2007 Rolling (Unscary) Classical Thread

I really usually hate mozart, but I've been listening to a disc of alfred brendel playing his piano sonatas a lot. like a lot. totally springy light energy, perfect cooking music, it goes with everything.

Mozart: Piano Sonatas K 310, 311, 533/494; Fantasy K.397
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000089CDZ/105-4942850-8387660

other than that, the new Nancarrow edition is the best yet, all re-recorded on a Bosendorfer grand instead of a tacky Ampco spinnet, in parts it doesn't sound like a player piano at all, it sounds like a human playing the music until it suddenly switches to a section with 200 notes per second
http://www.amazon.com/Player-Piano-Conlon-Nancarrow-Studies/dp/B000LP4OHY/ref=sr_1_1/105-4942850-8387660?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1181346416&sr=1-1

this is great too, but I'm still not sure why, there's a fantastic 25 minute organ drone piece "Holy Ghost Vacuum or America Faints", strangely deep and quiet, if you like Charlemagne Palestine or Jon Gibson or y'know drones in general
http://www.moderecords.com/catalog/168cacioppo.html

& this is lovely, viols de gamba w/ historical tunings, I bought it for the gesualdo track but the whole thing is fucking gorgeous

La Tavola Cromatica: Un'accademia musicale dal Cardinale Barberini
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000B2YQCK/105-4942850-8387660

I've been listening to a disc on Pierian of Debussy playing his own piano works and it's really great. It's very easy to see his affinity with Satie in it.
http://www.amazon.com/Claude-Debussy-Composer-as-Pianist/dp/B00005IC03/ref=sr_1_2/105-4758167-9626851?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1181347603&sr=8-2

Mozart wrote some just killer horn pieces, things that have these near impossible technical leaps, tricky bits that are the most challenging things in the world to do, especially on the natural horn. Turns out he had a friend who was a top horn player and he kept writing these pieces as "fun" challenges for him. Cast him in a bit of a different light for me. Like Telemann's Tragicomedia Suite with "The Gout Sufferer" and "The Hypochondriac" movements (and "Country Dance" and "Visit to the House of Joy" offered to each respectively as suggested cures), nice relief from the sometimes too somber.

Milton, one of these days (maybe a few years away), when I get back into listening to more modern classical/avant-garde/academic electronic type things, I am going to want to follow up on a lot of the things you mention. I've never gotten around to buying a complete recording of Nancarrow's player piano pieces, so maybe I will go with this new one (eventually).

I know I've talked about it on other threads, but I am loving Ned Rothenberg's Inner Diaspora (which has at least as much claim to be calling modern classical music as it does jazz--although it might be too accessible for many modern classical fans).

(I'm also really into not buying music this year, since moving halfway across the country without any job in place is looking more and more like a real possibility.)

I still love the Wergo Nancarrow set just fine, and it captures him on the exact player he composed for, so we're getting it largely the way he heard it (though there were some technical problems with the hammers when it came time to record the Wergo set causing them to opt to switch to his secondary piano & stronger steel hammers, causing a more percussive 'tacky' traditionally player-pianoish sound). there are enough differences between recordings in certain pieces -- the Wergo's go for total volume assault & overall room tone, and the new DGM's go for a close-mic'd sound and a more graceful tone & dynamic range -- for instance I think I still prefer the Wergo recording of 'Canon X' because it really brings the power at the end. but overall I'd definitely go for the new recordings as an intro to Nancarrow. if you've already got the Wergo's, you're probably fine, but if you're a fanatic... you probably want these new ones too

right on time, thread. I got the idea that I should listen to more opera for no good reason about 3 months ago, so far I've only been through La Traviata(fabulous) and La Boheme(ok) in full, and I just sent back a Joan Sutherland 'greatest hits' dvd that was pretty illuminating(obsessed on Lakme flower duet some time before that; i know that's probably like the 'Satisfaction' of opera duets but is there anything else that beautiful in the opera canon? I ask seriously, I'd love to hear anything else like that)
Also obsessed with Mozart's Piano Concerto in D Minor, (K. 466: 2nd Movement) after hearing it at the end of Amadeus, listened to it a billion times since. I don't like the other movements too much.

wow, the Nancarrow stuff is crazy. i dig it. (i just listened to some of the Amazon snippets) i always knew the name, but never heard the music.

found this Nancarrow on Youtube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vaqz-glFJSQ

after churchy Mozart, i played a record of George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra doing symphony no.33, but i wasn't feeling it. Or George wasn't feeling it. it couldn't have been ALL my fault. just sounded lacklustre. like what Jaq was saying about the horn pieces, the Mozart that drives me crazy is the stuff that sounds like computer music to me. like superhuman. like how could someone's brain write all that music down that fast. it can be a challenge and a thrill just trying to keep up!

