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

I wasn't commenting on the accuracy of the "250 years" comment. I just thought it was funny to say "only the last 250 years" when the entire history of rock and roll is about 60 years old (and we poll very specific subgenres of it all the time).

haha ok sorry I read a question mark which wasn't there.

I would include Finnissy's String Trio if we widened it on the string front. Or Aroura (for 12 str) by Xenakis (which is much btr than his str quartet imo)

so er, what's IDG :-)

Its not a big mystery. I often feel there is more exploratory work carried out in smaller ensembles/chamber, and a lot more of what an instrument can do is explored when its written for solos only as well.

I was listening to Xenakis' Persephassa earlier today and you look at the variety of sound and action (and this given that you're not getting the full 'surround sound' that you would in a hall, from a recording)...and think how orchestral composers completely ignored percussion, makes you furious really. A lot of it is one big show.

But as I said in some earlier post Xenakis' whole conception of sound-as-mass really suited the orchestra.

I was listening to Xenakis' Persephassa earlier today and you look at the variety of sound and action (and this given that you're not getting the full 'surround sound' that you would in a hall, from a recording)...and think how orchestral composers completely ignored percussion, makes you furious really.

Except for the many, many orchestral composers who didn't ignore percussion at all? The expanded role of the perc section is THE most characteristic thing abt 20c orch music!

(NB Persephassa in Central Park was the most powerful live music experience of this century for me so far)

Yes that was a rant against pre-20th century orchestral.

But even so the increase in size in numbers doesn't add a whole lot for much of the time.

So I've gotten answers back: "written for several instruments to play without a conductor" is the one there seems to be good agreement on so far.

The quote from the Grove dictionary does widen what can and can't be considered chamber but it still falls under the with/without conductor.

I can see we're going down str 4et route here :-)

I'm pretty familiar with that Grove article, yeah. I think what most people mean by chamber music is fundamentally "music for small instrumental ensemble" (generally not more than 10) with one player to a part and usually without a conductor. I wouldn't generally consider the solo and vocal pieces mentioned in Grove to be chamber pieces and, even if they are, I'd be comfortable with excluding them for the purposes of a genre poll. But, yeah, string quartets might be easiest!

Like, I've never seen the 19th-century lied described as chamber music anywhere else. I would never expect to see performances of Winterreise or Dichterliebe at a chamber music festival.

I was going to teach a chamber music history course last semester and was certainly not planning to include madrigals and lieds. (The course was cancelled due to low enrolment.)

Anyone have any thoughts on Alexander Tcherepnin? I've found myself streaming his orchestral and chamber music for several hours now. Disappointed I'd never even heard OF him before. There's an appealing, er, oddness infusing his mid-20-century-ness. [Yeah, I'm no musicologist.]

I started listening to his piano sonatas. This is pretty much in my sweet spot for acoustic 20th-century music.. Thanks for the tip.

I don't do ballot polls but I'd happily read the thread

Don't do many polls but if this ever gets off the ground it might be interesting.

Thinking about all the great 20th century chamber music, I've been leaning back towards doing a general chamber music poll. I'm waiting for more than two other people to express interest in nominating and voting, though.:P

That was always going to be a problem. I think there are about a dozen people here who would vote, just whether they'd be here or not, or would be inclined to do so, were it to go ahead at all.

I'd vote, but my ballot would be pretty gauche.

And also mostly piano music.

Thread needs more gauche IMO!

Also what'd you play at your recital
?

Debussy, 3 gauche selections from Children's Corner

Only because my Chopin etude was nowhere near performance ready

currently going through Weill's "Lost in the Stars" and "The Witness Cantata" by Swanee Hunt for an upcoming performance

Xpost étude pour le main gauche

it's the 100th anniversary of the premiere of The Rites of Spring and a radio station - QXR? not sure - was playing nothing but versions of that all day & Mrs. Aero had that goin' to the living room speakers so I took in two versions: one arranged for solo piano (tremendous), one orchestral - man oh man that conclusion. Always worth really listening to. In between versions, much talk about the premiere, of course, how accurate the legend is, etc. But idk, it doesn't really matter, having the excuse to take one piece of music that came along at a time of new ideas being put forward and really look hard at it, listen to it, and to do so via radio instead of sitting down with my records & CDs and curating my own experiement...really cool. Also aero jr. seemed to really enjoy the orchestral version and banged on stuff.

