Buried at the end of one of these long lists is the arrival of Tori Amos' new album, Native Invader. Which I am not quite ready to talk about.
Shortly after it arrived I made a small observation, that I now had 17 Tori Amos studio albums and 17 Joni Mitchell albums. This isn't strictly correct unless you use some slightly creative counting (one example appearing in the next paragraph), but it was good enough for me to start on another one of my "projects", pairing albums from the two artists. During September I got through 8 such pairs.
What happened shortly before Native Invader arrived was the surprise re-release of Tori Amos' first album Y Kant Tori Read (strictly speaking, the self-titled album of a band) on iTunes. Which I bought immediately, not because I think it's something amazing (it's enjoyable, but over-earnest and occasionally embarrassing) but because this was the first time owning a genuine copy was practicable. Tori had indicated shortly beforehand that the album would be released in a few months (which, given how long it's taken me to write this, I can say turned out to be referring to a physical CD release), so the progress of the album from embarrassing past history to officially embraced album was quite sudden.
Another new purchase was FKA twigs' EP, M3LL155X (reportedly to be pronounced "Melissa"). It's electronica, and often weird and glitchy electronica at that. I think I find it to be the strangest of all of FKA twigs' work so far, but I also found it sufficiently compelling to buy.
Bach, J.S. - Bekennen will ich seinen Namen (I will acknowledge his name)
Barber
Dover Beach
Overture to 'The School for Scandal'
Cello Sonata
Beethoven
The Creatures of Prometheus
12 German Dances for orchestra, WoO 8
12 Contredanses for orchestra, WoO 14
Two arias for "The Beautfiul Shoemaker's Wife"
Brahms - Piano Trio No.1
Bridge
Mid of the Night
Serenade (orchestral version)
Valse Intermezzo à cordes
Chant d'espérance
Phantasie String Quartet
Novelletten
3 Pieces for string quartet, H.43
Debussy - Cello Sonata
Debussy - La plus que lente (cello arrangement)
Dvorak - String Quartets 2 to 5
Haydn - Symphonies 26, 42 and 65
Holmboe - Notturno
Holmboe - Hymn to the Sun
Holten - Puder og skår (Pillows and Shards)
Lorentzen - National-Fanfare
Medtner - Skazki, opp. 8, 9, 14 and 20
Mozart
Symphonies 29 and 30
Piano Concerto No.5
String Quintet No.1
Nielsen - Symphony No.1
Nielsen - Two Fantasy Pieces for oboe and piano
Nørgård - Symphonies 3 and 8
Poulenc
Cello Sonata
Serenade from Chanson Galliardes (cello and piano version)
Bagatelle from Le Bal Masque (cello and piano version)
Rachmaninov - Six songs, op.38
Rachmaninov - Variations on a theme by Corelli
Schoenberg - Pelleas and Melisande
Schumann
Carnaval
Symphonic Etudes
Symphony in G minor, 'Zwickau'
Scriabin
Piano Sonata No.7
3 Pieces, op.2
10 Mazurkas, op.3
Fantaisie, op.28
4 Preludes, op.31
2 Poèmes, op.32
Valse in A flat, op.38
8 Etudes, op.42
Sibelius - Songs/Lieder, opp. 36, 37, 38 and 50
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras No.9 (strings and choral versions)
I've fallen behind again, so I won't say an enormous amount about this list. In a lot of ways it's a continuation of the July listening pattern, with the surveys of various composers. I also started a Brahms chronological survey, and possibly I started that in July with the others, but as the earliest Brahms work I own is opus 8 it might not have registered.
The Sibelius songs are worth mentioning, because I was surprised by how good they were. While I had no doubts about Sibelius' quality as a composer, his reputation is almost entirely based on his orchestral work. But there is more than enough in these songs to repay the listener, and I was often struck by how modern they are.
