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Post by jk on Oct 25, 2021 13:11:33 GMT -5
Looking for an opus 600 in classical music to mark Joshilyn H's attainment of that number of subscribers to her channel, this was as close as I could get on YouTube. These "Practical Piano Exercises for Beginners" ( Erster Lehrmeister, Op. 599) are by Carl Czerny (1791–1857), every budding pianist's friend. Telemann was probably more prolific but in terms of actual opus numbers Carl Czerny takes the cake with a cool 861! Hearty congrats, JH. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Czerny
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Post by jk on Oct 30, 2021 14:01:55 GMT -5
YouTube had been pushing these four symphonies at me for some time and I eventually succumbed when I had a spot of painting and decorating to do. And fine works they are too. I reproduce the informative accompanying blurb (liner notes?) by Suzanne Clercx verbatim: "Pierre [or Pieter] van Maldere (1729—1768) is not entirely unknown, but his name has become lost among the numbers of 'minor masters' who figured in the era of the pre-classical symphony between 1730 and the entry into the lists of Haydn and of Mozart. He was at this time a violinist of some reputation in this 'century of luminaries in which the careers of virtuosi, more or less independent, began to change the character of musical life'. Acclaimed in all the great capitals of Europe, he left works in print or manuscript in which his contemporary critics have discerned his talents as a virtuoso and his qualities as a composer. "Published in Paris from 1760 onwards, his symphonies created a sensation. In 1764 La Chevardiere inserted as no. 59 in his collection 'Symphonies of an Epoch', a work by van Maldere of which the young Mozart who was at that time in Paris, had expressed appreciation. In the same year, the six symphonies Op. IV and in 1768 those of Op. V roused much general interest; for in addition to the eulogies of the Mercure de France were joined those of the German critics. Stockhausen noted in the symphonies of Opus IV a brilliance and freshness of taste without the habitual excesses, a seriousness in expression, even a certain melancholy; but their principal virtue lay in its elaboration of forms. In the Widchentliche Nachrichten, Hiller recognised the novelty of the symphonies of van Maldere and remarked upon his daring of invention. He also remarked how much moved he was by their gravity of expression and how remarkable it was contrasted with the light-hearted gallant style of the time. He also noted the felicitous harmonies, particularly with regard to horns and oboes, and above all the elaborate thematic structure which pervaded the whole work. In 1769 after the publication of Op. V he outlined more specifically the eminent qualities of a composer working not in quantity but in depth. He called to mind the inventive gifts, the grace and seriousness of his themes, the harmonic abundance of his writing, the accomplished elaboration of form. Hiller did not know when he wrote those lines that he would write no more appreciations of new works by this composer. Twenty years later, in the Musikalische Korrespondenz of 1791 he considered afresh as models of composition the allegros of Maldere; and Sulzer, in the Allgemeine Theorie der Schonen Künste (1792) deplored the premature death that had deprived the musical world of fresh masterpieces. Van Maldere had in fact died suddenly in the night of 1st November 1768, as can be read from the Secret Diary of Charles of Lorraine. He was just 39 years old. "The four symphonies chosen for this record give a good illustration of the measure of Pierre van Maldere in the formation of symphonic style. The first, entitled Sinfonia a piu stromenti (The Great [here at 15:31]) was published in Paris by Venier in 1760. Like the six symphonies dedicated to the Duke of Antin which preceded it, it is again conceived — as the title so well expresses — in the Italian manner in four parts: first and second violins, alto and bass continuo. At the same time, by the form developed in the first allegro, by the mobility of themes in turn animating each instrumental group, by the abundance and precision of dynamic markings, this work deviates from the 'sinfonia' and becomes the precursor of the classical symphony, towards which it tends in a spirit remarkably different at all times from the Mannheim compositions. "Some years later, van Maldere accomplished further progress in the symphonic style. This concerns the first symphony of Op. V (D major [here at 00:00]) or the symphonies no. 166 (D major [here at 27:33]) and 170 (E flat major [here at 40:14]) provided by manuscripts preserved in the library of the Milan Conservatoire: the joining of the symphonic material to two horns and two oboes, replenishes the tonal structure, eliminates the bass continuo and creates a style in which richness becomes associated with the twin-thematic form of the sonata, giving the symphony a new dimension. One would remark that the symphony no. 1 of Op. V is built on a fanfare theme which characterises the whole work. This is not unusual, in this period, but it is reminiscent of Pierre van Maldere — who recalls precisely in the title of Op. V his status as valet to Charles of Lorraine, accompanying the prince on his routine hunts to Tervueren and Mariemont. The work could have been written in one of these residences." The four symphonies described above are played here by Les Solistes de Liège under their conductor Jean Jakus: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_van_Maldere
