Rolling Classical 2012

Part of it, of course, is how he's recorded-- that wonderful Connoiseur Society E. Alan Silver type sound where the attack of each note is like a sweet 'ping'. See most everything recorded by Ivan Moravec before the digital era.

Thanks again - sounds like Mackerras is my man!

A further word-- I don't know if you like your Delius on the lively end (a la mono-era Beecham) or on the languorous wallowy end (a la Barbirolli)-- I prefer the former, and that's what Mackerras brings (but unhurried and with plenty of rubato).

Persephone. The one big Stravinsky piece that just fell through the cracks of popularity somehow. But so great. Elliott Carter called it 'the humanist Rite of Spring'. Elliott Carter OTM. It's got so much charm. Maybe it never caught on because it has a narrator.

All-time I don't think there have been more than 5 or 6 commercial recordings of it. My favorite isn't even one of them-- it's a radio broadcast from the BBC I downloaded off a new group, Andrew Davis conducting. Right now I'm listening to the work's second recording-- Andre Cluytens conducting, mono, a vinyl rip off a dude's blog a couple of years ago.

so beautiful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9DJpaxT7wg

Battalia à 10 D-dur, C.61 (1673)
01:43 - 2. Allegro: "Die liederliche Gesellschaft von allerey Humor"

Biber's Battalia (1673) is a rare precedent, with its quodlibet of eight different folksongs in five different keys, representing the songs of the soldiers encamped before the battle.

Wow! A precedent for Ives, yeah? I've been seeing references to this piece for years but never heard it til now (though I have listened to the Rosary Sonatas).

The more I listen to Biber, the more I flip out, this guy was centuries ahead. the alternative tuning work in the Rosary Sonata, the extended technique to emulate Bird & Frog songs in 'Sonata Representiva', and... now this completely bonkers Ives moment

and of course when he plays it straight, which is most of the time, it is just transcendental, been listening to 'Rosary Sonatas' a lot this last year

& posting this to watch it from home later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcW3rL_pV-g&feature=player_embedded

Tony Conrad is a huge Biber enthusiast.

Now THAT is interesting...

that is wonderful, ty milt

i know only hb's violin work

http://i.imgur.com/Mw3jT.png

Justin Heinrich Ignatz von Bieber

Ahhhhh

Interview grabs from the internets:

Further research into the baroque violin repertoire led him to the “Mystery Sonatas” of Heinrich Biber, whose bold scordatura tunings had a marked effect on the young man: “I perceived Biber’s music as having been constructed according to timbre, not melody.... Biber had completely reformulated the basis for music composition, around timbre.”

...

A chance discovery of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bibers’s “Mystery Sonatas” with their inventive constructions around timbre as opposed to melody had a transformative effect. “For the first time, my violin sounded truly wonderful. It rang, and sang, and spoke in a rich soulful voice – the timbre of the instrument… My body merged with the body of the violin; our resonances melted together in rich dark colors, harsh bright headlights. Slower; slower.”

for the sandbox execrable classical cd covers thread:

http://i.imgur.com/DFzZV.jpg

>Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bibers’s “Mystery Sonatas”

it's just one of those pieces. the Violin Sonatas are just as incredible. and I went on a Biber buying spree after finding 'Battalia' upthread and the one I've been playing the most is Musica Antiqua Köln / Reinhard Goebel's performance of 'Harmonia Artificiosa': http://www.amazon.com/Biber-Heinrich-Ignaz-Franz-von/dp/B0001DQTL0

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B4ztwwZc83U/TfjrUKua7jI/AAAAAAAAB5E/sZL8SILCoPU/s1600/Front%2528110%2529.jpg
Floors me every single time.

How is Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé even possible. Fuck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0w-adjLQ-w

Vivier is one of my all-time favourites!

Listening to Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues these days. Can't get over those.

I always feel bad about not posting to this thread more. It gets hard to do when classical music is, like, what I do at work, you know?

I definitely feel less like talking about classical music online when I'm selling subscriptions. :\

As well as the Delius anniversary sets mentioned above, this year also sees the release of four Debussy boxes. Can anyone offer an appraisal of one or more of them?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Debussy-Collection-Various/dp/B006VKKAXU

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Edition-Various-Artists/dp/B00742LLKU

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Piano-Edition-Various-Artists/dp/B00751JXQ4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Debussy-Complete-Piano-Signature-Edition/dp/B0079J283C

The Decca piano set is comprised of previously released Thibaudet recordings IIUC. Would be tempted, given the rosaries and star accolades, etc. were it not for the fact that I've been tracking down Paul Jacobs' recordings on the back of this thread...

Don't bother with the Sony IMO. The only first rate performances in there are the Boulez Pelleas + orchestral works.

The DG/Universal Debussy Edition surprised me, but then I remembered DG now folds in the Decca and Philips catalogs as well, and this box includes things from some independent French labels too. A lot of great recordings and very intelligently anthologized. This is the best of these 4 sets IMO.

