Blocking the Sound of Televisions with Luigi Nono — Rolling Classical Thread 2011

A new year, a new thread for marginal interests!

I broke my self imposed classical fast (maybe ill-advisedly) with a disc of early Stockhausen: Formel (1951), Schlagtrio (1952) Spiel (1952) and Punkte (1952-62) — the first is an (by Stockhausen's standards) easy work with clear thematic elements, the second is a plodding piece for piano and percussion, and the last two are shimmering orchestral works in the vein of Gruppen.

new year begins with palestrina's missa papae marcelli & di vittoria's requiem

always love thesse but think i prefer di vittoria? soaring ever upwards into the heavens and all that

I'm so picky about ren. composers, they're either enthralling (Tallis) or put me to sleep. too much glassy perfection, nothing to grab onto. I'll try the Victoria.

I find Renaissance composers that yes, its almost always good, hard to be critical and I don't want to suspend those faculties.

My Christmas presents included:

This Schoenberg recording: http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557533
The third string quartet is one of my all-time favourite pieces and this recording is superb. The other pieces sound good so far but I haven't really listened closely yet. Schulte is a remarkable musician though. (If you don't know the third, do check it out! The first movement is especially stunning: Loose application of 12-note procedures are used to generate riff-like ostinato patterns.

Also this, which I haven't listened to yet but am looking forward to: http://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.570781

"Loose application ... is used to generate ...)

"

I like the look of that cd, Sund4r. I love Schoenberg's string quartets, they're pretty much a musical ideal for me, from the expressionism of the 1st to the density of the 4th. I mainly listen to the La Salle qt's recordings atm. I have the naxos Craft recording of the Concerto for String qt/the book of the hanging gardens etc.

On Renaissance composers, Byrd is my fix atm. I'm working through the complete edition on ASV.

I usually just lurk on these threads, but hi y'all.

I found a Deutsche Grammophone LP of "Don Giovanni" the other day in the thrift store and really enjoyed listening to it. I also got an LP of Debussy on solo piano that didn't click with me at all, guess I prefer his orchestral works.

Bought an album with Sir Arnold Bax's Tintagel on it. Great piece. Would like to hear some more of his symphonic poems.

He reminds me at times of middle period Malipiero orchestral music (which I'd mentioned I really like on last year's thread). Also got a recording of his second symphony and the middle movement is a good example. Something about the harmonic language, but also texturally and in the wistful, rhapsodic writing.

I really liked Bax's 6th when I heard it. From what I could tell his touchstones seem to be Sibelius, Scriabin and Debussy and a sort of Germanic seriousness. It doesn't sound British at all (in a good way).

I usually just lurk on these threads, but hi y'all.

I found a Deutsche Grammophone LP of "Don Giovanni" the other day in the thrift store and really enjoyed listening to it. I also got an LP of Debussy on solo piano that didn't click with me at all, guess I prefer his orchestral works.

― sleeve, Sunday, 2 January 2011 16:39 (Yesterday) Bookmark

who was the pianist? no need to lurk! nice to get some traffic itt....obviously classical isn't like rolling swag or w/e so the expectations of the discourse are a lil different

I'm so picky about ren. composers, they're either enthralling (Tallis) or put me to sleep. too much glassy perfection, nothing to grab onto. I'll try the Victoria.

― =(^ • ‿‿ • ^)= (corey), Sunday, 2 January 2011 00:38 (Yesterday)

yeah i can what you mean by this, but glassy perfection is very much the appeal of these composers, tho i'd think victoria is quite an idiosyncratic figure and not as obviously amenable to a sort of proto-heroin house droney bliss as some others

tallis i must investigate more

can /see/

xp to nakhchivan

it's a guy named Claudio Arrau, Philips european pressing, doing Preludes. I got it b/c it was (like most classical vinyl I find in thrift stores) totally pristine minty clean (plus it was a dollar). But something about the sparse, monochromatic tone overall just rubbed me the wrong way.

anyone wanna recommend a fuller-sounding Debussey record? I really prefer older vinyl cuz it is cheap.

