Rolling Classical 2020

I thought this essay on Wagner and his anti-Semitism (or, rather, anti-Judaism, as the author concludes) was really great, avoiding simplistic takes and looking in depth at the work, the ideas, and the history (and I often roll my eyes wrt discussions of this topic): https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/uncategorized/2015/01/wagner-and-the-jews/

(h/t Oor Neechy)

It's five years old but new to me.

Its not new but it is a very good read. I'm not really familiar with Wagners music though.

xp

Good piece indeed, even though there are grounds for quibbling here and there. For instance, Mendelssohn was baptized and wrote quite a bit of explicitly Christian music, so Wagner's anti-semitism went beyond opposition to Judaism.

Alex Ross's big Wagner book is finally coming out this year, so I'll read this now and think about it again later, probably.

Not sure if this fits in on this thread, but has anyone listened to Ekmeles: A Howl That Was Also A Prayer?

It definitely fits. I just started listening to it. I'd never heard of Taylor Brook but he is apparently a young Canadian composer and McGill grad? Cool.

Listening to a really cool solo organ album with terrible cover art. Some seriously swoopy prog-rock noises going on here.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENuGe0JWwAEf2KW.jpg

Sorry, here's the terrible cover art in question:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENuGe0JWwAEf2KW.jpg

There's far worse tbf. Anyway, I haven't heard the album but Finns are ever reliable composers.

The album's really good in a "let's freak out the neighbor's pets" sort of way. Not subtle stuff by any stretch.

Roxy, I've listened to it a couple of times (always while doing something else) and am finding it interesting. There are definitely things to enjoy. The effects and resonances Brook gets from the microtonal motion of voices are very cool and reminded me a little of Qasim Naqvi's Fjoloy. Thw changing vowel shapes show a definite throat singing influence. I really liked the Gee piece: like choral clicks and cuts at times but juxtaposed with more sustained resonant material and those piercing overtones. Great range of timbres and to the point. I think I am still getting a handle on everything that's going on with the Trapani piece in terms of how the voices, electronics, and text are working together but there are pretty moments.

i find the spoken portions in Brook's portion sound almost...parodic? i don't know, they rubbed me the wrong way and took me out of it at times. love how all the microtonal stuff sounds juxtaposed with a kind of ars antiqua sound. i enjoyed the little tricks like the bird sounds, and the dial tone (i'm pretty sure that was vocal?) in Trapani's piece, i'm a nut for that kind of thing.

Yeah, the connection between the text and music in the Brook isn't clear to me either. If I focus on the text, it does take me out of the music as well. If I listen for the sound, which is how I listen to it most of the time, the spoken word doesn't bother me but I'm also basically tuning out the text. Someone who knows more about contemporary literature than I do might be getting more out of it? I agree with your comment about the medieval allusions as well.

I see New Focus are also putting out an album by Yale guitarist/composer Ben Verdery, with "Scenes from Ellis Island" as the featured track on Bandcamp here: https://newfocusrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/ben-verdery-scenes-from-ellis-island . I had the opportunity to play in a performance of this piece last August and it's a little surprising to hear this version, which is notably different, with a more stripped down guitar 'ensemble' (I'm guessing overdubs of the two guitarists), a female singer, and no electric guitar solo. The version I played in (also led by Verdery) was closer to the style of these: https://youtu.be/MwA2BnD7L6w + https://youtu.be/vvEVD-XWwmU . New version sounds beautiful but seems too polite.

Coming up in March: Barbara Hannigan's take on Gérard Grisey's Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil. Yessss

I have a download of her doing that live with the NYPO. It’s excellent.

Oh, that's exciting.

Sweet premise:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/20/beethoven-the-1808-concert-review-st-davids-hall-cardiff-carlo-rizzi-jaime-martin

So these are the compositions up for a Grammy tonight. There are a few composers I like a fair bit but I haven't actually listened to any of these yet.:

Berme: Migration Series For Jazz Ensemble & Orchestra, Derek Bermel, composer (Derek Bermel, Ted Nash, David Alan Miller, Juilliard Jazz Orchestra & Albany Symphony Orchestra)
Higdon: Harp Concerto, Jennifer Higdon, composer (Yolanda Kondonassis, Ward Stare & The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra)
Marsalis: Violin Concerto in D Major, Wynton Marsalis, composer (Nicola Benedetti, Cristian Măcelaru & Philadelphia Orchestra)
Norman: Sustain, Andrew Norman, composer (Gustavo Dudamel & Los Angeles Philharmonic)
Shaw: Orange, Caroline Shaw, composer (Attacca Quartet)
Wolfe: Fire in My Mouth, Julia Wolfe, composer (Jaap Van Zweden, Francisco J.Núñez, Donald Nally, The Crossing, Young People's Chorus Of NY City & New York Philharmonic)

And Higdon won, it seems. I remember liking her Zaka quite a bit. I'm interested in new harp music. Look forward to hearing this.

I know the cellist from the Attacca Qtet, very cool that they got a nomination

I don't know Higdon, but the Grammys nominating Norman, Shaw, Wolfe and Marsalis is honestly better than expected. Though there's probably still people out there complaining serialism got snubbed.

Though there's probably still people out there complaining serialism got snubbed.

Hi.*

*Well, not quite, insofar as serialism is hardly progressive these days and hasn't been for a long time – just another tool in the contemporary composer's shed – but I do find this list of nominees rather and safe and yawn-inducing and American-centric. Not that I expect anything else from the Grammy Awards regardless of category. As a side note, I will no doubt get eviscerated for including none of these composers in the upcoming late 20th/early 21st century decade polls, but when canonical consensus becomes more problematic than ever, I think it's best to own up to one's more subjective intuitions. But we should be fine up until the… 1990s, maybe?

*rather safe

You kinda have to have Partita and Play on there... And Beyond Ocean. Don't fill it up with US hipster stuff, but those three have to be on there imo.

No, it's definitely American-centric, but it's the Grammys, so. I think it's pretty amazing that Andrew Norman is considered safe, and you're probably right, he is, but Play to me is still wtf-just-hit-me incredible.

I don't like Partita and haven't heard Play but as a merciful poll god I will likely include them nonetheless (the former for sure, as its impact is undeniable).

Beyond Ocean will definitely make it – I'm a JLA fan.

I honestly think you might like Andrew Norman. It's pretty crazy. And he has been good at explaining what is new, I've used quotes from him in a couple of film reviews.

Sold. I've added him to my list.

We're talking about the awards given out by an organization of leading figures in the US commercial recording industry so, yes, it's going to be US-slanted and on the safer side. (They're notoriously stuffy even about pop music.) Maybe I should raise my standards but tbh I'm just impressed that they nominate new music at all every year. I've written two serial pieces in the last few years but you could definitely get MORE conservative than Norman/Shaw/Wolfe/Higdon.

Maybe I should raise my standards but tbh I'm just impressed that they nominate new music at all every year.

Realistically speaking, it's pretty cool that they even so much as acknowledge the field.

I reviewed a new album of organ music - Susanne Kujala's Organ Music of the 21st Century. It's really good.

Yeah, I remember you mentioning it upthread. I'll check it out, thanks.

Peter Serkin just passed away. He was an extraordinary pianist, as comfortable in Webern, Messiaen and Takemitsu as he was in the mainstream canonical classics. I don't think I've ever heard a recording of his that I didn't like. He will be missed.

Just saw that news myself
A rather underrecorded pianist unfortunately

Unsuk Chin wins the Sonning award for 2021. They continue their good run, after Hans Abrahamsen in 2019 and Barbara Hannigan in 2020.

I think I have a ticket for the Hannigan award gala. She is doing most of Crazy Girl Crazy, both Berg and Gershwin.

Happy to hear it! I haven't kept up with her recent work at all but she remains an incredible composer.

i need her to record schoenberg op. 10. I have a live capture but the sound has probz

Sweet premise:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/20/beethoven-the-1808-concert-review-st-davids-hall-cardiff-carlo-rizzi-jaime-martin

― pomenitul

if they're not grossly underrehearsed it shouldn't count!

quick nerd question, Sveshnikov's recording of "All-Night Vigil", there's only one of those from '65, right? the recordings i'm finding are dated '73 but i don't know if that's just when they released it in the west...

I'm fairly confident it's the same recording.

i sort of figured so, thanks!

in between superficially checking out some of the decade poll stuff i am unfamiliar with (there's too much for me to absorb it all!) i've been getting more into ars subtilior... at least the quantity of this stuff is more manageable, as far as i can tell most of it comes down to the codex chantilly. lots of different recordings, but that's all for the better.

Fascinating to see/hear the Ensemble Intercontemporain play Takemitsu:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5fCEnY4tDE

Nice little article on classical guitar in Ottawa/Gatineau: https://www.cbc.ca/music/how-ottawa-gatineau-became-canada-s-classical-guitar-capital-1.5446054?fbclid=IwAR2enJHj_zlw9J_alaTNeiX_gtyYxDwQb_nfEK1mwkl5ogXXOqY4ykUJ8lQ

Cool. Do you think you might go to any of those festival concerts?

The Saturday night Perroy concert would probably be easiest since I work during most of the others. Friday night possibly but Feb 14 is, uh, not necessarily the best day to make plans to bro down over nylon strings.

Cool article, and I enjoyed the YT embeds as well.

A couple nights ago I saw this piece by Quebec composer Jacques Hétu, based on the occupation of France. I thought the choral movement (4. Liberté), with text by Paul Éluard, was really gorgeous. Julie Payette was in the choir, randomly.

https://youtu.be/E998yQCDfuE

I've always been a bit wary of him as he is championed by reactionaries such as Le Devoir's resident classical music critic, and I have little patience for straight Neo-classicism in general, but I'll check it out anyway.

Went to the P2 Award Gala last saturday. It opened with the winner of the Talent award, 24-year old Gustav Piekut, playing Debussy's L'Isle Joyeuse, and I think the video works: https://www.facebook.com/drp2/videos/180211973206107/

Other award winners included Event of the year going to Hans Abrahamsens 'Snedronningen', which, duh. Best New Music album was Nordic String Quartet for a recording of string quartets by Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgren. I'm not saying what won Best Danish Album, because you can all figure it out, even more duh. Yeah, that album, an Abrahamsen opera, Piekut beginning to break through. Classical is doing pretty damn well in Denmark at the moment.

Enjoying this a lot lately
https://store.acousticsounds.com/images/large/ADGR_89301__136546__07242018025451-1865.jpg

Curious to hear his Bach "Reworks" album but also sort of skeptical

RIP Christophe Desjardins, an absolutely incredible violist who specialized in contemporary classical music. Here is his take on Gérard Grisey's Prologue to Les espaces acoustiques:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owh959MChmw

Reinbert de Leeuw, to my mind one of the greatest conductors of the late 20th/early 21st century, just passed away. As a pianist, he was preternaturally attuned to the mystical side of late Liszt and Satie, channelling their works into an impossibly slow processional. As a conductor, he excelled not only in Andriessen, whose operas he championed without fail, but in a remarkably broad repertoire that emphasized the poetry and plurality of the modernist idiom. He was equally at ease in Schoenberg and Ligeti, Messiaen and Kurtág, Ustvolskaya and Adams, Gubaidulina and Britten. With the astonishing Asko/Schönberg Ensemble and Susan Narucki, he notably recorded nigh-definitive versions of Claude Vivier's Lonely Child, Zipangu, Prélude pour un Marco Polo and Bouchara, to say nothing of his generous commitment to bringing Vivier's works to the stage via the Rêves d'un Marco Polo project, which did much to raise Vivier's profile abroad. What a sad day this is.