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Tim Corley - Like Stars
Wendy Matthews - Beautiful View
No Doubt - The Singles (1992-2003)
Katie Noonan's Vanguard - Transmutant
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring
K T Tunstall - Eye to the Telescope
Yes, there was a little bit of a Tori Amos festival going on. As a sort of preparation for what was then her upcoming album.
However, it's worth mentioning that the "festivities" were a bit sporadic and spread across the month, which means that I did listen to other albums in between rather than being 100% committed. Sometimes I went as many as 5 days without a Tori Amos album!
And of course there was classical music as well. Mind you, the end result is still a pop music list that is over 50% Tori Amos.
So am I a creature of habit, and is this blog inevitably boring? Well... one thing that still doesn't show up here is the exploration I do with streaming services. My rule still is that one-off listens to music that I don't own does not qualify for these blog lists. But what it does do is create the shopping list. And I think the next significant binge purchase is more likely to be popular music than classical.
Bach, J.S. - Geist und Seele wird verwirret (Spirit and soul become confused)
Bach, J.S. - Gott soll allein mein Herze haben (God alone shall have my heart)
Barber - Serenade (for strings), op.1
Barber - Three Songs, op.2
Beethoven - Music to a Ritter ballet
Beethoven - 12 Minuets for orchestra, WoO 7
Bridge
Berceuse (instrumental work, orchestral version)
Berceuse (song)
The Hag
Dvorak - String Quartet No.1
Dvorak - Polka in E for piano
Haydn - Symphony No.59
Holmboe - Symphony No.7
Holmboe - Fanfare
Mozart - Symphony No.27
Nielsen - Symphony No.2
Nielsen - Piano Trio
Rachmaninov - Etudes-Tableaux, op.39
Schoenberg - Transfigured Night
Schumann
Most of this list represents at least one of two ideas.
The first idea is, as always, to try and listen to new purchases and so justify making the purchase. I picked up quite a few things during my overseas travel. I am one of those dinosaurs who still prefers CDs. The Beethoven and Scriabin works were bought, as were the Schumann songs.
Of course, I'm still working through the previous batch or two of purchases (such as Villa-Lobos, and Schumann violin sonatas, and Sibelius songs), but trips to other destinations are something of an exception to my general prohibition against buying more when there's already a pile of music not listened to.
The second idea is my penchant for planned surveys, particularly chronological ones. And so after I got home I started on new surveys of Barber, Bridge, Dvorak, Mozart, Nielsen, Schoenberg and Schumann. The Mozart one I am limiting to works I own, whereas for the others I am taking advantage of online services to hear works that aren't part of my collection.
The inspiration in most cases is in fact the growth of my own collection, primarily the large set of purchases I made around November 2016, as I wanted to put those works in more context. And so I will hear Barber's orchestral works, Bridge's chamber works, and Dvorak's piano works for a second time. Some of the Mozart is relatively new as well. For Schumann I will integrate my first hearing of many of the songs into this exercise (which started with very early songs most listeners are not familiar with, from before his focus on solo piano works for the whole of the 1830s). In the case of Schoenberg this is sheer curiosity because I only know 2 of his opuses.
It's all very "planned", I know, but personally I find this useful. I don't want to just listen to music, but to understand it better. This method helps me do that.
Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...
Gomez - In Our Gun
Patty Griffin - Living With Ghosts
Sarah Harmer - All Of Our Names
There's not much to say here (despite it taking over a month to say it). The travel that weirdly stopped me listening to music in June continued to have that effect in July. So it was only later in the month that I got back into the habit of listening.
And of course it's not much of a surprise that Tori Amos was a part of my "rehabilitation", if that's an appropriate word for returning to my usual addiction after a period of withdrawal.
The most startling thing about this month, though, was that apparently this was the first time I'd listened to the whole of Living With Ghosts for about 5 years. That seems an extraordinarily long time for an album from an artist I deeply admire. Though I wouldn't say this is my favourite Patty Griffin album, it's still a good one.
