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

One of the best Schubert piano performances I've ever heard is 5 bucks in Arkiv's January clearance sale:

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=167461

So I haven't been paying close attention to the news for a month or so and it has come to my attention just now on another thread that Charles Rosen has died.

The Romantic Generation is one of the best books I've ever read, fiction or non-fiction, on any topic, and one of those rare books that really affected who I am at least w/r/t all my thoughts about art and artistic effort.

Gonna cue up Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze, one of many keystones I owe Rosen for.

RIP.

He cancelled a gig and lecture here last year. Great writer - he's all over the original Boulez Webern box, an obscure but noteworthy point I didn't see in any of the obituaries.

He was the first to record the Debussy Etudes, beating even Gieseking and Loriod to the punch. I really hope it finally gets released on CD as a tribute. It's supposed to me an amazing performance.

RIP.

Loving this piece on Carter

No central beat can be; heard: the rhythms therefore do not cross, but proceed independently.

Looks at this - what a semi-colon!

I meant to post this earlier today but got sidetracked by finding out about Rosen. It's a little Spotify playlist of the most recent things to slay me:

http://open.spotify.com/user/1213493496/playlist/62g39Ncy2VfBZkylN1tV61

1. Ernst Toch's vocal/chamber cycle The Chinese Flute. I love to wallow in modernist orientalism. I can't help it! I know it's wrong. This is so up my alley. If you love Das Lied von der Erde and Pierrot Lunaire you should give this a whirl. The recording available on Spotify is a historical mono one. Mine is the ravishing new digital recording on the cpo label.

2. Shostakovich 15th symphony, Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orch. Somehow the rich, creamy soulful Ormandy/Philly sound works incredibly well for the russian modernists. Their Prokofiev 5 is awesome and this recording of DSCH's last and most enigmatic symphony is even better. I don't know that much about Schnittke but it seems like DSCH 15 must have been a huge influence on him, with its impossible-to-fathom quotations and bitter, bitter tone of irony mixed with childish fantasy.

3. the music for chorus and orchestra of Maurice Ohana. Yet another 20th century francophone who gets me moondrunk on sheer instrumental color. A reissue series just came out of his orchestral and orchestral/vocal and chamber/vocal stuff. He's a little reminiscent of Messiaen but not derivatively so. The piece which got me super excited is a choral orchestral cycle called 'Office des Oracles' which is not on Spotify, but I found a similar piece.

4. Benjamin Frankel's fierce, beautiful serialism-tinged film score for the early Hammer Horror classic Curse of the Werewolf. I was reminded in various places of Schoenberg, Britten and Janacek. Take my word that those are three rare influences to encounter in film music. This is my first encounter with Frankel's music. It's a digital recording of a suite from the score which came out on Naxos.

5. Alfred Brendel's live broadcast performance of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations. This was released in a special series a few years ago around when he retired. It's the fourth Brendel Diabelli to come out on CD. He says it's his best one. It certainly can go head to head with, and is very complementary to, his Philips studio version, which was already one of my very favorites of this work. I am a tireless defender of Brendel's Beethoven, and believe me there's a lot of hate out there for it on the interwebs. His Beethoven has been up and down, but when he's on he's incomparable IMO. Anyway, the 2CD album this comes from is on clearance at Arkiv right now for like 8 bucks!

6. Who the hell is Edith Canat de Chizy? She's a living composer, she's French, I stumbled across these pieces completely by chance, and here way with an orchestra floors me.

Dutilleux's piano music is great, I've discovered... Mean to listen to the orchestral works now in a much-recommended Chandos boxed set (Tortelier).

I have a new favorite cycle of Schumann symphonies, and it's Phillipe Herreweghe's Harmonia Mundi cycle. If owned it a few years, gave it a couple listens, but somehow this month on revisiting it, has unfolded itself to reveal sheer glory. The four deeply strange Schumann syms are pieces I've listened to exhaustively over the years; I've probably owned twenty different recordings of them. They are so full of sonic events, and so inscrutable in company with the rest of the 19th century heavies (as are his piano fragment cycles, but you can't engage the symphonies through the same prism as the piano cycles AT ALL. They are a different species of sphinx).

found a gem in one of my two dollar bins at the store:

hidden sparks - maryvonne le dize-richard (violin) and jean-claude henriot (piano) on New World Records from 1986. stuff by elliott carter, tod machover, john melby, and ralph shapey. don't know any of those dudes except for carter. though its possible i have something by melby on an old crystal records lp. (and the melby thing on here is awesome piece for violin and computer-synthesized tape)

anyway, this has been in the two dollar bin forever and its going home with me now.

