Rolling Classical 2018

Just bought tickets to see Adès conduct the Ligeti violin concerto (as well as Beethoven 8, an Adès piece, and a Stravinsky piece) this weekend.

Good program, though I have little experience with Adès as a conductor beyond his own music, which strikes me as relatively hit-or-miss.

It was spectacular to see the violin concerto live, with those microtones ringing in Boston's Symphony Hall. Hadelich's playing was beautiful, really precise and clean compared to the Astrand recording I'm familiar with. The third and fourth movements were especially intense and the aria movement was poignant. I admit to drifting a little in the fifth, not sure if it was just because I'd already been through the rest or because Astrand's approach may have worked better for me with that one; still, one of the best live music experiences.

Also, that was my first time at the BSO and the first time I've actually experienced a classical audience that seems as posh as the stereotype. Different from what I'm used to and a bit weird. A surprising number of people were talking and sometimes even laughing at moments during the Ligeti.

Also, I've had something playing in my head that I kept trying to place for the last couple of days. I finally realized maybe five minutes ago that it's the opening of Bartok's 4th string quartet.

the fourth has some great earworms, maybe my favorite of his quartets

Wtg Grammy winner Hannigan! I should remember to purchase Crazy Girl Crazy. I haven't listened to the Higdon viola concerto yet, although I did enjoy "All Things Must Pass".

New Reich album coming out btw. The movement they're releasing early is not really a departure for him but still effective, with some complex rhythms going on and nice melodic motives: http://smarturl.it/PulseQuartet?iqid=gm.us.fb

Excellent news! Hannigan deserves as much exposure as she can get.

xp

Listening again, I really appreciate how the form of the Reich movement is crafted.

Ugh, I meant "All Things Majestic".

So Barbara Hannigan didn't win the Sonning Award after all. But Hans Abrahamsen did. So she'll be in Denmark performing Let Me Tell You and other works next year! Now I have to figure out how to get tickets...

I love Abrahamsen, though as a home listener I am a wee bit confused by these endlessly proliferating recordings of his first string quartet. What's wrong with its follow-ups?

They're playing his forth string quartet as well. Should I go see it?

I'd say yes, but I'm rather fond of his music, as well as a sucker for string quartets in general.

You can check out the Ardittis' recording on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/5RpogjWbEWPt8C8QUuyYxl

For a not-as-enthusiastic (and, to me, amusing) take on it: http://5against4.com/2013/02/03/hcmf-2012-arditti-quartet/

Breaking up the English contingent was Hans Abrahamsen, and there was a clear sense of expectation for the first UK performance of his String Quartet No. 4, completed in 2012 having been commissioned over twenty years ago. One can only imagine how that time was spent, as the result is 21 of the most wretched minutes i’ve ever spent in a concert hall. In many ways, it presents a more extreme version of Archbold’s Nine memos, only in Abrahamsen’s quartet just four behaviours are explored: high harmonic counterpoint, alternating between solo and tutti passages; the same interspersed with col legno passagework and episodes redolent of viol music; plodding pizzicato counterpoint, again with solo and tutti contrasts; and delicate twirling material that Abrahamsen likens to “the ‘babbling’ of a child”. All four movements cling to their mannerisms as though nailed to the floor, exhausting all interest in moments but continuing relentlessly for minutes on end. It’s bad enough that such dull, lazy music as this should be written in the first place, but then to claim—somewhat triumphantly—to have spent two decades working on it is, frankly, to piss all over your chips.

Just listening to Alexander Melnikov's Four Pianos, Four Pieces, namely Schubert's Wanderer-Fantasie, Chopin's Etudes, Liszt's Réminiscences de 'Don Juan', and Stravinsky's Three Pieces from 'Petrushka'. A nifty concept, played as well as you'd expect by a Sviatoslav Richter pupil. I can't wait for him to start recording Beethoven's sonatas and concertos.

I don’t have him in any solo recordings but in several chamber music recordings with Isabelle Faust et al where he is excellent

On an unrelated note, fans of Saariaho's pre-2000 output should check out this performance of Helena Tulve's Extinction des choses vues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keNVBPOyFx4

melnikov's shostakovich preludes/fugues recording is great!

Will look into all of this. Tulve sounds really good so far. The best thing I've been listening to recently is probably Kate Soper's Nadja for soprano and string quartet from a year ago. It gets pretty intense and satisfying. Some great noisy string bits: https://soundcloud.com/ateoper/sets/nadja

John Gordon Armstrong's Space Within for Julian Bertino on 10-string guitar (both guys I know tbf): http://www.johngordonarmstrong.com/the-space-within/

Nicholas Omiccioli's Field Well for chamber winds is a fairly open composition, I gather, with a lot of extended techniques. Works in a loose sound mass sort of way: https://soundcloud.com/nicholas-omiccioli/the-field-well-2017-for-chamber-winds

Thanks, Sund4r, I'll check them out in a bit.

