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

That set was the biggest surprise - Julius had a real Cage-ian do it yourself ethos from his compositions, a very indepedently minded spirit to his music.

Hello classical music enthusiasts.

Question: If I am totally fixated on David Munrow's version of Lamento Di Tristano, but don't particularly love the other versions that I've heard, what is it that I'm liking? The only thing I can think of is that the beginning sounds ridiculously similar to Willow's Song (before the faster dance portion), and I like his story and that seems to put a stamp of YES on everything. Musically I can only guess it's the spareness and drone? I am just trying to figure out how to find more, but I don't even know what I'm searching for. It's not the songs, but the way he arranges them, I guess. Maybe I would like some weird old Sino-Russian music or something?

I would put this on the Early Music thread but I feel like this one is ok for weird questions.

That's him doing the Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggggg bit on Dinosaur L 'Go Bang' too! And yeah 'very independently minded' gets right to it. Love that story about him performing a Cage piece and his interpretation involved stripping a male model and it totally pissing Cage off.

Note -- It's partially the songs, but I don't love all of them like I love that particular one.

got some nice vinyl for myself the other day:

poulenc - stabat mater (angel)

music for a great cathedral - the choir of st. paul's cathedral (guild)

haydn - theresa mass (argo)

ravel - chansons medecasses/sites auriculaires frontispice/sonata for violin & cello (nonesuch)

brahms - symphony no. 2 - boult/baker/london phil (angel) (couldn't remember if i had this or not)

america sings 1920-1950 (vox box) (barber, carter, cowell, foss, ives, piston, etc, etc.)

america sings volume v - american choral music after 1950 (vox box) (bergsma, carter, bruckman, harrison, etc, etc.)

josquin desprez - marian motets (archiv)

bach - motet: jesus, priceless treasure and sacred part-songs - choir of king's college, cambridge (argo)

monteverdi & gesualdo - motets & madrigals - monteverdi choir (argo)

britten - part songs - elizabethan singers (argo)

bach cantatas - elly ameling (philips)

hugo wolf - lieder/schumann - frauenlibe und leben - helen watts/geoffrey parsons (l'oiseau lyre)

brahms - the young brahms: early songs - fischer-dieskau/moore (angel)

anyway, my kind of stuff. and i am such a sucker for those argo and l'oiseau lyre pressings. and guild! never see them around these parts. can you get old guild pressings in the dollar bins in the u.k.?

I haven't heard the Munrow version, I have a version played by some hardcore authenticity obsessed people. The opening theme is played on something that sounds like a hammered dulcimer. This gives off a similar vibe to me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2zRuYWl4aU

May be way off though, dunno! x-posts

Really enjoying Julius Eastman - Unjust Malaise

'Gay Guerilla' on that set is one of my favourite pieces of music ever - would love to see it performed, one day

lechera, u'd probably enjoy the clemencic consorts recording of gabrieli's canzonas and sonatas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9eL2akC6r0

Wow that Harry Partsch song sounds like awesome dream sequence music. Hm, I have heard that guy's name but never looked into it. Is this representative? Sorry for all the questions. I am trying to figure out what I am currently digging re: classical.

I'll c/p your recommendation for later, clouds. Thank you.

america sings 1920-1950 (vox box) (barber, carter, cowell, foss, ives, piston, etc, etc.)

america sings volume v - american choral music after 1950 (vox box) (bergsma, carter, bruckman, harrison, etc, etc.)

WANT

LL I think u would dig the Partch CD titled 'Historic Speech-Music Recordings' as an intro to his world.

Welcome to the classical thread where no one but me and scott ever wanna talk about old fart pre-WWII stuff!

*crosses arms*

Gonna have to do some ear research on the Munrow/Tristano question. But I just scared up something rly interesting; it sounds like there is a Henze composition that Munrow fans need to hear (let me know if this Google Books link works or not):

http://books.google.com/books?id=uxB39t7O3FcC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=david+munrow+lamento+di+tristano&source=bl&ots=9dG-FrHyWW&sig=zdr9M4-OoEvbNDb02DIbajU8Nlc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qiD4UJ-VGuqy0QHQp4GYCQ&ved=0CF4Q6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=david%20munrow%20lamento%20di%20tristano&f=false

AND CLOUDS

xpost

That album title is deliciously boring. I love it, will investigate.
I had already counted clouds among my allies ;)

also I am all for including early music in cm discussions. Especially with how much we talk about post-war stuff itt and how much the post-war avant garde was thinking about early music in their own work.

yeah it is a hella dry title but it includes works that quote hobo inscriptions from the railings of train stations and transcribed cries of san fran newsboys!

this is magical cd which includes a nice version of the partch piece:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/just-west-coast-mw0001407432

any bach experts here? i have a bach question on the sandy bull thread...

Thanks for asking, bc now I looked at that thread and I never knew abt Sandy Bull before now! If that album is on spotify I can prob ID the bach pc for you...

What? Trade you a Harry Partch for a Sandy Bull. He's great!
I'll be back when I have something more to report about what I am currently digging. Thank you thread!

Really enjoying Julius Eastman - Unjust Malaise (it's on Spotify). Great piece here on new music box:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/articles/In-Search-of-Julius-Eastman/

― Crackle Box, Thursday, 17 January 2013 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sad article, have a quite a few compositions of perfs from many composers that were transferred from tape to mp3s which should be getting a wider issue (not to mention a clearer recording in some cases), with good liner notes so as to perhaps encourage more enthusiasm and performance and understanding.