I don't often agree with him but… Alex Ross otm:

https://www.therestisnoise.com/2020/02/for-reinbert-de-leeuw.html

Why don't you often agree with Alex Ross?

Not in the mood to properly expand at the moment but I find him way too US-centric for comfort.

RIP RDL. Will play Via Crucis (his solo piano rendition) in valediction.

He recorded some Satie songs as accompanist to our lass Hannigan as well

Interviewed violinist Isabelle Faust this afternoon. It'll be up as an episode of my podcast next month.

Oh do link it!

Can anyone get google to translate the Dutch newspaper memorium linked from Alex ross’ piece?

LBI?

Look forward to that interview, unperson. Isabelle Faust is a personal hero of mine, so to speak.

RIP. I really liked that Via Crucis recording.

4665/5000
Tekenlimiet: 5000
An unconditional belief in music
Reinbert de Leeuw. Image Frank Ruiter

Conductor, composer and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw (81) has died. A spokesperson on behalf of family and friends said so. De Leeuw's performances were uncompromising, inspired and almost always normative.
Frits van der Waa14 February 2020, 18:07

"A masterpiece!" If Reinbert de Leeuw was enthusiastic about something, he would not hide it. De Leeuw unconditionally believed in the music he performed, so in his eyes the pieces he performed were always masterpieces - he didn't do it for less. His performances were uncompromising, enthusiastic and almost always normative.

In Reinbert de Leeuw, Dutch music life loses one of its most prominent foremen, who has left his mark on music practice as a conductor, pianist, composer and director for more than half a century.

In 2011, he was saddened to see how much of what he had achieved was demolished in a short time by the culture cutbacks of the Rutte I cabinet, which was blown in by the PVV. his old love, and with his eloquence, became a welcome guest at DWDD, where he was particularly astonished with a performance of 4'33 ”, a 'totally silent' piece by John Cage. His performance in Zomergasten of 2014 (where he took the opportunity to light a shekie during the screening of a video clip) was also memorable.

In 2014 he composed another great orchestral piece, Der nächtliche Wanderer, and continued to broaden his horizons. From 2013 on, for example, he conducted Bach's St. Matthew Passion and, in 2018, the John: because of his love for the sublime, the sublime, in fact a very logical step. Duyns also made a documentary about De Leeuw's Matthäus-love, in which the 78-year-old musician sighs: "I would like to have a lifetime to devote myself to this."

Google translate of the Volkskrant article, as requested (sorry, no time to 'smoothen' or correct the English). Hadn't seen this thread earlier, but I'm still really sad about this.

One to watch is his full 'performance' of 4'33, live on telly, in the most popular tv show over here (a show that invites bands to play live for one minute usually). Only he could do this with both authority and irony. Will see if I can find it.

4090/5000
An unconditional belief in music
Frits van der Waa14 February 2020, 18:07
6-8 minutes

Conductor, composer and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw (81) has died. A spokesperson on behalf of family and friends has said so. De Leeuw's performances were uncompromising, inspired and almost always normative.

"A masterpiece!" If Reinbert de Leeuw was enthusiastic about something, he would not hide it. De Leeuw unconditionally believed in the music he performed, so the pieces he performed were always masterpieces in his eyes - he didn't do it for less. His performances were uncompromising, enthusiastic and almost always normative.

In Reinbert de Leeuw, Dutch music life loses one of its most prominent foremen, who has left his mark on music practice as a conductor, pianist, composer and director for more than half a century.

From rebel he grew into an authority, according to some even as a culture man. But the influence that De Leeuw exercised was always at the service of music. It was never about himself. It should not even concern himself: in 2014, he voiced his veto about a biography of Thea Derks devoted to him. The book was published anyway, but unauthorized.

De Leeuw was born on 8 September 1938 on Amsterdam's Koninginneweg, a neighborhood where he lived for most of his life. His parents, both psychiatrists, died young, so he had to find his own way when he was 18 years old. While studying piano with Jaap Spaanderman and composition with Kees van Baaren, he became a teacher at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. In 1961 he met composer Louis Andriessen, who became a friend for life and of whom he directed all major works.

In the 1960s he made himself heard as a member of the Nutcrackers, an action group that argued for a more progressive artistic course with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. With four other composers from this group, he wrote the collective opera Reconstruction, which caused a stir in 1969.
Reinbert de Leeuw in 1971. Image Vincent Mentzel

He fought for unknown composers, such as George Antheil and Charles Ives, about whom he wrote a book together with the writer Bernlef. He composed a large orchestral work, Abschied (1973) and the opera Axel (1977), together with Jan van Vlijmen. These works already show his desire for a great expression, for the example, but not directly with the means of Romanticism.

"I've always been immensely interested in that period of late Romanticism, roughly from 1880 to 1914, sometimes it was almost an obsession," he said in 1986. other such crushing pieces have been written. "

Composing fell into the background, certainly when he took care of the Hague club of conservatory students who from 1974 would be called the Schönberg Ensemble. Over the years he has recorded the complete chamber music of Schoenberg, Berg and Webern. To his surprise he probably scored a big hit with his quirky, remarkably slow renditions of piano work by Erik Satie. In the meantime, he worked for all kinds of innovations in music practice, and stood at the cradle of the Fund for Creative Music, that composers had to offer a reasonable fee.

The eighties and nineties were his heyday. He collaborated with composers he admired such as Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti and Mauricio Kagel. Director Cherry Duyns, a loyal brother-in-law, made the revealing series Toonmeesters, which contains wonderful moments, such as his first interview with the shy Belgian composer Galina Oestvolskaya, who did not even want to be portrayed. Oestvolskaya’s uncompromising music, with its hammered dissonant chords, is exemplary of the musical truth, or rather truths, that De Leeuw has always been looking for.

The passion with which De Leeuw defended his beloved repertoire went so far that he sometimes called on critics because of the "damage" they caused to the music, or demanded that high-level editors be put inactive. However, in the eyes of the world he always remained civilized and reasonable.

Although he also enjoyed international prestige, especially in the United States, he did not care for fame or wealth, he drove around in a crashed car and used the shaver mainly when he had to go back on stage.

In 2011, he was saddened to see how much of what he had achieved was demolished in a short time by the culture cutbacks of the Rutte I cabinet, which was blown in by the PVV. his old love, and with his eloquence, he became a welcome guest at DWDD, where he was particularly striking with a performance of 4'33 ”, a 'totally silent' piece by John Cage. His performance in Zomergasten of 2014 (where he took the opportunity to light a shekie during the screening of a video clip) was also memorable.

In 2014 he composed another great orchestral piece, Der nächtliche Wanderer, and continued to broaden his horizons. From 2013 on, for example, he conducted Bach's St. Matthew Passion and, in 2018, the John: because of hi
s love for the sublime, the sublime, actually a very logical step. Duyns also made a documentary about De Leeuw's Matthäus-love, in which the 78-year-old musician sighs: "I would like to have a lifetime to devote myself to this."

Screwed up the first copy/paste.

Thanks!

Der Nachtliche Wanderer is awesome btw. 5 Against 4 blog has a downloadable Proms recording of it if I’m not mistaken.

The Judicaël Perroy concert was great, probably the most clean and precise classical guitar playing I've ever seen live, on some dazzlingly difficult material (including BWV 997 and transcriptions of Mertz and Rachmaninoff); also very nice performance of Sor's Fantaisie élégiaque. Projected very strongly while maintaining a soft, rounded tone.

I got his 2010 Bach CD on Naxos. It's been sounding v good so far.

absolutely bracing stuff here, very worth your time

https://cenkergun.bandcamp.com/album/sonare-celare

Yow

Thanks for the heads up – I'll listen to anything released by the JACK Quartet.

Is anyone familiar with Hermann Abert's enormous book on Mozart? https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300072235/wa-mozart

I'm wondering if I should give it a shot (not that I need be starting more large books right now.)

(Not sure if this belongs on this thread but) I really enjoyed Robert Haigh's newest on Unseen Worlds, called Black Sarabande. Anyone else? Minimal piano-led pieces.

https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/black-sarabande

Yeah, I kinda love it? Much better than I expected, though I can't really explain why

it's the first thing this year that i've felt compelled to listen to repeatedly

will test drive!

Nikolai Lugansky's take on César Franck's piano works is predictably excellent, although no transcription of the Prélude, Fugue et Variation could ever match the organ original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM4WWd6OWPg

Fitting music for this semblance of the end times…

Come to think of it, the piano & harmonium duo version is even better (the variation at 6:04 just slays me):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFj_oA4-pTM

(The Chamayou/Latry recording easily tops this one btw.)

Always nice to see Han Reiziger (the presenter, rip) pop up. A lovely rendition indeed.

since everything has to tie in to COVID-19 right now, Brett Dean (australian composer and violist, I've always meant to listen to him since I adore the viola) has been diagnosed. First person from the CM world that i've seen news of.

Fuck, I hope he'll be alright. And I can't wait for this to be over.

there will certainly be more as CM is so very travel-heavy :(

That blows. Hope he gets better soon.

someone posted about Víkingur Ólafsson -- he has a new one out this year, Debussy / Rameau

How COVID-19 is going to fuck over opera singers

Just got the Cenk Ergün/JACK Quartet disc mentioned above in yesterday's mail; looking forward to checking it out.

Reviewing the new Darragh Morgan/John Tilbury recording of For John Cage for The Wire.

And as promised, here are links to my interview with violinist Isabelle Faust:

Osiris: http://bit.ly/2IJZvHc
Apple: https://apple.co/3cXWMHR
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2xvnbww

was gonna see the local symphony orchestra do berio's sinfonia but that was obviously cancelled. flip side is that the portland baroque orchestra, who of course also aren't going to be able to put on a public concert, has just decided to livestream their concert instead. i'm down with that!

Along the same lines as the blog post unperson linked to upthread:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/coronavirus-concerts-the-music-world-contends-with-the-pandemic

berliner philharmoniker making their digital archive free for a bit: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/home

the st. paul chamber orchestra’s free concert library:

https://content.thespco.org/music/concert-library/

:(
https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/coronavirus/selling-cello-support-family-musicians-impact/

:(

RIP: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/29/composer-krzysztof-penderecki-dies-aged-86

RIP.

I still struggle with his post-1970s output, even as I am sympathetic to the aesthetic conversion he underwent – it just seems as though he never figured out where to go with it. His iconoclastic early material, however, is bound to remain.

I listened to the Naxos recording of the St Luke Passion this morning. Not only is my understanding of his work colored by hearing "Threnody For the Victims of Hiroshima," but it's colored by only really hearing the first minute or two of the piece, and thinking the guy had made a career out of microtonal sludge and writing him off. St Luke Passion was amazing, and I'll have to make time to hear his other music.

He only really composed in that avant-garde 'sludge' style (which I think was brilliant) in the 60s. String Quartet no. 3 ("Leaves from an Unwritten Diary"), from 2008, was the first one I pulled out this morning. It's one I could listen to over and over, maybe closer to a Bartok-influenced style? Very expressive without being drippy Romanticism; still tonal and melodic but with a lot of dissonant chromaticism and folk references. It was great to see the Penderecki Quartet perform it a few years ago.

Excellent, evenhanded obituary by Keith Potter:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/29/krzysztof-penderecki-obituary

Hm, that's kind of brutal, as obituaries go. I'm not sure i know the St Luke's Passion tbh.