Speaking of Lakme, I've recently been listening to a lot of Mado Robin stuff, and tracking down the good recordings of Leonid Kogan that I can find.

I often wonder why I am more of a performer-based classical listener, vs. composer-based.

I love La Traviata! I have a couple of different productions. Today I bought a Deutsche Grammophon boxed set from 1977 with Ileana Cotrubas and Placido Domingo that i'm gonna play tomorrow. see if the kids like it!

glenn gould & mozart:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=68HTMNSLc8I

currently listening to: monteverdi sacred music, done by robert king,
hindemith unaccompanied violin sonatas, handel's saul, schoenberg's suite in g and chamber symphony no 2.

xpost-- I love that new string of Mozart recordings Brendel has been slowly releasing over the last 7 or 8 years. I haven't heard any of the solo piano discs, though, just two of the Piano Concerto discs. The disc of concertos 20 and 24 (the only minor key concerti Mozart wrote) is my go-to choice for both pieces right now. Mackerras and his orchestra nail the pulsating doominess of the opening movements and Brendel is neither cutesy nor over the top in the face of it, just humanly expressive.

I'm all about the Piano Concertos with Mozart. The spark of inventiveness just never goes out when he writes for that genre, always trying something new in each one. The last ten or so symphonies are great too, though I haven't found a conductor/orchestra who really play them the way I want. My favorites are the 78rpm recordings with Beecham and the London Philharmonic, but the CDs I have of them are too heavily noise-filtered, waaahhhh.

Scott, I'll bet Szell is too uptight for Mozart Symphonies. I love Szell in Mahler and R Strauss where for some reason Szell gets all luscious and sensual, but in classical and high romantic stuff he's just too stiff and stabby.

Thanks for starting this thread.

trevor pinnock, christopher hogwood, and karl bohm great mozart symphony conductors.

szell did a goodversion of no. 40 i think.

I once had the 2CD DG Originals of Bohm conducting the last 5. I did like his interpretations, but there was something bizarre about the orchestral sound that led it to the discard pile. I can't remember what bothered me about it now...

Besides Beecham, Mackerras comes close. But he's a little breezy at times. I like Mozart symphonies to stick to my ribs and knock me around a little.

I've spent years trying to roll w/Mozart, but it just never seems to stick. Any particular recording suggestions?

for the piano concertos: murray perahia on sony
symphonies: pinnock
string quintets: grumiax quintet on philips

piano works: uchida or brendel (or walter klein, if you can get hold of it)
operas: currently enjoying john eliot gardiner on dvds

xpost-- John, what kind of forces do you want to hear? Are you most attracted to chamber music, solo, symphonic, vocal?

currently listening to: monteverdi sacred music, done by robert king,

You chose a child molester's Monteverdi!

fuck. i didn't hear about the verdict. well that's dreadful.
i'm not sure how i'm going to feel about listening to him now.
i have a lot of his purcell cds, where he is, unquestionably one of the best.
is it silly to feel this way?

I don't much like Mozart either, and Glenn Gould is a bit of a twat.

I know I've already talked it up, but Copland's Symphony for Organ and Orchestra is phenomenal. It's an earlier work that owes a lot to Stravinsky, so if you don't like that Americana sound his most famous stuff has, you won't find it here.

Wow, that's depressing about Robert King. You hear rumors about this kind of stuff sometimes with conductors, as with teachers, but... eeuughhh.

I don't actually own any of his discs. Purcell not a specialty of mine and for Monteverdi I have Rene Jacobs.

Another favorite: Jack Nitzsche St Giles Cripplegate. Monstrous fun, and just beautiful.

