~THE KIND WE KEEP THINKING WILL TURN INTO A TUNE~ ILM CLASSICAL MUSIC LISTENING CLUB!

This week's picks:

Olivier Messiaen / Quartet for the End of Time (1940-1941)
http://www.classicalarchives.com/images/coverart/6/a/b/6/028946905227_300.jpg

Recommended recording:
CD Deutsche Grammophon: Gil Shaham, violin / Paul Meyer, clarinet / Jian Wang, violoncello / Myung-Whun Chung, piano

The most ethereally beautiful music of the twentieth century was first heard on a brutally cold January night in 1941, at the Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp, in Görlitz, Germany. The composer was Olivier Messiaen, the work “Quartet for the End of Time.” Messiaen wrote most of it after being captured as a French soldier during the German invasion of 1940. The première took place in an unheated space in Barrack 27. A fellow-inmate drew up a program in Art Nouveau style, to which an official stamp was affixed: “Stalag VIIIA 49 geprüft [approved].” Sitting in the front row—and shivering along with the prisoners—were the German officers of the camp.

The title does not exaggerate the ambitions of the piece. An inscription in the score supplies a catastrophic image from the Book of Revelation: “In homage to the Angel of the Apocalypse, who lifts his hand toward heaven, saying, ‘There shall be time no longer.’” It is, however, the gentlest apocalypse imaginable. The “seven trumpets” and other signs of doom aren’t roaring sound-masses, as in Berlioz’s Requiem or Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony, but fiercely elegant dances, whose rhythms swing along in intricate patterns without ever obeying a regular beat. In the midst of these Second Coming jam sessions are episodes of transfixing serenity—in particular, two “Louanges,” or songs of praise. Each has a drawn-out string melody over pulsing piano chords; each builds toward a luminous climax and then vanishes into silence. The first is marked “infinitely slow”; the second, “tender, ecstatic.” Beyond that, words fail. (via Alex Ross)

---

Alfred Schnittke / Piano Quintet (1972-1976)

http://home.wanadoo.nl/ovar/sovrev/schnittke/naxos8554728.jpg
Recommended recording:
CD Naxos 8.554728: Mark Lubotsky & Dimity Hall (violin), Theodore Kuchar & Irini Morozova (viola), Alexander Ivashkin & Julian Smiles(cello), Irina Schnittke (piano)

"Alfred Schnittke's Piano Quintet is a dark and heavy planet. Even in the midst of his bewilderingly prolific output, this extremely personal work commands a massive gravity; it seems to orient, arrange, and set in motion so many of Schnittke's works, before and after. If one wants to find the founding trauma for such a consistently agonizing body of artistic work, it can be found in the Piano Quintet.

This centrality may owe much to the quintet's function: conceived as a memorial to the composer's mother, who died of a stroke in September 1972, here's a composition whose substance was drawn from a real event, powerfully tangible and irrevocable. This kind of reality had not been Schnittke's basis for previous works. His Symphony No. 1 (1972) and other contemporaneous works are brazenly extroverted stylistic carnivals, full of fantasy, denunciation, and dark humor, and are largely artistic statements on art or cultural critiques on culture itself.

In this light, the Piano Quintet was a radical departure into an entirely personal sphere. This shift caused the composer tremendous difficulty. After finishing the first movement very quickly, Schnittke was blocked, "unable to continue because I had to take what I wrote from an imaginary space defined in terms of sound and put it into the psychological space as defined by life, where excruciating pain seems almost unserious, and one must fight for the right to use dissonance, consonance, and assonance."

Hence the Piano Quintet was shelved, and Schnittke did not resume work on it for almost four years. When he did pick up the work again, his musical temperament had changed, becoming more distilled, tauter, and more unabashedly morbid. Schnittke had perfected a personal sound, a dense, claustrophobic web of chromatic clusters. This signatory sound, rich yet obscure, serves as the backdrop for much of his succeeding work, and is seamlessly crafted into this work. The second movement is a wraith-like slow waltz on the name of B-A-C-H (H in German notation is B, B is B flat). The waltz is the only "polystylistic" concession in the piece, and throughout the movement consistently descends back into torturous clusters."

(via Seth Brodsky's AMG review)

nice. i need some schnittke in my life.

Hurrah

ooh, 'citing. think ilx have officially taken over my listening habits.

The Messaien is so, so beautiful. (My recording is the Chamber Music Northwest one on Delos.) Naked City's recording of "Louange a l'Éternité de Jésus" was the first Messaien I'd ever heard.

Weirdly, Messiaen may be the one canonized 20th-century composer whom I have never loved (excluding neo-Romantic bullshit). Still, I've enjoyed parts of the Quartet and look forward to listening closely to a recording.

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

xp Here you can hear that specific movement arranged for Ondes Martenot. Such a sad melody.

Anyhow I can't post illegal dl links, but I definitely think you should check the performance I recommended upthread. So maybe using your own internet searching powerz would be a good idea.

I actually first heard Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time a couple of weeks and I've been listening to it constantly ever since. Haven't heard the Schnittke but I'm looking forward to it!

Yeah, that wasn't a request for a link or anything. (I have seen the whole piece in concert BTW.)

look closely as his powerz

:)

Schnittke is well worth searching for as well tbh* but I'm not really pushing anyone, really...

I love the 2nd movement of the Piano Quintet.
♥

i play the two Louanges every now and then, tho they're almost too much

i was gonna ignore this one in favour of other listening clubs but the writeups on those picks are making it pretty hard to ignore

:D

So who's volunteering for the upcoming weeks?

I demand the presence of the usual suspects.

very pleased this is happening! I resolved earlier this year to finally educate myself about classical and shed some of the bad associations I have with it (junior high band, looney tunes, commercials, etc), so this is very welcome.

Listening to the Schnittke now on Lala.

Can I have a week?

Yes.

Next week good for you?

the alex ross piece u linked on the messiaen is really good - just encouraging every1 to read the full thing

was nvr that "into" quartet for the end of time but really making anything that sum1 cld faithfully describe as a "Second Coming jam session" is a real life goal 4 me

All you Messiaen skeptics will repent. Especially when you hear the orchestral arrangement of 'L'Ascension' conducted by Antoni Wit.