Yet those early works, which at the time struck so many as so arresting in their dramatic challenge to convention, now seem – for some listeners at least – shallow, simplistic, or even opportunistic.

hmm

Yeah, that was O_O. "Some people say"...

Tbf the sentence that follows is just as tart. He seems to be writing from the point of view of über-modernists and musical populists both.

ppl who enjoy the comfort of their own enervating self-consciously cold judgement do seem esp drawn to classical music

the comfort of their own enervating self-consciously cold judgement

This seems fairer, since I have no idea what Potter's own position is after reading that obituary.

Well, as he notes, an über-modernist could hate both early and late Penderecki for the reasons he gives. After reading his Gorecki obit, though, I'm not sure that is actually where he comes from himself.

A scholar of American minimalism? That could work: https://www.gold.ac.uk/music/staff/potter/

Ahahaha, it all makes sense now.

Anyway, what are everyone's favourite Penderecki recordings? As noted, I favour the Penderecki Quartet's SQ3. I have the Wit/Polish NSRO disc with Symphony 3 and Threnody but I feel like I've heard some more intense Threnodies. Good recordings of St Luke's Passion?

Penderecki's own 60s recordings are where it's at. For the St. Luke Passion, I've only heard his 1989 take, which is as good as you'd expect. Of his works in a self-consciously tonal idiom, I vaguely enjoy his Violin Concertos (No. 1 with Isaac Stern & No. 2 with Anne-Sophie Mutter).

I really liked Utrenja, a huge piece recorded in Wit’s series on Naxos

Don't know that one. I'll have to binge on his complete works one of these days.

Listened to that St. Luke's Passion today but it ended up being broken up and sometimes distracted so I definitely will come back to it. A lot of really striking and intense moments, though.

Listening to this disc now, which I bought as an undergraduate: https://www.discogs.com/fr/Krzysztof-Penderecki-Musica-Da-Camera/release/1805311
First string quartet still so striking.

I absent-mindedly heard said disc once, more than 15 years ago. Time to make up for that, especially now that the 1960s poll is on its way.

Another obituary worth reading, courtesy of Tim Rutherford-Johnson:

https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2020/03/30/krzysztof-penderecki-1933-2020/

some of the most emo music in the classical canon - that's more like it!

National Arts Centre Orchestra musicians doing solo lunch break Youtube performances from home every day: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL90GqA5xhozq9vZwEpm-7VB5o-DxYHuBN

Something about the phenomenon of NACO players doing solo livestreams from their living rooms really impressed on me what a world-historical crisis we are living through.

Listening currently to Thomas Adès' piano concerto, premiered at the BSO last year but released this year. They played it on the radio last night but I slept right through it. It's really something! I picked up a couple older Adès CDs and I wasn't totally impressed with them, but this has this amazing sense of motion going on, like "Giant Steps" arranged for two orchestras and they both started in different places in the changes.

Adès is as good as they say, imo. I adore his violin concerto so so so much... the first movement's harmonic material is, effectively, a Shepard tone (though I don't know if he's acknowledged it? Google turns up nothing but it is exactly what he did)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTth0fp13aU

This was pretty amazing AND it sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about impossible geometric figures and sci fi vampire novels.

there is so much awful crossover classical. today i'm on a rabbit hole watching videos by the salt lake city pops orchestra with things like EDM bassoon. is there crossover classical music worse than this stuff? i must know.

i mean... lindsey sterling?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujZ0dSBMGu4

If anyone's interested, I put together a list of my favourite 2020 classical albums so far:

Alberto Posadas – Poética del laberinto
Amatis Trio – Enescu, Ravel, Britten
Barbara Hannigan & Ludwig Orchestra – La passione: Nono, Haydn, Grisey
Benjamin Dwyer – what is the word
Célimène Daudet – Messe noire. Liszt, Scriabine
Edvard Grieg – Violin Sonatas (Eldbjørg Hemsing & Simon Trpčeski)
Élodie Vignon – D’ombres. Dutilleux, Ledoux
Éric Montalbetti – Chamber Music. Harmonieuses dissonances
Franz Liszt – Années de pèlerinage (Suzana Bartal)
Howard Skempton – Preludes and Fugues; Nocturnes; Reflections; Images (William Howard)
Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2; King Kristian II (Gothenburg Symphony, Santtu Matias-Rouvali)
Jean-Pierre Collot – The Way to Sound: Spectral Visions of Goethe (Dufourt, Liszt, Schubert)
Johann Sebastian Bach – Johannes-Passion (Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe)
Johannes Brahms – The Final Piano Pieces (Stephen Hough)
Liza Lim – Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus
Luciano Berio – Coro; Cries of London (Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Grete Pedersen)
Ludwig van Beethoven – The Last Three Sonatas (Maurizio Pollini)
Philippe Pierlot, Lucile Boulanger, Myriam Rignol & Rolf Lislevand – Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe et ses filles
Ralph Vaughan Williams – Symphony No. 3, ‘Pastoral’; Symphony No. 4 (BBC SO, Brabbins)
Richard Valitutto – Nocturnes & Lullabies
Tõnu Kõrvits – Hymns to the Nordic Lights
Víctor Ibarra – The Dimension of the Fragile

Very much interested and appreciated! I'll be working my way through.

Tõnu Kõrvits – Hymns to the Nordic Lights this is simply sublime, and very moving <3

What is the word: "A musical meditation on the relationship of sound to linguistic structures"... this honestly sounds quite interesting!

It’s one of the better Samuel Beckett-inspired albums (and they are legion) I’ve heard over the years.

Tell me about spectral images of Goethe

Five settings of Goethe by Schubert undergo a series of diachronic metamorphoses for solo piano. Czerny’s transcription of ‘An Schwager Kronos’ introduces us to Hugues Dufourt’s echoic reimagining of the same. ’Rastlose Liebe’, ‘Meeresstille’ and ‘Erlkönig’ are rewritten by Liszt then thoroughly overhauled and drawn out into infinity by Dufourt. The whole thing ends with Liszt’s take on ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, followed by silence. And although the album purportedly showcases Goethe’s Sturm und Drang period, there’s a quiet tension to Dufourt’s spectral reinterpretations, which bring to mind Feldman.

It’s pure pap for yours truly and I’m sure you’ll like it too. If you’ve heard Marilyn Nonken’s Voix voilées recital from 2012, you’ll already be familiar with Dufourt’s suitably monstrous and sprawling ‘Erlkönig’.

I have nonkens book but have not heard that disc- and it looks amazing thanks for tipping me

https://boomkat.com/products/the-heart-sutra-arranged-by-janel-leppin

latest Susan Alcorn on Ideologic Organ is well worth checking out.

Ottawa Guitar Society livestreaming a concert by Daniel Bolshoy rn: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=537306683820643¬if_id=1589655993272897¬if_t=live_video

Followed you there.

What do you think? Some of the repertoire didn't excite me that much but this Assad piece he's playing now is v nice and he is interpreting it carefully and sensitively. Liked the Barrios too.

I liked it overall but I was doing something else at the same time and wasn’t paying as close attention as I might, sorry. But yeah, some of the material didn’t really grab me.

I was washing dishes for part of it too.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/17/did-singing-together-spread-coronavirus-to-four-choirs

Has anyone heard Samuel Andreyev's Kairos monograph? I know (of) him as that rare beast: an expat Canadian YouTuber who makes videos about contemporary European art music in English, but I wasn't familiar with his compositions at all. I'm a few minutes into Iridescent Notation and I like it so far: delicate and gestural, even at its most curt, and very much in written in response to 20th century aesthetic dilemmas, which gives it a more 'classical' sheen than, say, Ryan Carter's own Kairos disc from last year.

delicate and gestural

Tbf Événements quotidiens and especially Night Division are more Stravinskian/Varèsian in terms of instrumental attack.

I find Another Timbre's releases to be fairly hit or miss (too visually-oriented, too noncommittal in terms of affect for my tastes) and am mildly annoyed by its growing omnipresence but this is a worthwhile endeavour:

https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/music-wed-like-to-hear-another-timbre-150-apartment-house-at-25/

By a former counterpoint student but I do think this is a very nice guitar album, released to streaming services today: https://open.spotify.com/album/09cWEgDZaHt9MsP7ickZGQ?si=x32u8ulRTh2rCpxy3hnA7w

Looks cool, I'll check it out. Thanks!

Xpost re another timbre Linda Catlin Smith is amazing. Annoying that they don’t offer digital purchases though. I don’t even have a way to ripping a cd currently - I was “forced” to download her stuff from myfreemp3

I was being cranky tbh. I like LCS's stuff, she's probably my favourite Another Timbre composer.

wait, why does jordan peterson have an hour and a half video about samuel andreyev?

if anybody can come up with a good reason for that one, let me know. otherwise i'm fuckin' done with andreyev.

Huh, really? Weird. I assume it’s got something to do with the University of Toronto. I’ll look into it.

Jon not Jon, Another Timbre is on Bandcamp: https://anothertimbre.bandcamp.com/album/drifter for example.

Welp, just saw it now, Andreyev can go fuck himself.

xp

it's exhausting. so exhausting. i'm so tired of it.

thank you for confirming/verifying, though. i just couldn't stomach it myself, you know?

I don't blame you in the least. Consenting to an interview with JP for any purpose other than explicit pushback is unacceptable, all the more so in 2019, by which point everyone with a functional brain had figured out what the fuckstain is all about.

i mean, fuck. what has been the news on ilx this week? kaitlyn aurelia smith being an anti-vaxxer, black dresses breaking up and i don't even know why because believe it or not i _am_ trying to take care of my mental health by not directly exposing myself to transphobia, whatever the fuck is going on with doja cat, and today it's this random dumb canadian motherfucker who makes youtube videos about the compositional approach of the keyboardist from pink floyd being buddy-buddy with jordan fucking peterson

true/false: "ilx is fine as long as you stay away from the politics threads"

i reiterate: i am tired of living in this world.

Fwiw based on my admittedly all too limited understanding of the Black Dresses situation, transphobia doesn't appear to have been the main catalyst; it seems to be a case of toxic fanbases spinning out of control, with no regard whatsoever for the humans who make the art they claim to adore. But yeah, it's unfortunately impossible to interact with just about any facet of aesthetics without being privy to some amount of reactionary political bullshit. My go-to mental defence is that people are fallible and easily fall prey to hateful discourse as a means of dealing with their own deep-seated anxieties. It's not much but it helps me cope.

Many Xposts
I could have sworn I checked bandcamp about 6 months ago
Looks like I owe them some downloads

Bredeson will be performing via livestream in about 20m here: https://m.twitch.tv/concertsfortheendoftime

I missed the stream, unfortunately, but I'm listening to his album right now, and it's lovely. Just the right time for it, too.

Ah, cool, glad you like it. He played the Chopin arrangement, the Mertz, and the Prelude and Allegro from the Bach in the concert. I was also impressed by a Sean Clarke piece.

Just a couple of pieces into this almost 7h-long playlist of classical guitar music by black composers: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1CUR6hLOqbHKOQJx5jiSk3?si=BJDqQVXrTVijWHtCzDBG8w

Both Thomas Flippin's "A Soldier's Sonata" and Errollyn Wallen's "Three Ships" are p good so far.

