Rolling Classical 2017

Yeah I'm buying Canticles this week when my emusic credits refresh.

There's a concert in NYC next month with a new work by Anna Thorvaldsdottir plus a Pauline oliveros piece; I'm totally going

Also a staging of hans zender's explosion of Winterreise with Ian Bostridge. Going.

I want to sing this, or something like this. Just to figure out how it works.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9mY5tvd-lM

Going to see Penderecki String Quartet tonight. I went to all three of these new music concerts on Monday, which were mostly very good. The Chan Ka Nin string quartet was probably my favourite piece of them all, integrating Chinese folk-derived melodies with the gamut of contemporary string techniques. I will definitely be listening to more Brian Current. The Palej songs were lovely, too!

The string quartet concert was wonderful. I'd never seen P's 3rd live before and it was startlingly intense and powerful. The Murphy is a new piece that was commissioned for the quartet's 30th anniversary. I always enjoy her work and suspect that if she lived in NYC or Boston and knew the right people, she'd be a lot more famous. (Her aesthetic makes me think of something like a contemporary take on Bartok, with much more use of extended techniques/timbral exploration, with a lot of rhythmic energy.) It was also really nice to see the Mozart! A breath of fresh air in a week of new music.

I picked up this CD, which seems v good so far.

Anyone who has seen Andrew Norman's Play live? The piece won the Grawemeyer award this year, and it sounds fun on spotify, like the symphonic orchestral version of a lot of the stuff we've been talking about with Caroline Shaw and Kate Soper, and apparently it's amazing to see the way the musicians are playing it.

BBC Proms, going to three this week: Schubert 8 + Mahler 10 this Saturday.

My newest recent discoveries are Gesualdo's madrigals and Tenebrae, and Shostakovich's preludfes and fugues played by Tatiana Nikoleyevana.

Shostakovich's preludfes and fugues played by Tatiana Nikoleyevana

I love this set! Essential 20th century piano music imo.

Still catching up with downloaded recordings from this years proms. Dug the Julian Anderson premiere bookended by two neglected and excellent Liszt poems (cond. Volkov)

Anyone into Maurice Ohana? I've been checking out his 10-string guitar music recently, since I'm working on a piece for that instrument. Some very good stuff, with a lot of space and drama to it. "Cadran lunaire" is lovely. Evan, this might appeal to you.

I'm listening to Graham Anthony Devine's recording on Naxos.

I don't know anything about Julian Anderson btw. I should look into that.

This isn't the most novel observation but it's something I've been reminded of and thinking about a lot recently, after seeing Hewitt and the Chamberfest concerts: the audience for classical music, at least in the US and Canada, seems to be so overwhelmingly, well, old. I might estimate the median age to be over 60, even at new music events. (This doesn't really apply to electroacoustic or improv ime, but does seem to be the case for notated acoustic music.) I don't exactly know if it's because there was more of a mainstream classical audience before the poptimism of the 60s and 70s or because there's something about the music that appeals more to people as they age, but the former seems far more likely, which is more concerning, since it would suggest that there will be almost no audience in a couple of decades (unless young people decide to take it up in rebellion against their decadent parents). In a real way, the Western art music tradition is arguably a foreign cultural tradition in the US and Canada so I suspect that things might be different in e.g. Germany or Italy?

I feel like the Proms with its significant focus on big new works that are frequently pretty damn challenging could never ever exist here. Idk I think the situation outside North America is just not as dire. But that's not first hand knowledge on my part.

I LOVE Ohana. He was on my ilx ballot! He has a great guitar concerto btw, Trois Graphiques, which was recorded by Narciso Yepes and the LSO in the LP era. Any of Ohana's stuff mixing voices and instrumentation (e.g. Office des Oracles) is fantastic.

Definitely my favorite of the composers I've stumbled onto in the last five years. I'm hoping to find some literature on him.

Premiere of La Boheme yesterday, that's one of the funniest things I've ever done. That second act is absolutely great, that is one of the greatest things ever, kinda. Apparently, it's famous amongst real opera choir singers as one of the most difficult things in the repertoire, because it's so illogical, which is fascinating to me. Absolutely fascinating, the way the mass of the people is interwoven with the soloists.