Next week good for you?

Sure. Two pieces on Wednesday? Should I suggest pieces or recordings?

I suppose the amount of pieces varies depending on length? i.e., not sure how well Tristan und Isolde would pan out.

btw re: pieces or recordings, both would be ideal. :)

Extremely psyched about this club. Will be a frequent visitor at the local library. I've got the Messiaen already, but a different recording, and love it. I don't think I've ever heard Schnittke before, so thanks for the suggestion! Youtube has the Naxos recording up. (I know, not exactly audiophile, but that's how I'm living.) Listening now for the first time, and man is this great. Really unsettling and arresting. I would love to see this performed live.

The Alex Ross article on Schnittke makes it clear I'm going to want to spend some more time checking him out. What's the next place to turn?

Also: Ross and a few other online reviews describe Schnittke as a prankster/jokester/ironist, big on appropriating chunks of the classical canon (including his own works), and some say there are even jokes in this quintet piece. But unless they mean the fractured waltz, I think I don't have the classical background to hear any others. Are there more?

dad a, glad that you dig. I would recommend the string quartets next. Also, the concerto grosso no. 3 is twisted and beautiful.

This club could be fantastic, thanks for setting it in motion. If anyone more knowledgeable than me (i.e. pretty much anyone) wants to use this as an opportunity to drop knowledge about who's who, what's going on, how this stuff works, etc. that will never go down badly with me. The original post is great.

“If I composed this quartet, it was to escape from the snow, from the war, from the captivity, and from myself. The greatest benefit that I drew from it was that in the midst of thirty thousand prisoners I was the only man who was not one.” — Oliver Messiaen, speaking about his “Quatuor pour la fin du temps,” which he composed while in a POW camp during WWII.

Also rest assured this shall not become a schlong museum from hell. There are a lot of underrated female composers.

Hear hear!

a schlong museum from hell

must admit that I'm intrigued by this idea

I have posted this before but...

Olivier Messiaen / ‘Louange à l’Éternité de Jésus’ from Quatuor pour la fin du temps arranged for choir ensemble(!!!!)

performed & arranged by Hans-Christoph Rademann & Dresdner Kammerchor

I listened to both recordings. But I think I will need to listen again as nothing stood out on first listen.

I actually bought the Schnittke cd today because of this thread! Hey it's Naxos, only £6 a pop and I've never even heard him before. Will attempt to listen tomorrow at work and report back.

xxp that arrangement for choir sounds wonderful coming out my tinny laptop speakers

Isn't it beautiful?

Would I be right in thinking that classical music sounds better live at a performance than on lp/cd/mp3?

Yes.

You have to get used to it being unamplified, which can be a problem from the back of large concert halls sometimes.

And the seats at the front will be highly expensive?

People will hate me for this, but I wish there were more recordings of classical which were actually compressed.

dont tell sick mouthy!

Hm, I tend to side with Scik Mouthy on the compression issue but I do actually know what you're talking about. Sometimes it seems like it would be nice to play a Sciarrino CD in the car after Autechre or Bill Frisell or whatever. Or even just to be able to listen intently on headphones without jumping when a sforzando appears. How much can this be accommodated while preserving the dynamic range and timbral integrity of classical music though? The majority of 'serious' music recordings do seem to be made for studious rather than for casual listening. Should art music adapt here?

Some of Robert Normandeau's electroacoustic recordings do seem to manage to be well-suited to relatively 'casual' listening while preserving dynamic range.

You are so OTM. e.g., I can't listen to something like Berg's Lulu suite in peace without knowing that I'll eventually be terribly frightened by some sudden scream. Or just in general, I'm always turning the volume down during climaxes, etc. :(

It's more annoying than those impossibly loud adverts that come on tv!

Holy shit, I wasn't expecting to love the Schnittke this much!

:D I demand feedback.

no

The last movement of the Schnittke piano quintet is such a surprise. The whole piece feels unrelenting, and then it relents. After all those jarring isolating passages, getting to harmony and resolution is so welcome and satisfying. Like the cliche about Frank Capra - he makes you pay for those happy endings.

Some great Schnittke & Silvestrov & Part on WNYC's New Sounds a few weeks back, all liturgical chants: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newsounds/episodes/2010/04/20

Can I host a week of this club? My enthusiasm isn't at all matched by my knowledge but I won't let that stop me.

Thrilled w/ the response at the Schnittke.

dad a, of course you can! You up for doing next week?

People will hate me for this, but I wish there were more recordings of classical which were actually compressed.

I agree with you. Concert hall realism with vast whisper-to-a-roar dynamic range is not my ideal for listening. This is why so many of my favorite symphonic recordings are from the 60s and 70s when there was no shame in multimiking those flutes right up in your face.

I'm also quite fond of high-quality radio broadcast sound for similar reasons.

Like dang the Ansermet Decca recording of Stravinsky's Petrouchka-- that's a how I like a recorded orchestra to sound.

So I'm on for the 12th, right? Great. (Crossing fingers that Sundar's not picking either of the records I feel good about touting.)

I'll take the week after Dad A if that's cool...?

dad a, that is correct.

And Jon, yes. :D

Looking forward to you guys' contributions.

i am a classical dummy but i have been geting into it more lately, grateful for this club!

we should have an opera one too!!

If someone does opera I would recommend one opera at a time and several weeks for listening. More like a book club.

totes.

ya

Finishing the Schnittke now, my first close listening to anything of his. I've avoided Schnittke for some reason for a long time, almost perversely so given my other proclivities. Perhaps talk of his 'post-modernism' led me to fear an excessive profusion of quotations or something.

Dumb of me. This is great. Doomy, sphinxish late Shostakovich taken a few steps further. This kind of sepulchral stuff goes down real easy for me-- in fact, I wish all Shostakovich were like late Shostakovich.

