January 2014 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• Herr, wie duwillt, so schick's mit mir (Lord, deal with me as you will)
• Es reisset euch ein schrecklich Ende (A dreadful end is being prepared for you)
• Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn (Praise, Jerusalem, the Lord)
• Schau, lieber Gott, wie meine Feind (Behold, dear God, how my enemies)
• Mein liebster Jesus ist veloren (My dearest Jesus is lost)
• Höchsterwünschtes Freudenfest (Much longed-for joyous feast)
• The Well-Tempered Clavier: preludes and fugues in D and G, Book I, and G sharp minor, Book II

Barber - Three Songs, op.45
Barber - Third Essay for Orchestra
Beethoven - Symphony No.9
Beethoven - 6 Bagatelles, op.126
Debussy - Two Arabesques
Delibes - Sylvia
Faure

• Barcarolle No.12
• Nocturne No.12
• Violin Sonata No.2
• Cello Sonata No.1 

Handel - Keyboard suites 1 and 4
Holmboe - Chamber Symphony No.2, 'Elegy'
Liszt -  Two Episodes from Lenau's 'Faust'
Mahler - Rückert Lieder
Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition
Poulenc

• Pastourelle from L'Eventail de Jeanne (piano version)
• Two Novelettes
• Three pieces for piano
• Piece breve on the name of Albert Roussel
• Nocturnes
• Valse-Improvision on the name of Bach
• Improvisations 1 to 10 

Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.3
Rachmaninov - Liturgy of St John Chrysostom
Ravel - Ma mere l'Oye (Mother Goose)
Ravel - Menuet on the name of Haydn
Scarlatti, D. - Keyboard Sonatas - K. 87, 96, 146 and 520
Schubert - Schwanengesang
Schumann - Nachtstucke
Schumann - Liederkreis (to poems by Heine), op.24
Simpson - Symphonies 1 and 3
Vivaldi - Salve Regina in F
Vivaldi - Gaude mater Ecclesia (Rejoice, mother Church)

During the month I completed my survey of the works of Samuel Barber, of which there are surprisingly few. With just 4 CDs I have a substantial proportion of his output, and a decent chunk of one of those discs consists of early unpublished songs. It's consistently good music in my view, lyrical, and modern despite not following all the latest avant-garde trends. I find myself wondering, though, how he made a living. Did he get income from other sources besides composition? Did the success of the Adagio for Strings mean he wasn't under much pressure to create more works?

The Faure listening keeps going, and the work I want to make special mention of this time is the second Violin Sonata, which I hadn't heard for quite a while. Back in September 2012 I fell in love with the first sonata (this is how long my 'projects' can take!) and now I find that the second is every bit as wonderful. The opening movement is quite crazy in some ways, as the first half of it basically treats bar lines as things to be ignored. My ear frequently doesn't hear the beat where the printed music claims it to be.

Schubert's Schwanengesang (swan-song) is something I hadn't listened to for a very long time, and now I'm wondering why on earth not. I've already established that Schubert is one of those composers whose later music is, for me, the best, so it stands to reason that this collection of songs he wrote in the last year of his life would have relatively high value for me. And so it proved. There is some really lovely stuff here. For some reason a particular moment that happens twice in the song Am Meer (By the Sea) was something that struck me as particularly beautiful.

I think this might be the recording I have, which someone has helpfully combined with the score. The bit I love first appears around 1:18 and again about 3:13. 

 

January 2014 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• To Venus and Back (studio disc)
• The Beekeeper
• Night of Hunters

Beyonce - Beyonce
Crowded House - Together Alone
Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream
Janelle Monae - Metropolis Suites I to V
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Rachael Yamagata - Loose Ends

Hmm. There's not actually a lot I want to talk about here. This was the first time I listened to Night of Hunters for quite a while and I found myself quite moved by it at unexpected places, in other words in songs that I hadn't previously ranked as favourites.

The new entry is Janelle Monae, and while I'm not going to talk about the music much at this point it would be remiss of me not to discuss my chosen terminology. Because you'd be hard pressed to go and buy any of these suites except the first. They don't come in this form. The second and third suites come as the album The ArchAndroid, and the fourth and fifth suites comes as the album The Electric Lady.

I find myself compelled at the moment to listen to these 'albums' in suite form. The musical pointers aren't all leading to that conclusion: yes, there are overtures to each suite that are clearly designated as such, but the overtures tend to borrow from the neighbouring suite on the same album, and there isn't even a clean break between the end of suite IV and the overture of suite V.  But in general each suite does tend to sound like a work in its own right, with a sense of ending, and with stylistic differences from it's neighbour.

Plus in all honesty, around 35 minutes of Janelle Monae at a time is probably enough right now. Not because her music is bad, but because it's so dense in terms of the number of ideas. More on that next month, I expect...