December 2011 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• 'Triple Concerto' for Flute, Violin and Harpsichord
• Triple Harpischord Concertos 1 and 2
• Oboe D'Amore Concerto in A (reconstruction - BWV 1055R)
• Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor (reconstruction - BWV 1060R)

Bach/Vivaldi - Quadruple Harpischord Concerto in A minor, BWV 1065
Barber

• Dover Beach
• Three Songs, Op. 10
• Unpublished songs

Beethoven - Symphony No. 6 'Pastorale'
Beethoven - Mass in C
Faure - Barcarolle No. 3
Holmboe - Symphonies 1 to 8
Holst - The Planets
Mozart - Piano Sonatas 10 to 12
Mozart - Symphony No. 35 'Haffner'
Pisendel (?) - Saraband in C
Strauss, Richard - Metamorphosen
Vivaldi

• Violin Sonatas in C minor, D minor, G minor and B flat, RV 5, 15. 28 and 34
• Laudate peri in C minor, RV 600
• Laudate peri in A, RV 602 plus revised Gloria from RV 602a
• Gaude mater Ecclesia (Rejoice, mother Church)
• Salve Regina in C minor, RV 616
• Salve Regina in G minor, RV 618
• Sanctorum meritis, RV 620
• Vos aurae per montes (You breezes through the mountains)
• Ascende laeta (Gladly climb)
• Cur sagittas, cur tela, RV 637

Nearly at the end of my bulk classical purchase - just a few Bach and Vivaldi pieces to go! Then I can start going back and remembering more of it.  As far as Vivaldi is concerned, there are a few fragments that have stuck in the mind, so it's not all been a wasted exercise.

My obsession with Vagn Holmboe flared with a vengeance this month.  The 8 symphonies mentioned above are just the things that are in my collection. I've been laying my hands on every Holmboe fragment I can find - samples on iTunes, and thanks to the Swedish record company BIS I've listened to about another 10 pieces in full online. I expect to greatly expand my Holmboe CD collection sometime soon.

Just what is it that causes me to obsess about a moderately obscure 20th century composer? It really started with what I read about him, primarily in the Penguin Guide to classical music. The qualities it talked about - his sense of structure, argument and development, plus his vague similarities to Sibelius - drew my attention, as well as the glowing terms constantly used to describe the quality, power and imagination of the music.  And then, when I finally got around to buying the set of the symphonies... I could hear what the writers had been talking about!

Not always, immediately, mind, because some of the symphonies are more accessible than others.  Only a few of the earlier ones could be regarded as 'tuneful' in any conventional sense.  But even in some of the 'non-tuneful' ones it didn't take long to hear how little pieces of music would grow and merge and swell into larger structures.  It's music that always sounds like it knows what it's doing and where it's going.

Okay, not always - I don't think every single thing is amazing. The choral Symphony No. 4 doesn't work all that convincingly.  But hits are far more frequent than misses and for a composer who's not terribly famous, it's pretty impressive stuff. And I want more of it.

Year in Review

Unlike the pop music list, the classical one is complete and tells me I've listened to... 438 different classical recordings!  There's some double-ups there, and some things that are only fragments, but it's still about 400 different classical works.

Which sounds like a lot more than the pop music list, but some of these 'works' are only a couple of minutes long while only 20 or 30 of them would be equivalent in length to a pop music album.

In terms of sheer number of compositions, Vivaldi ends up the winner - not a surprise given recent months! There are also fairly healthy doses of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Faure, Handel, Haydn, Holmboe, Mozart, Scarlatti, Schubert, Schumann and Telemann.  None of which is a great surprise to me personally. My classical collection actually isn't that enormous in terms of the composers represented.  There are certain composers for whom the collection is quite 'deep' and then many others, including some fairly famous names, aren't represented much or at all.  It's no different to pop music really, in that not every big name appeals to me. That still holds true even though, for classical music, there's been a much longer period of time over which lesser composers have been winnowed out and our culture has decided who's worth holding onto.

The spreadsheet claims I've actually managed to listen to around 40% of my classical collection during the year, which does surprise me.  I suspect it's due to how much the collection expanded during the year (with 2 big purchases, one right at New Year's and then the box sets a few months ago) and my efforts to listen to what I bought.

And I've got designs on buying more...

