Rolling Classical 2019

love it

Kocsis was turning out to be such an awesome conductor and I really wanted him to record more orchestral Liszt or at least broadcast more of it - especially the arrangements he was making of the late piano music.

Gielen festival in here this past week - Zimmerman requiem for a young poet, Liszt Dante symphony, stuff I’ve never heard before by Jorge Lopez, Strauss Metamorphosen from his Cincinnati days, and his amazing haensler studio recording of Mahler’s 7th.

I forgot to reply to your Gielen post upthread (I mentioned it on ILX's rolling obituary thread amidst the usual indifference) but yeah, what a giant of a man. I've never heard a recording of his that I didn't like. The pre-box set Mahler discs for Hänssler, padded with a cornucopia of modernist works, is a thing of beauty – and it's instructive, to boot.

In general, the guys who held longtime posts with german radio orchestras were just fucking great, not only gielen but hans zender, ernest bour, i guess hans rosbaud was kind of the prototype. They and their bands could do EVERYTHING effectively, and did, and were almost always recorded doing it.

Otm. A shame that said orchestras are apparently underfunded these days – even Germany is giving up on classical music.

The libretto is hilarious and has the kids singing threateningly conservative jargonism at the audience interspersed with quotes from Cyclops's angry speech to Odysseus prior to eating a couple of his men (taken from three different sources)

dammit i should have marked my calendar

tbh was less excited about seeing them play with wye oak; that choir is a nuanced artist unto itself and i don't care much for people using them as an effect to sing over.

Eric Le Sage, one of my favourite living pianists, recently released his take on Gabriel Fauré's Nocturnes. I'd been waiting for this disc, as Le Sage's recordings of Fauré's chamber music were superlative and he has just the right tone for this music: a kind of Romantic detachment (if that makes sense?). Most pianists either overemphasize the pathos, which is alien to the more forbidding late-period works, or seek to neuter melody as much as possible (a far preferable approach in my opinion, but it has its limits). Le Sage gets the Nocturnes' ambiguity just right, and it suits them throughout, from 1875 to 1921. Rediscovering these pieces through his playing is a pleasure.

The Pulitzer winners are out. Ellen Reid wins for her opera 'Prism' about sexual assault. Heard a few excerpts, sounds really good! Other nominees were Andrew Norman for 'Sustain' which Alex Ross absolutely loved, and James Romig for 'Still' which can be heard here, and which is pretty cool and Feldman-like: http://www.jamesromig.com/still.html A lot of the chord-changes are pretty jarring.

I'm going to admit that I haven't heard of any of them but will dig in.

Did the jury have something against Invasion of Privacy?

The new Maja S. K. Ratkje album, featuring a modified pump organ, may be my favourite thing I've heard by her so far. Incidentally, I don't know if this is the most appropriate thread for it, but eh, who cares.

Oh wow, I saw her in 2013 and really liked it. I like the old Tzadik album (River Mouth Echoes??) so I should listen to this.

I quite liked River Mouth Echoes as well. I'd say this one is more approachable and consistent: it's a continuous single piece (a ballet score, in fact, inspired by Knut Hamsun's Hunger) born of a series of live improvisations for voice and prepared pump organ, rather than a showcase of works penned for different forces. Really beautiful stuff, I think you'll enjoy it.

Is it streaming anywhere?

It's on Apple Music. And Spotify as well, based on a cursory search.

On YT, as well, although the sound quality is bound to be iffy (I haven't tested it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_illXigaX4

Oh, I see it now. It's under "Maja S. K. Ratkje" and didn't turn up when I looked on the Spotify artist page for "Maja Ratkje" but it came up when I searched for "Sult".

That first clip from Reid's Prism is amazing! It actually made me think a bit of the Knife's Tomorrow in a Year for some reason. Listening to the Soundcloud excerpts now and this is nice so far. xp

This is what the augmented pump organ looks like btw:

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/0022742f170547419c40f92ead99adeb82234e09/0_503_6000_3600/master/6000.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=c347381a765208f808986fe96692b067

<3

The Ratkje album is really nice. I still don't pay for Spotify so the commercials spoiled the mood a little but the pieces were often more beautiful than I expect from her, and, you're right, it works as a consistent album.

Yeah, this one's got actual songs. She's a remarkably versatile artist, as a composer and performer both.

On the more traditional end of things, I'm finding Bomsori Kim and Rafał Blechacz's DG recital for violin and piano to be most enjoyable. It includes Fauré's first sonata, Debussy's lone effort in the genre and an early attempt (from 1904) by Szymanowski. The Fauré and Debussy are stunningly well played, as is the Szymanowski, but the work itself doesn't do it for me at all. I suspect my tolerance for late Romantic histrionics is higher than most people's, but the piece falls apart almost as soon as it begins, devolving into a catalogue of emotive fin de siècle clichés. Szymanowski appears to have only really hit his stride around 1914.

Put on the video of Still while making and eating breakfast. It started out sounding beautiful and sparse, then started driving me bonkers in the lack of development, and now (28m in), I'm just getting engrossed in the spaces and slight variations.

I quite like Still so far. It's eternally unfolding somewhere between Feldman's Triadic Memories and Pärt's Für Alina.

I haven't managed to find a recording of Andrew Norman's Sustain, alas. I might give Ellen Reid's opera a shot, but it's a genre I tend to dislike almost systematically, so I'll probably just skip it.