I might be slightly drunk still... You know what's awesome? Going to a bar with a piano with an opera crew and having Rodolpho sing Nessun Dorma.

Reposting from experimental thread:

This is pretty cool: https://neuguitars.com/2017/08/14/video-dai-fujikura-sparking-orbit-for-electric-guitar-and-electronics-on-neuguitars-blog/

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Monday, 14 August 2017 12:57 (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

(A piece for electric guitar and electronic signal processing, with some actually lyrical and beautiful moments)

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Monday, 14 August 2017 13:14 (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Booklet here: https://www.kairos-music.com/sites/default/files/downloads/0013302KAI.pdf

I'll look into the Ohana pieces you mention, Jon.

I'm on a huge Schoenberg kick these days, in part because I'm reading Adorno but it just feels right for the times somehow.

This seems like a good place to start for data on the aging audience btw: http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2011/03/age_of_the_audience.html
The NEA studies can be Googled fairly easily.

I was at the Schoenberg Gurrelieder conducted by Simon Rattle last night, and yeah, it was spectacular. Great structuring, but masses of detail too. If you can listen on BBC iplayer, check it out!

Good to hear you're keeping up with the proms, Jon. I agree, the commisioned pieces are a treat.

I'm streaming it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/em9whn/play/amnn5v/b091w7fy

So far, wow. It's not like the Schoenberg I listen to the most but it's p impressive so far.

HI DERE. Been meaning to say I saw some Mexican classical guitarist play in my neighborhood last Sunday and it was pretty good. And her name was... Zaira Meneses.

Got a great CD in the mail recently that I'll be reviewing; it's called Dowland & Benjamin: Seven Tears Upon Silence. It's by a group called Sit Fast who are five violists, joined here by a mezzo-soprano and a flautist. They perform John Dowland's Lachrimae or Seaven Teares, which is from 1600 or so, followed by George Benjamin's Upon Silence for mezzo-soprano and five viols, which is from 1990. It's really beautiful. It's on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/72XsbQNnP6NAr0IQipSK73

The classical label Ablaze has brought out a new music comp called The Pierrot Ensemble Vol. 1. About a half dozen composers on there. Assuming it is what it looks like, great idea.

I remember DG doing an online-only album of pieces inspired by Debussy's trio instrumentation years ago. I like this kind of thing.

There's a concert in NYC next month with a new work by Anna Thorvaldsdottir plus a Pauline oliveros piece; I'm totally going

I went to this! Were you there jon? I thought the Thorvaldsdottir piece was nice; the rest was emperor's new clothes.

btw, I've fixed up the playlist.

ILM's Rolling Classical Thread 2017 Spotify Playlist

No I couldn't go and I'm still bitter about it. Let's just say I found myself with not enough money in my bank account to buy a ticket and leave it at that :(

I'm sure the Thorvaldsdottir piece will get recorded soon.

Finally got that new John Luther Adams Canticles album. Staggeringly good, cannot wait to listen again.

Wanted to quickly tell fans of late Scriabin to check out Jolivet's Danses Rituelles for solo piano.

Enjoying this classical guitar sonata, apparently written in 1989. Second and third movements are especially lovely. Might actually appeal to some of the post-Fahey crowd?: https://soundcloud.com/carlos-bojarski/sets/carlos-bojarski-guitar-john-zammitpace-classical-guitar-sonata-op-88-no-1 . Something about the last movement made me think a bit of 70s Rush in a weird way.

I mean, partly I just really enjoy Carlos's sound and playing. Piece is contemporary return-to-tonality stuff but it's pretty.

I'm gonna loudly ring the tuomas frederick b and djp alarm here for Andre Caplet's Le Miroir de Jesus, a new acquisition for me. Almost an hour of ravishing spellbinding choir-with-instrumental-ensemble ritualizing.

A recording of Alberto Posadas's Sombras (Shadows) will be released tomorrow (or today if you're across the pond). I was bowled over by his Liturgia fractal for string quartet so I'm curious to hear how he negotiates the addition of a soprano and a clarinet. Here's an excerpt featuring the incredible Sarah Maria Sun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1SADwo8IEU

As a side note, I'm glad to see Romanian is gaining traction as a language worth setting to 'serious' music. La tentación de las sombras is based on Emil Cioran's Cartea amăgirilor (The Book of Delusions) and a few years back György Kurtág's Colindă-Baladă, for tenor, choir and orchestra, took its verbal and musical cues from Romanian folk songs.