Also, Zygmunt Krauze, a real hidden gem:
http://www.polmic.pl/foto/Krauze-PNCD113.jpg

Also, hurting2, you're right, Gould was kind of a twat. His bizarre, fun-to-read-about personality was one of my initial gateways into classical music, though, and he probably performs that function for others. So he's useful.

I don't listen to many of his recordings anymore though, even of Bach.

(Actually Satie, with his equally bizarre biography, was my other gateway. From him I found Debussy who was not so colorful a character but who musically I ended up liking about 300% more.)

Satie is great but I think you can get a lot more listening mileage out of Debussy.

i prefer reading gould's writings than listening to his recordings.

to

There should be a Casper 'The Friendly Ghost' scary classical thread sometime.

Playing this quite a bit:

http://www.newalbion.com/NA021/

Went to see a perf of Nono "La lontananza nostalgica..." for violin + 7 channel tape -- that tape really sounds very 3-dimensional in the hall, but also quite 'retro' (sounds of breaking glass, steps, moans). The violin player played bits of the score, having to move to several points in the hall, and at a couple of these points she seemed to lose herself trying to find which bit of the score to play. That added a bit of unintentional drama (either that or she ws a great actress -- there ws soem panic on her face, she walked around quicker whereas before she did very slowly so as to not disturb the sounds coming in from the tape).

The last bit ws played right behind me, which wsn't as incredible as I thought it would be as even at close proximity the speaker sound intruded, a very odd feeling.

more churchy stuff. listening to Theodore Dubois's The Seven Last Words of Christ. Organ. Choir. Pretty depressing. Somehow it suits my hangover perfectly. don't know nothing about Dubois. Picked it up yesterday. he wrote this in 1867. found this nugget via wikipedia:

"Dubois was director of the Conservatoire from 1896 (succeeding Thomas upon the latter's death) to 1905. He was forced to resign after his refusal to award the Prix de Rome to Maurice Ravel created a substantial public outcry, which was increased by an open letter from the novelist and musicologist Romain Rolland. Gabriel Fauré took over from Dubois as director."

i wonder what his beef with Ravel was?

i've got no problem with Glenn Gould! i dunno. i'm no fanatic or anything. i've got a nice Bach box of his. that's pretty much all i listen to. and i have some earlier stuff somewhere that i don't play much. i was just looking for Mozart piano on Youtube and that popped up. there are still people who still rate him as a player, aren't there? and i like some of his writing too. and his interviews are a hoot.

I think everyone still rates Gould as player, definitely. He just usually fucks with the music so much, it can be really exhausting and frustrating.

I forgot something big, though, when I said I rarely listen to him anymore-- some of his recordings of the earlier Beethoven sonatas are really really great, and I do reach for those often. He completely kicks ass in sonatas 5-7, 9-10, 22, 26 and 27/2 (zee Moonlight). Sorry Glenn, you're still a fucker but I didn't give you your props.

Then in other LvB sonatas he goes into his perversity-sabotage mode and is unbearable.

Also like everybody else I still like both Goldberg Variations recordings, these days the reflective 1981 version more than the speed demon 1955. But it gets SO TIRING watching them get reissued in new packaging/mastering every fucking year.

Fite Dubois vs. Ravel-- I'll wager it was purely musical. French musical academia was HUGELY RIDICULOUSLY conservative at that time. You had to submit something utterly retro to stand a chance of winning the Prix.

"But it gets SO TIRING watching them get reissued in new packaging/mastering every fucking year"

Amen
http://zenph.com/sept25.html

http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=11017

tho gould's humming is gone, which is a bonus!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Two "re-performances" are offered here: one in stereo surround sound, the other recorded from a binaural stereo "headphone" perspective where omnidirectional microphones are placed in the ear canals of a dummy head situated not far above the keyboard. Do the results resemble Glenn Gould? The recordings certainly sound "Gouldian", in that they accurately mirror the pianist's contrapuntal clarity, chord balances, accents, dynamic shifts, pedaling, and hair-trigger precision."

i'm in yer dummyhead, messing with yer bach!

Shades of Ohr records "Headsound" technique on some of those early Krautrock LP's!

