Brahms - Hungarian Dances (orchestral versions - complete)
Haydn - 6 String Quartets, op.71 & 74 (the 'Apponyi' quartets)
Mahler - Symphony No.8
Shostakovich - String Quartet No.3
Okay, so I listened to Haydn string quartets. A Lot.
Almost to the point of overload, actually. But it's a perfect demonstration of how obsessive I get with completeness and order and patterns. Opuses 71 and 74 are really one set of six quartets (not two sets of three, even though they were published that way). And in the vast array of quartets that Haydn wrote (the number depends on your counting method) there are no less than nine of these sets of six. Chronologically, the 71/74 set is the eigth one, dedicated to Count Anton Georg Apponyi and premiered during Haydn's second visit to London.
Yep. Music in sets. It's like a honeypot, and I'm the bee...
I've known the ninth set (the opus 76 'Erdődy' quartets) for years. They were one of my very first classical purchases, on cassette when I was teenager. They aided me through many university exam periods. I've owned the 'Apponyi' set for quite a few years as well, but it was only more recently that I grasped that I had another complete set and resolved to get to know them as well as the 'Erdődy' ones. Hence, a month of repeated listening (especially the last fortnight) to the point where I had snatches of various movements ringing in my head at all hours of the day.
Mahler's 8th symphony (usually known as the 'Symphony of a Thousand') was the last of my New Year's Eve purchases to get a hearing. It was also the most disappointing. The first movement in particular just irritated the heck out of me.
I've been trying to work out the reason. I briefly wondered if I could blame the particular performance (conducted by Simon Rattle), but then I also bought his performance of Mahler's 5th symphony and enjoyed it. I was a bit relieved when Wikipedia and some other sources told me that many people who are serious Mahler fans don't like the 8th symphony at all. It's not just me. The experts share my feelings.
One thing I often worry about with classical vocal music is the language barrier. I always hunt out a translation (if it's not provided - shame on you EMI in this instance). If I'm going to concentrate on the piece rather than have it as background, I'm likely to sit there with the translation in hand. I'm never quite sure whether this helps or hinders. There are times when it seems to help: the first time I actually knew what was being sung in Shostakovich's 13th symphony, the section about Anne Frank made my hair stand on end and it had an impact it could never have otherwise. But with Mahler's 8th, reading the text just seemed to emphasise that it was all too vacuously happy for my tastes.
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Sunday, 5 June 2011
May 2011 - Popular Music
Tori Amos
Toni Childs - House of Hope
Melanie C - Northern Star
Sheryl Crow - The Globe Sessions
dc Talk - Jesus Freak
Gomez - In Our Gun
Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream
Jennifer Knapp - The Way I Am
Lifehouse - No Name Face
Wendy Matthews - Ghosts
John Mayer - Continuum
Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Pearl Jam - No Code
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Something for Kate - The Official Fiction
Sting - Brand New Day
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
Thrice - The Alchemy Index
Almost exactly 20 years ago, someone passed on to me the idea that you have a real library when there are books in it that you've never read.
Arguably I'm trying to negate that idea with this whole concept of keeping track of what I've listened to and ferreting out over time the albums that are hiding away. But I would certainly subscribe to a couple of related ideas: you have a real music library when there are things in it that you haven't heard for so long that they can feel fresh. And also, you have a real music library when you can find something to tap into a specific mood when you need to.
Both of those ideas were nicely demonstrated when I listened to The Official Fiction towards the end of the month. Of the four Something for Kate albums I own, I would usually rate it as my least favourite. As a result I hadn't listened to it for quite some time - looking at the list of track names before I played it, I found that only about half of them, maybe less, triggered a specific musical recollection. To use a visual metaphor, the album is very brightly lit - it's full of major keys, and strings, and harmonies in thirds. It's lit to the point where the shadows are washed out by overexposure. My recollection of the album as a whole was that the sense of melody becomes a bit too much.
But last weekend, I was in a mood where it was exactly the right thing. I had an 'aha' moment when I finally identified it as the one CD out of the hundreds in my house that would hit the right emotional spot, because of the unique combination of SFK's trademark earnestness and intensity with this album's particular 'brightness'. I played The Official Fiction quite a lot over the course of a few days.
Another demonstration of the richness of a large library was No Code, which I bought in February 2010 but hadn't really got to know. Pearl Jam are a good example of how I respond to some artists, where I know I like them but want them to make me fall in love, and they never quite do. Actually, in Pearl Jam's case they did manage it once, with Vs. Ever since then I've dipped into other albums in the hope of them achieving something similar.