Of the three, my preference goes to Omiccioli. I like that he filed the piece under 'ambient' on Soundcloud - it's a type of crossover I'm invariably happy to hear. I enjoyed Armstrong's piece as well, and would love to hear a higher quality recording of it (was this sub-128 kbps?). Soper elicited mixed feelings: I'm mostly on board with her string writing (she should write a purely instrumental string quartet) but the vocal lines sounded kind of awkward to my ears, a little too hesitant for comfort (nor did that appear to be the desired effect). The Breton setting struck me as marginally more successful on that front, though for admittedly personal reasons the irruption of speaking voices reciting parts of the English translation of Nadja in a casual North American accent didn't move me or even strike me as particularly thought-provoking, for that matter. Interesting stuff nonetheless.

would love to hear a higher quality recording of it

Yeah, it's definitely not a top-notch recording, just a document of that performance. I think it's very possible that there may be better-quality recordings to come.

Yep, the Tulve piece is pretty much what I've been looking for. It must be magnificent in the concert hall! What's that one dude blowing into? Some sort of rubber tubing??

Btw, Armstrong's Music for Solo Guitar, from last year, is very good. I've been listening to it all the time.

RIP Klaus K. Hübler: https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2018/03/05/rip-klaus-k-hubler/

Listening to Donnacha Dennehy for St. Patrick's Day: https://bedroomcommunity.bandcamp.com/album/tessellatum

Thanks for the link. I’m familiar with the name but have yet to hear his music.

FINALLY tracked down the Rostropovich/Ozawa/Boston recording of the 2nd Shostakovich cello concerto. Was not disappointed in the slightest. Fuckin' A. Is there anything better in all of music than the last minute of the finale?

Other pieces obsessing over last coupla weeks:

Schumann Dichterliebe (i've been a fiend for his solo piano corpus for over twenty years and only now do i finally realize how great the song sets that come right after the solo piano phase really are!)

Berlioz Faust (now I know why I never clicked with this piece: the Colin Davis/Philips version is fucking boring, that's why. Hello Paul Paray live bootleg and JE Gardiner proms 2017 broadcast)

Ohana - just keeps getting better the more I hear of him. Definitely one of my top 10 20th c composers by now.

Shostakovich Symphony 10 - Svetlanov mid 1960s on Melodiya. Monstrously overwhelming version. Fantastic sound for russia at that time.

Ohana hasn't quite clicked for me yet, but I'm sure it'll happen someday. I need to give those Erato recordings another shot.

I didn’t know about those until quite recently. I had been working my way through the series on the Timpani label (which I think originally came out on a different label). I’d say my favorite piece atm is Office des Oracles.

If memory serves, the Timpani series also features some of his very last works, so it's probably a better way to get acquainted with his different periods than the Erato recordings. Both leave out his etudes for piano, which are characteristically unusual in that the final two include a part for percussion. I have a version with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (one of my favourite Debussyans) lying somewhere and should dig it up. There's also his string quartets, which I haven't explored at all. The Quatuor Psophos, whose Debussy/Ravel/Dutilleux disk impressed me last year, recorded the Ohana set back in 2004 and I'm sure they make for fine guides throughout.

Too bad I'm still furiously struggling to catch up with the (mostly non-classical) stuff I missed out on last year… I'll get there eventually.

I have the Etudes by Symeonidas (sp) - would like to hear bavouzet. I had better buy it from iTunes before you can’t buy things from iTunes anymore.

With all the harp talk going on now, I thought I'd note that I've really been enjoying this new quasi-minimalist harp quartet by John Gordon Armstrong. It's on the accessible, energetic end but I don't think it's fluffy at all, really:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51pfUV28nBg

Some highlights from the MusCan contemporary music concert on Thursday night:
Edgar Sulski - Polaris-Nocturne:
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That was a test. Sulski's Polaris-Nocturne:

https://m.facebook.com/video_redirect/?src=https%3A%2F%2Fscontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net%2Fv%2Ft42.1790-29%2F10000000_919055688268021_5428053430453141504_n.mp4%3F_nc_cat%3D0%26efg%3DeyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InNkIn0%253D%26oh%3D846606cd3450e97530c5b76a4949a166%26oe%3D5B09B18B&source=misc&id=1839983359393468&refid=52&__tn__=FH-R

Illkim Tongur - Old Shaman:

https://www.facebook.com/MusCanSoc/videos/1840024262722711/

Gabriel Dharmoo - the fog in our poise:

https://www.facebook.com/MusCanSoc/videos/1840043936054077/

Fantastic new Nick Omiccioli piece called "The Haunted Sea" for amplified soprano and string quartet. Nice evocation of wind and water sounds with extended vocal and string timbres: https://soundcloud.com/nicholas-omiccioli/haunted-seas-2018-for-amplified-soprano-string-quartet

"Haunted Seas", sorry

Thanks for these, Sund4r. I've too little time to properly listen to them at the moment but they haven't gone unnoticed!