Also links back to the "Debussy plays Debussy" record mentioned upthread, which comes down to us only thanks to reproducing pianos. Debussy's performance in errrr 1910 or 1914, something like that, was recorded by a Vorsetzer, this crazy device which sits in front of your piano and presses its keys with little levers. I'm not sure how the Vorsetzer originally captures the note values played by the performer.

But that's why the Debussy Plays Debussy recordings are in modern sound. And it's remarkable how Debussy can barely cope with his own music on it, though it must have been hella stressful to be trying to play while this crazy simulacrum is mind-melding you. Plus I think Debussy might have been starting in with his cancer by then.

Frogman there's a lot of highly esteemed hummers out there. Ivan Moravec hums, Pollini hums sometimes, Brendel sometimes. Never as loudly as GG though.

jazz hummers are legion.

I guess the thing that makes Gould's so intrusive is that he doesn't just hum obvious root tones of what he's playing; he sometimes hums like a COUNTERPOINT to what he's playing.

i have purchased a vulgar amount of classical recordings in the past month, but some of the highlights:

messiaen - vignt regards sur l'enfant-jesus, osborne.

...a real mindfcuk. i haven't been able to give this a proper listen, however; it doesn't really lend itself to commuter listening. i can't think of a grander, more demanding work the piano. it's as if one of bach's epic choral works had been compressed into a single instrument and the notes had fallen out of place.

webern - complete webern, boulez et al

...rivals the Fall BBC sessions box set for greatest product ever. the only webern i had heard before this was pollini playing an unengaging (methinks) solo piano piece on a DG originals disc. there's a lot of beautiful music here, overseen by one of webern's greatest interpreters.

jehan alain - organ works, bowyer

...i think i'm only going to by organ music from now on.

Haha ppl otm about "Gould a bit of a twat, but a fun twat". I remember reading him on the Mozart sonatas, going something like "what is this about me not liking Mozart? I love Mozart! Playing his sonatas is a real tactile pleasure!" Faint praise or what?

Also, his impersonations (maybe only written?) of Stuffy English Traditionalist, Nutty German Stockhausenish Modernist etc were pretty fun, I seem to remember.

...rivals the Fall BBC sessions box set for greatest product ever. the only webern i had heard before this was pollini playing an unengaging (methinks) solo piano piece on a DG originals disc. there's a lot of beautiful music here, overseen by one of webern's greatest interpreters.

Aren't there two complete Webern-by-Boulez things, or am I making this up? Anyway, I have the three-CD one which seems to be from 1978 originally, and yes it's grebt, apart from all the soprano Lieder, which I have a bit of trouble with (and I have this feeling that the problem may be the choice of singers).

Ah, yes! The very hot weather we have here now reminds me of last summer, when I was sitting outside with some white wine, reading fun mythology and listening the symphonies of Giovanni Battista Sammartini (not to be confused with his brother Giuseppe Baldassare Sammartini). Generally very early bits in the history of the symphony, they're these rather simple, elegant, economical (and, well, if you wanted to be dismissive you could probably say slight) pieces where the average movement clocks in at about three minutes. Not for heavy, browfurrowed listening, but excellent background for relaxytime.

anatol, there are two webern boxes. the one that you have was recorded in the 70s and is no longer in print and was only op. 1 - 31. the new box, released in '06 has all his official works plus un-official (although i think it's not literally "complete").

also, it is so, so beautiful to hold and behold.

Yeah. I have the earlier Boulez Complete Webern set too, the one on Sony. I like Webern mostly for his unique ear for instrumental color, not so much for his taking-to-the-Nth of twelve-tone practice.

If the DG Webern set is like Boulez' other DG endeavors, it will be more sensuous and flexible than the Sony set, maybe a bit too much so.

Seems like Boulez had weird taste in sopranos in his Sony days, tending to the harpyish. I can't deal with his Sony Pierrot Lunaire.

anatol, there are two webern boxes. the one that you have was recorded in the 70s and is no longer in print and was only op. 1 - 31.

Plus a couple of his orchestrations, of Bach and Schubert.

also, (the new one) is so, so beautiful to hold and behold.