Also heard this Shelley Washington electric guitar quartet this morning, which is pretty nice and reminiscent of Fred Frith's quartets: https://soundcloud.com/shelleywashington/the-workers-dreadnought

On another note, this is absolutely lovely (recent/new music for harp and elect y Richard Barrett and Milana Zaric, streamed last night): https://t.co/PJmTR28RQg

— Tim Rutherford-Johnson (@moderncomp) June 8, 2020

Awesome, thanks for the heads up.

just found the operatic countertenor John Holiday, holy shit @ this voice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Rz4t4Al48

or perhaps more appropriate to thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6MJJrJap8w

I liked the Barrett/Zaric stream. A little softer than what I expected from Barrett, reminiscent at times of laptop ambient gigs I've seen by e.g. Sarah Peebles - which is tbc actually a good thing!

Benjamin Dwyer – what is the word

Just bought this from Bandcamp on your recommendation.

Prepared guitar piece worth price of admission.

Nice! I'm a sucker for Beckett-themed contemporary classical but Dwyer does it better than most. It also helps make up for my utter ignorance of the Irish scene.

I haven’t heard it yet but this may be of interest to you, Sund4r (and others, of course):

https://thibaultcauvin.lnk.to/BrouwerEM

Cool, I don't know Cauvin's playing that well. I will try to look into it.

I'm into Dan Michaelson's new one, Colourfield

https://dan.michaelsonscores.com/album/colourfield

That was nice.

RIP Julian Bream; there's no classical guitarist I've listened to more: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53777949

RIP

I began to explore the classical guitar repertoire through his recordings, which were never anything less than remarkable, and Nocturnal is among my very favourite recitals for any instrument. He will be greatly missed.

Do you know his 20th Century Guitar albums? The original LP is really the definitive but the two CDs are also good. I'm listening to the first rn.

Just listened to the new Roomful of Teeth recording of Michael Harrison's Just Constellations while doing dishes: https://roomfulofteeth.bandcamp.com/album/just-constellations

It's all drone-based choral music in just intonation. Wasn't totally sure what I thought yet but it was pleasant.

it's okay but it's the OTHER roomful of teeth that got me today. "Are We Death" is likely to be one of the best singles of the year for me.

https://roomfulofteeth.bandcamp.com/album/the-ascendant

That made a stronger first impression.

Devónte Tine's take on Langston Hughes "The Black Clown" was probably the best thing I heard live last year; this is very much worth your time
http://lincolncenter.org/lincoln-center-at-home/show/harlem-week-the-black-clown-by-langston-hughes-661

(tho tbh, that's not the best clip out of context. Tines conversation merits the click though and the impression i get is that this is going to be a series, so probably worth tracking)

https://open.spotify.com/album/79x1fDyq0qs8OS75QfEoYC

the beautiful Yair Elazar Glotman soundtrack from Last and First Men is a big element of what makes the movie so apocalyptic and affecting for me.

probably bad form of me not to mention that the late Jóhann Jóhannsson wrote this soundtrack but died before it was recorded. Was just wiki-ing it and read he was in a late 80's vaguely shoegazey band (daisy hill puppy farm) that got played on Peel that I have a vague memory of hearing a version of Heart Of Glass from when I was 15.

Steve Cowan's (now McGill instructor) livestream solo guitar concert from tonight was archived here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/732611411?fbclid=IwAR3JaLC7rh4Sa8ZuUfN-hjsUAbjAOUc92Zad6i2gju6o5Uws4rnkrtf0BzI

This was the programme:

Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750)
Sonata V in G Major (excerpts)
Thomas Adès (b. 1971)
Interlude from "The Exterminating Angel"
Federico Mompou (1893-1987)
Suite Compostelana (excerpts)
Manuel M. Ponce (1882-1948)
24 Preludios (excerpts)
Frank Martin (1890-1974)
Quatre pièces brèves
Steve Cowan (b. ???)
Suite Laconique

The Adès piece (around 24m in) is v cool and aggressive. I didn't know it before. I own a couple of recordings of the Martin, ofc, but he performed it well, with a lot of intensity. Weiss piece is lovely too. There was an encore with Sor's fourth lesson from Vingt-quatre leçons progressives - an easy piece, to be sure, but done really nicely and a light way to end things.

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I'm a big fan of the Martin and curious about the rest so I'll check it out.

I'm listening to Joanna MacGregor 2016 recording of Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano on NML. On Sonata no.5. These are interesting. She takes the sonatas at appreciably faster tempi than in other recordings or performances I've heard, giving them something more of an energetic, rollicking feel, as opposed to the atmospheric, contemplative character I'm used to.

holy crap! just heard some stunning piece from Nikolai Kapustin's etudes on the radio that just blew my socks off, now I know what I want in my shopping basket next.

I didn't know those but I just watched a video of Yeol Eum Don playing 6-8 and, yeah, wow.

Kapustin is fun, yeah. The composer is a highly capable interpreter of his own works, but Marc-André Hamelin absolutely nails them.

alas I noticed he passed away a couple of months back when I looked up the name.

On the dronier and more microtonal end of the spectrum, I'm enjoying Bára Gísladóttir's HĪBER, 50 minutes of winter-inspired pieces for solo double bass against a discreet backdrop of found soundscapes. It really does make me feel like I'm hibernating, as intended.

Wow, that's great, thanks for that Pom. It's super glacial (which is duh because winter inspired) and yeah, could've fooled me if this was in a drone thread. First I've heard of her, if you've got more recommendations I'd like to hear it!

Glad you liked it, LBI! It was my introduction to her music as well, and I'm definitely going to check out her other stuff, most of which is thankfully on Apple Music/Spotify.

https://chrisicasiano.bandcamp.com/album/provinces

Filipino-American percussionist and composer Christopher Icasiano presents his debut solo work Provinces, two suites that explore the complexity of cultural identity and community as a second generation immigrant in Seattle. Composed predominantly on the drum set, Provinces’ virtuosic rhythmic patterns evoke melodies over long cyclical phrases, while a lush color palette provided by keyboards and percussion fill out the soundscape.

this has grown on me, god knows if it belongs here but I didn't know where else to park it!

What are the best Xenakis bangers?

― rob, mardi 22 septembre 2020 15:35 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

...
Jonchaies absolutely bangs.

― sock solipsist (pomenitul), mardi 22 septembre 2020 15:35 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Try Pithoprakta.

― The nexus of the crisis and the origin of storms (Sund4r), mardi 22 septembre 2020 15:36 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Looks like we’ll need a poll

― rob, mardi 22 septembre 2020 15:37 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I'm down.

― sock solipsist (pomenitul), mardi 22 septembre 2020 15:37 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Although it started as a joke, a Xenakis ballot poll actually sounds like it might be a good idea. What kind of interest would there be? We only got around 18 ballots when we did a poll for all notated music since 1890 some years ago so it might be slim.

I'd be interested! (Though I go AWOL a lot and miss stuff. Not least that notated music poll, despite submitting nominations! o_0 )

I would watch! I’m not versed broadly enough in X to vote. I will say that Persephassa live in Central Park was one of the peak live music experiences of my life.

Alternatively, we could do a dedicated chronological listening thread, Shakey-style.

Oh, that sounds fun.

And it doesn't have to be Xenakis (although I, for one, would be into it). We can nominate a few composers, then poll them to secure a consensus.

i'd be into a dedicated xenakis thread — perhaps as a precursor to a ballot poll ?

Excellent idea! Any other prospective participants?

Ha, thought so.

In other news, John Luther Adams's Lines Made by Walking and untouched, played by the ever-reliable JACK Quartet, both sound like unabashed Pärt riffs, and I'm totally cool with that.

Oh I'd be up for it!

Well, ok, untouched less so due to the microtonal inflections, but still.

xp excellent, so I guess that makes… six of us?

Iannis Xenasix, Metastasix, The Dämmerschein Six. The possibilities are endless!

John Luther Adams/JACK Quartet and three compositions inspired by slowly trudging across vast landscapes. I'm up for some of that!

Speaking of JLA and vast landscapes, Become River, Become Ocean and Become Desert have just been re-released as a trilogy.

For some reason, I just don't find myself going back to his works very much, although I own four of his albums and listened to all of them in the years of release. Not sure what it is.

I think of him as an ambient composer.

I'd be up for whatever kind of dedicated listening thread, Xenakis or et al., you all devise (I'm certainly not knowledgeable enough to participate in a poll though) provided it doesn't start until next week.

On that note, in the free time I'm about to finally have, I was idly thinking about listening through pom's classical polls: each top 3 or something...I haven't thought about the logistics at all, just been wanting to do a more dedicated listen to classical than I ever have. This project might be slightly more likely to actually happen if someone joins me—I could start a thread if anyone thinks they'd be into commenting/playing along/making fun of my taste?

Rolling classical threads don't see much action anyway, so feel free to keep us posted here, if you prefer.

Starting with the top 3 results of each decade poll up until, say, 1940, is not a bad way to do it – thanks for the vote of confidence! I wouldn't approach it too systematically, though, so if I were you I'd give myself some wiggle room to periodically put those polls on the back-burner and just keep exploring whichever composer and/or compositional genre you jive with the most along the way.

I have no musical training to speak of and can't tell an A apart from a C, so I just got into classical because I liked what I heard (Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet was the catalyst). There's some theoretical stuff I amateurishly picked up along the way just by listening (and reading, although that doesn't extend to actual sheet music), but simply paying attention and being moved by certain pieces is what did it for me – as with all other types of music, really, although classical does perhaps require you to focus a bit more before it opens up, which is part of what I like about it tbh, especially now that I'm finding it increasingly more difficult not to be scatterbrained as digital electronics, with their infinite potential for multi-tasking (aka distraction), encroach on my listening habits to an unsettling degree.

Thanks for the encouragement, pom! Excited for this, it's really going to improve my pretentious, ivory-tower-dwelling elitist snob game :)

I've just started listening and since the first piece is a total obscurity called Beethoven's 'Pastoral' (two thumbs up), I have a question: do any of you have a go-to source/guide for deciding which recording to listen to?

I'm currently listening to Karl Böhm and the Wiener Philharmoniker as it was the first one that came up when I searched. I don't have any complaints...it might be a little soft? It's called Pastoral though so that seems appropriate. [ok, I just got to the storm section...never mind, this is properly dynamic]

I know "Pastoral" fairly well actually, though not to the level of having any kind of perspective on the interpretative work Böhm might be doing. But an anxiety I always have with big canon classical is that I'm not listening to the "best" recording--I know the answer is probably: just listen to it and if you like it try some others, but I'm wondering if there's a relatively trustworthy guide I'm not aware of. Even just searching for this music on streaming services is a nightmare--instant nostalgia for the CD racks at my public library growing up (which I largely ignored on my way to the sci-fi section lol).

Other than a recording guide, I'd be curious if anyone has any book recommendations? Not quite sure what I have in mind, but, for example, I have an unread copy of Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise that I plan to at least dip into when I get to the 20th c.

Also, thank you to the poll voters, "Pastoral" was a rather pleasant way to start the project and my morning.

Sadly neither The Penguin guides nor the gramophone guides are still printed they have their limitations of course (bias towards British performers) but used ones could help you start exploring. With Spotify it’s so easy to compare performances and see which one moves you the most. Then you can go down the rabbit hole of “traditional” vs. “historically informed performance”, etc. Bohm would represent the former, for example. Huge orchestra, 20th century instruments.