December 2011 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• From the Choirgirl Hotel
• The Beekeeper
• Night of Hunters
• Audience bootlegs - Hilversum, Netherlands 5 November 1999 (radio show), Glasgow 5 December 2001, Manchester 6 December 2001, London 7 December 2001, Berlin 9 December 2001, Frankfurt 10 December 2001

Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow
Gomez - Split the Difference
Midnight Oil - Earth and Sun and Moon
Pink - Greatest Hits... So Far!
Radiohead - The Bends
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Seal - Seal (II)

Kate Bush's new album officially entered the library thanks to Christmas. I've already mentioned my obsession with 'Snowflake'.  Getting to know the rest of the album a little better has been great, but there's a long way to go yet.  It's extremely meditative - definitely an album for stillness and quiet time.

I rounded off the year by listening to the 'new' albums that I have - Kate Bush, Tori Amos and Radiohead.  I actually forgot all about Bjork's Biophilia - which just tells you how the app format failed to equate with buying an album for me.

I did buy other albums during the year, but they weren't 2011 albums. This is pretty typical for me really. I generally have a bit of a shopping list that extends back a few years, and often it takes me a while to figure out that something gets on the shopping list, never mind actually getting bought.  I need to have heard a few songs from an artist and the songs need to have stayed with me.

Year In Review

The pop music spreadsheet isn't entirely complete, as I hadn't started it at the beginning of the year, but it tells me I listened to 156 items during 2011.  Deduct Tori Amos singles... a few hits collections... multiple entries for multi-disc efforts... a soundtrack... it comes out as at least 134 genuine, bona fide albums that I listened to in their entirety during the year.  Not bad!

I listened to every Tori Amos studio album, not counting the one she released as a band in the 80s. No surprise there. I listened to all 3 of Fiona Apple's albums and all 8 of Kate Bush's, but only half of Patty Griffin's.  I listened to 10 Joni Mitchell albums but that still means that 7 of them didn't get an airing.  5 out of 6 albums that Roisin Murphy sings on (Moloko or solo) got played. I listened to every Wendy Matthews, Seal, Something for Kate or Talk Talk album that I own, but in all those cases I don't have a complete collection.

Already I'm looking at the list and thinking "Wow! Have I not listened to 'X' for 10 months?".  And there are a great deal many more albums - at least as many again I would think - that didn't get played.

Time to get cracking for 2012, then...

November 2011 - Classical Music

Bach - Harpsichord Concertos 5 to 7
Bach - Double Harpsichord Concertos 1 to 3
Haydn - Symphonies 102, 103 'Drumroll' and 104
Thomas Linley the younger - Music for 'The Tempest'
Mozart - Symphonies 32 to 34
Schumann

• Piano Concerto
• Waldszenen (Forest Scenes)
• Introduction and Allegro appassionato for piano and orchestra

Shostakovich - String Quartets 1 and 7
Telemann - Tafelmusik Volume 3: Concerto, Trio, Solo and Conclusion
Vivaldi

• Violin Sonata in G minor, RV 26
• Concerto for Strings in D minor ('Madrigalesco'), RV 129
• Sonata a 4 in E flat ('Al Santo Sepolcro'), RV 130
• Sinfonia for Strings in B minor ('Al Santo Sepolcro'), RV 169
• Violin Concerto in G minor, RV 202 (Op.11/5)
• Concerto for 2 violins in G minor, RV 517
• Concerto for violin and cello in B flat, RV 547
• Laudate pueri in G, RV 601
• In exitu Israel (When Israel went)
• Laudate Dominum, RV 606
• Laetatus sum, RV 607
• Nisi Dominus in G minor, RV 608
• Salve Regina in F, RV 617
• Vestro principi divino, RV 633

Lots more Vivaldi. Still going even at the time of writing - just one more CD to go!

After an abortive attempt in September, I listened to Haydn's last 3 symphonies which all premiered in London in the 1795 concert season.  It's the first time I've listened to symphony no.104 in several years. I had this idea I didn't like it much. And now, I can't imagine why I thought that.  It's certainly not inferior to its companion pieces.

It's now over a year since I listened to the first six 'London' symphonies (from the first of Haydn's two visits to the UK). I could almost start all over again... only I already have plans drawn up for listening to some more late-ish Haydn. Still 5 piano trios to go and the last full set of string quartets.

