Radio 3s "Fifty Modern Classics"

Just love this series of podcasts that have now concluded over the weekend and you can listen to on the website.

This is a great great selection, and the correct approach taken - all from 1950 ONWARDS, and a really good representation. Anyone could quibble with one or two. I would've had minimalism repressed for the sake of Finnissy's English Country Tunes or one of Tom Johnson's irrationalist grenades but there is a great balance between every undercurrent under the 'contemporary classical' umbrella that will indeed make you question any labels you could apply to such a vast array of music.

Note that Paul Griffiths is a contributing voice in many of these. He has been informative but does throw a few clunky lines. Look at the podcast of Chant Apres Chant (one of the first clicked on, its a fave of mine :)) and how at one point he talks about the piece as a meditation on time and memory blah its about the sea blah...its that old deal, Hodges (the pianist who chose it) otoh does talk by simple and precise observation on its dynamic (how the piano doesn't accompany the voice at all points like you'd expect in a piece like this) so that by the time you get to his closing remarks on the piece NOT BEING ABOUT death they are totally convincing.

Invisible to American users :(

Other ones I heard that are notable:

Bernhard Lang's Differenz/Wiederholung 2 - I completely disagree with Matthew Shlomowitz's case for this work as a real new leap. Its not as if a cut-up/remixed approach is something really novel in the avant-garde. Might be true for certain circles as I was hearing it (not very familiar w/Lang) an it does strike a take on this I hadn't come across before but Burroughs' approach had been widely used by '99 and in all sorts of things..worth listening for where the music is nowdays and where people are hanging onto for inspiration..(Shlomowitz is known and performed around London)

Luigi Nono's Al gran sole carico d'amore - I have the disc but found it quite hard to get a handle, plus I've always wanted to see it staged. Lots of insight on Nono's approach for voice - how he applies tech from the Renaissance masters in rehearsals to effect - and feel for subject.

Toru Takemitsu's Kwaidan - I've got the film so much of the insight on Takemitsu as a film composer is familiar, and I've thought Takemitsu's best work to be found in film not orchestra (a wider point to be made w/tis stuff is how it really lives outside the concert hall). Toop has these vivid descriptions of seeing the film, how the elements Takemitsu brings surprise and work w/the image.

Brian Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet - by the man who commissioned and played it many times. Great to hear about the encounter and experience - not always pleasurable, but in the end enriching - not least as I love Bone Alphabet.

aargh sorry to hear Jon - damn this thread will be emptier than usual now.

I have to see if there is a suite from Kwaidan on the Takemitsu film works box I downloaded earlier this year.

Always thought I should click with Takemitsu more considering my deep love of Crumb.

If its the film works box I'm thinking of there should be..

Yeah it's on my hard drive at home but I think you're right.

LOL I am literally talking to you about postwar compositions while listening to Peer Gynt.

Some more notes:

- Galina Ustvolskaya's Octet: I really need to investigate medieaval Russian choral singing after listening to a few remarks in regrds to it here.

- Claude Vivier's Lonely Child: didn't learn anything new but the singer's account of the emotional core of the piece rang true. Griffiths' steering toward speculation on Vivier's lifestyle and cause of death was uncomfortable listening though.

- Eliane Radigue's Songs of Milarepa: could be heard alongside Giacinto Scelsi's Ygghur: Buddhism in modern music

- Helmut Lachenmann's Mouvement: again knew most of this but its true how the details he brings out somehow feel more active upon the ear than if they were to be produced mechanically. Communicating this sensibility properly is key when talking about his music.

- Pierre Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre and Louis Andriessen's De Staat: how a world music 'fusion' works in modernist classical.

- Iannis Xenakis's Nomos Alpha: made me reconsider as I've always had my doubts about Xenakis' writing for solo instruments, it was his organisation of mass that I liked best.

brought the Kwaidan suite with me today, gonna dig in later.

jon, have you heard this disc:

http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/c8/47/001a47c8.jpeg

Have not. Besides the film music box, the only Takemitsu I have is From Me Flows What You Call Time and the Ran 2CD.

recommend that then — the chamber pieces are v marteau-esque and "flock descends" is him in late-messiaen mode

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen: Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki has some sharp comments on her experience w/it. Really illuminating, as Gruppen is the one piece of his from the 50s that I could never quite get on with, possibly because I couldn't conceive of the idea coming off on an LP but I so want to play it now.

Luciano Berio's Sinfonia - when I first heard it I had not much idea of the texts and the history but years later and listening to them there is recognition and some thinking about all of this. Also left it because I found Coro to be his singular masterwork. All nonsense, time for a re-listen.

Edgard Varese's Poeme electronique - loved Tyondai Braxton's enthusiasm for this. Did laugh when he said he was played this in composition class when he was 20 and not that...you know his DAD had played it for him when he was 8 or somesuch. Gillian Moore seems to suggest this wasn't so good bcz it had farting noises. Stupid.

Conlon Nancarrow's Study No.21 - the first time this series succumbs to TV personalities by getting Stephen Fry to talk enthusiastically yet with NO FUCKING CLUE WHATSOEVER about this brilliant piece. No it isn't an almost prepared piece a la Cage bcz no fucker could play this! Couple more eyeroll moments. Joanna MacGregor saves it though, she has lots of insightful comments and is honest about how the romanticism in Nancarrow's story adds to her admiration of the work, for good or ill.