Right now for Beethoven I’m enjoying Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century for a “ historically informed” approach. It’s quite delightful!

an anxiety I always have with big canon classical is that I'm not listening to the "best" recording

I can certainly relate to this. Starting out, there were certain canonical works I couldn't get into at all until I found the right recording, so the stakes are high and therefore stressful! Honestly, I'd say it's a process of trial and error: if you feel like Böhm's take on the Pastoral is too leisurely (and it really is), you can check out a swifter, more youthful version such as Claudio Abbado's live recording with the Berlin Philharmonic (that's probably my go-to Beethoven Symphonies cycle btw, although it tells an ineluctably partial tale and could never suffice on its own). But yeah, I'd say it helps to read online reviews and get a sense of which interpretation best matches your view of the work and/or the composer's aesthetic, and that takes time. But it's also a lot of fun, and the realization that you only disliked/failed to get important composition x because subpar recording(s) y or z had misled you is one of my favourite things about exploring classical music. You'll also start to get a better feel for who your favourite performers are, and they can usually guide you through other composers' oeuvres as well.

As for The Rest Is Noise, I think it's a good read, but its narrative is extremely US-centric, which may or may not appeal to you. I personally found that aspect of it quite insufferable, especially when he suggests that while fascism may have threatened to destroy European music, the US heroically swooped in to save the day, expanding the modernist idiom beyond what was previously thought possible (which is true), as though aesthetic breakthroughs had just ceased in the so-called Old World (which is bullshit). If you look past that borderline jingoistic reading of history, however, and supplement it with, say, Paul Griffiths's Modern Music and After for the postwar period, it's definitely worth your while because it does help make up for the unsurprisingly Eurocentric approaches that thrive on the other side of the pond (I mind those way less, but that's my own personal bias showing).

Oh, and I almost forgot about the guides. I just just saw that the latest entry in The Guardian's 'Know the Score' series was added this morning – on Schubert, incidentally – and it occurs to me that it's not a bad place to start, even though I don't really care for Andrew Clements's list of great Beethoven performers. Not that it matters in the end – you're bound to feel differently from both me and Clements after listening to different recordings, and that's precisely the beauty of it:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/series/know-the-score

xp to B,M: Brüggen is good! I really enjoy his Mozart too, and I usually don't like Mozart all that much.

Haha, the Griffiths was the textbook when I took late 20th c music history in undergrad (not sure why tbh since the prof was far from being a Boulez-obsessed Europhile) - Ross's take is almost a breath of fresh air in comparison, but yeah, the two have opposite biases. I find the Griffiths a little dry and rarefied, though - I wouldn't even assign it to undergrad music students myself.

What I did assign is Joseph Auner and Walter Frisch - Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, which involves a little more notation and technical musical info than Ross but certainly no more than Griffiths. I think it's very good, thorough, and up-to-date; American but not as slanted in its coverage as Ross; touches on the relationships between these movements and popular styles as well.

I was hoping you’d chime in! The Auer sounds like an excellent recommendation indeed. Ex-ILXor Tim Rutherford-Johnson’s Music After the Fall also seems like a great read if you’re interested in contemporary (post-1989) music, but I’ve yet to read it myself.

*Auner, sorry.

Ha, I didn't know he was an ilxor!

wow these are such helpful responses, thank you! I'll try to respond more fully at some point but I really appreciate the guidance

Alex Bougie doing a concert of contemporary guitar music here rn: https://www.twitch.tv/concertsfortheendoftime . Should be archived. I'll pass on the link.

Ha, he's playing a progressive metal-inspired piece by Bredeson rn that was introduced with "time to djent". A lot of palm-muted downstrokes.

lol

https://www.therestisnoise.com/2020/10/julian-anderson-on-the-rest-is-noise.html

I've bitched about Ross before but if there's one thing you can't say about The Rest Is Noise, it's that it doesn't give Sibelius his much-deserved due. I mean, it's one of the book's most memorable aspects, and I read it more than a decade ago. Nielsen does get a bit shortchanged, though.

In other news, I'm happy to see Ross rep for Bára Gísladóttir.

Ha, I think Ross's adoration of Sibelius was the first thing I commented on after reading that book.

Ha, I think Ross's adoration of Sibelius was the first thing I commented on after reading that book.

The only Adornian musical challop I vaguely agree with is that Stravinsky is overrated. He was utterly wrong about Sibelius, though, and even wronger about jazz, although I have read some spirited defences of his disdain for the latter, the argument being that he disliked not so much the 'artsier' jazz that was still to come (a debatable claim to begin with), and that he never deigned explore anyway, but rather the swingy and commercial big bands of the 1930s and 1940s, which to him were just the noise made by American capitalism.

Anyway, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe had a good piece about the ambiguity of Entkunstung (dis-artification? Lacoue-Labarthe gives a punny translation in the original French: désart), a concept Adorno utilized to deny jazz the mantle of 'art' and that paradoxically plays an essential role in Adorno's own understanding of modern art as deliberately turning on itself and running the risk of self-destruction, which perhaps implies that jazz is, in fact, the most modernist art of all according to Adorno. But I digress…

he disliked not so much the 'artsier' jazz that was still to come (a debatable claim to begin with), and that he never deigned explore anyway, but rather the swingy and commercial big bands of the 1930s and 1940s, which to him were just the noise made by American capitalism

Isn't this true? I always thought he was writing about the pop music of the 30s and 40s, essentially - big bands and crooners, mainly. The tunes he refers to by name are "Deep Purple" and "Sunrise Serenade".

I mean, I don't think he was a fan of bebop or free jazz either but I doubt it would have been for the same reasons?

He seemed unwilling to engage with jazz beyond those commercial acts, so I think it's fair to take him to task for a stubborn shortsightedness that he never really made up for even later in life. He 'figured it out' in the 1930s and never departed from that assessment.

Actually, I just came across this quote of Adorno's (from 1953) where he explicitly rejects the distinction between commercial jazz and its other:

The real conflict is about the distinction between 'authentic' and 'commercial' Jazz, which is, according to Berndt, 'foundational for any study of jazz'. He thinks that this discussion is not known to me, but my essay attacked it and therefore cannot accept its demand.

Oops, forgot to block quote it.

Ah, OK, I haven't read that 1953 piece.

Fuck adorno tbh

wrong

anyway ... xenakis listening thread ?

I’m still up for it.

List of works from Oxford Music Online (somehow I didn't know or remember that Kraanerg was written for the opening of the NAC and was premiered here!):

Orchestral:
Anastenaria: le sacrifice, orch (51 insts), 1953, sketch
Metastaseis, 1953–4; SWF SO, cond. H. Rosbaud, Donaueschingen, 16 Oct 1955
Pithoprakta, 1955–6; Bavarian RSO, cond. H. Scherchen, Munich, 8 March 1957
Achorripsis, 21 insts, 1956–7; Colón cond. Scherchen, Buenos Aires, 20 July 1958
Duel, 2 small orchs, 1959; Radio Hilversum PO, cond. D. Masson and F. Terby, Hilversum, 18 Oct 1971
Syrmos, 12 vn, 3 vc, 3 db, 1959; Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine, cond. Simonović, Paris, 20 May 1969
Stratégie, 2 small orchs, 1959–62; Venice Festival Orchestra, cond. B. Maderna and C. Simonović, 25 April 1963
ST/48, 48 insts, 1959–62; Orchestre Philharmonique de l’ORTF, cond. L. Foss, Paris, 21 Oct 1968
Akrata, 16 wind, 1964–5; cond. Simonović, Paris, 1965
Terretektorh, 1966; Orchestre Philharmonique de l’ORTF, cond. Scherchen, Royan, 3 April 1966
Polytope, 4 orch groups, 1967; Ensemble Instrumental de Musique Contemporaine, cond. Simonović, Montreal, Expo 67, 1967
Nomos gamma, 1967–8; Orchestre Philharmonique de l’ORTF, cond. C. Bruck, Royan, 4 April 1969
Kraanerg (ballet), orch, tape, 1968; Ottawa, June 1969
Synaphaï, pf, orch, 1969; Pludermacher, cond. M. Tabachnik, Royan, 6 April 1971
Antikhthon (ballet), 1971; cond. Tabachnik, Bonn, Festival Xenakis, 21 Sept 1974
Eridanos, 8 brass, str orch, 1973; Ensemble Européen de Musique Contemporaine cond. Tabachnik, La Rochelle, 13 April 1973
Erikhthon, pf, orch, 1974; C. Helffer, Orchestre de l’ORTF, cond. Tabachnik, Paris, 21 May 1974
Noomena, 1974; Orchestre de Paris, cond. G. Solti, Paris, 16 Oct 1974
Empreintes, 1975; Netherlands Radio PO, cond. Tabachnik, La Rochelle, 29 June 1975
Jonchaies, 1977; Orchestre National de France, cond. Tabachnik, Paris, 21 Dec 1977
Aïs, amp Bar, perc, orch, 1980; S. Sakkas, Gualda, Bavarian RSO, cond. Tabachnik, Munich, 13 Feb 1981
Pour les baleines, str, 1982; Orchestre Colonne, cond. D. Masson, Orléans, 2 Dec 1983
Lichens, 1983; Liège PO, cond. Bartholomée, Liège 16 April 1984
Shaar, str, 1983; Jerusalem Sinfonietta, cond. J.- P. Izquierdo, Tel Aviv, 3 Feb 1983
Alax, 3 ens of 10 insts (fl, cl, 2 hn, trbn, hp, perc, vn, 2 vc), 1985; Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Köln, Gruppe Neue Musik Hanns Eisler, cond. E. Bour, Cologne, 15 Sept 1985
Horos, 1986; Japan PO, cond. H. Iwaki, Tokyo, 24 Oct 1986
Keqrops, pf, orch, 1986; R. Woodward, New York PO, cond. Z. Mehta, New York, 13 Nov 1986
Ata, 1987; SWF SO, cond. M. Gielen, Baden-Baden, 3 May 1988
Tracées, 1987; Orchestre National de Lille, cond. J.-C. Casadeus, Paris, 17 Sept 1987
Kyania, 1990; Montpellier PO, cond. Z. Peskó, Montpellier, 7 Dec 1990
Tuorakemsu, 1990; Shinsei Nippon Orchestra, cond. H. Iwaki, Tokyo, 9 Oct 1990
Dox-Orkh, vn, orch, 1991; Arditti, BBC SO, London, cond. A. Tamayo, Strasbourg, 6 Oct 1991
Krinòïdi, 1991; Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Emilia-Romagna ‘Arturo Toscanini’, cond. R. Encinar, Parma, May 1991
Roáï, 1991; Berlin RSO, cond. O. Henzold, Berlin, 24 March 1992
Troorkh, trbn, orch, 1991; C. Lindberg, Swedish RSO, cond. E.-P. Salonen, Stockholm, 26 March 1993
Mosaïques, 1993; Orchestre des Jeunes de la Méditerranée, cond. Tabachnik, Marseilles, 23 July 1993
Dämmerschein, 1993–4; Cologne RSO, cond. Peskó, Lisbon, 9 June 1994
Koïranoï 1994; NDR SO, cond. Peskó, Hamburg, 1 March 1996
Ioolkos, 1995; SWF SO, cond. K. Ryan, Donaueschingen, 20 Oct 1996
Voile, str, 1995; Munich Chamber Orchestra, cond. C. Poppen, Munich, 16 Nov 1995
Sea-Change, 1997; BBC SO, cond. A. Davis, London, 23 July 1997
O-Mega, perc solo, chbr orch, 1997; E. Glennie, London Sinfonietta, cond. M. Stenz, Huddersfield, 30 Nov 1997

