. He decided to play the Adagio from Bach's Sonata Violin No. 1 in Bach Minor, with the alarm still wailing in the background, and the audience stood up and burst into applause, which was accompanied by a siren. Stern wore no mask. He later said that he did not believe that Saddam Hussein would launch Scud missiles at Jerusalem, its mosques and the extensive Arab population
– (Jerusalem Theatre)

The concert was filmed – while he plays, many of the audience are in gas masks, so it's slightly disturbing to watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZFWV0UIuNM

Another famous concert in adversity was Shostakovich's 7th symphony in 1942.

keep coming back to kyle gann's hyperchromatica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW_ZBcqe5KQ

was listening to DJ Rupture/Julius Eastman Memory Depot the other day - sick album.

I’ve gotten obsessed with Ştefanu Nicolescu since hearing Ison II on a BBC Radio 3 concert and made my own YouTube playlist since so little is officially available to stream

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjXRMRMaO8qd5234s3IZiQHy35gVGPR3j&si=CXA7QZkslXvxcewG

wow, this certainly justifies your enthusiasm

soooo many ads tho

https://kamdzhalov.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/G%C3%B3recki_Symphony_No_3-bigger-grey-1080x675.jpg

This is a good, if mournful, listen. Lisa's voice is pretty understated in this recording, no doubt in service to the material.