The mostly Thibaudet piano box-- for great modern Debussy playing I would urge you toward the Bavouzet discs on Chandos. There were five of them. If they haven't boxed them yet I'm sure they will. Thibaudet is really good too, but not on Bavouzet's level.

Leave that Gieseking set til later. In the Preludes, the sound quality almost kills some of the most inspired piano playing ever. I hate you Walter Legge for engineering WG in a cardboard box. EMI keeps remastering these but they'll never sound alive. Seek the Gieseking volume in the Great Pianists Of The 2oth Century series-- one disc has his 1930s Debussy recordings and they sound much better than EMI's 1950s ones.

Sund4r what is your day job is it's ok to ask?

Thanks again - might wait a while before wading in... Maybe listen to a few of the performances in the DG box first while continuing my Jacobs odyssey.

Jon: lecturer in music theory and music history. Teaching 20th c music analysis right now so if I'm online, it's usually because I'm taking a break from Debussy or Bartok or Schoenberg etc (or from trying to write music to get a composition job).

I realize every job is a grind, but damn that is v cool to me.

And your own instrument is gtr iirc?

Yes, but I'm a composition/theory specialist, not a professional virtuoso classical performer.

Thanks for the Kancheli reminder, Turangalila.

<3

yeah I need to finally listen to him

I'm afraid of heart attack inducing dynamics tho, like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okD2VSTEWyM

Warning, do not listen to this in the dark.

Btw, if you're not aware of it, the CBC now has an online music service including 10 different classical stations:
http://music.cbc.ca/

(Hopefully, this will survive the budget cuts.)

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

http://i43.tinypic.com/33xyn1u.jpg

^^^great album. One of the very few listenable vinyl-to-CD transfers I ever achieved, when I was trying to do such things, was that LP.

It's a great recording - wonder why there has been no whiff of a CD reissue. No idea what the market for Ives stuff is like...

Now listening to Tallis Anthems. Hearing the fragment used by V. Williams in his 'Fantasia...' for the first time is a real trip.

Big vinyl pull today:

"Music for three pianos in sixths of tones", a collection of piano stuff by Ivan Wyschnegradsky and Bruce Mather. Brilliant gestures hidden in otherwise tedious stuff.

A DG Ligeti compilation: 2nd string quartet (LaSalle), Lux Aeterna, Volumina. Got it for Etude Nr. 1 "Harmonies" for solo organ, really something:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3gVRPmx9cI

David Oistrakh playing Khachaturian, for a dinner tonight

Bernstein/NYPhil playing Elliot Carter Concerto for Orchestra and William Schuman In Praise of Shahn-- so cool, that Schuman:

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

Bernstein doing Les Noces and Mass, bleah, but I don't have the Mass on vinyl and his version is OK.

Lorand Fenyves and Anton Kuerti playing Bartok, Sonata #1 and 2nd Rhapsody.

Three Ives LPs:

http://www.nonesuch.com/files/imagecache/section-albums-coverart/albums/coverart/degaetani-kalish-ives-songs.jpg

http://991.com/newGallery/Charles-Ives-Symphony-No-1-483950.jpg

http://ring.cdandlp.com/pgraux/photo_grande/113989522.jpg

And fuck it I got this too:

http://i.imgur.com/cFfc5.jpg

Happy record store day

Nice haul!

I was looking for Messaien but was screwed before I got to "M".

Lately been enjoying these:
Andras Schiff - Bach: Two and Three Part Inventions
Alban Berg Quartett - Haydn: String Quartets Op. 76: No. 2-4

>It's a great recording - wonder why there has been no whiff of a CD reissue. No idea what the market for Ives stuff is like...

Columbia's keeping the spate of centennial Ives recordings off the market -- it's some kind of real crime. The John Kirkpatrick Concord, the Gregg Smith 'Music For Chorus' record, those are both top 10 maybe top 5 Ives records

Man, that is no fun for anyone. =(

HIYA

does anyone have any current classical guitar/spanish guitar recommendations? it's for my mother so nothing too avant garde, she has fairly traditional tastes

a little leftfield but only a little, but you might look into Ralph Towner albums - he's a guitarist from a 70s band called Oregon, remarkable technique, and his solo stuff is incredibly good unaccompanied guitar compositions, and they're beautifully recorded (they're on ECM). His albums Time Line and Ana are both in this style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gb3d9j5Tex4

another one just because I love this guy's music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hegtu7bSLZE

that is quite gorgeous

has anyone heard of this one? http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=526115

stumbled upon it via reviews etc - know nothing more but i thnk the piece is more in line with her tastes + i think a chinese performer will go down well with her

I've really enjoyed what I've heard of Radio 3's Skalkottas programmes (Composer of the Week). I'd urge anyone who has access to iplayer to listen to those. He's someone to listen to more, clearly.