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

http://www.classicsonline.com/catalogue/product.aspx?pid=690395

Badura-Skoda, Schubert piano sonatas 14 & 20 on the fortepiano: a revelation.

Paul, sure, maybe its more than you're getting. Otoh I think many British composers haven't had a w/e of concerts. Don't think Ferneyhough could ever get the same treatment, myself. Or even some other continental composers I'd love to hear (Mathias Spahlinger).

Sometimes I think Lachenmann is spoiled for me by all the poor imitations his students churn out. Not that a lot of names are popping into my head, just that I've heard several tedious pieces by students referencing his notions of deconstruction and anti-music.

Heard of Pierluigi Billone, who seems to reference a lot of his ideas and really don't think he adds much. But I haven't heard many of them. From the talk I could really see that the energy which Lachenmann brings to his ideas and ideology can easily seduce a student to go down a bad path.

Whereas a few of Ferneyhough's students have more than something going for 'em, I think. Really like Franklin Cox and James Erber. Not much luck with Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf.

btw, picked up the first Wire magazine in ages and it has an interview w/ Irish Composer-performance artist Jennifer Walshe (she's on the cover!)

Don't think Ferneyhough could ever get the same treatment, myself.

haha omg!

Maybe you should give yrself a holiday, Paul :-)

No kidding!

amoeba sale this weekend:

http://content.answcdn.com/main/content/img/amg/classical_albums/cov200/cl900/l934/l93449ynqwi.jpg
http://www.iclassics.com/images/local/300/1382E.jpg
http://www.universalmusicclassical.com/images/local/300/3289E.jpg
http://www.onyxclassics.com/images/photos/ONYX4023.jpg

is there anyone following 2010 releases who'd care to suggest a few?

Releases of new music? New performances/recordings of older music? (Both?)

you know, whatever. anything with '2010' written in tiny print somewhere on the physical packaging.

Morton Feldman - Trio performed by Aki Takahashi, Rohan de Saram, Marc Sabat, on Mode.
Steve Reich - Double Sextet and 2x5 on Nonesuch.
Marc Andre Hamelin - Etudes on Hyperion.
Music of Elliott Carter, Vol. 8 (16 Compositions 2002-2009) on Bridge.
Chaya Czernowin - Maim, on Mode.
Olivier Messiaen - Visions De L'Amen performed by Sarah Rothenberg and Marilyn Nonken, on Bridge.

Briefly:

The Feldman is pretty much what you'd expect from a late-ish work (1980 I believe). It spans 2 CDs and is a slow and patient journey through a lot of intriguing sonorities and patterns.

The Reich is also pretty much what you'd expect -- I like the energy of both works but I have doubts. Working with long notes seems to have been a focal idea in the Double Sextet, but it gives the textures an opaque quality that I find tiring, or maybe the performance is sluggish or too careful, I haven't heard others to compare. The BOAC performance of 2x5 is excellent, very tight, but I'm not sure the electric guitars blend convincingly with the rest of the ensemble.

The Hamelin compositions aren't terribly profound, but the level of keyboard virtuosity is mind boggling.

The Carter has a snapshot from the composer's 100th (!) birthday celebrations for cover art. The Horn Concerto, the Clarinet Quintet, and the Zukofsky songs (with clarinet) are standouts, as is the string orchestra piece Sound Field, which sands off all the sharp edges from Carter's usual material to reveal a world of slowly evolving sonorities (which actually reminds me of the climactic chorale in the Brass Quintet). This double-CD also offers a series of Carter's strangest pieces, which he calls "retracings," and which are basically individual instrumental parts liberated from larger ensemble contexts -- the one for trumpet, for example, comes from A Symphony of Three Orchestras. It's the idea, really that's a bit strange; the result is a series of fairly unassuming but effective solo pieces.

The Czernowin pieces assemble the most fascinating sounds -- from delicate to thundering -- but also manage to feel solid and architectural.

The Messiaen is a beautifully nuanced performance of a classic piece.

thanks, paul!

i guess i have kind of a block with the reich. i have never been attracted enough by any of his other music in that style to listen to anything but '18 musicians' over and over. when i put on the new one i just think, 'you're doing it all wrong!'. but '18' is maybe a top ten, top five all time record for me, so.

i didn't know carter had set zukofsky, that's very appealing.