I'm pretty sure I'd buy it on sight if I came across it in a shop, but decent classical shops or departments Do Not Exist here anymore, so I would need to consciously have it in mind to get around to getting it -- hmm like for instance now! ;)

xpost: unique ear for instrumental color utterly otm. Like wtf, a mandolin, is this some novelty gag or something? No.

Loooove the use of mandolin in Webern. Schoenberg does nice stuff with it too in his Serenade for Tenor and chamber ensemble. A work with a lot of humor, for those who might not expect that of Schoenberg.

Interesting, I'll emusic it once my quota renews. (I assume you mean opus 24, which AMG lists as for baritone, not tenor?)

I would really like to read Thompson one of these days. From listening to a few bits of his music I have a feeling he'd be entertaining on the page.

Don't really have a problem with Adorno's dickishness. Guys like Ross try to pretend they don't have an agenda, which is way worse.

But yeah I'll probably buy it, there are no accounts on 20th century music, and this Ross' bk will be a must, despite all my reservations.

Last week I went to a piano recital by Tim Parkinson, whose 'Cello piece' on ed.wandelweiser is terrific although I haven't spent nowhere near the amount of time on it. He played post-Feldman-ish works by Jurg Frey and Makiko Nishikaze but also mixed it with Chris Newman's sonata from 2001. I loved the leap from the contemplation of Frey to the furious abstraction of Newman (both had links, in terms of volume, as well as a lack of obvious virtuosity). A CD of his piano pieces will come out later this year (to be played by Michael Finnissy) on Mode.

Love eMusic for those single composer binges. Probably gonna spend most of my summer grabbing Haydn string quartets. Those late ones (the last 15-20 I guess) are amazing - the guy invented the form, and within half a lifetime he's already shattered the boundaries of what it's supposed to be about. It's like reading Laurence Sterne.

"How much better it could've been if Sibelius ws used as a jumping off point to discuss Ferneyhough and Feldman. As I sense it their music has a hardness but its crucially crossed with a Sibelius like taste for the sensous that takes away from the hardness, making the surface more attractive."

That would have been awesome.

what's the deal with Ross' book? I hadn't heard about it.

In his own words: http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/05/what_is_this.html

Macbeth fucking ruled. That is all.

oh. that book is going to be good.

OK so Michael Gielen's Mahler 9 is really really fucking killer good. If you have eMusic go DL it NOW.

In truth I'm just finishing up the 2nd movement. He may fall off in the rondo-burleske. But I doubt it.

Just playing Finnissy's "Catana" - quite a triffic ensemble piece.

Music before bedtime - think I'll go with R Barrett's CD of solo works recently issued on NMC.

if anyone gives a shit, Marc-Andre Hamelin (piano) is performing tonight at the mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln center. Friday and Saturday you can see Christian Teztlaff (violin). i can't think of anyone else i'd rather see on either instrument (although maybe with different material). anyway, should be great!

er, sorry for the 'tude. been awake all night writing paper. ughghghgghgblgbg

BTW did you really end up listening straight through the whole Schubert Lieder box set? How is your brane?

nein, i haven't had time yet. i'm moving next week and i'm trying to tie up everything here in nyc, so i'm kind of couch surfing/trying to make sure i don't fail my last class of undergrad ever.

it will be done, though. maybe i'll start a barnum-type thread à la andi's caper.

What's MAH playing tonight?

I heard that rendition of Mahler's 9th on the radio a bit earlier. It was a bit too film-soundtracky, I thought, a bit too obvious in many ways. I'm a classical novice, though, and it was only the first movement, so I'm probably very wrong. Is his 7th the one to get hold of?

L0u1s I'd start with the 5th or 6th instead, but others will disagree w/me.

In fact I just DL'ed Gielen's M5 and it's also killer.

BTW poortheatre, on my last trip to the lincoln ctr library I found the Zoltan Kocsis/Ivan Fischer set of Bartok piano concertos (plus other misc piano/orch works). I never was able to find a copy of this for less than a ton of money so I'm psyched, especially as on close listening these turn out to be THE performances to beat.

Will upload 'em sometime in the next few days.

THE performances? whoa. i have come to bury geza anda, not to praise him.