Satire or referentiality really only showed itself in the very beautiful final movement Moderato Pastorale, and in a profound way. That cycling melody high in the piano is a tip of the hat to the kind of 'folk' melodies used to connote birdsong, shepherds, bucolic innocence etc in Berlioz, Rossini, Beethoven and Grieg. Schnittke sets it far far away in the distance, sets it repeating in an odd, unsettling way, and frames it in tolling doom-bass. Wonderful.

Int'l Harvester, thanks for your last paragraph there, just the type of answer I was trawling for upthread. And Turangalila, thanks for recommending other Schnittke, listening to Quartet No. 3 now (from Kronos Quartet's Winter Was Hard) and liking it plenty.

I demand feedback.

Here's the thing: Given how much has been written about this music, it would take some amount of serious effort for me to come up with something meaningful that is worth sharing publicly. (I don't know how quickly Jon came up with what he wrote but that would not come all that quickly for me.) I don't mind putting in the work but I'm supposed to be writing a dissertation as well. I'm happily listening to everything and will try to comment in more depth but sometimes I might just give one-line comments.

That's ok Sundar, I wasn't being entirely serious with my tone. :)

Anyone listen to renaissance vocal music? Spinning (on a hard drive) some Brumel at the moment.

Hey! You know what's a good piece of music that we haven't talked about enough? Olivier Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time! That one's worth talking about too.

At first I couldn't figure out how to hear it without calling up cinematic images of WWII, probably because the first time I heard the story I either misunderstood or was told wrong, and came away believing he'd written it in a concentration camp, not a POW camp. Very different things. (A mistake replicated plenty online, like on this Amazon review.)

I'm listening to the ensembe incanto version on Arte Nova. I love the idea of part three: the obvious move to suggest an "abyss of birds" would be strings screeching, loud and painful, cawing and clawing chaos. (Or does that just seem obvious post-Hitchcock?) Instead Messiaen went with long, drawn-out chords on solo clarinet, because time isn't just running out, it's exhausted. Can't tell you how much I love that image, and the music fits it perfectly. Then it gets even more slow ("infinitely" or "immeasurably", depending on the translation) and quiet with part five. (Those versions of the Louange posted Turangalila posted are both fantastic, especially the Martenot one, it's so still -- it feels like there's nothing going on in the world except the shifting of tones.) So when part six jumps in it's like you're hearing a different piece of music. Yep, still love this.

So now, why's part two called a vocalise? Not hearing any singing.

Some notes:

This was the closest I've ever listened to anything by Messiaen and it did pay off. In fact, I was left wondering a little why I'd never seriously listened to or studied him before since many of my compositional interests are related to ideas that he worked with so skilfully.

The general contrast between slow, lyrical music and loud, rhythmically complex music - sometimes with sudden changes in the type of instrumental writing - works very effectively, of course. Other things that stood out for me included the way that motives were passed around between instruments in the first movement and the use of recurring trill-like figures throughout the piece to build unity and memory. Instrumental register is exploited well, e.g. the way the clarinet and cello are used 'against' each other in a sense in the first movement. Meyer's command over timbre and tone despite the wide range in dynamics and register in mvt 3 impressed me. Finally, we get that trill taking us back to mvt 2 but it is held for so long and slowed down to the point that it becomes a slow oscillation between notes as time seems to stretch out - very clever. Mvt 4 actually made me think of some of the Russian music I love. Mvt 5 ("Louange") is powerful: It is the most traditionally emotional or lyrical of the movements and at moments, almost seems like it could work as emotional film music but it is more subtle than one might expect, avoiding Romantic cliches: Not only are the pitch choices less predictable but at moments when it seems that we might get our 'payoff', the music actually retreats. Dissonance keeps building but we end the movement with serenity not bombast.

And my choices for this week are:

i) Bela Bartok - 14 Bagatelles (piano)

I listen to Robert Hagopian's recording but there are surely many good ones.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/t_200/etceteraktc1012.jpg

ii) Heitor Villa-Lobos - Douze Etudes (guitar)

Nearly everyone has recorded these. Alvaro Pierri's recording (below) is highly recommended. I love Christopher Parkening's recording of Etude 11 (the only of these I play) but I haven't heard his complete recording. I'm not partial to Timo Korhonen myself but he brings his own sort of intensity to the music.

http://p.playme.com/cspv/47-06-28-00-00-MetaPreview-Cover-JPEG256x256/alvaro-pierri/villa-lobos:-chôros-no-1,-12-etudes,-5-préludes.jpg

Both of these can be found on Naxos Online if you have access to that service BTW.

Cool!

Is that Bartok or Hagopian on the cover? Looks like Zappa on an unusually well-groomed day.

xpost I highly recommend the Naxos Music Library service if you can afford 15 bucks a month. You get unlimited streaming access not just to the whole Naxos catalog but also BIS, Chandos, a slew of other labels. It's how I listened to the Schnittke day before yesterday.

Cool choices Sundar. There are not tons of recordings of the Bagatelles out there; my first choice is Zoltan Kocsis on Philips, followed by Gyorgy Sandor on Vox. Jeno Jando on Naxos is probably good-- he's a v dependable musician with occasional detours into full greatness.

These pieces of Bartok's represent a kind of brash early modernism before he got into his folk fascination (also see Bluebeard's Castle). Here he is swimming in the fin de siecle chromatic soup that produced so many amazing piano works by Debussy, Schoenberg, Scriabin, Ravel et al (I fetishize this era of solo piano composition). I'm looking forward to hearing it again.

I've been getting into Villa-Lobos' works for orchestra the last couple of years but I don't know these guitar pieces-- yet! (Hi naxos music library)

Still intend to write something abt the Messiaen which I have known for a long time...

Didn't spot this thread until today. I haven't listened to either the Messiaen or Schnittke pieces in a while but very much like both. I know a different Naxos version of the Schnittke - the Vermeer quartet, in a coupling with the Shostakovich. Not sure I have anything much to say without re-listening. Interested in the thread though. I'll look out for the Bartok/Villa Lobos pieces, neither of which I know.

