January 2012 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S. - Violin Concertos 1 & 2
Bartok - Piano Concerto No. 3
Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 29
Brahms - Piano Quartet No. 2
Chopin - Three Nocturnes, Op. 15
Debussy - Pour le piano
Faure

• Violin Sonata No. 1
• Piano Quartet No. 1
• Ballade for piano

Haydn - Piano Trios, Hob XV: 27 to 29 (dedicated to Therese Jansen)
Holmboe - Sinfonia in Memoriam
Rachmaninov - Symphony No. 2
Schumann - 'Album leaf' No. 1
Sibelius - Karelia Suite
Vivaldi - Gloria, RV 589
Vivaldi - Nisi Dominus in A, RV 803

The Bach violin concertos are rather lovely.  I don't know whether I was somehow 'pre-tuned' to them by having listened to the harpischord versions a couple of months earlier (part of the same set of CDs), but I really did enjoy them quite a bit.  At some point I will have to go back and do a direct comparison between the versions of each work, to get a better idea of what Bach did to turn a violin piece into a harpischord one, because the 2 instruments are fundamentally different.  A violin can sustain its tone for as long as you want, and a harpischord most definitely cannot.

The Haydn piano trios were the last 'set' that he wrote, one of at least 4 sets from around the time of his second visit to London. They are sparkling, vibrant stuff, but then so is just about every bit of Haydn I've laid my hands on so far.  I'm sure I'll add some more to the ever-expanding shopping list. 14-odd discs worth just isn't enough, apparently...

Somewhere I read that these three Faure pieces were his 'early' masterpieces, so I decided to listen to them as a group.  The term 'early' is an interesting one: these pieces date from when Faure was in his early 30s! It's all a question of perspective, really.  For Mozart, that age is seen as when he was in the advanced stages of his career. But Faure had nearly half a century of composing left in him.

Anyway, of the three it was the violin sonata that really satisfied me.  I hadn't listened to it for a couple of years, and this time I dove into it, playing it again and again until I felt like I knew it intimately and could follow the whole thing the way I might follow a favourite pop album.  Writing this several weeks later, it's the slower 2nd movement that appears in my head, and instantly transports me to the same feelings of pleasure I was having in January.

January 2012 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• Under the Pink
• From the Choirgirl Hotel
• The Beekeeper
• American Doll Posse
• Night of Hunters

Paula Cole - This Fire
Crowded House - Together Alone
Patty Griffin - Flaming Red
Patty Griffin - Children Running Through
Jars of Clay - The Eleventh Hour
Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Ray LaMontagne - Til the Sun Turns Black
Wendy Matthews - Lily
John Mayer - Room for Squares
Nichole Nordeman - Woven & Spun
Pearl Jam - Backspacer
Sting - The Soul Cages
Tears for Fears - Elemental
Rachael Yamagata - Elephants...Teeth Sinking Into Heart
Thom Yorke - The Eraser

Um, so. Here's the January list. Finally.

When I went back to work after Christmas, and also having done the 'year in review' here on the blog, there was a little flurry of going back to listen to albums that had appeared quite early in the blog when I realised that it was quite some time since I'd heard them.  I think, without exhaustively checking, that I might not have listened to either the Nichole Norderman or Tears for Fears albums since March last year. And I quite like both albums.

I also listened to a couple of Patty Griffin albums after realising I hadn't listened to as much Patty Griffin last year as I'd thought.  The time seems to go by quite quickly.  On the classical side of things I have pieces that I tell myself I have vivid memories of listening to, yet the spreadsheet data claims it's been a couple of years.  For the pop music, I haven't got as much data yet (and in fact not everything has been added to the spreadsheet - I tend to do bits and pieces as they're listened to) so it remains to be seen if my listening pattern is different.  I suspect it may be less evenly spread, with preferred albums listened to more frequently (yes yes, Tori, but not only Tori) and others less often.

'More frequently' may in fact translate to a couple of showings a year at most.  I do appear to have hundreds of albums. I won't know just how many until the spreadsheet is more thorough.  Meanwhile I keep wanting to add more to the collection! The experience of listening to new music is just too interesting to give up on it.