A few bits from Elliott Carter (Double Concerto), following that article by Rosen.

Hans-Joachim Hespos - a composer who was most active in the 70s and 80s, paints savage landscapes (note I said paint not splashes)...akin to Finnissy or Barrett or Emsley, many years later.

Listening to a few pieces for solo oboe too: Ausgangspunkte by Roger Redgate, Holliger's Studie. Looking for more to compile. xp

currently digging this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrmb9iifnwg

Also a few works by Mark Osborn who died in his early 30s leaving about a dozen or so cracking compositions I can listen to an awful lot at times. He developed a sensibility like few others (he was a colleague of Czernowin's, who I talked about above) that is hard to describe right now.

Spahlinger - El Sonido Silencioso. Great choral piece from the mid-70s, post-Chilean coup.

xpost was scared that was gonna be amanda palmer for a sec

oh come the fuck on

(kidding)

btw Dan have you ever sung in/listened to Ives' Psalms? Had my first hearing of some of them yesterday and really, really dug them.

I've done Psalm 67 multiple times, which is also one of my favorite pieces ever

Luigi Nono - Un Volto, E del Mare, for voice and electronics: what marks it out is that he does such a convincing impersonation of a Renaissance Master (of his contemporaries, maybe only Bussotti wrote better for voice).

Had a wonderful time with Ginastera's 'Panambi' on the recent Naxos disc with Gisele Ben-Dor and the LSO. I have to tell you that I have an almost inexhaustible weakness for large orchestra folk-modernist Rite of Spring ripoffs where 'pagan russia' is replaced with 'pagan <whatever the mother culture of the composer is.' I turned this one up to 10 and did some serious basking in it.

As mentioned on the alex ross thread, I'm burning through Taruskin's late 20th c book and while I got v little mileage out of most of the Babbitt Taruskin talks about, I am v glad to make the acquaintance of his 'Philomel' for soprano and electronics (it's on Spotify fyi).

Haenssler album of Ives' complete Psalms is now on my to-buy list.

for babbitt i like: 1st piano cto, relata i, correspondences, vision and prayer and the sqs 2-6 (esp 6)

have you heard Philomel?

huh, my first thought was "of course i have" cuz it's usually the only babbitt anyone knows, but i don't think i actually have!

Also a few works by Mark Osborn who died in his early 30s leaving about a dozen or so cracking compositions I can listen to an awful lot at times. He developed a sensibility like few others (he was a colleague of Czernowin's, who I talked about above) that is hard to describe right now.

Oy, I knew Mark and did not know he had passed away. He and I were undergrads at the same time and had composition class with Brian Ferneyhough. :)

Anyway, nice guy - I'm so sorry to hear about this. Chaya Czernowin was possibly already a doctoral student at this time.

re: Osborn. Looking at dates the compositions are listed from the mid-90s to 2001, really felt like there was a particular voice there, inventive writing for ensemble that was immediate -- whether harsh and engaging or both (why can't it both? he managed it effortlessly) whereas Czernowin is someone I'm only getting to grips w/now.

Babbitt - try A Solo Requiem for soprano and two pianos, its the one I stopped at.

Listening to Isang Yun - again, a particular voice I want to listen to. First heard his Glisees in this classic album, and Piri (Heinz Holliger on duty) absolutely slays these elongated lines (there are relations to Korean music I've yet to explore) juxtaposed with fast flurries, placed as an afterthought you'd think.

The studies for flute I'm making my way through now, the chamber works have these odd combinations so its all to be explored in a lot more depth although I can't be arsed with 5xsymphonies he wrote in the 80s. We'll see.

Were you trained in New Complexity, Tim?

Ha, no. Mark was a little further advanced than I was and may have been more so. Ferneyhough's first assignment for me was "Create a composition that consists of the numbers one through nine." Those were the only instructions.

And I'm sure Mark's compositions are brilliant. He was the real deal.

Klaus Hubler - listening to Grave e Sfenato. "wotta fackin' piece!", as they say round these parts.

Think I have enough for an "Oboe from Mars" style compilation now..

Nono's Ricorda Cosa Ti Hanno Fatto In Auschwitz for Solo tape is really increadible...from listening and not reading about it I'd say its a non-treatment of the subject, which is possibly the right approach.

In the same way the Spahlinger is a non-treatment of what happened in Chile - its not exactly a choral piece; more fragments of such, its atomized to snatches of song and scream. The way people are shut out.

Was trying to make my way through Britten's War Requiem but uncle Benjy is so emblematic (in my head) of everything that is wrong with the way the arts and music is talked about in this country...I can tell from the first min or so its going to be heavy going.