Yeah! I can see Le Sacre being diggable for a kid.

I saw a dance piece based The Rite... last night with only a few bits of it played at the end.

Always been much keen on Pierrot Lunaire (if we want to the whole Schonberg - Strav fite again, which we don't). Kind of want to see a perf @ the Proms in July. The Proms are usually not that good - the Albert Hall is such a stuffy venue - so I'll see if I'll bother with this.

Marais, in the Sophie Watillon versh. The piece I'm linking is something I've falled hard for today.

Pisendel's Violin Sonantas (Steck & Rieger)

Nono's Risonanze Erranti. Chamber music, indeed.

Working through more French Baroque chamber, played by Musica Antiqua Koln (Le Parnasse Francais) - you can see why they were legendary. The playing has such an energy to it, and I love how they pick on fairly obscure composers not just Bach (really the reverence for the man is so offputting), gives a much needed overview, and there is enough that it shows how the Renaissance flows into the Baroque, these aren't self-contained eras.

I was listening to some classic electronic and EA stuff at work over the last week or two. I had Kontakte in my regular rotation. I've always appreciated it but it really clicks with repeated listening, eh? Such a great piece. Pulled out Parmegiani's La Creation du Monde too: so great and satisfying.

It's not electronic but I was also listening to John Luther Adams' The Light that Fills the World, described here: http://www.allmusic.com/album/john-luther-adams-the-light-that-fills-the-world-mw0000133211
Not a challenging piece but very nice post-minimal music, almost like ambient orchestral music. Warm and pleasant feel.

Ack, ambient chamber music, really. Don't know why I said "orchestral".

Loooove Kontakte. Would play it right now if I were alone.

Just discovered that Kodaly's Sonata for solo cello (1915) is about 27 times more engaging than I thought it might be. Mostly know his orchestral works, which are often likeable but feel like very distant relations tone and texture-wise.

ok I'm sure have heard this work a double-digit number of times before and found it A Fine Work For Sure, but suddenly something clicks next-level and I'm absolutely FLOORED and AWED by the first Schoenberg string quartet.

it's like this handful of ideas which is spun into a million ideas which are juggled and spun with ridiculous facility

that is a good descriptor all early schoenberg, which is continually the most interesting a.sch. period for me.

I'm sure have heard this work a double-digit number of times before and found it A Fine Work For Sure, but suddenly something clicks next-level and I'm absolutely FLOORED and AWED

god I LOVE when this happens. I suppose it's also the reason CM will never be massively popular but w/e

Vivaldi's Four Seasons

Does anyone have information on Herrmann Scherchen's arrangement of this? I'm searching for its original first recording, which I'm guessing was sometime in the 1950s. I would just keep googling until I get an answer, but it's not easy to quickly find classical info.

I guess lots of classical stuff is like this, but digitally recorded versions intended for CD usually sound weak compared to a recording played on creepy-sounding old vinyl.

anatol_merklich, which recording are you listening to?

All four Schoenberg string quartets are great but #2 and #3 are my favourites. I listened to #1 and #2 (Schoenberg String Quartet recording) at work tonight. 2 is heart-stopping for me.

Going to go to sleep to Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano (Cedric Pescia).

Now I'm remembering how much better the Fred Sherry SQ's recording of Schoenberg's 3rd is than SSQ's.

(Pescia's recording didn't really do it for me, not last night, at least.)

anatol_merklich, which recording are you listening to?

Let's see... it's the New Vienna String Quartet with Evelyn Lear in #2, on Philips.

--
o

lol at usual email signature creeping in there

I actually forgot that I have the LaSalle Quartet's DG recording of it on vinyl. I'll try to listen to that tonight.