So much is tied up in older cassettes where you need to contact the people performing, or excellent performances that are tied up in publishing hell.

Welcome to the classical thread where no one but me and scott ever wanna talk about old fart pre-WWII stuff!

Getting organized here, give me a minute :-)

awesome dn there!

Was hoping someone would listen to the Newman I posted earlier and tell me what other old fart 19th century stuff it sounds like?

When I started posting here I thought we'd discuss classical music from other eras, hoping to make new links too.

you know you can always talk about whatever you want. everyone wins.

i feel really clueless about more recent stuff. so its always nice to hear about that. my problem is i don't really ever download/stream/etc. i listen to CDs and vinyl and CDs of recent music is hard to come by for me. though i do listen to stuff on youtube.

i was so excited when i found a bunch of schnittke CDs at the library book sale last summer! i never ever see them anywhere and that goes double for any vinyl of his stuff. listened to it for months.

So I am obsessed at the moment with Bach's organ chorale prelude BWV 659, and particularly with Busoni's solo-piano transcription of the same.

The recording a very elderly Horowitz made in his living room, for the documentary, "The Last Romantic" , I find almost unbearably moving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PzGf-_zKuM

(This YT comment fits nicely with the poignancy of the music:

"..it was very beautiful, very beautiful..."
Horrowitz: " But I didn't compose it.... "
In this line he shows his sadness. His dream was to become a composer afterall. I bet he is composing in the life after ;)

Like many of the chorale preludes, this one consists of a freely imitative texture over which phrases of the chorale tune are presented (in this case with an unusual degree of liberty and elaboration). Here is the chorale tune itself, in a harmonization by Bach.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAiFO4S9G_g

For more information about this tune, including a transcription and English translation of Martin Luther's text, see: http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Texts/Chorale016-Eng3.htm

My other favorite performances of Bach-Busoni BWV 659:

Perahia - more momentum
Paul Jacobs - evokes sound of organ

Here's a nice performance of Bach BWV 659 by organist Hans-Andre Stamm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6piOhwgopg

And if you still haven't had your fill of this music, check out the superb musician Stefan Hussong playing a transcription for accordian!

xyzzzz, I missed when you said the Newman was on Spotify. Listening to his First Sonata now. First mvmt is a dead ringer style-wise for late (last 7 or 8 Piano Sonatas) Schubert. Almost sounds like it could be a po-mo collage of bits from the late schubert!

2nd mvmt puts me in mind more of prokofiev's sonata style, especially his 2nd through 4th sonatas. Also Bartok's early set of Bagatelles.

3 mvmt - harder to pin down similarities. More brittle and strange, made of isolated gestures, than the first 2 mvmts. Oh gosh now the pianist is singing! I like the effect.

Newman's 4th sonata is bleary, wrong-note Bach, sounding plausibly Bach for a while but then repeatedly wandering outside the lines.

Will listen to the other 2 sonatas on this album tomorrow.

Paul - wonderful post. That Horowitz youtube stopped me on my tracks - will have to check the rest later.

Thx Jon, also.

Horowitz is such a weird pianist. People make out like Gould was an eccentric interpreter but Horowitz' style was just SO palpably bizarre, it's wild that he became the public name for 'greatest pianist on earth'. Even the sound of his instrument was weird. NB I actually LIKE him a lot in things like Kreisleriana and Scarlatti sonatas and Scriabin.

+1 on the latter two.

I don't know if I'm projecting but on the Meysles brothers films of him I get the vivid impression of a gay man culturally straitjacketed with a really dominating diva wife (Toscanini's daughter?) to boot. I can't escape the poignancy of this, to a certain extent anyway, when listening to the few records of his I have.

To my understanding, you are not projecting re: that situation.

That's consistent with what I've heard from people who knew him slightly. Not that they had juicy rumors of marital infidelity or anything like that. The trapped part as much as the gay part. It is an interesting meaning to map onto some of his performances.

And yes, an eccentric interpreter who achieved the highest level of mainstream appeal. His earlier recordings have a kind of nervous energy, his later ones seemingly placid but with a nervous undercurrent capable of exploding into the foreground. The violence of that final cadence in bwv 659! But I can't call him eccentric without adding that he is unfailingly sincere.

placid at times, it would be better to say

His performance of Liszt's Scherzo und Marsch (Sony) is... well, if it doesn't sell you on Liszt's 'demonic' side, nothing ever will.

i bought so many classical records this week. i don't know what i'm thinking...i don't sell that many classical records. can't resist i guess.

if you need selling on liszt then fuck you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEq_ixDC7fY&NR

To be clear, I am a Liszt partisan from way back. But vh's scherzo really shows you the demon in the demon.

Whose st Francis is that, nilmar?

hamelin

i think i have seen him play that

ive been using up my wh4+.cd tokens on old liszt cds, i think i have all of hamelin's recordings

also something called 'the composer pianists' in which our quebecois hero plays loads of silly music by people called sorabji, which i don't think i will listen to again

i was disappointed in sorabji

i read a biographical article about him years ago which was more interesting than any of his music i have heard

better read than heard from, agreed

I have a broadcast of Hamelin playing his own set of 12 etudes, I need to bust that out again. Was not in the mood on first audition.

yeah i think that could be quietly shelved

I wish Hamelin would record Liszt's penultimate version of the Transcendental Etudes. There's yet to be a credible rendition of those (Leslie Howard did them, Janice Weber did them, Ogdon did one or two, that's all there's been).