(The cover photo is of Hagopian. I don't think Bartok managed even that much of a smile in any photo I've seen.)

I have been extremely busy this week, which is why I haven't participated these last few days. Thanks for your contributions, Sundar!

I'm finally getting around to the Messiaen piece and I just want to say that the fifth,er, tune? "Louange À l'Eternité De Jésus - Infiniment Lent, Extatique", is really moving, like "bite my lip" moving.

Will listen to Sundar's (very interesting) picks soon.

Liking the Villa-Lobos a lot. I don't know what to say about it other than "pretty."

Not to derail but I thought some of you might want to spend some time listening to www.whrb.org today. They're playing a nine-hour orgy of electroacoustic music (electronic music in the classical tradition; details and list of recordings here: http://whrb.org/programs/may2010.pdf) starting in about 15 minutes, from 1 to 10 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Welcome to week #3 of the classical music listening club.

Our first selection:

George Crumb - Black Angels (1970)
http://www.recordsale.org/cdpix/k/kronos_quartet-black_angels.jpg

Suggested recordings: the 1990 Kronos Quartet recording on Elektra Nonesuch or the original 1971 release on CRI.
Video of another performance here.

From the liner notes to the original release:

BLACK ANGELS (THIRTEEN IMAGES FROM THE DARK LAND) was conceived as a kind of parable on our troubled contemporary world. The numerous quasi-programmatic allusions in the work are therefore symbolic, although the essential polarity — God versus Devil — implies more than a purely metaphysical reality. The image of the "black angel" was a conventional device used by early painters to symbolize the fallen angel.

The underlying structure of BLACK ANGELS is a huge arch-like design which is suspended from the three "Threnody" pieces. The work portrays a voyage of the soul. The three stages of this voyage are Departure (fall from grace), Absence (spiritual annihilation), and Return (redemption).

The numerological symbolism of BLACK ANGELS, while perhaps not immediately perceptible to the ear, is nonetheless quite faithfully reflected in the musical structure. These "magical" relationships are variously expressed — e.g. in terms of phrase-length, groupings for single tones, durations, patterns of repetition, etc. An important pitch element in the work — ascending D-sharp, A, and E — also symbolizes the fateful numbers 7-13. At certain points in the score there occurs a kind of ritualistic counting in various languages, including German, French, Russian, Hungarian, Japanese, and Swahili.

There are several allusions to tonal music in BLACK ANGELS: a quotation from Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" quartet (in the Pavane Lachrymae, and also faintly echoed on the fast page of the work); an original Sarabande, which is stylistically synthetic; the sustained B Major tonality of God-music; and several references to the Latin hymn Dies Irae ("Day of Wrath"). The work abounds in conventional musical symbolisms such as the Diabolus in musica (the interval of the tritone) and the Trillo di diavolo (the "Devil's trill," after Tartini).

The amplification of the stringed instruments is in intended to produce a highly surrealistic effect. This surrealism is heightened by the use of certain unusual string effects, e.g. pedal tones (the intensely obscene sounds of the Devil- music); bowing on the "wrong" side of the strings (to produce the viol-consort effect); trilling on the strings with thimble-capped fingers. The performers also play maracas, tam-tams, and water-tuned crystal glasses, the latter played with the bow for the "glass-harmonica" effect in God-music.

BLACK ANGELS was commissioned by the University of Michigan and first performed by the Stanley Quartet. The score is inscribed: "finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March, 1970 (in tempore belli)."
— George Crumb

Overview of palindromic structure (from original 1970 program notes):
http://www.crosssound.com/CS10/concerts/crumbprogram.jpg

For those who like biographical material, a few interviews with Crumb:
http://citypaper.net/articles/2004-03-18/cover3.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xo8SHjTxpc

And for those who like to play along at home and/or look at insanely beautiful things, the score to a few sections is on the last page of this document.

Our second selection:
Arnold Dreyblatt - Nodal Excitation (1979)
http://www.dragcity.com/system/album_products/images/434/large.jpg

Suggested recordings: the original 1982 release by Dreyblatt's Orchestra of Excited Strings (released on India Navigation, of all places), if you can find it; or the 1998 reissue on Dexter's Cigar/Drag City. Which is widely available.
Also, this 2007 solo version, one of several available on Dreyblatt's website.

From Dreyblatt's program notes to a 1979 performance:

The vibrational characteristics of music wire with consideration of the location and influence to the nodal regions. The integrity of a fundamental vibration is maintained for each string; all movement of pitch occurs in the overtone structure. A shorter speaking length is never created through "stopping" or "fretting" technique. Harmonic (partial) vibrations are coaxed and occasionally isolated.

Press release for the reissue:

Nodal Excitation is a reissue of a key minimalist masterwork. Dreyblatt's documentation in the past has been slim, with albums on Hat Art, Tzadik and (shortly) Table of the Elements. This album features a 39 minute performance by Arnold's group known as The Orchestra of Excited Strings, recorded in 1981/82. Dreyblatt only had one record Nodal Excitation (on the mostly post-AACM jazz label India Navigation), before he packed and moved to Berlin, were he concentrated on other activities, making only 2 more records over the next 10 years. But for those who caught the action, Arnold was the man. He was more rock than any of the other minimalists combined, and he was also the only one to really tap into that massive proto-minimal sound that Conrad had squelched out of his tin-contact mic violin in the early 60s. Indeed, in the early 70s, after being in school in Buffalo, where Conrad taught, Dreyblatt moved into Manhattan to work for LaMonte Young, where he witnessed first hand, and listened first-ear to those legendary recordings of the Theatre of Eternal Music. He got interested in long string sounds, and bought a bass that he wired with piano wire. By hitting the strings instead of bowing them, Dreyblatt was able to get those ringing overtones, but he also had added something new: pure rhythm...So what you have here is Dreyblatt's freshman record, a slice of minimal history that is as potent now, if not more, as it was then. It was a lighthouse that was aiming the wrong way when the tugboat came by, but now it's shining right in your face.