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Post by jk on Nov 8, 2021 6:56:13 GMT -5
There has been some desolate music composed over the years. Take the Fourth Symphony of Jean Sibelius, written in his mid-forties when suffering from throat cancer and contemplating an early death (he lived to be 92). Or a work it influenced, E.J. Moeran's Symphony in G Minor, which begins optimistically but wilts as it progresses, its initially heroic themes steadily sapped of their enthusiasm (Moeran had received shrapnel to the head in WWI that was considered too close to the brain to remove). These were utterances rooted in personal afflictions. The chilling piece I heard this morning, played by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, regrettably has universal implications: AKQA and Jung von Matt, in partnership with composer Hugh Crosthwaite and Monash University's Climate Change Communication Research Hub, used climate data to recompose Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. One of the best loved classical pieces, Vivaldi wrote it three centuries ago as an endlessly inventive depiction of each season, influenced by the rhythms of the year. Portraying a future (2050) where the world has failed to deliver on combatting global warming, The [uncertain] Four Seasons aims to place pressure on world leaders to act decisively at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26. The [uncertain] Four Seasons is a global project that recomposed Vivaldi's The Four Seasons using local climate data for every orchestra in the world. The new compositions (I believe 14 local variations can be heard on YouTube) were to be a call for global leaders to commit to the Leaders Pledge for Nature ahead of the conference in November 2021. Building upon the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra's 2019 performance in Hamburg, which fused Vivaldi's music with historical weather data, the first variation of The [uncertain] Four Seasons was performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the 2021 Sydney Festival on January 12th. The [uncertain] Four Seasons is the output of a musical design system that combines music theory with computer modelling to algorithmically generate countless local variations of Vivaldi's original 1725 composition. The algorithm alters the musical score to account for predicted changes in rainfall, biodiversity, sea-level rise and extreme weather events as laid out in the IPCC's reports. Here, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Youth Orchestra perform what they call the "Malé Variation" of The [uncertain] Four Seasons at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg (the above notes were adapted from the YT blurb and from the website linked below): Find out more at the-uncertain-four-seasons.info
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Post by jk on Nov 15, 2021 10:39:28 GMT -5
Kullervo is Jean Sibelius's longest and most ambitious (not to say grimmest) composition. It was first performed in 1892 when the composer was in his late twenties. He would later reject it as atypical -- it lacked the concentration associated with his mature work, a characteristic he wanted to be remembered for. The embedded video is of the world premiere recording made in 1970 by Paavo Berglund and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, with mezzo-soprano Raili Kostia as Kullervo's sister and baritone Usko Viitanen as Kullervo and the YL Male Voice Choir. 1. Introduction—0:00 2. Kullervo's Youth—13:55 3. Kullervo and His Sister—27:58 (with choir and soloists) 4. Kullervo Goes to Battle—52:55 5. Kullervo's Death—1:01:46 (with choir) Anyone looking for a rendition in English of the libretto for movements three and five should be able to find one * here*, under "Listen to All Extracts". Score-readers, you are in for a treat! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kullervo_(Sibelius)
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Post by jk on Nov 18, 2021 13:53:59 GMT -5
Recently a friend of a friend of mine by some miracle survived a brush with COVID that looked certain to kill him. Mozart being the great healer, this movement from the Clarinet Quintet should help him along the road to recovery: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinet_Quintet_(Mozart)
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Post by jk on Dec 10, 2021 15:39:39 GMT -5