Choral:
Zyia (folk), S, male vv (10 minimum), fl, pf, 1952; cond. R. Safir, Evreux, 5 April 1994
Anastenaria: procession aux eaux claires, SATB (30vv), male choir (15vv), orch (62 insts), 1953, sketch
Polla ta dhina (Sophocles: Antigone), children’s vv, wind, perc, 1962; cond. Scherchen, Stuttgart, 25 Oct 1962
Hiketides: les suppliates d’Eschyle, 50 female vv, 10 insts/orch, 1964; cond. Simonović, Paris, 1968
Oresteïa (incid music/concert work, Aeschylus), chorus, 12 insts, 1965–6; cond. Simonović, Ypsilanti, MI, 14 June 1966
Medea (incid music, Seneca), male vv, orch, 1967; cond. Masson, Paris, 29 March 1967
Nuits, 3 S, 3 A, 3 T, 3 B, 1967–8; cond. M. Couraud, Royan, 7 April 1968
Cendrées, chorus, orch, 1973–4; cond. Tabachnik, Lisbon, 20 June 1974
A Colone (Sophocles), male/female vv (20 minimum), 5 hn, 3 trbn, 6 vc, 4 db, 1977; Metz, 19 Nov 1977
A Hélène, Mez, female vv, 2 cl, 1977; Epidavros, July 1977
Anemoessa (phonemic text), SATB (42 minimum), orch, 1979; cond. R. Dufallo, Amsterdam, 21 June 1979
Nekuïa (phonemes and text from J.-P. Richter: Siebenkäs and Xenakis: Ecoute), SATB (54 minimum), orch, 1981; cond. Tabachnik, Cologne, 26 March 1982
Pour la Paix (Xenakis), SATB, 2 female spkrs, 2 male spkrs, tape (UPIC), 1981, version for SATB (32 minimum); cond. M. Tranchant, Paris, 23 April 1982
Serment-Orkos (Hippocrates), SATB (32 minimum), 1981; Greek Radio Choir, Athens, 1981
Chant des Soleils (Xenakis, after P. du Mans), SATB, children’s choir, 18 brass 6 (hn, 6 tpt, 6 trbn) or multiple, perc, 1983; Nord-Pas-de-Calais [simultaneous performance in several towns of the region], 21 June 1983
Idmen A/Idmen B (phonemes from Hesiod: Theogony), SATB (64 minimum), 4/6 perc, 1985; Antifona de Cluj, Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 24 July 1985
Knephas (phonemes by Xenakis), SATB (32 minimum), 1990; cond. J. Wood, London, 24 June 1990
Pu wijnuej we fyp (A. Rimbaud), children’s choir, 1992; cond. D. Dupays, Paris, 5 Dec 1992
Vakchai Evripidou (Les Bacchantes d' Euripide), Bar, female vv (also playing maracas), pic, ob, dbn, hn, tpt, trbn, 3 perc, 1993; J. Dixon, cond. N. Kok, London, 1 Sept 1993
Sea-Nymphs (phonemes from W. Shakespeare: The Tempest), SATB (24 minimum), 1994; cond. S. Joly, London, 16 Sept 1994

Other vocal:
Tripli zyia, 1v, pf, 1952, unpubd
Trois poèmes (F. Villon: Aiés pitié de moy, V. Mayakovsky: Ce soir je donne mon concert d’adieux, Ritsos: Earini Symphonia [Spring Symphony]), 1v, pf, 1952, unpubd
La colombe de la paix, A, 4vv (SATB), 1953, unpubd
Stamatis Katotakis (table song), 1v, male vv, 1953, unpubd
N’shima, 2 Mez/A, 2 hn, 2 trbn, vc, 1975; cond. J.-P. Izquierdo, Jerusalem, Feb 1976
Pour Maurice, Bar, pf, 1982; S. Sakkas, C. Helffer, Brussels, 18 Oct 1982
Kassandra (Aeschylus), Bar + 20str psalterion, perc, 1987; Sakkas, Gualda, Gibellina, 21 Aug 1987 [second part of Oresteïa: see CHORAL]
La déesse Athéna (Aeschylus), Bar, pic, ob, E♭ cl, db cl, dbn, hn, pic tpt, trbn, tuba, perc, vc, 1992; Sakkas, cond. Tabachnik, Athens, 3 May 1992 [scene from Oresteïa: see CHORAL]

Chamber:
Dipli Zyia, vn, vc, 1951, unpubd
ST/4, str qt, 1956–62; Bernède Quartet, Paris, 1962
ST/10, cl, b cl, 2 hn, hp, perc, str qt, 1956–62 cond. Simonović, Paris, May 1962
Morsima-Amorsima, pf, vn, vc, db, 1956–62; cond. Foss, Athens, 16 Dec 1962
Analogique A, 9 str, 1958 [must be performed with tape work Analogique B]; cond. Scherchen, Gravesano, summer 1959
Amorsima-Morsima, cl, b cl, 2 hn, hp, perc, str qt; cond. Foss, Athens, 1962
Atrées, fl, cl, b cl, hn, tpt, trbn, 2 perc, vn, vc, 1962; cond. Simonović, Paris, 1962
Eonta, 2 tpt, 3 trbn, pf, 1963–4; cond. P. Boulez, Paris, 16 Dec 1964
Anaktoria, cl, bn, hn, str qt, db, 1969; Octuor de Paris, Avignon, 3 July 1969
Persephassa, 6 perc, 1969; Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Persepolis, 9 Sept 1969
Aroura, 12 str, 1971; cond. Tabachnik, Lucerne, 24 Aug 1971
Charisma, cl, vc, 1971; Royan, 6 April 1971
Linaia-Agon, hn, trbn, tuba, 1972; cond. Tabachnik, London, 26 April 1972
Phlegra, 11 insts, 1975; cond. Tabachnik, London, 28 Jan 1976
Epeï, eng hn, cl, tpt, 2 trbn, db, 1976; cond. S. Garant, Montréal, 9 Dec 1976
Retours-Windungen, 12 vc, 1976; Berlin PO, Bonn, 20 Feb 1976
Dmaathen, ob, perc, 1976; N. Post, J. Williams, New York, May 1977
Akanthos, 9 insts, 1977; Ensemble Studio 111, Strasburg, 17 June 1977
Ikhoor, str trio, 1978; Trio à Cordes Français, Paris, 2 April 1978
Dikhthas, vn, pf, 1979; S. Accardo, B. Canino, Bonn, 4 June 1980
Palimpsest, eng hn, b cl, bn, hn, perc, pf, str qnt, 1979; cond. S. Gorli, Aquila, 3 March 1979
Pléïades, 6 perc, 1979; Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 17 May 1979
Komboï, amp hpd, perc, 1981; Chojnacka, Gualda, Metz, 22 Nov 1981
Khal Perr, brass qnt, 2 perc, 1983; Quintette Arban, Alsace Percussions, Beaune, 15 July 1983
Tetras, str qt, 1983; Arditti String Quartet, Lisbon, 8 June 1983
Thalleïn, pic, ob, cl, bn, hn, pic tpt, trbn, perc, pf, str qnt, 1984; cond. E. Howarth, London, 14 Feb 1984
Nyûyô [Setting Sun], shakuhachi, sangen, 2 koto; 1985; Angers, Ensemble Yonin-No Kai (Tokyo), 30 June 1985
Akea, pf, str qt, 1986; Helffer, Arditti String Quartet, Paris, 15 Dec 1986
A l’Ile de Gorée, amp hpd, pic, ob, cl, bn, hn, tpt, str qnt, 1986; cond. Kerstens, Amsterdam, 4 July 1986
Jalons, pic, ob, b cl, db cl, dbn, hn, tpt, trbn, tuba, hp, str qnt, 1986; cond. Boulez, Paris, 26 Jan 1987
XAS, sax qt, 1987; Raschèr Quartet, Lille, 17 Nov 1987
Waarg, pic, ob, cl, bn, hn, tpt, trbn, tuba, str qnt, 1988; cond. Howarth, London, 6 May 1988
Echange, solo b cl, fl, ob, cl, bn, hn, tpt, trbn, tuba, str qnt, 1989; H. Sparnaay, cond. Porcelijn, Amsterdam, 26 April 1989
Epcycle, solo vc, fl, ob, cl, hn, tpt, trbn, tuba, 2 vn, va, db, 1989; R. de Saram, Spectrum Ensemble, cond. G. Protheroe, London, 18 May 1989
Okho, 3 djembés, tall African drum, 1989; Trio Le Cercle, Paris, 20 Oct 1989
Ophaa, hpd, perc, 1989; Chojnacka, Gualda, Warsaw, 17 Sep 1989
Tetora, str qt, 1990; Arditti String Quartet, Witten, 27 Apr 1991
Paille in the wind, vc, pf, 1992; J. Scalfi, Woodward, Milan, 14 Dec 1992
Plektó, fl, cl, perc, pf, vn, vc, 1993; cond. R. Platz, Witten, 24 April 1994
Ergma, str qt, 1994; Mondrian String Quartet, The Hague, 17 Dec 1994
Mnamas Xapin Witoldowi Lutoslavskiemu [In Memory of Witold Lutosławski], 2 hn, 2 tpt, 1994; cond. W. Michniewki, Warsaw, 21 Sept 1994
Kaï, fl, cl, bn, tpt, trbn, vn, va, vc, db, 1995; cond. D. Coleman, Oldenburg, 12 Nov 1995
Kuïlenn, fl, 2 ob, 2 cl, 2 bn, 2 hn, 1995; Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Amsterdam, 10 June 1996
Hunem-Iduhey, vn, vc, 1996; E. Michell, O. Akahoshi, New York, 9 Aug 1996
Ittidra, str sextet, 1996; Arditti String Quartet, T. Kakuska (va), V. Erben (vc), Frankfurt, 4 Oct 1996
Roscobeck, vc, db, 1996; R. de Saram, S. Scordanibbio, Cologne, 6 Dec 1996
Zythos, trbn, 6 perc, 1996; Lindberg, Kroumata Ensemble, Birmingham, 10 April 1997

Solo instrumental:
Seven piano pieces without title, Menuet, Air populaire, Allegro molto, Mélodie, Andante, pf, 1949–50, unpubd
Suite, pf, 1950–51, unpubd
Thème et conséquences, pf, 1951, unpubd
Herma, pf, 1960–61
Nomos alpha, vc, 1965–6; S. Palm, Bremen, 5 May 1966
Mikka, vn, 1971; I. Gitlis, Paris, 27 Oct 1972
Evryali, pf, 1973; C. Helffer, Paris, 1974
Gmeeoorh, org, 1974; C. Holloway, U. of Hartford, CT, 1974
Psappha, perc, 1975; S. Gualda London, 2 May 1976
Theraps, db, 1975–6; F. Grillo, 26 March 1976
Khoaï, hpd, 1976; E. Chojnacka, Cologne, 5 May 1976
Mikka ‘S’, vn, 1976; R. Pasquier, Orléans, 11 March 1976
Kottos, vc, 1977; M. Rostropovich, La Rochelle, 28 June 1977
Embellie, va, 1981; G. Renon-McLaughlin, Paris, 1981
Mists, pf, 1981; Woodward, Edinburgh, 1981
Naama, amp hpd, 1984; Chojnacka, Luxembourg, 20 May 1984
Keren, trbn, 1986; B. Sluchin, Strasbourg, 19 Sept 1986
A r. (Hommage à Ravel), pf, 1987; H. Austbö, Montpellier, 2 Aug 1987
Rebonds, perc, 1988; Gualda, Rome, 1 July 1988

Tape
some works exist in one or more revised realizations

Diamorphoses, 2-track, 1957–8; Brussels, 5 Oct 1958
Concret PH, 2-track, 1958; Brussels, Philips Pavilion, 1958
Analogique B, 2-track, 1958–9 [must be performed with chbr work Analogique A]; cond. Scherchen, Gravesano, summer 1959
Orient-Occident, 2-track, 1960; Cannes, May 1960
The Thessaloniki World Fair (film score), 1-track, 1961
Bohor, 4-track, 1962; Paris, 15 Dec 1962
Hibiki Hana Ma, 12-track, 1969–70; Osaka, Expo 70, 1970
Persépolis, 8-track, 1971; Persepolis, 26 Aug 1971
Polytope de Cluny, 8-track, lighting, 1972; Paris, 17 Oct 1972
Polytope II, tape, lighting, 1974; Paris, 1974
La legénde d'Eer (Diatope), 4- or 8-track, 1977; Paris, 11 Feb 1978
Mycenae alpha, 2-track, UPIC, 1978; Mycenae, 2 Aug 1978
Taurhiphanie, 2-track, UPIC, 1987; Arles, 13 July 1988
Voyage absolu des Unari vers Andromède, 2-track, UPIC; Osaka, 1 April 1989
GENDY3, 2-track, Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis, 1991; Metz, 17 Nov 1991
S 709, 2-track Dynamic Stochastic Synthesis, 1994; Paris, 2 Dec 1994

That's... a lot of music.