George Crumb! Good on ya, Dad A. Crumb is my favorite living composer (my favorite living but non-elderly composer is Saariaho). As people digest Black Angels, it might be good to know that this piece is somewhat exceptional in his body of work-- really the only time he ever went for an all-out sonic assault. Will be interested to hear what people think.

If you are intrigued, his other most famous piece, Ancient Voices Of Children, gives you a more typical slice of Crumb (voice with oddly instrumentated chamber ensemble, text from Lorca, feeling of highly profiled gestures set within a frame of silence like a kind of musical Joseph Cornell box).

Have never heard Dreyblatt in my life. Psyched!

Two quick notes from work:

Black Angels is fantastique.

I haven't heard that particular Dreyblatt but love 'Animal Magnetism'. Interesting choices so far, guys!

Haha, that Dreyblatt solo piece is horrible as studying music!

(I like Animal Magnetism too but this seems much more severe.)

I haven't listened to Black Angels in a long time. I do admire Crumb a great deal.

I assume everyone else hated my picks.:P Seriously, I meant to say more about them myself but have been busy too.

No, I love Villa-Lobos, just hadn't really had much of a chance to actually sit & listen lately. Will get to it. :)

Sundar I've listened to the Bartok Bagatelles twice since you posted it! Still looking for the moment when I have time to write about it in detail.

Blargh, I need to hear all of these. The Messiaen I've known for a long time — was one of the first pieces that got me into serious music. I have that identical Schnittke disc — I think I'll listen to it today! I'll have to find a way to get ahold of the Bartók and Villa-Lobos pieces. The Crumb and Dreyblatt quite frankly aren't my thing, sorry.

Could I have next week if anyone else hasn't taken it?

Err, actually the Schnittke I have is the Vermeer on Naxos coupled with the Shostakovich PQ.

Of course, Daruton. :D

btw Daruton you've been missed, etc. so you might as well contribute a lot to this thread. :)

(Daruton has introduced me to a lot of beautiful & magical music and you should all trust his taste)

Great! I already know what I want to post. :)

Busy week, couldn't drop by to say much. But I'd like to mention that the Dreyblatt is a magic record for me; the overtones induce something trancelike. And Black Angels basically is my ideal of how to use a quartet to overwhelm and disorient.

Looking forward to the next picks.

Finally listened to the Schnittke — really enjoyed it. The polystylistic elements that I had come to expect to jar instead add an interesting referential layer without seeming too obvious or heavy-handed. The music is remarkably bleak and almost sickly — without checking this seems to me like a late work, but I'm not too familiar with his oeuvre. I think someone here mentioned late Shostakovich, which I think seems apt, but the DSCH quintet that was paired with the Schnittke on my disc seemed less like a companion piece than say the 15th quartet (though, the Shostakovich quintet is an excellent, excellent piece. Perhaps a subject for another week?)

Anyway, sorry for the lateness, but here are my Week 4 picks:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61wMEkoDcDL._SS500_.jpg

From here:

La course de Printemps is the last in the cycle of seven symphonic poems making up Koechlin's Jungle Book. They are based on Kipling. This is a very grown up view of the books with the wildness and the loss of innocence emphasised. La Course sounds avant-garde and it is ... and was. The style moves between shadowy Debussian impressionism, exhausted satiation and rambunctious energy of the sort heard in Varèse, Cowell and Ornstein.

[...]

Le Buisson ardent (The Burning Bush) refers not to the Biblical burning bush but to the flaming power of rebirth, of flowering and of death. In its way it echoes the ungovernable power of the Russian spring (as in Le Sacre) but with an expectation and an ecstatic drive that places it with Frank Bridge's masterpiece Enter Spring and the gleaming lunar textures of Schoenberg's Pelleas and Melisande.

and

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5159WPM44JL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

(The recording I have is from a box set of Janáček's music, so I do not have the Zemlinsky and Korngold pieces.)

From here:

The piece was inspired by an electrical storm he witnessed whilst on his holiday in the spa-town of Luhačovice. ‘It grows darker and darker. Already I am looking into the black night; flashes of lightning cut through it. I switch on the flickering electric light on the high ceiling. I sketch nothing more than the quiet motive of a desperate frame of mind to the words ‘Gospodi pomiluj’ [Lord have mercy]. Nothing more than the joyous shout ‘Slava, Slava!’ [Glory].'[/i]

Here them here and here.

Err, "hear" them.

Ha I already have both of these pieces in my Pod. (2 versions of both Koechlin pcs and 3 versions of the Janacek in fact!). Nice choices, both of these guys among my favorite 20c composers, and both selections are tremendous examples.

Never knew that about the origins of Glagolithic Mass!

New listeners: Glagolithic will seize you immediately and drop your jaw. Printemps/Buisson will sneak up on you with repeat listens and surround you with color and foliage.

Daruton which Glagolithic Mass recording is it from the box set?

This one:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cuadNZsNL._SS500_.jpg

I assume the recording from the cover I posted above is the same, and that they just reused that recording for the box set (they are both on London/Decca).

Excellent choices, Daruton.

Jon, are you on for next week?

Yep. I have known what my choices would be for a couple of weeks. I will be takin y'all back to my most favoritest generation of composers, those born in 1860-1870 and who came into their own in 1890-1910...

Excellent! I think that might be my favorite generation as well (Debussy, Schoenberg, Koechlin, Janáček).

and Delius, Mahler, Sibelius, Nielsen, Ravel, it's insane really. I hope to write about it someday.

Gawd, and all of those are favorites too (in fact Sibelius is probably my favorite composer of all time — I feel bad for not thinking of him).

HE JUST CHUGGED ANOTHER FIFTH OF VODKA IN HEAVEN THANKS DARUTON

(top 5 all time composer for me 2)

Beethoven
Schumann
Sibelius
Debussy
Mahler
Stravinsky

in the interest of full disclosure. That's 6, I know.

Damn solid list.

How do you all feel about Stravinsky's neoclassical stuff?

Pulcinella, the two Symphonies, Jeu des Cartes, Baiser de la Fee-- all solid gold awesome as far as I'm concerned. Some of the rest of it, a bit too dry for me.