Luis Aracama's take on Mompou's Música callada is sounding quite perfect at the moment. I'm liking it even more than Herbert Henck's, partly because it hasn't been filtered through Manfred Eicher's proverbial reverb (which I usually love btw).

I’ve never heard any performance but henck’s, and it’s been many years

I should revisit

Finally got around to those pieces Sund4r posted upthread. As expected, I really liked Omiccioli's Haunted Seas – based on this and Field Well, I'd love to hear a monograph of his work. Armstrong's Burst! was pleasant, but I doubt I'll return to it any time soon. I didn't much care for any of the MusCan pieces, unfortunately, except perhaps, and only in parts, for the Suski and Dharmoo.

RIP Gennady Rozhdestvensky: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/17/gennady-rozhdestvensky-obituary

His recording of Gubaidulina's sole Symphony is still one of my favourite things ever.

Insanely wide repertoire.

There’s a download release via iTunes emusic etc from melodiya, in their newer remasters program, of rozhdy leading all the Prokofiev ballets. Wonderful performances of course, and though Romeo and Cinderella are earlier recordings in rough sound quality, all the obscurer ballets now sound just gorgeous compared to older melodiya versions - this digital box set is cheap and invaluable.

Heh: http://5against4.com/2018/07/19/proms-2018-caroline-shaw-second-essay-echo-third-essay-ruby-world-premieres/

Saw that on the news group yesterday definitely gonna download it

I have some classical thoughts from my last couple weeks listening but I’m too frayed to type them rn

I wanted to love the pieces because the reviewer came off as a dick but they feel pretty underwritten and forgettable tbh. "Valencia" from last year's Jasper String Quartet album was better. I sometimes wonder if she's actually fairly limited as a composer and just managed to hit the jackpot when she wrote Partita for Eight Voices.

This year's Chamberfest looks a little less exciting than usual but I'm very excited about two concerts: Angela Hewitt playing all of WTC, Bk 1, and a performance of Le marteau sans maitre, neither of which I have seen performed live in their entirety before.

same here starting in two hours

but only til wednesday

to the side. to the side. to the side and around. through the middle and. to the side. to the side. to the side and around. through the middle and. to the side. to the side. to thesidetothesidetothesideandaroundtothesideandaroundandaround. to the side, two three four. and fiveacrosssix seven eight, through the midpoint, uppertwolinethreedrawnfourfromtheleftfourleftfivesidesixleftalabandesideleftahahahahahahahahahahahahaahaahahahaa AAAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAAAA

it's only 25 minutes Lechera, totally worth it.

Shaw's chamber pc Valencia was performed a couple of weeks ago at Scholes St Studio which is quite close to my house and has a chamber music series, I lamed out and I feel dumb about that. Also on the bill was the 2nd Brahms Quintet which I adore. I don't get myself sometimes.

amendment, i almost NEVER get myself

Valencia = the string quartet that Jasper SQ recorded on Unbound? In the end, I just never felt like that piece hung together, formally, nor that the parts were remarkable enough in themselves to overcome that isssue, unless I just didn't understand it. Maybe it would work better live?

Following up on this post in 2016 Rolling Classical Listening Thread about taonga pūoro, traditional Māori instruments

Two new albums feature taonga pūoro:

A compilation of pieces by Richard Nunns, Mahi (Works)

- https://rattle-records.bandcamp.com/album/mahi

The book gathers together an enormous amount of the current knowledge about taonga puoro, and will undoubtedly be the most important written resource in existence on the subject. It also charts the many other paths that Richard has taken with the music, including the huge variety of recordings he has done, his sound-track work, and his playing in other genres, such as free jazz and classical. - (Rattle.co.nz)

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a4282364086_7.jpg https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0727883899_7.jpg

And a new work by Al Fraser, Toitū Te Pūoro (~The music remains), featuring Ariana Tikao on "Hikoi"

- https://rattle-records.bandcamp.com/album/toitu-te-pu-oro

Subtle and strident, of this world and yet not of this world, this album is as close as we are likely to get to a recorded impression of the sounds of our land and water, of our ancient Aotearoa. Only someone who has committed to the kind of apprenticeship Al Fraser has gone on with taonga puoro could have created this album. Our cultural landscape is richer for his work and dedication. - (Jacquie Walters, Music.net.nz)