The composer Vsevolod Zaderatsky (1891–1953) lived a turbulent and tragic life that got off to a bad start when he fought on the side of the White Movement (as opposed to the Reds, the communist Bolsheviks) during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922/23. He would not be rehabilitated in his lifetime, dying in the year of Stalin's own death, and is still an unknown quantity to the music-loving public at large. Androcleas' excellent review of Zaderatsky's 24 Preludes and Fugues performed by Jascha Nemtsov dates from 2016. Entitled "Music from the Gulag", it is eloquent and informative enough to require reproducing in full, warts and all: "This is really a major discovery. Zaderatsky's 24 Preludes and Fugues were written in 1937–1938 in the Soviet gulag -- ie with a borrowed pencil on telegraph paper several thousand miles from the nearest piano. That would be achievement enough, but actually these pieces are also musically impressive by any standards, inviting interesting comparison with Shostakovich's LATER set of Preludes and Fugues. "Zaderatsky was music tutor to Tsar Nikolay II's son, then fought in the Civil War for the Whites before being captured and nearly executed. He was saved when Dzherzhinsky heard his piano playing. He was imprisoned again in 1926 and all his music was destroyed. In the early 30s he became part of the futurist movement in Moscow before it was brutally suppressed and he was sent away from Moscow. In 1937 he was sent to the gulag, eventually released in 1939. He was never allowed to return to Moscow, getting a job in the Conservatoire in Lvov. He and his music were totally suppressed during his lifetime and not a note was played. Despite this he was still condemned by local representative of Zhdanov in 1948. He died while working on his Violin Concerto in 1953. "On the whole, Zaderatsky's Preludes and Fugues are shorter and faster than those of Shostakovich. They have a certain harsh motoric quality that betray the composer's influences in the Russian futurist movement. But it is combined with a rather Romantic melancholic streak rare among the futurists. In fact I would say that from the music I have heard, Zaderatsky's music seems to show more personality that most of these (Roslavets, Mossolov etc.). There are moments of stunning tragic beauty, such as the beginnings of the second and 8th Preludes, that remind me of a vast frozen land. There are moments of stunning virtuosity, handled admirably by the pianist. There are sections where the pianist gets to hammer the keyboard in powerful dynamic display expressing anger and violence which is just there as a fact -- it cannot be overcome. All in all, you feel you are transported into the tragedy and violence, yet hope against all odds of this composer's world. Despite the almost unbearable difficulties of this composer's life, the music seems more hopeful than that of Shostakovich." [ Source] This is the remarkable opening prelude in C major. The yawning chasm between the piano's lowest notes in the left hand and the glittering pattern five to six octaves higher up in the right is nothing short of chilling: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsevolod_Zaderatsky
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Post by jk on Dec 13, 2021 14:48:43 GMT -5
I don't believe I've linked this yet at EH. It's the Amsterdam variant of a multi-locational reworking of Vivaldi's * Le quattro stagioni (The Four Seasons)* using local climate data for the year 2050 in a worst-case scenario, i.e. if we do nothing at all to combat climate change (see #Reply 103 in this thread). In this variant, "Autumn", normally a season for celebration, was originally ten minutes' silence, since there wouldn't be too much to celebrate with 80% of the Netherlands underwater. The Nederlands Radio Philharmonic who were to play it felt that ten minutes of nothing was unacceptable on the radio and would the "recomposers" please provide an alternative! Astonishingly, they did. Needless to say, this isn't a comfortable listen but it's fascinating all the same and should be much more widely known: Adapted from the * YouTube blurb*: "AKQA and Jung von Matt, in partnership with composer Hugh Crosthwaite and Monash University's Climate Change Communication Research Hub used climate data to recompose Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. The [uncertain] Four Seasons is the output of a musical design system that combines music theory with computer modelling to algorithmically generate countless local variations of Vivaldi's original 1725 composition. The algorithm alters the musical score to account for predicted changes in rainfall, biodiversity, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events as laid out in the IPCC's reports. "Portraying a future where the world has failed to act decisively on global warming, The [uncertain] Four Seasons sought to place pressure on global leaders to act decisively and commit to the Leaders Pledge for Nature ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 in November 2021." the-uncertain-four-seasons.info/experience