I don't think Sustain has been recorded at all, but if you want to hear Norman I'd say give Play a play or two. It's pretty great.

this maja s.k. ratkje record is lovely, thanks

Ratkje gave an incredible performance at the Rune Grammofon anniversary concerts in Oslo in December, and I love organ music, so I'm definitely gonna check this album out.

another thanks for the Ratkje; sizzles on first contact.

Glad you guys like it!

Went to the Hans Abrahamsen Leonie Sonning Award concert yesterday. Sat at fourth row and heard Barbara Hannigan sing Let Me Tell You. One of the biggest concert experiences I've had in a while. The program also consisted of Abrahamsens orchestrations of six Debussy pieces and his concert for left-handed piano called Left, Alone. Second half was good as well, but it was the first half that was awe-inspiring.

Abrahamsen has finished his first opera, based on the fairy tale The Snow Queen (or as it's known nowadays, Frozen) and in his version the snow queen character will be portrayed by a bass singer.

Jelly.

xp

Which Debussy pieces did he orchestrate and have they been recorded?

I won’t have money to go to this year’s Hannigan-led Ojai festival. I really wanted to.

Children's Corner. You might be able to stream the whole thing here? https://www.dr.dk/radio/p2/p2-koncerten/p2-koncerten-hans-abrahamsen-leonie-sonnings-musikpris-2019 If not, then I think the concert is broadcast in every EBU member, so it might show up someday :)

early warning for NYCers to add this to their calendar (looking at you jon)
July 25 – ICE plays Ashley Fure and Anna Thorvaldsdottir
http://www.lincolncenter.org/mostly-mozart-festival/show/fure-and-thorvaldsdottir

That's my birthday :D

Definitely want to go

Nice! And free! Gonna have to try and get to that.

I have little sympathy for what Michel Houellebecq has become (or revealed himself to be) in recent years, but I often think back on his simple description of Liszt's late music in The Map and the Territory (Houellebecq's best novel imho):

There is perhaps no music that expresses better than Franz Liszt’s last pieces of chamber music that funereal and gentle feeling of the old man whose friends are all dead, who in some way already belongs to the past and who in turn feels death approaching, who sees it as a sister, a friend, the promise of a return to the childhood home.

With this in mind, I've been listening to Cédric Tiberghien's recent recital for Hyperion, showcasing the third and last year of Liszt's Années de pèlerinage, as well as a smattering of pieces from the 1870s-1880s including the notorious Bagatelle sans tonalité, said to foreshadow Schoenberg. It's all wonderfully bleak for the most part, and played just right – a shame Tiberghien didn't record Nuages gris, however, although I suppose the disc's running time wouldn't have permitted it.

Oh, that sounds worth checkimg out.

*checking

i am obsessed with late liszt, not just the pieces houllebecq is referring to there but also the strange and whimsical dances (valses oubliees, mephisto waltzes, the bagatelle) which are just as resignedly forward-pushing as the laments

The late pieces sound especially great on a fortepiano - search out Andrea Bonatta's disc on Arcana. For the late dances, I am head over heels for Olivia Sham's Liszt recital 'The Art Of Remembering'. Brendel is incredible in the selection of late pieces he recorded. For 'Nuages Gris', Krystian Zimerman is almost hallucinatory.

There's a great disc of late liszt arranged for wind ensemble by the Netherlands Wind Ensemble and a disc on BMC of late liszt orchestral adaptations by a hungarian composer. Finally, Heinz Holliger made two incredible orchestrations which were recorded on an old Arte Nova disc.

Liszt himself did very little for orchestra at this point in his life BUT his final symphonic poem From the Cradle to the Grave is a stunning exception.

I'm with you, Jon: those bizarre dance-like pieces are just as fascinating as the dirges (incidentally, Tiberghien's recital includes the fourth Mephisto Waltz).

I must admit I'm not too keen on Bonatta's disc, however, due to a blind spot more than anything – I've never really warmed up to the sound of premodern pianos. But Zimerman's Liszt recital is an absolute favourite of mine and I love all things Holliger.

I'll check out the arrangements for wind instruments – I had no idea, so thanks for the tip. And yes, From the Cradle to the Grave, despite its short length, dwarfs the Dante and Faust symphonies both.

There's also an old Hungaroton disc featuring Liszt's works for harmonium (including an arrangement of the lovely Angelus, which also kicks off year three of the Années de pèlerinage), as well as cello & piano versions of Romance oubliée, La lugubre gondola and the two late Elegies. With Miklós Perényi, no less.

Speaking of which, I always come back to Alexis Descharmes and Sébastian Vichard's recordings of the works for cello & piano (all of them, including Tristia for piano trio, an 1880 transcription of an early work, which makes for a fascinating juxtaposition). It's a clichéd thing to say, but Liszt was such an incredible arranger, an undersung craft if ever there was one.

Saw this with Jon at The Stone and STRONGLY recommend it... Jon, you wanna go again on the 21?
https://roulette.org/event/travis-laplante-yarn-wire-inner-garden/

I was gonna ask you about that today! Yes I want to see it again man.

Great, hit me by email and let's get you a ticket.

http://5against4.com/2019/03/05/quatuor-bozzini-phill-niblock-baobab/

Quatuor Bozzini – Phill Niblock: Baobab

2 pieces of "uppercase ambient" from the impressive experimental string quartet that the reviewer says is a recording that recreates the brilliance of the live experience they encountered of them at the Hudds music festival.

https://quatuorbozzini-actuellecd.bandcamp.com/

and another:
Simon Martin : Musique d’art

Yes, but is it true ambient?

Kidding aside, I'll be sure to check them both of them out, thanks.