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

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...

you like mahler but you can't get down w/bruckner? idgi tbh

there's no telling with people.

mahler gives me more to hold on to. i'm very fragile. i need a helping hand every now and then.

makes sense to me. they are often mentioned side by side and I get why, but they use the same basic building blocks for vastly different purposes. Mahler, like Debussy, is all about the state of interruption, unwanted polymorphism, the perverse flow of mind. Bruckner comes from the baroque concept of huge unbroken blocks of one specific affect. I actually think that based on just the feelings I get from their music Bruckner and Dvorak are closer kin.

love dvorak. who knows what my problem is. i'm listening to more haydn right now. cuz i'm your grandma. though i was thinking of putting this on and i don't know if your grandma would like it. so loud.

http://www.audiophileusa.com/covers400water/20645.jpg

which dvorák do u recommend jon

I think all the symphonies from 5 onward are amazing. See if you can listen to #9 without prejudice, I know that's hard with warhorses but it deserves it. They are very sensitive to their interpreters-- you gotta have a performance with the right balance of creaminess and sting. Sticking to the Supraphon label is not a bad idea.

And the four late tone poems based on macabre czech fairy tales (The Noon Witch, The Golden Spinning Wheel, The Water Goblin and... the other one...)

Does the download link for Dillon's Viridas on this page work?
http://5-against-4.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/james-dillon-nine-rivers-world-premiere_31.html

I got #1 and 2 before it no problem. Quite possibly I am doing something dumb.

Max Richter's recomposition of The Four Seasons from this year is all Minimalist Baroque pastiche (ala early Nyman), deriving most of its entertainment from playing with expectations. Not difficult listening by any means, and I expect it'll be ubiquitous in documentary soundtracks for some while.

The whole piece is presently on YouTube (here's a playlist), and here's a pleasant video sampler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MYmjJjMnb8

Nevermind re: the Dillon download, it worked this time (even though I did everything the same as before?)

damn file sharing services what are we payin' em for?! >:[

i've gone back to s1sk for my classical needs but even that's not good enough

there was a w h a t . cd freeleech a few days ago which i managed to miss completely

re: Dvorak I rep hard for Rusalka. Just lovely.

I have pretty much the same thing with Bruckner. Apparently Brian Eno has been banging his head against that wall his whole life too, so we're in good comapny.

Yes, comapny.

to me the Bruckner to start with is Te Deum. I get pretty caught up in both his bio & his piety though, there's almost a celebrity/idol/tragic figure aspect to him. he's a little creepy! but anyway yeah - I think the religious/spiritual/personal-struggle aspect of Bruckner is a big part of why I'm drawn to him. Which is why again Celibidache is really worth checking out, I think his Bruckner is really romantic.

man I'm gonna listen to some more of that right now

Bachfest on WKCR right now and very nice it is too. Heard a few cantatas plus Segovia playing Partita no. 2. this morn at 4am.

Yep. I turned that on by accident yesterday afternoon. Within the Bachfest was also a celebration of Pablo Casals birthday.

"Baroque and Roll: Townshend on Purcell

The Who guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend talks about the band's career and reveals the influence on his songwriting of Baroque composer Henry Purcell.

When Pete was a struggling 20-year-old musician he was turned on to Purcell by his manager, Kit Lambert. It was Kit's recommendation of Purcell's Gordian Knot Untied that struck the loudest chord with Pete, awakening him to a lineage in English music that seemed strangely familiar. Immersing himself in the music, he soon set about writing The Who's first album.

Pete reveals how he drew on Purcell's dramatic genius for his most intriguing compositions. From his first mini-rock opera to his masterpiece, Tommy, and from his enduring Lifehouse project through to his current musical endeavour, there has always been a Purcellian presence.

Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday, 27th October 2009."

I don't know if it works outside of Denmark, but the public radio station records a lot of classical concerts and puts them on their website. Some of it is quite interesting:

The New Nørgård-symphony. No 8