It would be difficult for Pulcinella to be dry with that beautiful Pergolesi material as a basis. :P

Orphée and the wind Octet are my favorite Stravinsky — even though there are "greater" pieces in his oeuvre, I keep coming back to these two the most.

I might be a horrible person but for me nothing beats the early ballets.

That octet is really good. I'm especially a fan of l'Histoire du Soldat.

dad a: Do you think the Dreyblatt would lose something if there were more timbral and/or rhythmic variety? Maybe I'm just rebelling against my 20-year-old self but I think those ideas (of exploring overtones and inharmonic partials of plucked string sounds) still work when they are integrated into compositions that also offer me something more like the pieces on Animal Magnetism or Murail's "Tellur": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqR6nTBzLpc

I might be a horrible person but for me nothing beats the early ballets.

Well yeah, this is just a fact! The streak of Petrouchka/Sacre/Les Noces is IMO on a whole 'nother level. Stravinsky was only human, and I believe he almost literally flinched away from the chthonic power he had invoked in Le Sacre. That doesn't mean I don't love love love the symphonies and Agon and Persephone, but he backed off from the fire, no question in my mind.

Any comments on the Koechlin or Janáček?

I did some concentrated listening to both Koechlin pieces and the Janacek yesterday evening and want to write about them a little before posting the next subjects. Tomorrow, I hope-- crazy busy today.

I've been ill and can't be very eloquent at the moment, but 1st of all, 'Le buisson ardent' gorgeous. Also, that Janacek piece has some *crazy* amazing orchestration going on and I don't even know where to start.

is gorgeous*

Also, re: Koechlin, the op. 171 has seriously some of the most beautiful writing for Ondes Martenot I've ever heard.

I even love the solo Ondes pieces he wrote, like 'Les Sirenes'

Whoa, I had no idea he wrote for o.M. solo. I wonder if any are on disc.

Daruton some of it is on an inexpensive and recommendable 3CD set of Koechlin chamber music and solo piano music on Accord performed by Christoph Keller and others. I bought mine at Virgin a couple of years ago... can't seem to find it on Amazon or Arkiv though, hmm.

Yeah, an Amazon search turns up nothing. Of course, I could always go through somewhat illicit channels, if someone wanted to help. ;)

Wow, it really is nowhere on the web, you'd think it never came out. OK give me a few hours to get my ass off the living room couch and over to where my hard drives are...

Jon, are you referring to the 7 Monodies Pour Ondes Martenot, Op. 174? I can eventually upload those later on.

Not sure-- have to check the titles. LOL I never thought I would be able to discuss things like C. Koechlin with anyone!

BTW, I just found an RS link to the electronic version of the New Grove Encyclopedia Of Music. To say the least, a useful thing for everyone on this thread. I've c&p'd the link to a page on my site:

http://trueswamp.wordpress.com/x-0v0-x/

Thanks Jon! Still awaiting your picks for this week. Out with it already! ;)

I'm also enjoying your comic btw.

:D

Soon soon-- but first, I have added a link to the Monodies for Ondes Martenot (with an extra piece for Ondes and harpsichord) as a comment on the same page. My rips from the almost-apocryphal Accord set..

I was just uploading that! haha you beat me to it

Mmmm. L'Album de Lilian is lovely.

Hmm, everyone seems too busy for this thread.

Turangalila, is it okay if someone does an emergency mini-pick until Jon posts his, to keep the thread going?

yes of course

If someone has picks at the ready I don't mind. I know I am running late. Only have to write a little intro thingy for my 2 but it keeps now being the right time (discipline probs this wkend)

Yes and by the way, who else wants to sign up for an upcoming week?

Ollright, I'll limit this to just one piece.

Ernest Bloch - String Quartet No. 1 (1916), performed by the Griller Quartet

From Allmusic:

This work was written at a turbulent times for both Bloch and the World. Composition commenced in 1915 with a war raging in Europe. Bloch moved to the United States for the first time before completing the writing of this work in 1916. Bloch described this work as:" a kind of synthesis of my vision of the world at that period."

Any fans of early Schoenberg/Bartók's quartets need to hear this.

Wow sounds cool! Will listen today. The description makes it sound like a good mate for one of my 2.

Any thoughts on the Bloch SQ?

It sounded great. I want to listen some more before I comment further.

The Bloch Quartet is amazing! A real hidden treasure. How have I never of this?! It doesn't even seem to have been recorded very many times.

The early Schoenberg comparison is apt-- the opening of the piece makes me think of ASCH's Op. 10, with the stacking up of close intervals and the scattering mournful gestures. But the work goes on to become much more frenetic and angry than ASCH Op. 10-- in fact by the end of the piece I felt like I had heard an uncanny (but superior) prefigurement of Shostakovich, with the furious demonic repeated figures and long moans of dissonant intervals. Shostakovich must have studied this music, I feel. This is quite an epic isn't it? Upwards of 40 minutes? Really great ending, becalmed and strange. This will go into permanent listening rotation for me. Time to go read archived Bloch reviews on Fanfare.

This is also my first exposure to the Griller Quartet, who seem perfect for this music, and the 50s technology flatters their sound nicely-- no complaints about sound quality here.

On to my two picks. Like I mentioned before, these both come from what I consider the greatest of all musical generations, the international wave of composers born 1860-1870 who reached their first flush of power in the early 1890s. It's my opinion that everything which happened in 20th century classical music was in some sense following up the various threads this generation left dangling.

1. Carl Nielsen - Symphony No. 5 (1920-1922)

This is surely Top 10 Symphonies of the Century material. I looked up some of the things Nielsen himself said about this piece, and they jibe so well with my inchoate notions about it that I'm gonna let him do the talking:

Nielsen affirmed that the Fifth Symphony, like his previous symphonies, presents "the only thing that music in the end can express: resting forces in contrast to active ones." In a statement to his student Ludvig Dolleris, Nielsen described the symphony as "the division of dark and light, the battle between evil and good" and the opposition between "Dreams and Deeds". To Hugo Seligman he described the contrast between "vegetative" and "active" states of mind in the symphony.