I'm totally up for doing it but how do you think we should we tackle it? Should we limit ourselves to orchestral music maybe?

Heh, no kidding.

I honestly think we should do it wholesale, even if it takes a full year. I’ve been getting into a more patient listening groove lately...

Maybe pick about 45m-1h of music from all genres a week, going chronologically?

Sounds like a plan.

works for me

"Drawn Into the Flight Path of the Sounds": Xenakis Listening Thread

enjoyed Philip Corner's Chord Gong! (with Carles Santos), four-hand versions of Corner’s “Chord” and “Gong!”: https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/chord-gong-with-carles-santos

actually, I've liked everything Unseen Worlds has released this year

This might be the dumbest woke classical music take yet (by a UMass Amherst theorist): https://slate.com/culture/2020/10/fullname-famous-composers-racism-sexism.html

Collaborative Arts Chicago streaming a concert of art song by modern women composers tonight: https://www.caichicago.org/broadcast.html

Programme: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xF2RFfp5Wg3rhCH4NEzDwFY7-7BRlTuO/view

On that fullname thing, I thought someone who was as universally known as Beethoven or Mozart was referred to by last name only because of their fame? I can see a case for Schumann, since there are two of close to equal standing. But if I said Bach, would you assume I meant CPE, or Johann Sebastian? Price is almost known enough to be referred to by surname, but really, why try that when she's still a forgotten composer? New composers aren't known yet, why would you say "the Blanchard" if I'm not going to know what that is?

Yes. It's true that white men dominate the European art music canon but the fairly obvious reasons for that precede their 'last-naming'. People do say "Ellington" or "Oliveros". Demanding that people say "Ludwig van Beethoven" every time will not help women or minorities and if anything just seems even more alienating and exclusionary to a general audience. As a nonwhite composer, this is certainly not something that has ever concerned me, nor does the white male author cite any women or minorities who have expressed concern about this. If you want to do something, do more to promote performances of contemporary composers so more diverse names become well-known enough to recognize.

I don't think even my undergrad music and gender prof would argue that Clara Schumann was as important a composer as Robert btw.

Yeah, I think I took a joke too seriously about Clara being "the good Schumann" tbh. Bobby did some pretty great stuff, and I'm not as into solo piano music as I am symphonic stuff, so I'm probably overcompensating.

I've been happily but haphazardly dipping into the 19th century thanks to pomenitul's polls, and so far the big revelation is Gabriel Fauré (I've listened to plenty of new-to-me pieces by other more familiar composers), based only on the Nocturnes so far. I gather the Requiem is major--does anyone have a recording to recommend? And my thanks to pom for specifically mentioning Le Sage's Nocturnes, which is wonderful.

I like William Schuman, me. And I like the full-name proposal! didn't really need to be argued so hard, even. Thought it was funny that the article concluded with "let it be Ludwig Beethoven" ... ...

Also plz let it be "Adolf Hitler"; Idi Amin not getting enough respect.

I think I'd actually be on board with people saying "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi" tbf.

Clara was always "the good Hitler" tbf

lol

*Kneels in fgti’s direction*

enjoying this"

https://www.kairos-music.com/sites/default/files/cds/0015030KAI_scelsi_frontcover.jpg

https://www.kairos-music.com/cds/0015030kai

rob, which recording(s) of fauré's "requiem" did you end up listening to?

Not rob, obv., but I'm very fond of the pared down 1893 chamber version, featuring two of the greatest living French vocalists (really):

https://www.allmusic.com/album/fauré-requiem-mw0001869315

And I second your enjoyment of Scelsi Revisited. Pure (post-)(proto-)spectralist bliss.

Today's listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6357vL9TPg

"Poor fellow, I weep for him"

Does that Scelsi cover actually say "Ragnhild Berståd"?? Over-Nordicizing if so; her name is Berstad afaik.

rob, which recording(s) of fauré's "requiem" did you end up listening to?

― budo jeru, Saturday, November 7, 2020 12:21 PM (two days ago)

pomenitul very kindly ilxmailed me a recommendation of the Accentus recording he linked to. I loved it—and have really enjoyed all the other Fauré I've checked out in the past few weeks—though my mental space was invaded by the US election and I need to return and revisit. I'm definitely open to other versions though, so let me know if you have a favourite!

Does that Scelsi cover actually say "Ragnhild Berståd"?? Over-Nordicizing if so; her name is Berstad afaik.

Mötley Crüe-style, heh. At least Kairos's website dispenses with the overring.

Now that the year is slowly drawing to a close, I put together a list of my favourite 2020 classical releases so far, if anyone's interested. A word of warning, however: it skews heavily towards contemporary music, in keeping with my listening habits of late. Oh, and the periodization is a bit iffy at times, but that's almost always the case anyway.

Renaissance

Philippe Pierlot, Lucile Boulanger, Myriam Rignol & Rolf Lislevand – Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe et ses filles

Baroque

Johann Sebastian Bach – Johannes-Passion (Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe)

Classical

Ludwig van Beethoven – Violin Sonatas 1-4 (Frank Peter Zimmermann & Martin Helmchen)
Ludwig van Beethoven & Joseph-François Gossec – Symphony No. 5; Symphonie à 17 parties (Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth)

Romantic

Edvard Grieg – Violin Sonatas (Eldbjørg Hemsing & Simon Trpčeski)
Franz Liszt – Années de pèlerinage (Suzana Bartal)
Franz Liszt – Between Light & Darkness (Vincent Larderet)
Johannes Brahms – Clarinet Sonatas (Jörg Widmann & András Schiff)
Johannes Brahms – The Final Piano Pieces (Stephen Hough)

Late Romantic / Early Modern

Amatis Trio – Enescu, Ravel, Britten
Carl Nielsen – Symphonies 1 & 2 (Seatle Symphony, Thomas Dausgaard)
Célimène Daudet – Messe noire. Liszt, Scriabine
Charles Ives – Complete Symphonies (Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel)
Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2; King Kristian II (Gothenburg Symphony, Santtu Matias-Rouvali)
Ralph Vaughan Williams – Symphony No. 3, ‘Pastoral’; Symphony No. 4 (BBC SO, Martyn Brabbins)

Modern

Constantin Silvestri – Complete Piano Works (Luiza Borac)
Cyrillus Kreek – The Suspended Harp of Babel (Vox Clamantis, Jaan-Eik Tulve)
Daniil Trifonov – Silver Age
Dmitri Shostakovich – Piano Quintet; Seven Romances (Trio Wanderer, et al.)

Postwar / Late 20th Century

Luciano Berio – Coro; Cries of London (Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Grete Pedersen)

Contemporary

Alberto Posadas – Poética del laberinto
Bára Gísladóttir – HĪBER
Benjamin Dwyer – what is the word
Christian Mason – Zwischen den Sternen
Clara Iannotta – Earthing
Enno Poppe – Fett; Ich kann mich an nichts erinnern
Éric Montalbetti – Chamber Music. Harmonieuses dissonances
Gerald Eckert – absence
Gonçalo Gato – NowState
Howard Skempton – Preludes and Fugues; Nocturnes; Reflections; Images (William Howard)
Klangforum Wien – Scelsi Revisited
Leo Brouwer – 30 Estudios sencillos (Thibault Cauvin)
Linda Buckley – From Ocean’s Floor
Liza Lim – Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus
Naomi Pinnock – Lines and Spaces
Outi Tarkiainen – The Earth, Spring’s Daughter; Saivo
Rebecca Saunders – Still; Aether; Alba
Richard Valitutto – Nocturnes & Lullabies
Sebastian Hilli – confluence / divergence
Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble, Andrej Power, Lawrence Power & Christianne Stotijn – Voices of Angels
Thomas Wally – Jusqu’à l’aurore
Timothy McCormack – KARST
Tobias Eduard Schick – Chamber Music
Tõnu Kõrvits – Hymns to the Nordic Lights
Tõnu Kõrvits – You Are Light and Morning (Sei la luce e il mattino)
Víctor Ibarra – The Dimension of the Fragile
Wet Ink Ensemble – Smoke, Airs
Xavier Dayer – Chamber Music
Zeynep Gedizlioğlu – Verbinden und Abwenden

Cross-Era Recitals

Barbara Hannigan & Ludwig Orchestra – La passione: Nono, Haydn, Grisey
Bertrand Chamayou – Good Night!
Élodie Vignon – D’ombres. Dutilleux, Ledoux
Jean-Pierre Collot – The Way to Sound: Spectral Visions of Goethe (Dufourt, Liszt, Schubert)

i will likely go fishing in the contemporary collection. what from that list do you think is most accessible?

Howard Skempton, Leo Brouwer, Linda Buckley, Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble, et al., Tõnu Kõrvits are probably your best bets.

Right now, I'd say the Buckley is my favourite of the lot. Here's a review if you're curious:

https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2020/10/01/linda-buckley-from-oceans-floor/

nice, thanks!

Big up Pom, thanks for that list! Bára Gísladóttir was a wonderful surprise already, so I'm stoked to explore more from your list.

My pleasure! A few more I haven't heard yet but that I suspect are quite good:

Enno Poppe – Stoff
Georg Nigl & Olga Pashchenko – Vanitas: Beethoven, Schubert & Rihm (out Nov 13)
Tigran Mansurian – Con anima (out Nov 13)
Toru Takemitsu – Orchestral Works (Akiko Suwanai, NHK Symphony Orchestra Paavo Järvi) (not readily available in Canada)
Various Artists – Donaueschinger Musiktage 2019 (ditto)

Really enjoyed the Ives set and the Dwyer. Listened to 2/3 of the Hannigan, which is ofc good. Look forward to listening to more.