Tharaud doing the Chopin Waltzes on Harmonia Mundi - I am pretty much a massive Hamonia Mundi cheerleader and the breadth of their focus is partly why; I get a fair amount of early music from them, but also great Mozart, Beethoven quartets, they're reliable like DG used to (seem to) be. Tharaud is good, he's somewhat - studied? which to my mind seems the trend in playing Chopin for the last while, to tread warily around romantic ideas of emoting/"feeling" - which - I don't know, on the one hand, I'm always sympathetic to classical voices that say "no, this isn't pop music, it's not about 'self-expression'" but on the other hand I just moved over from Tharaud to some Rubenstein and while that's a little unfair you just immediately hear that lift in spirit, that dedication - I like Tharaud's touch, it's gorgeous, but I think Chopin needs a player who is in some way in love with Chopin.

still, curious to look into Tharaud doing the complete piano works of Ravel - people, including me, need to listen to more Ravel

Jupiter Symphony by Mozart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG1wx2_tY_8

Herbert Howells was THE SHIT

damn that is awesome

That has been, if not my favorite choral piece, one of my top 3 favorites since I first sang it in 1992. It was written for JFK's memorial service.

Asger Hamerik, Symphony No. 6. Listened to No. 5 earlier and wasn't particularly taken with it but No. 6 is kind of the business!

This woman's vibrato gave me the giggles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCdcg9W3lRw

holy hell

beethoven sonata 20 yeaaaaaaaaaaahh

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zn76a7mm83M

James Dillon complete Nine rivers cycle.

<3 liszt

in a certain frame of mind there's nothing like liszt (with apols to chopin, alkan, godowsky etc)

or argerich for that matter (with apols to pollini, richter, aimard etc)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRG5gEGgGJE

1. climax at 7:20 kills me
2. FLEXATONE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mFDXNODNyc

i like that khatchaturian....not too familiar with him apart from some of his (faux?) ethnic caucasian pieces and that lugbrious ballet excerpted in '2001'

don't they say he didn't read music til he was 19 or something

I seem to be going through a violin phase at the moment, currently listening to the Violin concerto by Ades.

What other recent violin pieces should I listen to?

The gamelan-like fugal passage after the initial stabs in Jonchaies is some of the most gorgeous music I've heard, srsly.

― glutinous maximus (corey), Monday, 30 August 2010 14:57 (2 years ago)

just searched to see if i had said this

idk how but i ended up on a youtube of this then the router cut out some way into the thudding central section, possibly for the best cuz this isn't falling asleep at 7am tinny laptop music

then it linked to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnc6c_Tn0NM

idk why, but it is nice

I miss Turanga

Nice to see this thread bumped and be reminded of old thoughts and a couple dozen posts i missed altogether. I would have been right there hollering paeans to Trois Petites Liturgies.

Clouds and I talked about Prokofiev symphonies on the other classical thread a while ago. I recently took advantage of an ArkivMusic sale and finally ordered this:

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=555034

...ridiculously cheap box of all of Erich Leinsdorf's Boston Prokofiev recordings. I think this is now my recommendation for a one-stop intro to the symphonies. It includes all my favorites (2,3,5,6), sound is vintage analog, performances are great. And did I mention cheap as fuck?

been listening to prokofiev's symphonies. i dig. i think i have all those leinsdorf records too. been playing russian pressings lately. man, i've been listening to so much music. could never list it all here. right this minute i'm playing Bruno Labate! i know, who? (1883-1968) music for oboe and piano. in the mood for oboe. i have several hundred classical records in the back room of my store and i want to hear a lot of them. stuff i've never played/heard. was just playing some 16th and 17th century keyboard music. i mean it IS friday.

also: still can't get into bruckner symphonies. i think it's me. not him. i try once a year.

skot throw on a soviet LP of prokofiev 2 or 3 for the metalheads! Such heavy stuff!