I might be overstating in the first flush of enthusiasm (it's only been a few days). I'm by no means gonna delete Anda from my pod. But I do think Kocsis/Fischer are at least as good as. There are numerous moments of hand-in-glove piano/orch interplay that I've never heard in these works before.

was at the prom on mon, noseda doing beethoven 8 and schumann 3, and renee fleming doing berg and korngold. the schumann was a revelation.
the mahler 10 last night was great too, and i wasn't looking forward to it.
louis, mahler has certainly influenced film music. the first movement is probably what you got stuck on, eh? it's amazing, but takes a few listens to appreciate that. but yes you are very, very wrong about it being "obvious". only mahler could've developed those themes the way he did.

Fuck, Schumann 2, not 3.

Schumann 3 is an immediate grabber. 2 took me much longer to appreciate.

well that performance sold me right off. the 3rd movement! blimey, mahler must have been a fan of that ( i was thinkin of the andante from the 6th throughout).

Tonight, Hamelin is playing Mozart's Sonata in C major, K.545, and Schumann's Fantasy in C major, Op. 17. It's at 10:30 at night in the Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center, which is kind of like a classical cabaret, with candles on tables and complimentary wine. Pretty cool, casual place to hear chamber music with views of the city skyline. Plus the artist is right there in front of you.

Hmm, it's true, those are not pieces that would seem to play to MAH's strengths... (and I'm a diehard fan of the RSCH Fantasy)...

K. 545? Is that the cliché Tarantella crap one that you hear for ads for classical radio? hrrmmm..

I'd still love to see the Schumann (although I think that's the lesser 'Wanderfantasie' haha)

MAH needs his own thread. that guy can shred like no other.

For me Schumann Fantasy > Schubert Fantasy.

I want MAH to play Godowsky's Java Suite (he's only done one piece) and some of De Severac's music.

isn't this guy largely responsible for re-evaluations of, like: Alkan, Medtner, Kapustin, Godowsky, Catoire, etc. etc.

(I only have/love the Alkan)

The guy is a repertoire fiend. I really want to hear his 2CD set of Haydn though, I must say. I guess Haydn piano sonatas are relatively obscure too compared to everyone else's.

that wagner poll will be the last classical thread i start for a month.

it's not new, but Midori's recital of French sonatas (Poulenc/Debussy/Saint-Saens) is playing right now and the Poulenc is just stunning

I think I'd quite like Poulenc and that whole scene (based on hearing Milhaud's Scaramouche Suite for two pianos) of what I imagine to be very powerful French surface-y music that the likes of Boulez rallied against and yet it made, on reflection, its way through on some of his best work -- if only by osmosis.

"Crying Bird, Echoing Star" by James Wood (not the actor) is doing it right this sec.

xyzzz Try Poulenc's songs. The ones I've heard are brilliant, and he had really sharp taste in the poetry he chose to set. All the chamber music I've heard of his has been great too (though I haven't heard the vln sonata).

The "transcendental surface" of eg Boulez seems much more Debussy-based to me though...

did anyone hear the bruckner 8 by haitink at the proms? i was there, and particularly enjoyed the third movement. it was my first live bruckner.

Yes I'd agree that its Debussy 1st. Just wondering aloud as to the impact of that particular strand of French musical life.

Yeah hmmm. I feel like the first thing with Boulez is always the EXQUISITE and what I know of Poulenc and Milhaud did not really follow up on that aspect of the Debussy "inheritance".

But then it seems like not many did INSIDE france for awhile. The exquisite/arabesque became the terrain of francophile furrners like Szymanowski

NP-- Walton Vln Cto, Ida Haendel with Berglund/Bournemouth SO.

J0hn do you know Haendel's playing? I think you would dig it. Her discography's not huge, but I can massively recommend her in the Sibelius cto, this Walton, and the Britten. Also have her doing the Elgar cto but have not listened to it yet. Her playing has serious GUTS.

Walton is a composer who's just clicked with me in the last couple of months. All I knew for a long time was Facade, which is great, but didn't entice me into his symphonic/concerted stuff. But finally listened seriously to his 1st symphony and goddamn all those British writers who are always calling it a masterpiece are 100% correct. Amazing work. Now I'm slowly feeling my way through his concerti, probably gonna also get the Naxos of his Henry V music.