Maybe this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj79cdF1g1Y

arrau was pretty famous! i think i have heard his debussy but can't remember, i like pollini a lot in the preludes, aimard hasn't recorded a lot iirc but he's good

i'd guess any old debussy vinyl would be worth hearing, if u can find a recording of his profane oratario 'the marytyrdom of st sebastian' then that's my fav, but the standards la mer and nocturnes are probably on a million old lps and both are awes

jeux is an incredible piece of music too

cool, thanks to both of you.

Can anyone recommend something along the lines of Ives' Unanswered Question or Copland's Piano Concerto?

I got the Cantica Symphonia CD of Busnois' L'homme arme masses and was kind of disappointed. The instrumentation is extremely effective at spotlighting the use of the l'homme arme theme but as with all of their recordings the performances err on the side of mushy and slow. It would be great to hear punchier, more assertive recordings with the same backing band.

MaresNest: if you like Ives you should hear his two orchestral sets if you haven't heard them already. The first is the more famous but the second is probably my favorite. I have this set of all the symphonies and orchestral sets. The fourth symphony is a mindblowing piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKJw74JWYwg

Copland's piano concerto is one of his earliest works and where his jazz and Stravinsky influences show the most. Try Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1udS3o5tVu4&feature=related

last night before bed I listened to Bartók's 4th and 6th quartets — so amazing

Awesome Corey, thanks!

never quite got into ives cuz i thought i'd really love him, but the unanswered question is inarguably great

bartok's later quartets are sublime

I really liked Bax's 6th when I heard it. From what I could tell his touchstones seem to be Sibelius, Scriabin and Debussy and a sort of Germanic seriousness. It doesn't sound British at all (in a good way).

― =(^ • ‿‿ • ^)= (corey), Sunday, January 2, 2011 7:04 PM (Yesterday)

You know, I've got to add, Tintagel sounds to me to be really Mendelssohnian in scope, making me think of a piece like The Hebrides Overture.

I'll track it down this week. Thanks!

They are pretty far apart, historically. Something of the spirit of the piece made me think of Mendelssohn, though.

Lately I've been feeling burned out on post-1950 serialist/post-serialist composers. The Bartók quartets I listened to the other day were just hitting that sweet spot in a way they never have before (I run hot and cold on Bartók generally). I think I'm going to dive back into my 1900-1950 comfort zone again for awhile.

feel like maybe I should pay less attention to the idea of being somehow obligated to listen to certain things but I dunno I have an urge to "learn all that is learnable"

Getting into the Danish SQ's recordings of the Hindemith quartets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEGxj10vWm0&feature=related

which recording, corey? i only know the takacs.

Do you mean the Bartók? If so, yep, Takacs. I have the Arditti's doing the 4th but haven't listened yet.

Listened to two Schoenberg pieces tonight: the Wind Quintet and the String Trio — both relatively late pieces, the former dry and overlong, the latter being exactly what I love in Schoenberg: dramatic, angsty and complex.

it's weird, i've heard the bartok quartets (played by takacs) enough, and i even listened closely to them last year, but in the past year i've been listening to a lot of haydn (aeolian) and beethoven (takacs) quartets, and today bartok's 5th totally came together like never before for me. like i could hear what in them was supposed to appeal to listeners grounded in the tradition (and possibly appalled by what they might be hearing).

i like the arditti in that bartok quartet and wish they'd do more non-standard (for them) repertoire

liszt's dante symphony! this is a neglected masterpiece, srsly

whaaaaaaaa

lol rong thred

Out of curiosity, is anyone else irritated by the terms "New Music" or "Modern Classical" or "Contemporary Classical" or "Academic Music"? I've resorted to "contemporary composition" in my tags, but its such an ugly phrase.

Tags are important.

don't like any of those terms

your choice is the best of them tho!

"new music" is so vague, "academic" has connotations of sterility and dryness, and "modern" is used to describe music written 100 years ago! "contemporary composition" is the most accurate I think.