Yeah, SQ1 really comes to life in that version imo. I completely get where you're coming from when I listen to it. I've been thinking that performances make a huge difference for me when it comes to Schoenberg. I'm not entirely sure yet why it is that any professional-calibre performance of e.g. a good Mozart piece will sound fine to me but a great performance of Schoenberg will sound like the best thing ever while a different performance might not connect.

I've been digging John Tavener's The Protecting Veil (the original recording) a lot, I wonder if you recommend other pieces like this, modern stuff that's droney but pretty, and not atonal (don't really know how else to describe it). I know Pärt has some compositions that are kinda similar, but I'm looking for something less austere. The other Tavener stuff I've listened to is his choral music, I like that too, but it doesn't have the same droney quality. Are the some other non-choral pieces by Tavener that would sound the same? Or by other composers?

Happy Canada Day:

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

(Er, it's still July 1 in four provinces.)

Less Grisey more Vivier in London venues please! :)

Liszt

Romantic sovereign of the piano. Creator of the religious piano piece. Chronicler of musical pilgrimages. Ceaseless practitioner of transcriptions and paraphrases. Radical precursor of the modern. Musical source of Franck and Scriabin, Debussy and Ravel, Messiaen and Ligeti.

Familiarity with Liszt’s piano works will make it evident that he was the piano’s supreme artist. What I have in mind is not his transcendental pianistic skill but the reach of his expressive power. He, and only he, as a “genius of expression” (Schumann), revealed the full horizon of what the piano was able to offer. Within this context, the pedal became a tool of paramount importance.

Liszt’s uncertain standing as a composer can be traced back to a number of reasons: the variable quality of his works (with few exceptions, his finest achievements can be found in his piano music); the stylistic panorama of his compositions, which shows the influence of German and French music, Italian opera, the Hungarian gypsy manner, and Gregorian chant; and finally the fact that Liszt’s music is dependent like no other on the quality of the performance. To use an aphorism by Friedrich Hebbel, music here “only becomes visible when the correct gaze is focused on the writing.”

Liszt’s outstanding piano works, among which I would only like to mention the B-Minor Sonata, Années de pélérinage, the Variations on “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen,” La Lugubre gondola, and the finest of the Etudes, are for me on a par with those of Chopin and Schumann. His B-Minor Sonata surpasses, in originality, boldness, and expressive range, anything that has been written in this genre since Beethoven and Schubert.

According to Lina Ramann, his first biographer, we should see Liszt above all as a lyrical tone poet, “rhetorician, rhapsodist, and mime.” She demands from the Liszt player “the grand style,” inwardness (Innerlichkeit), and passion.

In a work like Vallée d’Obermann, all these qualities are evident. The improvisatory arbitrariness often associated with Liszt is contradicted by accounts of his playing in later years. It seems to me of crucial importance that, over a period of twelve years, Liszt remained in close contact with the Weimar orchestra as its principal conductor. A work like the B-Minor Sonata needs to be perceived in this context. Leo Weiner’s remarkable orchestration of the sonata can provide more essential information for the performer than the urge to whip up a succession of feverish dreams. With their metronome markings, both the Liszt-Pädagogium and Siloti’s edition of Totentanz in the Eulenburg pocket scores point to the fact that much of Liszt’s music is nowadays played at overheated speeds. The last thing Liszt deserves is bravura for its own sake. Likewise, he should be shielded from anything that sounds perfumed, or what used to be called effeminate. Wilhelm Kempff’s 1950 recording of the First Legend (St. Francis of Assisi Preaching to the Birds) presents us with poetic Liszt playing of unsurpassed quality.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/jul/11/alfred-brendel-a-pianists-a-to-v/?pagination=false

I love when Brendel writes about Liszt. And his Liszt albums are some of the best records he ever made. I wish he'd recorded the Transcendantes in his early vox/vanguard virtuoso phase.

In my ears' new inability to tolerate the timbre of the piano, which after 6 months I have to assume to be a permanent state of affairs, liszt and debussy are my most mourned losses. And I have now become a collector of orchestral or ensemble arrangements of both men's piano pieces as a result. I don't have Wiener's arrangement of the B Minor Sonata. Need to see if there's a cd...