So, when I bought No Code second-hand, listened to it once or twice and wasn't blown away, my initial reaction was to mentally sigh just a little and file it away with the other reasonably satisfying Pearl Jam albums that usually get passed over in favour of Vs. But picking it up again this month with more focus, I started to like it quite a lot. Where Vs thrilled me with its tightness (especially 'Animal', which is the song that turned me into a fan and which I still think is one of the most brilliant sub-3 minute songs I've ever heard), No Code is a much looser and relaxed affair. It twists and turns in unexpected directions, and I enjoyed myself once I let the odd excursions wash over me with a sense of adventure.
Finally, another album I pulled out for the first time in at least a couple of years, maybe several more, was Jennifer Knapp's The Way I Am. When this album came out in 2001 I was still in the closet and Jennifer was one of the rising stars of the contemporay Christian music scene. Now I'm listening to it, and I'm out as a gay man and Jennifer is persona non grata to most of that scene because she's told the world that she's a lesbian and has been in a relationship since 2002. It's hard not to listen and wonder how much of her struggle is present in the album - especially the title track. It's also hard not to relate because her story has so many parallels with my own.
- Boys for Pele
- To Venus and Back (studio disc - 'venus orbiting')
- Strange Little Girls
- American Doll Posse
- Audience bootleg - Canberra 16 September 2007
Toni Childs - House of Hope
Melanie C - Northern Star
Sheryl Crow - The Globe Sessions
dc Talk - Jesus Freak
Gomez - In Our Gun
Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream
Jennifer Knapp - The Way I Am
Lifehouse - No Name Face
Wendy Matthews - Ghosts
John Mayer - Continuum
Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Joni Mitchell - Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Pearl Jam - No Code
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Something for Kate - The Official Fiction
Sting - Brand New Day
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
Thrice - The Alchemy Index
Almost exactly 20 years ago, someone passed on to me the idea that you have a real library when there are books in it that you've never read.
Arguably I'm trying to negate that idea with this whole concept of keeping track of what I've listened to and ferreting out over time the albums that are hiding away. But I would certainly subscribe to a couple of related ideas: you have a real music library when there are things in it that you haven't heard for so long that they can feel fresh. And also, you have a real music library when you can find something to tap into a specific mood when you need to.
Both of those ideas were nicely demonstrated when I listened to The Official Fiction towards the end of the month. Of the four Something for Kate albums I own, I would usually rate it as my least favourite. As a result I hadn't listened to it for quite some time - looking at the list of track names before I played it, I found that only about half of them, maybe less, triggered a specific musical recollection. To use a visual metaphor, the album is very brightly lit - it's full of major keys, and strings, and harmonies in thirds. It's lit to the point where the shadows are washed out by overexposure. My recollection of the album as a whole was that the sense of melody becomes a bit too much.
But last weekend, I was in a mood where it was exactly the right thing. I had an 'aha' moment when I finally identified it as the one CD out of the hundreds in my house that would hit the right emotional spot, because of the unique combination of SFK's trademark earnestness and intensity with this album's particular 'brightness'. I played The Official Fiction quite a lot over the course of a few days.
Another demonstration of the richness of a large library was No Code, which I bought in February 2010 but hadn't really got to know. Pearl Jam are a good example of how I respond to some artists, where I know I like them but want them to make me fall in love, and they never quite do. Actually, in Pearl Jam's case they did manage it once, with Vs. Ever since then I've dipped into other albums in the hope of them achieving something similar.
So, when I bought No Code second-hand, listened to it once or twice and wasn't blown away, my initial reaction was to mentally sigh just a little and file it away with the other reasonably satisfying Pearl Jam albums that usually get passed over in favour of Vs. But picking it up again this month with more focus, I started to like it quite a lot. Where Vs thrilled me with its tightness (especially 'Animal', which is the song that turned me into a fan and which I still think is one of the most brilliant sub-3 minute songs I've ever heard), No Code is a much looser and relaxed affair. It twists and turns in unexpected directions, and I enjoyed myself once I let the odd excursions wash over me with a sense of adventure.
Finally, another album I pulled out for the first time in at least a couple of years, maybe several more, was Jennifer Knapp's The Way I Am. When this album came out in 2001 I was still in the closet and Jennifer was one of the rising stars of the contemporay Christian music scene. Now I'm listening to it, and I'm out as a gay man and Jennifer is persona non grata to most of that scene because she's told the world that she's a lesbian and has been in a relationship since 2002. It's hard not to listen and wonder how much of her struggle is present in the album - especially the title track. It's also hard not to relate because her story has so many parallels with my own.
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