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Post by jk on Dec 20, 2021 5:42:33 GMT -5
Yesterday I listened to much of Handel's oratorio Messiah on the radio armed with an ancient online piano score, which occasionally deviated from the version being performed. Luckily I was also armed with an online libretto, so I could frantically look up what was being sung and get reasonably quickly back on track. Anyway, here is the "Ouverture" performed by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra conducted (to the best of my knowledge) by Imants Kokars: And, by way of contrast, how about this heavy-metal version of part of the "Ouverture" multi-tracked on electric mandolin and renamed "Muhzziauh?" soundcloud.com/joshilyn-hoisington/muhzziauh?en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_(Handel)
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Post by jk on Jan 9, 2022 15:30:02 GMT -5
January 9th 1905 is the fateful day in Russian history when soldiers of the Imperial Guard fired upon unarmed demonstrators marching on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, killing several hundred of them. Shostakovich commemorates it in the second movement of his Eleventh Symphony, although it is more likely a depiction of the then recent crushing of the Hungarian Revolution by Soviet troops. (Important note: Play at full volume, otherwise you won't hear the deathly hush at 15:06.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich)This post from my first visit to these shores still bears my alias, as it comes from a quote by Silken , bless her. Just about everything else sank into anonymity after I deleted my account during a clash of loyalties. The Eleventh is my joint favourite among Shostakovich's symphonies, together with the Fourth. I first heard it during the 1962 Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, when it received its UK premiere, and it has never loosened its grip on me. Ah, I see now I also linked it last year (* here*) in a highly recommended full-length version.
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Post by Silken on Jan 13, 2022 17:07:24 GMT -5
Hi, John!! I hope you're doing well. I don't come here often but every time I do I listen to your recommendations - Thank ypu for keeping this corner alive!
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Post by jk on Jan 13, 2022 17:34:24 GMT -5
Hi, John!! I hope you're doing well. I don't come here often but every time I do I listen to your recommendations - Thank you for keeping this corner alive! Hello, S. I'm doing well, thank you. And I trust you are too. Wow -- knowing you give my recommendations a listen makes it all worthwhile. It gives me a good reason to carry on doing what I do in "this corner". A word of encouragement can work wonders -- so thank you!
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Post by jk on Feb 3, 2022 17:00:22 GMT -5
Ferruccio Busoni's haunting Berceuse élégiaque, Op. 42 was, according to the YouTube blurb with the odd tweak from jk, "originally written for solo piano, to be added as the seventh piece in his 1907 collection Elegies. Busoni adapted it for orchestra later the same year. This orchestral version was sub-titled 'Des Mannes Wiegenlied am Sarge seiner Mutter’ ('The man's lullaby at his mother's coffin'). The first performance of Berceuse élégiaque was in New York on February 21, 1911, and was conducted by Gustav Mahler." According to Wikipedia, Mahler "returned to New York in late October 1910, where [he] threw himself into a busy Philharmonic season of concerts and tours. Around Christmas 1910 he began suffering from a sore throat, which persisted. On 21 February 1911, with a temperature of 40 °C (104 °F), Mahler insisted on fulfilling an engagement at Carnegie Hall, with a program of mainly new Italian music, including the world premiere of Busoni's Berceuse élégiaque. This was Mahler's last concert." He died three months later. [ Source] To commenter Aris Garinis's question, "Whose performance? Not credited…", uploader Bartje Bartmans replies, "This comes from my old terminated channel. The info got deleted, I think it is a live Radio recording of the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra." (I myself have a stunning version recorded from the radio some time in the late '70s or early '80s. Conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw, it's not the same as the one here -- I just gave it a listen.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferruccio_BusoniAs an afterthought: I heard a radio performance in the early 1980s of Busoni's immense Piano Concerto, whose fifth and final movement features a 48-strong male chorus. Incredibly, those planning the broadcast had miscalculated the work's length and the last five or so of its 70 minutes were unceremoniously chopped off to make way for the hourly news bulletin! I've no idea whether it was rescheduled...