Based on the Polovtsian Dances, I've been wondering for a while how much I would like other Borodin. Am amazed now at how awesome his Symphony No. 2 is.

For those out of the loop like myself, Tod Machover (who did a PKD opera I respected way back) is doing a "transhumanist" opera with robotics from the MIT Media Lab, to open March 18.

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

Er, I guess that's just the North American premiere in Boston, in March.

My music listening veered off in a new (for me) direction late last year and has been focused heavily on J.S. Bach, especially the WTC and the Cello Suites. Since I previously gave most of my attention to contemporary composition -- to use the term I, too, favor -- I'm not used to having a choice of numerous recordings of the same music by different interpreters. If you want to hear Mario Davidovsky's brilliant 5th string quartet ("Dank an Opus 132") from 1998, you get the one available recording (by the Mendelssohn quartet, on BIS). It's almost like pop music that way, although there may be a second recording of the Davidovsky someday, and some of Carter's best-known works exist in perhaps half a dozen different recordings.

In contrast, if you were willing to scour ebay for the out-of-print ones, you could assemble 130 or more different recordings of the Bach Cello Suites -- and several dozen more if your interest extends to transcriptions for instruments other than cello. That's many more than I want (or could afford), but I have enjoyed working my way through several sets and hearing short clips from many others. Just something new for me -- even though I've known and loved these pieces forever and played bits of them as a student.

i prefer the vln partitas and sonatas to the cello suites, which i'd guess would be a minority opinion

for the wtc i like schiff & (with apols to baroque traditionalists) barenboim

I love the vn partitas & sonatas but not quite as much as the vc suites. The violin is pitched too high to include a real bass register, so Bach is forever negotiating between an unusually high bass and an implied/absent one. It's instructive to compare the versions with piano accompaniment that Robert Schumann created for both sets -- the violin pieces are very much normalized by this treatment (losing something in the process, no doubt), whereas the piano accompaniment to the third Cello Suite -- the only one I've tracked down -- has barely any effect, it just feels redundant except fr the very occasional harmonic anachronism.

vn S&P: Milstein (old-school); Holloway, Matthews (HIP)
vc suites: Suren Bagratuni, Fournier, Sebastian Klinger, Gavriel Lipkind, Schiff (old-school, new-school); Bruno Cocset, Sergei Istomin, Jaap ter Linden 2006, Wieland Kuijken (HIP)
WTC: Fellner, Korolev, Koroliov (piano); Hantaï, Suzuki, Watchorn (hpscd)

Casals is undeniable in the cello suites, but the audio quality of those old recordings is an obstacle for me. I like Schiff in the WTC, but in other Bach and other repertoire I find his articulation overly fussy and that contaminates my opinion of his WTC (where the problem hardly exists).

hey, paul, i never did hear that new recording of feldman's 'trio' you mentioned in last year's thread, but i did hear an old one, and really enjoyed it—thanks for the recommendation.

nathan milstein's last recording of the partitas & sonatas is my favourite too

i suppose some people will find an unaccompanied violin grating for any length of time, but i had no idea schumann wrote accompaniments! i still think that says more about the tyranny of romantic prettification than any inherent lack in the original, or in the violin itself which in the right hands compensates for its restricted register by its directness of articulation

how do you view liszt? this year is his bicentennial and i will probably be going to a fair few piano recitals and generally proselytizing, for he remains one of my very favourite composers

xp Oh good, glad you liked it. Feldman's up there with Carter in the multiple-recordings sweepstakes (7 versions of Triadic Memories if I'm not mistaken).

(xp)

Interesting -- I only know a small number of works by each composer (an Emsley disc on Metier titled flowforms, and a piano piece by Erber on an Ian Pace recital disc). Your description of the recent Emsley pieces reminds me of music by Thomas DeLio.

corey - Quite a lot of discs by Finnissy, Barrett, Dillon. a few threads about on ilx that discuss some of this stuff.