Nono's Ricorda Cosa Ti Hanno Fatto In Auschwitz for Solo tape is really increadible

Indeed it is

Will give the Nono a first listen later today. God bless YouTube!

Re: that "Oboe from Mars" compilation, don't miss Claus-Steffan Mahnkopf's Solitude-Nocturne!

I've yet to hear a piece by Mahnkopf that I really like - will give that a go.

Surprised you've never heard that Nono piece, Paul!

anyone have any recs for "difficult" classical music? it's always been a kind of slurry undifferentiated background music genre for me and i think the way for me to get around that is to seek out examples that are deliberately antagonistic. I don't know how successful a strategy this will be because I have the same problem with metal.

lachenmann - string quartets

finnissy - english country-tunes

Philip - don't think of this stuff as "deliberately antagonistic" (or to flip a coin, things that might be "beautiful"). I don't think there is much intention for any composer worth listening to be that (Lachenmann, as an example, would interrogate the idea of an idealised beauty that is bandied about but he wouldn't set out to make something deliberately ugly as its a reactianory move).

The first classical things I listened to Webern and Steve Reich and I never had those ideas. Then again I had few ideas about anything, so I appreciate its harder.

Can you go to any contemporary recitals? xp

And if you can't see English Country Tunes playing in yur town soon there is footage of Michael Finnissy playing it in 1984 on youtube (only 25 mins or so, about half of it)

Philip--

Elliott Carter - Double Concerto

thanks for the recs! I didn't really know where to go from nancarrow(sp?) or nico muhly.

Also, Xenakis - Jonchaies

phil: i would just explore influences, regions, time periods. frinstance if you like nancarrow's player piano music you should explore ligeti's etudes, &c

Eonta is my go to Xenakis these days.

Philip - v few classical mixed composer sets that work as albums but Trio Surplus worked up some inspiration. Quite unexpectedly varied yet within a tight spectrum, whether Liza Lim mining talking to the dead or Xenakis as having an almost lightly easternised vibe on Dmaathen, which actually is not his best on its own but works with the rest of the record.

Best of all is A Book of Maps by Ian Willcock.

I attended the recording of this BBC Symphony orchestra performance of some John Zorn works on Saturday - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ppw1t. Some of it, the first piece in particular, was absolutely stupendous. Wasn't so keen on the works that had soloists however. They weren't bad by any means but the pieces seemed to work best when the orchestra was working as a whole, without a focal point.

phil: i would just explore influences, regions, time periods. frinstance if you like nancarrow's player piano music you should explore ligeti's etudes, &c

― #YOLO magic orchestra (clouds), Monday, January 14, 2013 4:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is p much how I learned classical music. Aside from the above method of branching out, you can also make good discoveries by following performers. As in, I loved this recording of Jan DeGaetani singing composer X, maybe I'll check out this record of Jan DeGaetani singing composer Y.

Surprised you've never heard that Nono piece, Paul!

I don't have an easy time appreciating his tape pieces. Something about them. Maybe his tendency to collage together a lot of unmanipulated instrumental and vocal sounds, and that omnipresent muddy reverberation. Just not drawn to that sound world the way I am to Davidovsky's, say, or to the "Acousmatic" school's (if I may lump them together)…

The only Nono in my collection is the ~20 minute extract from Prometeo on an Abbado/Berlin PO Prometheus-themed disc.

Maybe his tendency to collage together a lot of unmanipulated instrumental and vocal sounds, and that omnipresent muddy reverberation.

Ah ok that piece won't persuade you as I really like a lot of those things. My favourite is Non consumiamo Marx, a collage of sounds from Paris '68.

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

Found this piece which mentions Non... here:

On March 6, 1970, at the close of the Second International Free Composers Tribune in Prague, the final composer to be represented at the conference, Luigi Nono, spoke for more than 10 minutes before a large audience of mostly Czech musicians, vigorously criticizing my score for the short film “Pour,” which preceded his presentation. Although the protocol of the tribune permitted each composer only 10 minutes to speak about his or her own music, Nono took those 10 minutes to speak about mine, concluding with a scathing condemnation of my use of vernacular music.

Nono then went on for another 10 minutes about the making of his own work, especially pointing out the theoretically correct choice of the pre-recorded sounds he had employed. He then played a tape of his composition “Non Consumiamo Marx.” When the piece was over there were three people left in the hall at the Janacek Composers’ Club at 3 Besedni Street: Luigi Nono, Mr. Okurka (the technician who operated the tape recorder and sound system) and me.

The choral works I connect with far more readily …