Rolling Classical 2019

Who tf writes operas?

My inkling is that they're more popular on this side of the pond.

i know a bunch of opera writers but i think that's a lol nyc thing

wait lol the david moss in olga neuwirth's lynch opera is the same david moss who I have demolishing the human throat on an old LP with Tom Cora? Man I totally forgot about him! Downloading!

I wrote something up today during a catastrophic system outage but I feel like leaving it more as background for myself.

I kind of take a different tack towards the issue than you. I think Florent Schmitt, the man, should be remembered, but if given the opportunity I think that I should destroy every note that he ever wrote, as a counter-proposal to the theory that one can "separate the art from the artist".

I'm all for such experiments.

Obv someone is writing these operas but ime most composers don't have as much access to orchestras or operas, especially if they are younger/less-connected/less-conservative, so it's not where I usually see the most activity in new music. I'll freely admit, though, that I don't spend that much time seeking out new operas and mostly prefer solo or chamber music anyway, so my gauge could be off.

In any event, I'm listening to Let Me Tell You for the first time and liking it fairly well so far.

The notion that operas are, well, the magna opera of the classical tradition as a whole irritates me to no end (like when literature is assumed to be synonymous with narrative, at the expense of poetry), so my go-to stance is correctively anti-operatic. Which isn't to say that I dislike the form (I am currently listening to Pascal Dusapin's Penthesilea and am finding it quite excellent so far) but, like you, I tend to prefer solo and chamber music as well.

Seeing Barbara Hannigan sing Let Me Tell You from the third row was one of the bigger musical experiences I've had lately.

Prism II, new ECM from Danish String Quartet, has Well Tempered Clavier, Beethoven's String Quartet #13 and String Quartet #3 by Alfred Schnittke (who i won't pretend I know). seems lovely on first spin

Yeah, it's wonderful. The first instalment is worth hearing as well.

Oh, didn't know it was out yet! Yeah, really looking forward to hearing that. Also, as I'm bragging about concerts I've been to, hearing the last night of the Beethoven cycle the Danish String Quartet did last fall was pretty incredible. Even if 16 is a bit of an anticlimax coming after 14.

Would anyone be up for a poll of the Guardian list, btw? I only really know three of the pieces, but I'd try and check some more of it.

Not crazy about most of their picks tbh but why not? I look forward to Noodle Vague's spinoff.

Yeah, that would definitely be the best part.

Anyways, I'll try and set it up later.

Sounds good. Thanks!

i don't know how i'd go about generating the entries for a spin-off because there's no equivalency to sales, except obviously i'd add Gaz's Quatuor pour la fin du Trumps

Make it all André Rieu, Max Richter and John Williams. Oh, and Sting.

Trans Siberian imo

And “Two Steps to Hell” or whatever those trailer guys call themselves

Number one is clearly Hans Zimmer's soundtrack to Dunkirk.

Yesssss! Two Steps from Hell iirc.

xp

Come to think of it, Jeremy Soule would also be a good fit.

True but not lol enough

You're right, not to mention needlessly edgy in light of recent events.

Top opera = The Black Parade

Here's the crutch we needed:

https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-biggest-selling-classical-albums-of-the-last-25-years-in-the-uk-revealed__20262/

Maybe too raucous, actually. Not calm and relaxing like classical music is supposed to be. xp

Ah, that chart: that's real music right there.

At a first pass, I'm tempted to go with The Priests.

bingo

Never forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVAp7e5zFaM

Oh look, Norman Lebrecht has an opinion again. He disagrees with The Guardian's top 25, which only overlaps with his own top 20 by about 8 composers.

https://slippedisc.com/2019/09/best-works-of-the-21st-century/

Poll: New Cat Power

wtf...

Credit where due, lebrecht’s 20th century music guide was a helpful starting point for me when I started digging in in 1996, but he really is a crank.

Titanic is legit the best thing on that linked top 20 (tbh despite some hella cornball opuses Horner was the real deal and certainly makes most film composers working now look like ants)

I really enjoyed this performance of Debussy's Six Epigraphes antiques:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08WYwr4eUsg

Giving concerts this week with some of the best choral music I have ever sung. Or at least, it's some of the most fun to sing ever, I don't know how it feels to listen to. Per Nørgårds Wie Ein Kind. Listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Lvkc0I4Ak
So much fun. I want to learn it by heart and sing it at bars.

Just listened to the new recording of Aaron Jay Kernis's Flute Concerto, which is pretty fun and energetic. Three of the four movements are based on old dance rhythms (barcarole, pavan, tarantelle) and the other is a pastorale. I'd want to listen more to break down more of what's going on harmonically but it was an enjoyable casual first listen. Kernis credits Jethro Tull as an influence on the fourth movement! Idk how well I heard it.

I just ordered the Philip Thomas 5CD box of Morton Feldman solo piano music from the Another Timbre label and they sent me a download link for a FLAC file of Triadic Memories, which is 90 minutes long and thus split between discs 3 and 4. So they're good folks and I recommend purchasing this set from them if you want one. (It's actually a little cheaper on their website than on Bandcamp.)

It’s excellent, but I think I’m burnt out on Feldman at this point.

https://jessicapavone.bandcamp.com/album/brick-and-mortar

this is a rather beautiful two violins, two violas quartet.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Btw, Hannes Kerschbaumer's first Kairos monograph is thoroughly worth investigating as well:

https://www.kairos-music.com/cds/0015060kai

'Schraffur' is an interesting term and a very apt description of his sound world. I'm not well versed in artistic techniques at all but it apparently means 'hatching' in English:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatching

I have no idea why Andris Nelsons is touted as the greatest living conductor, but his Beethoven cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic is a solid return to the MOR approach of the 1960s and 1970s, somewhere between Böhm, Szell and Karajan, I guess, which isn't a bad thing, since it comes with the added benefit of modern engineering.

i saw the pavone quartet live last week; i may be a rube but it was so minimal and muted (and weirdly lit! they played in the dark with only stand lights) that i made at least two "are they done tuning yet?" gag whispers to my plus one. the moments where melody crested up to swirl about a bit and then get sucked back down were quite nice but after forty minutes it didn't offer a lot more than what i heard in the first five.

I'll give that Nelsons set a try; the only Beethoven cycle I own is the Chailly box on Decca, and that gets pretty symphonic power metal at times. I might like something a little more settled.

Yeah, I don't get Chailly's aesthetic at all. Abbado's second (live) BPO set has similar aims and blows it out of the water.

Fun excerpt on how 'out' Bach was in his own time, from Gioia's new book:

“They never learned about Bach pulling a knife on a fellow musician during a street fight. They never heard about his drinking exploits.” https://t.co/4t8HuyaorK

— Jeff Beck (@jeffnbeck) October 16, 2019

Heh, I had no idea.

Cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir is giving a solo performance at Scandinavia House in NYC on Thursday night. I'm thinking about going; I interviewed her back in June, and her album Vernacular is great.

Album was alright, a little too conservative for my money.