Paul - love that disc on metier. For Erber, yes, that solo piano work is brill. Another (really good) piece by Erber is Strange Moments of Intimacy played by Kate Romano.

The notes did inform me that a recording of a solo cello piece, played by Frank Cox, is about to come out on Centaur Records.

I have a lot of their music, just haven't got around to listening to it yet :\

Just reading the wiki on DeLio and yes I can see why you'd think that - will check him out. xp

Listening to Messiaen's organ cycle La Nativité du Seigneur. I think this might be the best Messiaen I've heard so far.

Yeah I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't *adore* early Messiaen, Corey. :)

This right now is the meaning of life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm-OzGMc6IU

Right now for me it's the chaconne from Bach's 2nd solo vln partita.

also have been listening to Berio's Sinfonia and Nono's Il Canto sospeso a lot.

Yes, that Bach is amazing.

yeah, I could listen to that Brumel on repeat for hours and hours.

This week I've been dipping into Handel's Alcina. I'm new to baroque opera, but the idea of a dramatic work in a relative state of stasis with a limited palette appeals to me in the same way that Ozu films or Alain Robbe-Grillet does.

Right now, something completely different: Carter - SQs 1 and 5 (Pacifica).

Also have Das Rheinhold on loan from the library. It's time.

Alcina is fantastic. Is it really a "state of stasis" any more than a Mozart opera?

From what I've read about Baroque opera it became much more overtly dramatic and stürmisch after Gluck streamlined the recitative-aria form.

The only Mozart opera I know is Don Giovanni, and that seems a world away from Alcina.

Is Don Giovanni more dramatic? I'm not sure that the singspiels (Magic Flute and Abduction from the Seraglio) are.

I think there is something in what you say, but it's Handel we're talking about, so when I read "state of stasis" and "limited palette," I immediately think, "HOLD ON A MINUTE."

Ha, Handel is probably the most galant of the major baroque opera composers, you're right.

Maybe there's something to be said about the on-stage drama itself becoming prioritized more starting with Gluck? If that's so, I'd agree that there's a real charm to how baroque opera presents theater where the music is more of a priority.

Have no idea. All my exposure (with one or two exceptions) to opera thus far has been through recordings. I'm planning on working my way through Monteverdi, Lully, Rameau and Handel, then to Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven's Fidelio, Wagner, Mussorgsky, etc. Probably not in that order and with plenty of detours along the way.

Heard the Grant Park Orchestra do Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden and Mendelssohn's 2nd — was very enjoyable to watch the oldsters with their tables set up with wine and cheese squirm during the more dissonant parts of the Schoenberg.

The Mendelssohn symphony was unfamiliar to me. Pretty tedious. I kept thinking (or hoping) it was over when there was yet another movement.

Mendelssohn is one of my favorite composers, but I don't know that symphony either.

I am bad at judging music upon first hearing, so it's possible I might have underrated it — but atm it's low-priority

in other news, Liszt, Liszt, Liiiiszt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E7LXSFST_c

downloaded the two-disc hathut set of schleiermacher doing soviet avant garde piano music, need to listen to it

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

favorite Bach partitas? I usually go to Schiff out of habit but I really liked the Angela Hewitt version yesterday. And then there are the new Perahias to listen to.

only like hpschd in bach's keyb music

Ha. I hate Bach on the harpsichord (except as continuo obv). I can enjoy Scarlatti and early baroque composers eg Byrd on the harpsichord.

If anyone's interested, Havergal Brian's insane GothiC Symphony is on tonight at 7pm on radio 3. And ther's an intro to it on from 5:15 pm.

If you're wondring why you should be interested, read this

t is, in fact, the most extreme example of the perilous hybrid genre that Beethoven initiated with his Ninth Symphony. Composed over a period of seven or eight years (mainly at night, since Brian worked as a music copyist and journalist and at various odd jobs through the day), ‘The Gothic’ unites two long-contemplated schemes – a work on Goethe’s Faust and a setting of the Te Deum – in a symphonic vision of the Gothic Age (approximately 1150–1550) as a period of almost unlimited expansion of human knowledge, both secular and spiritual, glorious and terrible. The first three movements, for large orchestra, relate in a general way to Part 1 of Goethe’s Faust (Faust as the archetypal Gothic Age man, aspiring mystic and seeker after hidden knowledge).