Nielsen also wrote to Dolleris about the presence of the "evil" motif in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony:

"Then the "evil" motif intervenes - in the woodwind and strings - and the side drum becomes more and more angry and aggressive; but the nature-theme grows on, peaceful and unaffected, in the brass. Finally the evil has to give way, a last attempt and then it flees - and with a strophe thereafter in consoling major mode a solo clarinet ends this large idyll-movement, an expression of vegetative (idle, thoughtless) Nature."

"I'm rolling a stone up a hill, I'm using the powers in me to bring the stone to the top. The stone lies there so still, powers are wrapped in it, until I give it a kick and the same powers are released and the stone rolls down again. But you mustn't take that as a programme!"

This newspaper report of an early performance is precious:

Midway through the first part with its rattling drums and 'cacophonous' effects a genuine panic broke out. Around a quarter of the audience rushed for the exits with confusion and anger written over their faces, and those who remained tried to hiss down the 'spectacle', while the conductor Georg Schneevoigt drove the orchestra to extremes of volume. This whole intermezzo underlined the humoristic-burlesque element in the symphony in such a way that Carl Nielsen could certainly never have dreamed of. His representation of modern life with its confusion, brutality and struggle, all the uncontrolled shouts of pain and ignorance—and behind it all the side drum's harsh rhythm as the only disciplining force—as the public fled, made a touch of almost diabolic humour.

You won't need me to point out the episode with the renegade drummer once you've listened. I will say this is the one aspect which I have not found satisfying on several otherwise great recordings. I want that drummer to be wilder, more obstinate, more wrong vis a vis what everyone else is doing!

2. Claude Debussy - Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (1915)

When Debussy came into his amazing late style (exemplified by the Etudes, the chamber sonatas, and Jeux for orchestra) he was already wasting away from rectal cancer, and the great contraption of death was already being cranked into motion to grind his country into meat and mud. I can't imagine how agonizing and depressing it must have been to die slowly of cancer with the medical sophistication of that time while a new kind of satanic free-for-all heated up all around you. Yet Debussy's music of this time is so incredibly wise and forgiving and eloquent and economical yet at the same time startlingly inventive. He planned a whole series of chamber sonatas for different instrumental combinations, but the only ones he lived to complete were those for Violin and Piano, Cello and Piano, and this trio sonata, which to me is the most miraculous of all. His mastery here is like Shakespeare, he gets so much experience into these short movements, so many characters are drawn so concisely. It lives.

When I get home tonight I'll be uploading a fierce recent live performance of the Nielsen and a wonderful out-of-print recording of the Debussy. It's remarkable how well the Bloch SQ fits with these 2 actually!

Sorry I took so long!

Those are excellent choices, Jon. Also, I agree about the recording of the Bloch quartet. It's marvelous.

Carl n' Claude

Those are two of my favorite pieces of all time, Jon! The Nielsen 5th moves with an inevitability like a force of nature, and the ending is one of the most thrilling in music, period. The Debussy sonata is also incredible and quietly revolutionary. I love its ambiguous and sphinxlike character — can only imagine where his music would go from here had he lived a fuller life.

The performers in the above link are Horenstein/New Philharmonia (live BBC) for the Nielsen, and several members of the Kuijken family on the Debussy, from a great family-affair Arcana CD of the almost complete chamber music (Sigiswald and Barthold Kuijken, young Piet Kuijken on fortepiano, Marie Hallynck on harp and Sophie Hallynck on flute. Or maybe that's Sophie on harp and Marie on flute).

Just finished listening to a tremendous (web)radio broadcast recording of the Nielsen 5th by Dudamel and the formidable Goteborg SO. Rebellious side-drum not quite as disruptive as I would wish, as usual, but otherwise a totally killer performance.

Interesting blog entry on the idea of a composer's 'late style' as we were just discussing re: Debussy--

http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2010/06/09/future-performers-perspective-mahler-10-am-i-late-yet/

Excellent article. Another composer who had an interesting late style is Fauré — e.g. his string quartet, one of the last pieces he wrote, is wonderfully enigmatic and haunting.

The other recent post on that site about Mahler 10 and its connections to Parsifal and Don Quixote is also excellent. I'm gonna be exploring that site further.

Okay, the recording of Nielsen 5 at the top of this page, guys, I heartily endorse THIS renegade side-drummer, he stirs shit up:

http://when-the-musics-over.blogspot.com/search/label/nielsen

The conductor is the little-heralded Ole Schmidt. I also have an el cheapo disc with Schmidt conducting the RPO in Sibelius' 5th which is one of my top 5 versions of that piece. Schmidt just died a few months ago after a long life in music-- hats off to you, sir, you were a badass.

Also that entire blog there is a fucking treasure trove. This fellow has excellent taste.

I wish I was using a computer that can download (borrowing my friend's), otherwise I'd love to hear this stuff.

Is anyone else going to do another week or should we ditch the "weekly picks" pretense since not many seem interested.

I'm interested, of course. I've just been busy. I plan to catch up on the last set of picks soon. (Loved the "Glagolitic Mass" too BTW.)

Well if there were more people interested then it wouldn't matter if one or two people were busy or whatever. Maybe I should just start uploading shit I like and if anyone latches on, good for them.

lol yes

But are we going to anger les Mods that way? Maybe we need to link to other locations where the actual DL links are? Or is ILX policy relaxing on that point?

Also do we wanna make this the general classickqal discussion thread or shall we keep using the other general one as well? Bcuz I have a bunch of stuff I wanna talk about not related to the specific pieces we've cited itt...

(btw that blog i just linked to today has some very nice Schumann stuff put up in honor of RSCH's 200th bday...)

I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if this forum is the right environment for CM.

First time I've seen anyone use the acronym RSCH btw. :)

yeah idk anymore either

I use RSCH, FSCH, and ASCH in addition to the common DSCH.