Has that kurtag piece been recorded?

Yep, ECM released it this summer as part of Kurtág's Complete Works for Ensemble and Choir, which is a bit of a misnomer – quite a few of the compositions therein are for solo vocalist and ensemble. It's a great set, though occasionally a little too languid when compared to the old Hungaroton recordings:

https://www.ecmrecords.com/catalogue/1484665725/gyorgy-kurtag-complete-works-for-ensemble-and-choir-asko-schonberg-netherlands-radio-choir-reinbert-de-leeuw

oh my god, cioran no longer just for black metal then, eh?

I've never heard of Posadas before but that piece is really good! I will definitely investigate further.

I bought Unbound by the Jasper String Quartet recently and have been listening a fair bit. Pieces by big-name mostly NYC/NJ-based composers. The Gosfield piece is by far the best but the Lang and Shaw are really enjoyable too.

Was listening to various recordings of Saariaho's NoaNoa today while prepping tomorrow's lecture. It's really a remarkable sensuous piece. Based on recordings, I think I might even like the Macbook versions more than the old IRCAM version.

Ha, Emma Resmini is 17.

Yeah, NoaNoa is absolutely amazing, though nowadays it brings to mind, by way of contrast, the tedium of most of Saariaho's postmillenial output.

A piece on Claude Vivier in the NYT today!

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/29/arts/music/review-claude-vivier-canada.html?emc=edit_th_20171030&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=5939657

Wow, will read. On the topic of Canadian music, this new release by the Victoria Guitar Trio, consisting entirely of works by contemporary BC composers, is really enjoyable. I'm planning to buy it. The Nobles pieces make good use of the microtonality that is afforded by the use of harmonics. Some nice interplay between percussive techniques and rhythmic pitched material in the Godin. Sharman also uses a lot of harmonics to bring out pleasant melodic material in "Suspended Waltz". "The Nagual's Dream" is a cool thing for guitar trio + a recorded part made from processed guitar samples.

Thanks for the NYT piece, JNJ, I look forward to reading it!

I'll be sure to check out that album, sund4r. I'm awfully, hopelessly Eurocentric when it comes to so-called 'classical' music and hence consistently struggle with North American composers, barring a few names (Claude Vivier, Aaron Cassidy, Joshua Fineberg, for instance, all of whom have/had close ties to European institutions). Canadian music (and, frankly, culture) remains a blind spot for me despite having spent the better part of my life in this country.

Ha, I have a lot of inchoate thoughts about those matters that I should probably sort through before posting them on the Internet. I'll just note that I'm almost the opposite wrt contemporary music. (Obv, everyone is Eurocentric about pre-WW2 art music.)

Inchoate though they may be, I'd be curious to read them.

Anyhow, one necessarily reductive way of looking at the divide is that I find contemporary North American art music to be more easy-going, perhaps because it is less awed by past models. I do not share this relative lack of anxiety, alas, and thus prefer the strenuous sublimity of contemporary European art music.

Having written this just now, I can think of innumerably many objections, but I'll let it stand for what it is.

For what it's worth, I very much enjoyed Concentric Rings (the James Nobles piece). It favourably reminded me of Per Nørgård's output for guitar, especially his late 1960s/early to mid 1970s 'infinity series' period (echoes of Takemitsu, too, which is always a plus). Temporal Waves strikes me as marginally less successful, perhaps because I'm wary of its NYC arpeggios. Godin's On Poetics is insufferable – the worst kind of faux-theatrical genre-hopping, drenched in superfluous irony. Suspended Waltz is genuinely pretty and September's reminiscences of a detuned harpsichord made me want to acquaint myself further with Sharman's music (I later remembered that two of his piano transcriptions were featured on a CD recital by Ortwin Stürmer, who notably recorded Horațiu Rădulescu's 'Lao Tsu' sonatas). I found The Nagual's Dream to be conceptually promising but ultimately tedious in its execution and Roark's work irritated me only slightly less than Godin's. Still, I'm glad I listened to the whole thing and would love to hear more stuff by Sharman.

