Rolling Classical 2019

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.

Anybody interested in a series of decade-by-decade polls, starting in the 1800s? Just the works, curated by yours truly – we can discuss our preferred recordings as we go along. I was initially planning on doing albums, but it's too much of a hassle in the context of classical music.

Yes me interested

Well, as long as there's two of us… :)

I'll get started on it very soon.

I'll vote as well, if I know the things :)

It'll be chockfull of 19th and early 20th century warhorses. It's gonna get trickier post-1945, but that's just part of the fun.

Starting point? 1820s?

Here for it, mostly to learn

I say we start in the 1800s, lest we miss out on Beethoven’s middle period.

Ballot polls or poll threads?

We did this once, for anyone who missed it: POLLERO!: ILM's Top 100 Notated Pieces of Music Since 1890

Oh, cool, I had no idea. Thanks.

I was thinking poll threads (one per decade), which I assume we haven't done before.

Nice idea. I'm happy to be schooled.

Poll threads sound great. I was a little nervous about doing that many ballot polls. :)

Understandably so! I'm going to do it pfunkboy/Michael B-style, which means there are bound to be some grave omissions, for which I'll profusely apologize in each thread.

I have to say, I mostly know about choral works...

Starting with 1800-1810 is fine by me! Op. 32 is one of my favorite things Beethoven ever did. I was just thinking that once you get to the 1820s you get some Beethoven vs Schubert suspense whereas for the 00s and 10s you've got Beethoven and... everyone else (well Rossini tbf)

You're right, of course. Beethoven will undoubtedly dwarf everyone else in the 00s but papa Haydn was still around (The Seasons, the final two Masses) and some minor masterpieces were penned around that time, such as Boieldieu's Harp Concerto. I'll try my best to make it a little less obvious…

I greatly anticipate this educational experience; I look forward to campaigning heavily for Quartet for the end of time 15 polls in

I suspect there's be a good excuse to listen to the late quartets again. And then I'll definitely vote for Symphonie Fantastique :)

Best 'first symphony' in classical music history tbh

In case you missed it:

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Classical Compositions of… the 1800s (the decade, that is. Also, this is Totally-Not-a-Middle-Period-Beethoven-Poll)

OK wow I just paid attention to Poulenc for the first time today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V87wGyfUQiQ

the 1810s thread has me digging into augustin hadelich. he's far too "shreddy" for my tastes. the recording of ligeti's violin concerto from this year is not bad- ligeti being a fairly astringent composer anyway - but this new cadenza by thomas ades, what the fuck, it is so bad and not in keeping with the rest of the piece. well i guess one can just stop listening after the fourth movement...

special mention of note has to go out to the really hideous cover art as well

Shreddy, really? I don't get that sense from Hadelich's Paganini at all. If anything, he gives the Caprices their due as proper music, which may or may not be a good thing.

Agree about the Adès cadenza, however. I could do without Adès's music altogether tbh, it's thoroughly mediocre.

love this Henriëtte Bosmans string quartet

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

Oh, thanks. I hadn't heard of her before but that is a nice discovery.

getting unreasonably obsessed with kurt atterberg's piano concerto

I listened to a set of his symphonies a few years ago and found them unmemorably conservative compared to, say, Stenhammar's 2nd, but I'd be curious to hear his Piano Concerto.

it doesn't really do anything novel, just a nice bit of post-romanticism

CBC's favourite Canadian classical albums of 2019: https://www.cbc.ca/music/our-20-favourite-canadian-classical-albums-of-2019-1.5335275?fbclid=IwAR01WQkjnQNtjLetJWsIk4KdMdpEMzChySg1jo8FFg9MWoOiJa0zovIJqjU

I wasn't going to post about Cicchillitti-Cowan since they are friends/colleagues but, yes, the album is really good. The Stafylakis piece actually integrates some metal influences into classical guitar music. Emily Shaw's Vespers and Cowan's Arctic Sonata also v good classical guitar albums from Ottawa/Montreal from this year.

Thanks, I'll check 'em out.

That Lisiecki and Abdrazakov are Canadian is news to me.

Lisiecki is from Calgary. Abdrakazakov seems to be Russian - they're probably counting that one bc of Orchestre Métropolitain?