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Post by jk on Feb 6, 2022 17:05:17 GMT -5
This sublime rendition of a sublime work was first posted here (in "The Brian Wilson Hymnbook" thread) by a lovely person who by rights should still be here. In moments of weakness I blame myself for their departure but exactly why they left will forever remain a mystery: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Two_Violins_(Bach)
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Post by jk on Feb 14, 2022 16:47:50 GMT -5
I met the Dutch composer Otto Ketting (1935–2012) on a couple of occasions through a mutual friend. My first experience of his music was not good -- it was a bombastically produced opera commissioned to open a festival and what I saw (and heard) of it made a poor impression on me. That was in 1986. I met him much later, in the new millennium. He was a most affable man with a dreadful health record, which he bore with dignity (I'm told his last few weeks were an absolute hell). I discovered we shared an interest in Jack Daniels as well as music and over the years l got to hear more of his works. His tastes were very broad -- during our first meeting he expressed his admiration for the music of Brian Wilson. I heard De Aankomst (The Arrival, 1993) this afternoon on the radio in connection with a Dutch-language book about Ketting published this month. Slaap zacht, Otto. I reproduce Dutch Composers' YouTube blurb verbatim as there is so little in English about the man: Otto Ketting was a Dutch composer. He studied the trumpet at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and then received lessons in composition from his father, Piet Ketting. In 1954 he became a trumpeter with the Hague Resedentie-Orkest, but in 1961 he abandoned his post to study composition with Hartmann in Munich. Afterwards he devoted himself largely to composing, becoming a lecturer in composition at both the Rotterdam Conservatory and the Royal Conservatory. Ketting has also been active as a conductor, chiefly of 20th-century music. In the early, sober and introverted Due canzoni (1957) and the exuberant First Symphony (1957--9), the influences of Webern and Berg (both at the time still rarely heard in the Netherlands) are skillfully moulded to Ketting's own ends. Notable is the tension between horizontal and vertical aspects, between serialism and unambiguous tonal points of emphasis. This co-existence of atonality and tonality has remained a characteristic, particularly in Time Machine (1972), the Symphonie voor saxofoons en orkest (1977--8), which contains references to Time Machine, and the Third Symphony (1990). Ketting's style is a unique blend of Bergian expressiveness and Stravinskian objectivity, which the Symphonie voor saxofoons en orkest, in particular, shows need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed Ketting has in common with both these models a modernist aesthetic, which never allows for a simple tonality or neo-Romanticism. The tightly motoric yet lyrical Symphonie refers to other specific sources -- jazz and minimalism, while the Third Symphony points to Mahler, Stravinsky again and Reich. However these remain at the level of allusions, never quotations, and are firmly embedded in the syntax. The Symphonie voor saxofoons en orckest also shows, like the earlier For moonlight nights for flute and 26 players (1973), a 19th-century virtuoso concertante style replaced by a considered exploration of the functioning of an individual or small group in relation to a larger body. Aside from this clearly politically inspired background, the result is one both able to surprise and to move. Ketting displays a more subdued, delicate side in the song cycle The Light of the Sun for soprano and orchestra (1978, rev. 1983) and above all in Summer Moon for soprano and small orchestra (1992). The distinctiveness of Ketting's musical language comes across no less markedly in his many film scores. While reinforcing the screen image, the music possesses such suggestiveness that it can happily stand alone. Conversely the composer's 'abstract' concert music powerfully provokes figurative associations, not least in the four-part work comprising De overtocht ('The Passage') (1992), Het oponthoud ('The Delay') (1993), De aankomst ('The Arrival') (1993) and Kom, over de zeeën ('Come, Over the Seas') (1994), the last of which was commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Each piece represents one part of a four-stage journey, full of subtle references to each other within changing contexts. A parallel to such a process may be made with film editing in which a visual vocabulary is developed through shuffling and recombination.nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Ketting
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Post by jk on Feb 18, 2022 4:31:50 GMT -5
The Czech composer Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) is best known for an opera ( The Bartered Bride, premiered 1866) and a symphonic cycle ( Má vlast, written 1874–1879). Easily the most famous of its six tone poems is the second, "Vltava" (The Moldau). As fine and as listenable a work as it is, it gets played to death while its five companions are ignored. At least three of these deserve more airplay and concert performances than they get. "Vyšehrad", "From Bohemia's Woods and Fields" and "Šárka" are every bit as accessible to a wider audience (see the link for a description of each). I recall that in 1966 (that year again) the first thing I did on many a Saturday after a half-day's work was to get out my * box set* of the cycle, recorded three years earlier by Karel Ančerl and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and play this version of "Vyšehrad" (The High Castle) to celebrate the onset of the weekend: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Má_vlast