But they are merely a prelude. The fourth, fifth and sixth movements encompass a gigantic, hour-long setting of the Te Deum, and here Brian requires four soloists, two large double choruses, four brass bands and an orchestra that outbulks the most extreme demands of Mahler, Richard Strauss and Schoenberg. Brian’s inspiration was the great Gothic cathedrals of Northern Europe, whose architecture (and the music that was sung in them) had transfixed his imagination since he first encountered Lichfield Cathedral as a child chorister. This Te Deum attempts a new, freely evolving conception of structure while making use of the widest possible range of stylistic resources. It spans a great arch from neo-medieval vocal polyphony to shattering brass outbursts of purely 20th-century barbarity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2011/analysis/129

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXjFZijp4Ms

Greatest thread ever.

Can anybody tell me where to start with Friedrich Cerha?

Norrington doing something interesting with Mahler 9 at the proms tonight..

I don't know much about Cerha other than he did the first completion of the third act of Berg's Lulu. I assume his music is fairly echt-modernist Darmstadt stuff.

How had I never heard the music of Almeida Prado before? The piano stuff is slaying me.

favorite Bach partitas? I usually go to Schiff out of habit but I really liked the Angela Hewitt version yesterday. And then there are the new Perahias to listen to.

Sergey Schepkin. He also has what is probably the finest modern piano Well-Tempered Clavier. You can find these used for cheap.

If anyone managed to record the Havergal Brian broadcast, I would love to know about it...

Piotr Moss [Rémanences, Harpe celtique, orchestre à cordes]

Loving this. Terrifying but also shockingly romantic. Dense stabs of strings + harp. Love how the only real moment of 'lightness' is a kind of creepy caricature czardas in the allegro mvmnt.

I am, at this moment, hearing Othmar Schoeck's Notturno for tenor and string quartet for the first time. If you love the mystical/haunted hyper-chromatic side of 20th century music you need to know this incredible piece.

I have his string quartets; haven't listened yet.

If anyone managed to record the Havergal Brian broadcast, I would love to know about it...

― Axolotl with an Atlatl (Jon Lewis), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 15:20

http://5-against-4.blogspot.com/2011/07/proms-2011-havergal-brian-symphony-no-1.html

(scroll down)

Yes! You are a frog among men, sir.

OMG JON. Thank you so much for the Othmar Schoeck recommendation. How had I never heard this piece before? It's *very specifically* my sort of thing. Beautiful.

Yeah I didn't pay any attention to him for a long time because I somehow had the idea he was a heavy cream viennese waltz guy, rong. A review by Adrien Corleonis in Fanfare finally made me go looking.

Skeptical about the conclusions being drawn here--I'd have to look at the original studies--but the headline made me laugh:

Audiences Hate Modern Classical Music Because Their Brains Cannot Cope

Koechlin - Les Heures Persanes

hell yeah

^^^the orchestral and solo piano versions are equally awesome. My favorite Koechlin.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/oct/05/notes-letters-music-modernism-self/print

Good article

I am listening to Liszt's Waltzes (Leslie Howard)

\(^o^)/

i love that lp, the valses oubliées are some of the most neglected pieces in liszt's outlying repertory

alongside the #2 and #3 mephisto waltzes they are good examples of the extravagance of his marquee phase giving way to the contrary introversion of late liszt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAI2Q4aninE&feature=related

This might be a long shot, but the frequent posters on this thread sure know their classical music, so:

What's the best version/cd-release of Pierre Boulez' 'Pli Selon Pli'? Amazon lists 17 releases, but I have no idea which ones are considered the best or where to start to find this out for myself. Any help would be greatly appreciated.