The Mozart chronological listening is also slowly crawling along, with the last 3 symphonies that he wrote before moving to Vienna.  The growth in maturity is noticeable, as Mozart was now reaching his mid-20s.

Thomas Linley the younger was Mozart's almost exact contemporary. The two met as teenagers - both being recognised as musical prodigies and so moving in similar circles - and became friends.  Mozart regarded Linley as a genius.  The reason you've probably never heard of Thomas Linley is because he was only 22 when he died in a boating accident.  Mozart died in his 30s, but he still had a chance to really establish himself as a name.  Linley didn't.

Which is a damn shame if the music he wrote for a production of The Tempest is anything to go by, and specifically the 'storm chorus', Arise! ye spirits of the storm.  It unfolds in that kind of wonderful manner where it seems inevitable, as if the music couldn't possibly be any other way.

I can still remember when I first heard it, around a decade ago.  It was back in the days that I worked in an office close to my Dad's office and took lifts with him. He always had Classic FM on in the car, which I could tolerate because at breakfast time they would have short pieces (I rarely listen to classical music on the radio as I can't stand hearing random snippets, eg 20 minutes somewhere in the middle of a Mahler symphony).  The storm chorus came on one morning and I was enthralled.

I think it was the only time that I hunted down a classical CD after hearing something on the radio. Truth be told, the rest of the CD (all of it by Linley) isn't at anything like the same level, but I'm not sure that matters. Certainly, any time that I play that one amazing track, I'm glad the music is in my collection.

November 2011 - Popular Music

Tori Amos - Night of Hunters
Tori Amos - Audience Bootleg - Glasgow, 5 December 2001
Sara Bareilles - Little Voice
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Kate Bush - The Red Shoes
Francis Dunnery - Tall Blonde Helicopter
Joni Mitchell - Hejira
Simply Red - Picture Book
Something for Kate - Desert Lights
Tears for Fears - The Seeds of Love

I actually listened to a lot more Kate Bush than this list makes apparent.  I just didn't listen to it in album form.

It was arguably triggered by the appearance of her new album, 50 Words for Snow.  The album was available for streaming online before it was released for sale. I listened to the whole album, then became utterly obsessed with the opening track.  I don't know how often other people find a song that they just want to play over and over again for a period of a few days.  For me, finding a new song to truly obsess over might only happen once a year. 'Snowflake' was probably my biggest obsession of 2011 that actually appeared in 2011.  Earlier in the year I stumbled across Janelle Monae's song 'Tightrope' and played it to death, but I was a year late with that one.

Around the time that 50 Words for Snow appeared online, I also embarked on a sizeable period (maybe a week?) where I spent a lot of time exploring Kate's previous body of work.  A new album from someone often seems to prompt that kind of behaviour, although it's something I also venture into at other times. I am naturally a 'body of work' kind of person - liking completeness and wanting to fit individual pieces into an overall context are part of my personality.

Modern technology makes it easy to just 'shuffle' everything together, which is what I did initially. I then made a playlist of my preferred songs (about a third of the total) and shuffled that.  I can't say that I adore absolutely everything Kate Bush has done. Some of her albums strike me as a bit uneven, but if there's one thing that she can, in her best work, nail better than almost anyone it's atmosphere. On the albums I regard as weaker, the songs I still respond to are often the ones that are the most moody (and often slower, but not always).  The Red Shoes, for instance, has some slightly bland songs on it - material that was supposedly envisioned for live performance which seems to suffer on CD - but it also has 'The Song of Solomon' which positively drips with passion and is one of the sexiest songs I know.

I also spent time going through most of her videos. Here is an artist who has created their own YouTube channel and done it properly. Instead of ignoring her history (ie everything before whatever is being promoted when the channel starts) it embraces it.  It seems to have every music video, including ones I wasn't aware existed. They're not all wonderful, but it's nice to see so much material available.

And some of them are wonderful.  I was quite pleased to discover that Kate herself was specifically proud of 'Army Dreamers' because when I first saw it a couple of years ago it struck me as an exceptionally good example of a video fitting its song in tone and mood.  And 'Cloudbusting' deserves its status as a classic video.

So that's my ramble for November, slightly delayed. I know it's particularly rambling, but I'm on holidays and my brain isn't available for careful editing. I guess the point is to say that while Kate Bush isn't always someone I love, she's almost always interesting.  And worth checking out - which can be done for free, legally!