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Post by jk on Feb 25, 2022 6:55:04 GMT -5
The British mezzo-soprano Josephine Veasey died three days ago, aged 91. Her name is most familiar to me through the role of Didon (Dido) in Berlioz's Les Troyens (1856–1858). Here she is singing "Adieu, fière cité" from Act 5, in what for me is the definitive rendition of this grand opera recorded in 1969 by Ms Veasey and nine other soloists with the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Wandsworth Boys’ Choir, conducted by Sir Colin Davis. Rest in peace. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephine_Veasey
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Post by jk on Feb 25, 2022 12:37:48 GMT -5
I heard the second movement of this favourite Tschaikovsky symphony this morning. It was on one of the first LPs I brought with me to NL in '74 or '75. His Symphony No. 2, the "Little Russian", is so called because it makes use of Ukrainian folk tunes (Ukraine used to be known as Little Russia). Now... over here we have a problem. The great Russian conductor Valery Gergiev comes here every year to conduct individual concerts and preside over the annual Gergiev Festival, which has been running since 1996. It's a known fact that he is on close terms with Vladimir Putin. He has been asked by the Dutch orchestra in question and others to condemn what Putin is doing in Ukraine right now. If he doesn't, it's quite simply the end of an era. It's a shame, but there you are... This version is by the USSR State Symphony Orchestra under Evgeny Svetlanov (date unknown): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Tchaikovsky)
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Post by jk on Feb 27, 2022 5:06:10 GMT -5
Dutch composer Otto Ketting's music is a "unique blend of [Alban] Bergian expressiveness and Stravinskian objectivity" to quote the YouTube blurb (which see), whose subdued, delicate side is displayed in the likes of the song cycle The Light of the Sun for soprano and orchestra (1978, revised. 1983). These are the composer's programme notes (with thanks to Google Translate), which accompany the 1985 recording by Jill Gomez (soprano) with the Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Montgomery: "The light of the sun shines almost continuously in these nearly 4000-year-old Egyptian texts -- all the more exceptional because they are mostly epitaphs. There was little difference between life and death for the Egyptian. The tomb is a festively decorated space, full of decorative decorations: a comfortable home for eternity. The best things of earthly life accompany the inhabitant for years to come. Thus the beauty of a woman is sung (I); unwanted visitors must stay outside (II); the mother sings a lullaby for her child (III); l love is made and described (IV); one raises the glass to the master of the house (V); and the wife once more expresses her unselfish love to her husband (VI). Very ordinary and also extraordinary, over the bridge of many centuries, immediately recognizable emotions. I do not want to describe the choice, background and direct meaning of the individual texts here: they were only important for the 'screenplay' of the work. I have used what I consider to be a very successful English version because that language is closest to us and I think it is a wonderful language to sing in. Sometimes the images of composers who mean something to me appear on the imaginary walls that form the boundaries of my composition -- not literal quotes but as indelible memories -- a tribute, appropriate to the content and the idea of this song cycle." nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Ketting
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Post by jk on Jun 8, 2022 12:49:10 GMT -5
Today I heard a remarkable composition by the Frenchman Charles Koechlin (1867–1950). I'd known of him since the 1960s and knew he'd produced a vast body of work. I'd also heard that he had once written out a page of Schoenberg's complex monodrama Erwartung from memory! Yet all I knew of his music was his orchestral composition Les Bandar-log, part of a massive project to set Kipling's Jungle Book to music, which just happened to be on an LP otherwise devoted to music by Messiaen (my reason for buying it) and Boulez. And today there was Vers la voûte étoilée (op. 129), an orchestral work that seems to have taken him ten years to complete (1923–33). The scope of its music reveals a kinship with that of Charles Ives in its utter disdain for musical fashions of the day. Here, as in the radio broadcast, it's played by the Sinfonieorchester Basel conducted by Ariane Matiakh: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koechlin
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Post by jk on Jul 21, 2022 5:00:45 GMT -5
