November 2012 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht (Lord, do not enter into judgement with your servant)
• Ihr Menschen, rühmet Gottes Liebe (You people, glorify God's love)
• Siehe zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei (Make sure that your fear of God is not hypocrisy)

Barber - First Essay for Orchestra
Barber - Songs, opus 13
Beethoven

• Symphonies 5 and 6
• Cello Sonata No.3
• Violin Concerto (2nd movement)
• Ah! perfido
• Variations on 'Maedchen oder Weibchen' for cello and piano

Bridge

• Isabella
• Dance Rhapsody
• Suite for Strings

Dvorak - String Quartets 2 and 6
Dvorak - Allegro appassionato for string quartet
Faure - Songs, opuses 46 and 51
Faure / Messager - Souvenirs de Bayreuth
Holmboe

• String Quartets 6 and 9
• Violin Sonata No.3
• Svaerm (Swarm), string quartet version
• Ballata
• Quartetto, op.90

Janacek - String Quartets 1 and 2
Janacek - Violin Sonata
Liszt - Mazeppa
Liszt - Hamlet
Poulenc

• 3 Pieces for piano
• Nocturnes
• Humoresque

Vivaldi

• Gloria, RV 589 with introduction Ostro picta
• Gloria, RV 588 with introduction Jubilate, o amoeni chori
• Credo in E minor

Almost the same list of composers as the previous month, as I continued to plow my way through the recent purchases.  But that makes it sound like a chore. It isn't, and in fact if it starts feeling that way I stop for a while and switch to something else (often in the pop music world).

Holmboe continues to fascinate and delight. With my raft of different recordings, I deliberately chose this month to listen to a group of works that are quite close together chronologically - the third violin sonata is opus 89, the quartet for flute, violin, viola and cello is opus 90, and string quartet no.9 is opus 92.  They do have different moods to a certain extent, although I confess that over a month later I can't clearly remember the details.  My vague memory is that it was actually the Ballata, or ballad, for piano quartet that was the most distinctive piece from this list.

Janacek continues to bring a lot of rewards, and I'm definitely glad about making that particular purchase even though I'm only about 1.5 discs through a 5-disc set.

And then there's Faure... I only listened to 2 sets of songs this month, but that included Clair de lune (Moonlight), considered one of the great songs not only of Faure but of French composers generally.  And I think it lives up to is reputation. The match between poetry (by Verlaine) and musical style is a really good one, and it doesn't surprise me that Faure continued to use Verlaine's poetry quite a bit in the years after this.

Which is not to say that the other songs around this period are bad. Far from it. I rather like Les presents (The Gifts), Moonlight's far less famous stablemate, and Spleen (another Verlaine poem) with its pattern of raindrops made an impression on me, and Au cimetiere (At the Cemetery) has plenty of power (I always do go for the really dark ones...).  But even in that company, Claire de lune does stand out as something pretty special.

Frankly, if you don't have the words in front of you/speak fluent French, it's not quite the same. And the picture of wolves is completely wrong for a song about courtiers dancing - unless it's a commentary on the intrigues of court? Unlikely. But what the heck.

November 2012 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• Boys for Pele
• Midwinter Graces
• Night of Hunters
• Gold Dust

Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel…

Sheryl Crow – The Globe Sessions

Bryan Duncan – Mercy

Gomez – Liquid Skin

Gomez – In Our Gun

Gotye – Making Mirrors

Patty Griffin – Flaming Red

Ray LaMontagne – Til the Sun Turns Black

Joni Mitchell – Dog Eat Dog

Nichole Nordeman – Woven & Spun

Radiohead – Kid A

Radiohead – The King of Limbs

Something for Kate – The Official Fiction

Tears for Fears – The Seeds of Love

Rachael Yamagata – Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart


Production of this post was delayed due to technical difficulties. And now that I've copied November's list across, I've been struggling with getting the formatting to its normal state and I still don't think it's quite right...

...which is a way of delaying for a few lines the realisation that I'm not entirely sure what to say about this particular collection of music that I listened to.

One thought is that The King of Limbs still hasn't grabbed me the way that a Radiohead album should, or normally does.  It seems rather insubstantial. And that's not simply a function of length, although it's easier for a brief 8-track album to feel insubstantial than a sprawling 20-track one. It's also a result of several of those tracks not yet convincing me that they live up to the usual standards of Radiohead.

Having completed my Joni odyssey, I promptly went back and listened to Dog Eat Dog again. One of the main reasons for that was my enjoyment the first time around. Despite it's poor reputation, it seems to me to be a fairly good album. It's certainly not a happy one, lyrically, which I suspect is one of the reasons it's disliked.  But while it is somewhat heavy-handed, it actually comes across as far less miserable than the more recent album Shine - and yes, I do realise that's a comparison that no-one in the 1980s was in a position to make.

And rounding out the commentary on albums that are either underappreciated by me or underappreciated by others is Patty Griffin's Flaming Red.  A music blogger that I highly respected really disliked this album, Patty's second, for being so unlike her debut. While I understand where he was coming from, and agree there are some missteps that 'aren't really Patty', hindsight has shown that Patty does sometimes like to head into rock territory, and some of the noisiest songs on Flaming Red are among the best. The wild squall of the title track doesn't sound so out of place now as it did when I first heard it, and neither does the sleazy sound of 'Wiggley Fingers'.  But it's the longest song, 'Mary', that is also one of the most quintessential Patty Griffin songs in her catalogue.  This is what she brings so often, the aching gap between heavenly aspirations and earthbound realities, but this time the lyrics make it explicit.

Hope you like it.