I agree with you that "Concentric Rings" and the Sharman pieces are the best but I also have a higher tolerance for NYC arpeggios and flighty genre-hopping.

Outside of guitar repertoire, the first contemporary composers I really loved as a youth before knowing much of anything were Cage, Branca, and the minimalists (+ Zappa if he counts). I ended up going to the States for my PhD and, ironically, it seemed like most people in that programme revered European composers and European festivals and institutes. (4aron C4ssidy graduated a year or two before I started. I never knew him.) That world just somehow felt/feels a bit distant and impenetrable and idk if it's somewhere I could ever find a place (UK possibly excepted), but tbh, I really don't know much about it and haven't kept up. It's probably just a matter of being (very ambivalenty) a minor part of one (problematic in its own way) scene and not even really having a read on how things work in continental Europe. Occasionally, I'll check out what a former colleague has been doing since moving to France or Germany.

Tbh, I'm thinking now that maybe a lot of what I was exposed to was American composers or players who had moved to Europe or Europeans who had moved to the US more than Europeans from Europe.

It's also a matter of background. In my case, I never studied music formally so I haven't been in touch with local institutions that would have otherwise shaped my tastes. I also come from a European country so the desire to explore 'my' history was perhaps greater, if founded on an illusion. Anyhow, one thing that I simultaneously like and dislike about the North American approach is that there appears to be less of a dichotomy between so-called serious art and pop culture (in the broadest sense of the term). I listen to a lot of classical, but it's no substitute for metal, jazz, electronic, folk, pop, ambient, etc., and I feel like this is viewed as an incontrovertible fact on this side of the Atlantic. That being said, I generally find 'crossover' attempts, more prevalent in North America as a result of this ethos, to be rather uninteresting – they merely make me yearn to hear each individual component in isolation. This is hardly an absolute rule, though. It just shows how difficult it is to synthesize wildly divergent strands. For instance, I think of Fausto Romitelli as someone who successfully bridged the gap between Grisey and psych rock but very few names ultimately come to mind.

I find contemporary North American art music to be more easy-going, perhaps because it is less awed by past models

there appears to be less of a dichotomy between so-called serious art and pop culture (in the broadest sense of the term). I listen to a lot of classical, but it's no substitute for metal, jazz, electronic, folk, pop, ambient, etc., and I feel like this is viewed as an incontrovertible fact on this side of the Atlantic.

Yes, these are my main impressions of the key differences as well. Are there Euro equivalents of e.g. Eric Whitacre or even John Luther Adams or, say, Caroline Shaw? Would someone like Hauschka or Fennesz ever play a 'new music' festival in Germany or Austria? Maybe they would?

I saw the concert listed here today, which included a few premieres. I wasn't familiar with any of the composers beforehand but enjoyed much of it. The Gary Nash piece is listed incorrectly: Sui Generis Bastion is the title; this piece was my favourite. Made me think of Bartok at times; just really good varied solo viola writing with a nice balance of techniques and memorable motifs to hang on to. The Holland pieces were also good, especially Synchrony, which combined recorded speech with instrumental writing (including some inside-the-piano stuff).

I've been listening to Sonata for Harp by young-ish Yale composer Hannah Lash a lot after buying it a couple of days ago. I find I get more out of it the more I listen. It's satisfying to hear a contemporary (and musically modern) piece that makes effective use of a classical form like this, without being neo-Romantic schlock. I think of Debussy at some moments and, oddly, even a bit of Chopin during the second movement. (If only neo-Romanticism actually sounded like that more often.) Kind of gets me on the edge of my seat sometimes.

Not bad. Still too neo-Romantic for me – some melodic turns of phrase even brought Joseph Kosma to mind – but its unpretentiousness is welcome.

I don't know Kosma that well tbh. (Obv, "Autumn Leaves" is a classic.) Ime, though, in an American context, 'neo-Romanticism' usually refers to a sort of bombastic syrupy orchestral music that has little to do with what I love in Schubert or Chopin. (I don't even necessarily have something against bombast and syrup per se but this style of orchestral writing just doesn't speak to me.)