Born some seven days after yours truly, Canadian composer Claude Vivier (1948–1983) led a troubled life that ended with his brutal murder aged just 34. (You would do well to read the wiki page linked above and the link below to get a fuller picture of this highly original figure.) I heard his Lonely Child (1980) last week, for the second time -- indeed, I thought I'd already posted about it at EH or BBT. This time round it was performed, as it is here, by soprano Susan Narucki with the Schönberg and Asko Ensembles conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw: members.tripod.com/chantal_pitcher/Claude_Vivier/lonely.html
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Post by jk on Jul 21, 2022 17:01:49 GMT -5
Born some seven days after yours truly, Canadian composer Claude Vivier (1948–1983) led a troubled life that ended with his brutal murder aged just 34. (You would do well to read the wiki page linked above and the link below to get a fuller picture of this highly original figure.) I heard his Lonely Child (1980) last week, for the second time -- indeed, I thought I'd already posted about it at EH or BBT. This time round it was performed, as it is here, by soprano Susan Narucki with the Schönberg and Asko Ensembles conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw: I've since discovered a more reliable list of the instruments involved (although it's still not clear whether more than one percussionist is required): 1 piccolo 1 flute 2 oboes 2 clarinets 2 bassoons 2 horns in F 1 (?) percussionist ( rin gong, Chinese gong, tam-tam, bass drum, brake drums, vibraphone and tubular bells) 6 first violins 5 second violins 4 violas 3 cellos 2 double basses [ Source]
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Post by jk on Jul 23, 2022 4:13:46 GMT -5
Bringing us back to earth with a bang, this is the indefatigable JH demonstrating (to paraphrase her YouTube blurb) another side to her musical personality by performing the opening "Allegro con spirito" from Johann Hummel's Sonata for Mandolin and Piano, accompanied by her mother, Linda Hoisington. Enjoy! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel
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Post by jk on Aug 10, 2022 4:32:28 GMT -5
The main reason (arguably the only reason!) I'm posting this is because it's probably unique and needs drawing attention to. Would anyone else have ever done this? John Cage, perhaps? "This" being writing two pieces that can be played individually but also simultaneously. The Swedish-Dutch composer Klas Torstensson did just that in 2016. Sönerna for saxophone, trombone, guitar and percussion (which starts at the sixteen-minute mark) and No slash for violin, cello, piano and percussion (starting at 36:25) when combined become Elliott loves bebop (at 57:30), Elliott no doubt being Elliott Carter. www.klastorstensson.com/biography.htm
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Post by jk on Aug 18, 2022 4:29:14 GMT -5
Besides the famous Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes, Erik Satie wrote some quite outlandish stuff. One of the strangest of his compositions is Socrate, for four female voices and small orchestra. It has a certain "whiteness" about it, as if it were more a suggestion of music. White or not, it conjures up for me rather scary multi-coloured images reminiscent of Ancient American art. * An unsettling work, to be sure. This ancient version is conducted by René Leibowitz, an intriguing figure in 20th-century music: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrate* Possibly these, from the cover of a version I may well have borrowed from a record-lending library years ago:
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Post by jk on Sept 8, 2022 14:38:12 GMT -5
Just as Gustav Holst for most people means The Planets, so Sam Barber, as JH calls him, is generally known for one work and one work only, the Adagio for Strings. The luminous Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (Op. 24) was composed eleven years later at the behest of the soprano Eleanor Steber, who sings it here in a recording made on 7 November 1950, with the Dumbarton Oaks Orchestra conducted by William Strickland: Barber sets approximately a third of the poem of that name by James Agee. The libretto is as follows: "It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds’ hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, braking his hollow iron music on the asphalt: a loud auto: a quiet auto: people in pairs, not in a hurry, scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard, and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.
"A streetcar raising its iron moan; stopping; belling and starting, stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter; fainting, lifting, lifts, faints foregone: forgotten. Now is the night one blue dew. Now is the night one blue dew, my father has drained, he has coiled the hose.
"Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes...
"Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces. The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.
"On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there.... They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine... with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me.
"By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.
"After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am."en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Barber
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