It's okay abt Bruckner. As you said on another thread once 'I can't love everything'. It's cool that you keep trying with Anton though. I certainly have my composers like that.

stuff i'm taking home and adding to my collection cuz i like them:

prokofiev - sonatas nos. 1 and 2 for violin and piano (artur balsam - old mercury living presence stereo pressing.)

frank glazer american piano music record (shapero, copland, gottschalk, dello joio, gershwin)

elliott carter string quartets nos.1 & 2 (composer's quartet)

brahms double concerto (oistrakh/fournier) (i'm becoming a brahms completist. ha! will take all brahms home. love him so. in 3 and half years here i don't think i've sold one brahms record) (playing this now actually. great recording. on angel.)

arthur tollefson plays the piano music of virgil thomson (complete etudes. i'm a sucker for a 58 second piano piece.)

Ettore De Carolis - Ciociaria - A Land Of Ancient Silences (one of my finds of the year. and why i will always love the musical heritage society. they put out so much stuff that NOBODY would have put out in the states. Italian folk stuff. children chanting. hurdy-gurdy. guitar. harmonium. mandolin. lutes. trombones. evocations of ancestral rituals. this record has it all.)

early sonatas for the pianoforte (eugene list. more italians. and a couple of germans. 18th century stuff.)

horowitz - the studio recordings - new york 1985 (dg digital)

brahms - symphony no.3 (mehta and the new york phil. nice cbs digital recording.)

Gonna look for that Coiociaria thing!

James Dillon's Nine Rivers cycle was given its premiere in Glasgow 2010. I heard a radio broadcast at the time but was too exhausted by life. Now I'm chasing it down and giving it another listen. I've heard parts of it over the years (see James Dillon thread

If anyone wants it the FLAC files from the broadcast with interview w/Dillon it all begins here w/commentary. Click on 'Newer' at the bottom of the page to go onto the next part.

i couldn't get into bruckner apart from the 8th and 7th syms but he just clicked for me one day and now i can't do without

someone once told me to listen to him the same way you'd listen to bach, i think that was it

should we continue to update this thread or start a new one in '13?

probably start a new one I guess?

re: recent ground covered here - I love Prokofiev's piano music a lot; have probably mentioned it on this thread already but this disc is just terrific. Freddy Kempf is my kinda pianistBruckner I love to pieces, I'm really interested in Celibidache's Bruckner cycle - I didn't buy it at Tower in NYC (RIP) on a tour in '98 because those were lean times and buying a whole symphonic cycle was beyond my means, but I did get his 6th later on which I'm listening to right now - it's tremendous imo. Celibidache on Bruckner: "For me, the fact of Bruckner's existence is God's greatest gift." Now that's a guy whose Bruckner I wanna hear

Thread isn't dated, and we are also seeing the first and last 50 posts. Go w/whatever.

re: Dillon: making my way through, heard the interviews and I'll note it as 'interesting' the way such a high-modernist is interested in the occult "but not in an Alesiter Crowley way god forbid" and uses it as a strand in this work. That and classical conceptions of science in the age of quantum mechanics.

I love the complexity of line and shape, and also the fact that it isn't gigantic - different sets of small of ensembles to percussion and bits of electronics that aren't immediately obvious. But bcz of the themes and James' love of rock (before Webern got in the way, natch) marks this as what I think prog rock would sound like if those guys had any wild classical technique crossed w/a mode of rock indiscipline. But their sources were Wagner and other 19th century, from what I can tell.

also taking home a vox box of haydn string quartets. heavenly. and such nice recordings.

i will keep trying with bruckner. sometimes it taakes me a while.

It's funny how when this thread is bumped it gets so much more action than the 'Rolling Classical' thread. Something abt the title idk?

I have had Nine Rivers on my hard drive for about a year, keep waiting for the 'right time'. But I should prob just start in with it chunk by chunk.

listening to bruckner's 4th right now just to show i'm a nice guy.

^^ enjoyed hearing that in "bronson" a while back — 7th is probably better if y're still not convinced

xp it could the tentative tone that invites ppl who might feel intimidated otherwise

i am listening to k.a. hartmann's 1st sym which is a blazing piece of modernism that fits in nicely w/ prokofiev and roussel's 3rd syms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRe-G-wxg24

yeah, it did nothing for me. then i put on dvorak and mahler symphonies and everything is okay again...