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

Concert with The Dessners from The National, including Bryce Dessners' works Lachrimae and Big Sur, the former of which is quite good.

looking forward to hearing the nørgård

V. exciting!

yeah psyched for the Norgard too. Hope I get a chance to listen with all the family around the place.

happy new year from the previn household!

https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/734972_10151987355982137_1524864941_n.jpg

I like a lot of Previn/LSO/EMI recordings from the 70s. They still have that sound I love so much in the 60s decca Monteux/LSO sides.

also 60s/70s classical sleeves get me emotionally so bad

full disclosure, after staring too long at the Ansermet Le Sacre du Printemps sleeve, I went wilding in Central Park.

Chaya Czernowin - this disc paints a ruinious landscape at times. Sahaf is the highlight, in part due to its set-up for - among other other things - guitar and sax. You often think she is not only making use of vast skyscraper- type 'scapes but blowing it out further into the universe for thousands of light years. Its only now that this becomes visible.

Another day, another Finnissy: Kagami-Gishi for flute and harp makes use of his time spent studying gagaku music. Reading an article on him and his interests in folk culture are vast: aboriginal music, Sicilian and Eastern European folk and so on, but he always stamps his own personality on whatever he is interested in. You could say 'Finnissy music' but I feel like I want to find out more and listen to the sources. So there.

Ferneyhough - La Terre Est un Homme. This is a radio recording from a concert that took place about two years ago. Everyone re-discovered this neglected orchestral piece. I can sorta see it...

Bernd Alois Zimmermann - Orchestral sketches. Implies bitzy and all, but they are substantial.

Heinz Holliger - Pneuma.

How are people doing w/Dillon? Not worrying at all about how it fits, a piece here and there...Introitus is a cracker.

Have been hitting these hard this past few days:

http://www.thomasmusic.net.au/images/products/HMC90181820.jpg

https://d3mfbaa198drag.cloudfront.net/assets/products/346222/large/346222.jpg

Plus I watched Tony Palmer's great 'O Thou Transcendent' - a portrait of Ralph Vaughan Williams featuring some sterling performances and a great deal of background info previously unknown to me.

Starting 2013 listening to Mahler's Symphony No. 6. I bought the 2009 box of Leonard Bernstein-conducted Mahler symphonies a while back, and put one in whenever I've got an hour-plus to kill (which isn't often).

I've decided to start the new year with as much Conlon Nancarrow as I can listen to at one time. The first cut on NHK’Koyxeи's Dance Classics Vol.1 had hints of Conlon Nancarrow, which is what started the gears in motion that led to this. I decided it might be a good time to listen through all his player piano music.

Have started what may turn into a full-chronology Alban Berg listening project (he being one of those composers with manageable output), with opp. 1-3 under my belt so far. Still struggling a bit to get much sense out of the songs, but the piano sonata op. 1 and string quartet op. 3 are really unfolding for me after some concentrated listening. If anyone has recommendations for specific recordings of these things, or for any of what lies in the future (Altenberg-Lieder, 4 clarinet/piano pieces, 3 orchestral pieces, Wozzeck, chamber concerto, Lyric Suite, Lulu (+suite), violin concerto), I'd love to hear them!

(for the operas, DVD suggestions are of course particularly welcome!)

pollini in the piano sonata iirc

i think james levine is good in the orchestral music

that is a really good idea by the way

who else has a relatively small oeuvre, if not of webern or varese level concision

debussy, ravel

debussy is smallish, i think i am probaby familiar with 80% already

is there anyone from prior to the late 19th century?

ugh wikipedia has an 'impressionist music' infobox covering ravel debussy and satie

Not properly prior to the late 19th century I guess, but Borodin?

Jean Barraque (20th century) also has a v small oeuvre.

Yeah, Ravel has a pretty miniscule but potent oeuruever.

Sounds dirty.

Sorry, a sexual interpretation of that phrase is just very amusing to me for some reason. More immature for 2013.

My first draft called Ravel's "whole" "small and tight."

there's a lurid anecdote involving jean barraqué and a stiletto heel which google, for better or worse, is refusing to reveal

stuff i've been playing and enjoying at the store:

debussy - string quartet in g minor/ravel - string quartet in f major - drolc quartet (dg)

prokofieff - lieutenant kije suite/scythian suite - chicago/abbado (dg) (appreciating warhorses that might show up in a beef or cotton commercial important in my opinion. hearing new things in old chestnuts. plus, this recording is awesome.)

brahms - piano quartet no.2 in a major/mahler - piano quartet movement - domus (virgin classics digital) (big fan of the 80's virgin classic metal mastered stuff on vinyl. they sound amazing.)