Pauline Oliveros's V of IV - know most of the 50 pieces but I realise I've missed out on Oliveros' eleconic pieces - this sounds awesome riot of noise and life. I think I've heard some of her deep listening and stopped there -- just not something you can really put down on rec, from wat I can tell. Must rectify.

wow the Kwaidan score is some serious longhair freaky shit!

Can't hear these due to not being in the UK, but enjoying yr glosses, xyzzzz__ - cheers.

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen: Finnish conductor Susanna Malkki has some sharp comments on her experience w/it. Really illuminating, as Gruppen is the one piece of his from the 50s that I could never quite get on with, possibly because I couldn't conceive of the idea coming off on an LP but I so want to play it now.

Never really heard a convincing recording of it. I think I prefer "Carre"! (Sacrilege)

"Kwaidan" is awesome.

on the screen credits for Kwaidan, Takemitsu's reads 'sound effects', rather than score lol

must get round to listening to this - stephen fry can fuck off, of course

I think best of all is hearing these in bursts of a few secs in between the talks.

Scary that Gruppen was written when KS was 24. I think I'd rather hear a perf of it.

etc - thx.

Haven't finished listening to these myself - try to soon.

Only 2-3 left to listen to, some others I felt needed a note:

Gerald Barry's Piano Quartet no.1 - good discussion of post-minimalism (otherise called "New Simplicity") as in minimalism written by utilising post-serial way of thinking (all musical material up for being treated similarly) but there is something unexamined about how post-serialism became a parody of itself by the mid-70s that I don't quite go along with. Even in the 50s the orthodoxy was challenged in different way, whether by John Cage, or Mauricio Kagel (who he studied with). As for the piece I didn't like its use of older classical models, reminds you how pop treats melody and rhythm in a way that sounds less awkward.

Kevin Volans' White Man Sleeps - this is another post-minimalist piece. Hadn't heard of him at all before, but it sounds AWESOME - could be the discovery of the whole series. Its a piece written for early music instruments using African tuning systems. He is South African, so he's exploring Western and African aesthetics. Written in the 80s and it bought to mind Graceland (I don't know if Paul Simon has put as much thought but it could be a fruitful commparison, as Kevin also mined South African street music for the piece). I think what this shows if anything is what makes goes into the making of a great piece, and how it isn't about composer - not only who he studied under but also alongisde. Barry and Volans start from a similar reading of history, both studying under Stockhausen and Kagel (as did Walter Zimmermann and Clarence Barlow, really great composers in their own right, all in the same classroom sharing thoughts). Their thinking of serial music as tired (which again I don't agree, listening to Volans' way of killing the father more than anything) was shared, it led to lots of quite different (the 'quite' is important) and great music.

Volans had to write but it helps who he had around to talk to, have to rehearse with, etc. but the materials are so novel, the reserach seems thoughtful and thorough that there is a 'don't fuck this up' about it.

There was a versh adapted for string quartet for evil Kronos...which leads me to:

Crumb's Black Angels - chosen by David Harrington of Kronos. Had to laugh as he talked about the Schubert quotation and the amplification utilised, mentioning Hendrix...as the piece was a reaction against Vietnam you had 'the horror the horror' in your mind - thinking of Kronos' Hendrix alb and general everything can be used WITH NO THOUGHT WHATSOEVER. Real lesson in what serial music brings to the table.

Could be heard alongside George Benjamin's At First Light - where he's describing, in this piece for a 14-piece ensemble, some of the performance: newspaper ripped, ping pong balls in a glass. A set of damn polite gimmicks, with melodramatised brass screaming for attention it doesn't deserve.

The Crumb is better but the risks are plain to see, and what people take out of them clearer.

I absolutely adore Crumb but Black Angels is not one of my favorites. Fair enough for Harrington to choose it though as Kronos was formed in order to play that piece.

I remember really liking Volans' 'Hunting & Gathering' quartet a lot. It's been almost 20 years, I think I'll dig it out today. His long piece Cicada also got v interesting write ups in the late 90s, should try to catch up with that.

Wish I could hear these - particularly the Feldman which has a BBC archive interview excerpt.

What other Crumb do you like Jon? Yeah, fine for Harrington to narrate, but I heard him talk about his excitement of listening to Crumb for the first time, and the seeds of a music of Schubert and Hendrix in horror...

Cage 4'33" had the best composer archive interview (w/Frank Kermode), the last bit has him hoping for a "multiplicity of rights".

Wish I could d/l these and then upload back here..

'Music For A Summer Evening' has made me weep in public before so I suppose it must at least tie for my favorite Crumb. I'd put 'Night of the Four Moons' and 'Echoes of Time and the River' alongside it.

Crumb is not for everybody though. I know some consider him new age by another name, or a mere gimmickster.

I like the four books of Madrigals and the early and uncharacteristic solo cello sonata, among other things. He did reach a point where he seemed to be repeating himself. But there could very well be great things among the later works. There's a lot of stuff I've never heard.

i remember liking ancient voices of children but it's been a few years

Ah yes I do recall listening to Ancient Voices....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKRF86FPCYU

Walking song is a choon...