I also forgot to include Paavo Järvi's excellent Franz Schmidt symphony cycle with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. Schmidt has a dodgy reputation because he turned a blind eye to the Nazi regime, although I've come across pieces that claim he was hopelessly naïve and had no understanding of politics, much like Wilhelm Furtwängler (besides, Schmidt died a few months before WW2 broke out). I suspect his legacy was also marred by his audible resistance to modernism, which is less of a dealbreaker for us than for the proto-hipster caste of the interwar and postwar periods. Anyway, the music itself is quite good and very much worth hearing if you're fond of the Austro-Germanic tradition. It's almost on par with the early and mid-period symphonies of Gustav Mahler, under whom Schmidt often played the cello while he was a member of the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra. The elegiac 4th Symphony is the most famous of the four, and rightly so: there's a depth of feeling that reminds me of another instrumental requiem composed in the 1930s: Alban Berg's Violin Concerto (admittedly, this is a bit of a damning comparison).

Interesting! I picked up Neeme Järvi's Chandos set on a whim years ago. (Not the first time the Salvation Army got me listening to things no one seemed to talk about, lol.) I have to remind myself what I liked about it between listens, but I do indeed quite enjoy it when it's on. It gets better in chronological order, I recall. An extremely quick skim through reviews suggests that Paavo J's may be an improvement. Will listen...

Neeme Järvi has always struck me as a merely serviceable and all-too prolific conductor whose recordings lack the extra oomph required to ascend to the top of the pile. Paavo Järvi, on the other hand, is a much cleaner and more dynamic performer, one who almost never gives the sense that his sole aim is to add yet another trophy to an already vast discography. While I haven't heard the father's Schmidt set, I can't imagine it topping the son's.

I dove into a "listen to violin music" whirlpool and remembered this bizarrely spectacular iPhone recording of Hilary Hahn playing the much-maligned Ysaye 6:

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

I can't really describe how incredible this is from top to bottom

Impressive performance and recording both.

I know nothing about the sonata's reputation among violinists, so I'm curious: why is it much-maligned?

I think the consensus is that the difficulty of the work doesn't justify the compositions... and I'd agree with Sonata 2, which is the one that is the most accessible but is kinda dum (but disagree with Sonatas 3 thru 6)

Ah, I see, thanks. I haven't listened to whole set in a long time but that seems like a fair assessment.

1 is weak, 2 quotes dies irae ad nauseam, 3 onward are tricky to present correctly but are sublime when successful

Enjoyed this composition for sine waves, zither, and choir. Very spare but pleasant and spacious: https://martaforsberg.bandcamp.com/album/new-love-music

I find it absolutely hilarious that Eton College (UK) sports a composer in residence and that from 2014 to 2015 it happened to be Christian Mason, who reminds me of a posher and hence twattier Mark Hollis if we go by appearance and affiliation alone, but his Zwischen den Sternen for chamber ensemble is possibly my favourite of the new contemporary classical works that I discovered this year, thanks to the ensemble recherche's recording for Winter & Winter. Soundworld-wise, it reminds me of Peter Maxwell Davies's Ave maris stella more so than the music of Mason's recent mentor, Harrison Birtwistle, and the ensemble recherche/Winter & Winter connection also brings to mind Hans Abrahamsen's marvellous Schnee. Looming in the background are George Benjamin (his PhD supervisor) and Julian Anderson, whom I both very much admire. Like Anderson, Mason has an unabashedly spectralist approach to instrumental writing, with conspicuous folk inflections that recall late Ligeti and especially late Rădulescu, which I thought I was just making up at first, yet, sure enough, upon googling the two names in tandem, I learned that Mason has written an explicit homage to the defunct Romanian expat. Anyway, it's a beautiful and fairly accessible cycle (its German title means 'Between the Stars', after all), one I think even listeners who find 21st century classical music forbidding are likely to enjoy.

And that Marta Forsberg album looks intriguing, Sund4r. I'll check it out soon.

I just watched this video of ensemble recherche playing that Mason piece in Freiburg in 2019. It's quite something, goes a lot of places in half an hour, really gripping and intense at times. The sound is pretty good on the video and the lighting is v cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZccjziC-5k

Haha, I watched that video in a different browser and everything was mauve and green but I see there is just normal white lighting now. I think my partner may have done something with the colour settings in the other browser.

Nice! It was uploaded to the er's official YT channel, so its production values are bound to be superior to the usual fare.

On the other hand, who's to say mauve and green aren't the two dominant colours when you're drifting between the stars? (Don't answer that.)

2 Grammy noms for the Dudamel Ives set.

Good article on the history of Canadian works for guitar and electronics: https://www.musicworks.ca/feature/Canadian-compositions-guitar-electronics

A solid EOY list courtesy of The Rambler:

https://johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2020/12/08/rambler-releases-of-2020

I haven't heard all of these, but the Liza Lim and Clara Iannotta are undeniable highlights, especially the former.

Fine list to do some cherry picking from, thanks!

Ah, thanks. Listening to the Lim now. The first movement sounds fascinating so far.

The bird call on the piccolo (or flute?) was great.

The "Dawn Chorus" movement is completely acoustic? Wow.

The bassoon solo "Axis Mundi" is really interesting too; a lot of energy and good variety in timbre and dynamics with a clear enough narrative shape. I'd be happy to go back and pick out the form a little more closely.

Her and Richard Barrett are my favourite Elision-affiliated composers.

Speaking of which, I had no idea the latter had released anything this year until TRJ included Mirage in his EOY list. I'll have to seek it out asap.

Nm, it's the same performance as the one xyz posted upthread.

"Songs Found in a Dream" pretty interesting timbrally as well, although I'm having a hard time processing these as 'songs' (or tbh picking out the sectional form with ease). Haha, Rutherford-Johnson did the liner notes? I will admit that the nebulous quasi-spiritual descriptions of the concepts behind the pieces are not really my thing but the sounds override these.

https://www.rarenoiserecords.com/2020/10/03/new-release-october-2020-stephan-thelen-presents-world-dialogue/

The Al Pari Quartet, a Polish, all-women ensemble, heard Kronos Quartet’s rendition of “Circular Lines” and began performing it at their own concerts. News of their interest in Stephan’s work reached him and he went on to collaborate with them as well on the other three pieces in this album.

this is really growing on me.

You can tell the composer is a mathematician.

I hear some Eastern influences in there as well as the math-rock, but I know what yer saying!

DG's video is shameless gothic cheese but how had I never heard this Schubert Lied before?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqfp06MLbeM

I hope she'll tackle Winterreise some day. She clearly has the idiom down pat.

Her two 2020 albums for Alpha Classics, Paradise Lost and Bach: Redemption, are likewise amazing.

That was amazing and just what I needed right now, thanks. I don't think I knew that piece either, although I own the 20-CD Schubert Meisterwerke on DG.

It's gorgeous, isn't it?

Turns out she and Eric Schneider skip the first six (!) stanzas. You can hear the full version here, sung by the equally stellar Christian Gerhaher, at a mildly faster clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih43NAQnmMU

One thing led to another and I ended up on a late night Schubert Lieder YT binge. It brought me back to the great Thomas Quasthoff, who never disappoints:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pze4NxCOjg0

Happy birthday Beethoven!

^this!

what do ppl feel are his best works and what are the best recorded performances?

I'm no expert on the guy yet but the grosse fuge and no 32 sonata are total bangers

Lazy answer: all of his works are his best works.

Real bullet-point answer, which is highly subjective:

* 16 string quartets, esp. the late quartets (12-16 and the Große Fuge) – Alban Berg Quartett (live, 1989); Belcea Quartet; Quartetto Italiano
* 9 symphonies (esp. 3, 5, 6, 7 & 9) – countless performances, for a complete set I've always been fond of Claudio Abbado's live renditions with the Berlin Philharmonic; Wilhelm Furtwängler's wartime (1942) recording of the 9th with the Berliners is stupefyingly intense, and not just because of the obvious historical context; Carlos Kleiber's takes on the 5th and 7th are rightly celebrated as well
* Missa solemnis (Beethoven thought it was his best work) – Michael Gielen, et al., with the caveat that there is no single 100% satisfactory recording of this one, unfortunately; Philippe Herreweghe's recent re-attempt at a historically informed performance is also quite good
* 32 piano sonatas (esp. 8, 14, 21, 23, 28-32) – Stephen Kovacevich; Maurizio Pollini
* Diabelli Variations – Stephen Kovacevich; Maurizio Pollini
* 5 cello sonatas (esp. 4-5) – Miklós Perényi & András Schiff
* 10 violin sonatas (esp. 9-10) – Isabelle Faust & Alexander Melnikov
*5 piano concertos (esp. 4-5) – Maurizio Pollini, Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado
* 7 piano trios (esp. 5-7) – Trio Wanderer
* violin concerto – Isabelle Faust, Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado (yeah, I love me some late Abbado)
* An die ferne Geliebte – Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Huber
* Bagatelles for piano – Stephen Kovacevich

As you can see, his late works are almost always best in my book. Performance-wise, these picks tend to highlight a more forceful and dramatic view of Beethoven without ever overdoing it. Basically, I want my Beethoven to be as Romantic and dynamic and transcendental as possible while maintaining a firm foothold in the classical tradition. I dislike genteel takes no less than self-indulgent re-imaginings. Really, though, these suggestions are just meant to get you started – part of the fun is seeking out different recordings and seeing which ones jive with your own ears.

I screwed up the bullet point formatting, but this should be readable enough.

tysm that’s fantastic!!! bookmarked

from what I’ve heard the later works feel more profound but that also makes me a bit scared of them. the earlier stuff goes down easier for casual listening but it doesn’t always stick with me

I fancy tackling the big symphonies first bc they’re so familiar as cultural signifiers/cliches but I’ve hardly ever listened seriously to them (except for 9 which I love 3/4 of). abbado is one of the few conductors I’m a little familiar with so he’s the easy choice

Bitte schön.

Chronologically working your way through just about any single one of these cycles is the most straightforward approach. It makes it easier to tackle the next cycle, and so on, until you hit the Missa solemnis and go 'wtf' because so many of his late creations are downright bizarre, including the finale to the 9th, imo among the most surreal (if you'll allow the anachronism) of normalized/institutionalized classical warhorses and impossible to hear with fresh ears until you suddenly do (that 1942 Furtwängler recording is what did it for me, appallingly bad nazi sound notwithstanding).

Btw finding the exact Abbado set I was talking about can be a bit confusing because it's a live re-recording of a to-him-unsatisfactory studio attempt (and I tend to agree with that assessment).

thank you. it’s hard to just wade in with this stuff when you have no context for it

This is the one:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7965665--beethoven-the-symphonies

It seems to have also been reissued as part of the DG's Abbado Symphony Edition boxset, which is available on Spotify and Apple Music.

cool thx

I don’t hate the 9th finale I just don’t know what the hell it’s trying to do most of the time. I will probably have to listen to the nazi one at some point

I'm not sure I do either tbh. One last thing: I didn't have much of a context for this stuff either when I got started, beyond a few pieces my dad was into when I was a kid. I just thought some of it was really moving and stayed with that feeling. I still can't read a score or play an instrument, but amateurishness is a huge step up from the legions of bougie concert-goers who dgaf about the music to begin with and who just show up to be *seen* and to mingle during the intermission (ye shall know them by their conspicuous absence whenever a post-1900 work featuring a smidgeon of dissonance is included in the concert program).

whether the rite of spring counts as music is still controversial in some of those circles

Some recent guitar stuff to check out:

https://www.lafolia.com/string-theory-35-mostly-guitars/

Thanks, putting on the Fongaard now.

Heh, these are definitely not inventions in Bach's sense of the term.

Ferneyhough’s Renvoi-Shards is not so different from the surrounding Fongaard

Haha what

I haven't listened to the album yet but that also made me go o_O based on Covell's description alone.

It's interesting but a long double album. I will come back to the later pieces.