I have a copy of Poulenc's *Gloria* and I love love LOVE it. er, i can't remember what/who my recording is. It's pretty old. i have a nice vinyl copy of *La voix humaine* the opera he did with jean cocteau, but i never listen to it. i should play it again someday.

Before bedtime:

"Nobody's dig" by Finnissy -- the liner notes talk about how unsynchronised the parts for this string quartet are. The work seems to be made of these horizontal lines, peppered with these illogicalities. The very beginning is one of the great announcements, for me.

"Windows and Canopies" by James Dillon -- for an ensemble of 12 strings, a pair of flutes, pair of oboes and pair of horns, perc...the strings might suggest a Xenakian primitivism, maybe, but the windows open for a look in to multi-dimensional, intricate, play, only to shut again. All punctuated by brief silences.

Maybe I won't get much sleep now.

Its "Nobody's Jig" blah I've misspelled that before.

going to eno's monteverdi poppea in a few weeks.

Went to a Varese/Xenakis concert a week ago. I'd never listened to some of those Xenakis pieces before: Rebonds and Dmaathen (done on flute and percussion, with a lot of singing through the flute.) I loved them. I was surprised at how driving and 'grooving' the percussion pieces were! (I was also a bit surprised that I didn't like the Varese as much as I thought I would. I loved those pieces in undergrad.)

15 years ago or so I used to slaver over Sony's 22-CD Stravinsky Edition, but never found it costworthy to buy... but now it's been released as ultrabudget thingy hurrah!

Zvezdoliki is a bit of a minor gem, I think.

What have the Ross readers been enjoying lately? (The bk has now had a few reviews on this side of the pond, should get round to a copy soon-ish, I hope).

This is a fantastic chamber piece by the way, just out on a new recording - http://www.divine-art.com/CD/28503info.htm

thanks to alex ross and his recommended listening I am mightily enjoying Olivier Messiaen's Turalinga Symphony + Quartet For The End of Time and my first opera! Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes.

Don't know any Britten actually (although the Britten foundation has funds by composers I like a lot).

"Quartet.." is an awesome piece!

saw the Messiaen 'Discovery Day' at Carnegie on feb 24th. Boulez in person, being interviewed about his days studying under the man, followed by Michael Mizrahi & Elizabeth Joy Roe performing "Visions de l'Amen".

pretty great to see Boulez in casual conversation. charismatic, charming, still couldn't care less. made fun of Messiaen's use of birdsong ("completely subjective -- Beethoven's 6th use of birdsong of course was tonal, plainchant composers transcribe the same melodies as modal, but Messiaen... completely atonal! so you see how... arbitrary..." etc.). described a performance of "Et Expecto Resurrectionem Mortorum" saying "of course the audience has the right to hate it, to leave, and I have the right to continue smashing the tam-tam". that's my favorite extreme Messiaen piece and I sure did enjoy the image of people walking out on Boulez & his gong

I love "Visions de l'Amen", especially that beautiful ending, and I thought they nailed it

volume 3 of the Jürgen Hocker's new Nancarrow recordings on Scene MDG is out and it is fantastic. I'm not selling my Wergo set but out of the two it's probably the one I'd recommend to start with.

This flew under my radar, not that I really keep track of Philip Glass's output. Unexepectedly, I've been slowly getting to like the cello lately (this is a solo cello recording), just within the past few years.

http://www.amazon.com/Wendy-Sutter-Philip-Glass-Songs/dp/B0012X0SS8

haven't purchased anything in a while, but things that have been rocking me lately..

Verdi: Falstaff (cond. Karajan)
Schubert: String Quartet No. 15 (Busch quartet)
Faure: Nocturne No. 2 in B; Themes and Variations (Kathryn Stott)
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 26 (Richard Goode)
Beethoven: Quartet No. 9 Andante (Takacs)
Vaughn Williams: String Quartet No. 2 (Maggini Quartet)
Wolf: 'Erstes Grun' (Hans Hotter)
Stravinsky: Petrouchka (Second Movement) (Pollini)
Chopin: Prelude in A minor (Arrau)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (Barbirolli, Karajan)

that beethoven sonata no. 26 is some of the most o_0 shit he wrote! also, falstaff might be the best opera. it's the most fun one i've heard, at least. makes you want to play in an orchestra.