I'm in a Yahoo group, classical-recordings, which is pretty lively, but it is also kind of biased toward piano and chamber repertoire. I'm trying to spark more discussion of symphonic/orchestral rep there. It is, of course, more fogeyish than here. I like talking CM with ppl who also like The Fall & shit!

If I start a CM & Film Scores blog would you guys be willing to haunt it?

No, this thread has been great for me. I think it's good to keep this going on ILM.

*fist bump*

Jon Lewis, absofuckinglutely re: your blog

But are we going to anger les Mods that way? Maybe we need to link to other locations where the actual DL links are? Or is ILX policy relaxing on that point?

What's mod policy on uploading past classical recordings? One would have thought a policy would apply to records not released yet?

Maybe I should just start uploading shit I like and if anyone latches on, good for them.

Although there isn't really any need to put up lots of music. You can just talk about it?

I dunno. Sometimes I wonder if this forum is the right environment for CM.

There are plenty of threads talking about composers. There aren't many that are over 50 posts. There is more of a potential for response because of a mix of all types of threads on all sorts of music. A relaxed attitude but then less traffic is the trade-off...

as a mod, I'm personally into what y'all are doing here

is xyzzzz__ a mod?

oh, this is Daruton btw

crossposts — re: other forums: yeah. I'm on the good-music-guide classical forum which is also pretty active, but yes, a much older crowd that are mostly interested in recordings. Also the non-classical stuff they listen to is fairly predictable Boomer music (weirdly, still true even if they aren't boomers).

Not a mod, no, which is why I was checking on mod policy.

I've been on the Radio 3 boards for a bit, then others as the boards fragmented round the time of changes at Radio 3. But that was way after ILX. Plenty of threads around, but there has often never been enough people to post on them. Many of them have been on the post-2nd Viennese school.

And the number of threads that can be paraphrased as "I don't get CM and I don't care to ever get it" outnumbers the threads of genuine interest.

but hey we should try to change that, right?

Is this yr permanent new name Daru?

Yeah, my IRL name.

ppl who post under their real names = disgusting savages imo :)

And the number of threads that can be paraphrased as "I don't get CM and I don't care to ever get it" outnumbers the threads of genuine interest.

Most classical threads are met with indifference by the majority because people don't go out of their way to hear recordings. But if you want to pretend the above is true be my guest.

yeah I can only remember two threads like that.

Could I have a week? Got some nice ideas...

From Drag City, so watch out, walkers:

AIN'T NUTHIN' BUT A

P STRANG

LISTEN TO

"FLIGHT PATH"

HERE

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a3253993937_10.jpg

Drag City is excited to introduce Resolve, the first release of new music from Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings since 2002.

Dreyblatt’s minimalist conception - a rhythmic drone played on a double-bass strung with piano wire, playing in concert with other stringed instruments performing in 20 unequal microtones per octave and changing key but keeping the same fundamental pitch - dates back to the 1970s, while he studied under La Monte Young and Pauline Oliveros. Resolve acts in intermittent dialogue with the first Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation.

Since then, Dreyblatt has formed new orchestras across various countries and decades, with each phase of his music requiring several overlapping periods of gestation and arrangement. The current Orchestra is formed by Konrad Sprenger, Joachim Schütz and Oren Ambarchi. On Resolve, each of the members' playing brings new angles to the compositions. Konrad Sprenger's involves solenoids, sine waves and a computer-controlled multi-channel electric guitar (as well as a relentless style behind the drum kit and oversight of the album production), while Joachim Schütz’s individual conception of electronics and electric guitar and Oren Ambarchi’s undeniable innovations with signal path work together with Dreyblatt’s bass (still strung with piano wire) as magnetic component parts of Resolve.

These contributions lead to Resolve's dialogue with the early Orchestra of Excited Strings canon - for instance, the track previewed here, "Flight Path" takes off at a pace not often found in the minimalist genre — a rolling lope! Yet the sense of play is palpable: the ensemble scale their microtonal keys with punkish brio, a stance sharing much with the original Orchestra’s downtown pulse, even as as the new Orchestra burn their own path through Dreyblatt's music.

Approaching his 70th birthday, with over 40 years of work as a solo artist, collaborator, composer, educator and bandleader, Arnold Dreyblatt views Resolve as an important expression within the long story of The Orchestra of Excited Strings. The album title’s tendency to mean different things is an indicator of the dynamic qualities of his music in all its different phases — an evolution that continues to produce new dimensions in acoustic sound with every new release. Pre-order Resolve on LP now! It hits the streets August 18th.

Drag City again: Listen To Arnold Dreyblatt's "Shuffle Effect" Here:
https://lnk.to/dreyblattresolve

Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation – in effect, looking beneath the hood of several decades of progression to review and renew the revolutionary intent of their microntonal foundation credo. This new Orchestra – Oren Ambarchi, Konrad Sprenger and Joachim Schütz – combine effortlessly to explore new scalar dimensions.

The compositions found within Resolve demonstrate the Orchestra’s unique feel — incorporating rhythmic accents that act as microbeats within Dreyblatt’s microtones, shuffling in accents of funk and rock and actual metal at times, while never deviating from the driving intensity of the harmonic play. Dreyblatt's double-bass strung with piano wire allows him to create rich, complex, and often mesmerizing sonic textures.

On the single "Shuffle Effect", Arnold’s strummed bass sets the tone – a metallic march – and the Orchestra falls into step, pushing the boundaries of traditional musical systems and opening up new possibilities for exploring the nuances of pitch and harmony. The result is thick, rolling intra-funk, as strings and electronics parse together in a series of new-phase bar divisions for the venerable Orchestra of Excited Strings. The mood is one of tumescence, the performance growing within itself, as Dreyblatt’s tradition does as well: 40 years and counting.

Listen for this unique compositional approach on "Shuffle Effect" above, Resolve arrives on August 18th.

Arnold Dreyblatt Online:

Drag City -https://www.dragcity.com/artists/arnold-dreyblatt

For more information and interview requests please contact:

kathryn at dragcity dot com

Interestingly, I was discovering most of the recordings upthread about the same time these posters were. The Kronos "Black Angels" is intense, threatening almost.