dvorak - complete piano trios - suk trio (supraphon)

francois joseph fetis - first symphony (for organ and orchestra) - orchestre symphonique de la rtbf (koch schwann) (never heard fetis before this - mid 19th century dude - and i have no idea what the orchestre symphonique de la rtbf is but again (with the euro-pressings) i love koch schwann vinyl from the 80's and will check out anything on the label and this is pleasant stuff.)

neilsen - symphony no.5/sibelius - symphony no.5 - knodrashin - concertgebouw orchestra (philips) (2 great tastes that go great together!)

brahms - piano quartet in g minor - gilels and dudes from the amadeus quartet (dg) (one of my faves. pieces and recordings.)

piano music of poulenc - gabriel tacchino (angel)

mozart - six quintets for string quartet and viola - budapest string quartet + one more dude (columbia) (i never listen to mozart but i'm feeling string-y these days and i can't remember if i've ever played this box set.)

piano concertos of muzio clementi and giovanni paisiello - felicja blumental/torino symphony orch (auditorium) (late 60's recording on small geeky u.k. label distributed in the states by the legendary record hunter store in nyc.)

(appreciating warhorses that might show up in a beef or cotton commercial important in my opinion. hearing new things in old chestnuts. plus, this recording is awesome.)

OTM. I have become a sort of defender of warhorses. Most of them are warhorses for a reason, and in most cases the overexposed/culturally saturated bit is no more than a couple of minutes long. Listen to the rest of Also Sprach Zarathustra! It's really fun!

neilsen - symphony no.5/sibelius - symphony no.5 - knodrashin - concertgebouw orchestra (philips)

Had NO idea this recording existed! That sounds potentially awesome.

also full circleness-- I was urging you to hear the Suk Trio Brahms set years back in the enfance of this thread! So good and meaty.

scott: rtbf = Radio Télévision Belge Francophone

have become a big fan of the suk trio. and josef suk! the commposer that is. lucked into a trove of supraphon vinyl a couple of years back.

listening to robert erickson right now. night music/the idea of order at key west/pacific sirens. dismissed tons of academic-type CRI albums years ago cuz they weren't weird enough or didn't include vietnam-era tape hijinx or something (being punk rock or whatever) and then i go back and listen to one and i'm totally in love. and this actually does have cool tape stuff on Pacific Sirens. and weird vocalizing and all kinds of great sounds. he taught subotnick and oliveros when they were just wee little things and he definitely knew what was up.

anyway, this album has become a fave of mine. and i love the small room ambience of Night Music. don't know if any modern chillwavers have discovered Pacific Sirens but they should check it out.

xpost Suk's 'A Summer Tale' symphony tone poem thing rocks my world. The 'blind musicians' and 'phantoms' movements are so moving to me.

in case people have never heard it. set adrift on memory bliss:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omuA2ghnrIY

Re catalogues of manageable sizes: The official work list of Fartein Valen (early Norwegian atonalist) clocks in at about 6 hours, according to a playlist published on Spotify (although a few works seem unrecorded). (The "official" criterion is important here; wikipedia says he also wrote about 25000 (!!) piano etudes, which have obviously not been recorded.)

Lili Boulanger has a tiny catalogue, much of it very beautiful. I've been meaning to recommend her music here. I own two great CDs on the Timpani label:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Melodies-BOULANGER/dp/B000Y1BR7U/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Works-Choir-Orchestra-BOULANGER/dp/B00113EZVK/

The second in particular cuts straight to the heart.

oh yeah

jean cras too. his biography is a fun read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Cras

i really dig this dutch guy. 20th century. didn't write a TON of stuff. i like everything i've heard. pretty sure everything he did could fit on 4 CDs or so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTHz_nA5-qA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC4CTyBwzp4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx7mLcWdJY

I have been savoring Jean Cras' Polypheme opera lately. He's really got the succulent stuff I go for.

Gonna check out his orchestral songs after Polypheme.

19th century composers tended to produce voluminously. For a compact body of work in high Romanticism I would nominate Berlioz, actually. The works themselves are large but there are only a few.

Alkan too, perhaps.

The works themselves are large but there are only a few.

*cough*wagner*cough* ;)

Thanks for Berg recoms, ttajpm!

Re: Brahms trios, say this recording?

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/71ZDyilc3xL._AA1103_.jpg

Not sure! They may have done them more than once. The one I have is analog, a 2cd set which does include the Horn Trio.

All I could find in the library was the Borodin Trio's set on Chandos, so that will have to do for now!

can somebody who knows Feldman better than I do tell me whether I should get this? The stuff I have of his I love a lot, but it looks as though there's a lot to know about him

If you like the 90 min stuff (esp. Crippled Symmetry, there is an affinity between both works in my mind) and feel like you could listen to this for even hours then yes I would get Philip Guston.

Have the California EAR Unit rec, if that matters.