Actually, I'm not entirely sure I know which is my favourite album. And I still haven't fully come to grips with the last couple...
Dvorak - Stabat Mater
Holmboe - Concertos 2 (for flute and piano), 4 (for piano trio), 9 (for violin and viola) and 13 (for oboe and viola)
Nielsen - Symphony No.1
Here is the proof that June wasn't just a bad month for pop music. Classical music didn't get much of a hearing either. The 4 Holmboe concertos were all on the first Sunday of the month. The Nielsen managed to make an appearance during the overseas trip, surrounded by musical desert.
And the Stabat Mater was what I listened to while trying to process news of the terrorist attack around London Bridge. Which came so soon after a bombing in Manchester. Music is one of the tools we have to process grief.
Incubus - If Not Now, When?
Wendy Matthews - The Witness Tree
Wendy Matthews - Ghosts
Oh dear.
There is in fact a key reason why the list is so very short: an overseas trip. Not only did I listen to less music in the lead-up to the trip as I stressed over the preparations, I weirdly didn't listen to music during the trip. Well, very little indeed.
Music is one of my major sources of pleasure, and it's often a part of how I relax and wind down in the evenings. But for some reason this didn't apply while I was travelling, and it's not the first trip where that has happened.
It's obvious that many routines will not apply when on a trip. That's actually half the point when the trip is a holiday. I just don't really understand why the music-listening routine is one of the ones that I jettison.
Barber - Fadograph of a Yestern Scene
Barber - Canzonetta (orchestral version)
Beethoven
Symphony No.7
String Quartet No.11, 'Quartetto Serioso'
Piano Trio in E flat, op.97
Allegretto in B flat for piano trio
Violin Sonata No.10
Piano Sonata No.26
Debussy
(Nocturne and) Scherzo for cello and piano
Intermezzo for cello and piano
Khamma (piano version)
Dvorak - Humoresque in F sharp for piano
Dvorak - Lullaby and Capriccio for piano
Haydn - Symphonies 39, 41 and 58
Holmboe
Sværm (Swarm) (string quartet version)
Quartetto Sereno
Haiduc
Medtner - Theme and Variations in C sharp minor
Medtner - 2 Elegies
Nielsen - Symphonies 1 to 6
Poulenc - Suite française (version for cello and piano)
Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet
Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No.3
Piano Sonata No.2
13 Preludes, op.32
Liturgy of St John Chrysostom
Ravel - Gaspard de la nuit
Schubert - Piano sonata in B flat, D.960 Schumann
Symphony No.4 (1851 version)
Violin Sonata No.2
Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tales) for clarinet, viola and piano
The Debussy and Poulenc are from a disc of cello music that I finally acquired on the 2nd attempt. Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale was a purchase form the previous month. Otherwise this is still a lot of the same material as before, as I continue to work through purchases from late 2016.
The most notable entry here is the one for the Nielsen symphonies. After spending time in March/April getting to know the Brahms symphonies better, it was Nielsen's turn in May.
The Nielsen symphonies are certainly an interesting bunch of works, becoming less and less conventional as one works through the sequence. Not that the 1st symphony is entirely well-behaved by Classical standards, and the 6th is still in the symphonic tradition... but the latter is startlingly modern, sounding an awful lot like Shostakovich's 15th symphony. Chronologically of course, that's backwards: it's Shostakovich's symphony that resembles Nielsen's.
I've no doubt which Nielsen symphony is my favourite, and that's no.5. There's something about the long span of the opening movement, in particular, that strikes me as a perfectly judged combination of flow and drama. But I enjoy each of them and look forward to getting to know them even better.
Marc Cohn - Marc Cohn
Deborah Conway - Bitch Epic
Joni Mitchell - Shine
Nichole Nordeman - Woven & Spun
Agnes Obel - Aventine
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Sting - The Soul Cages
Tears for Fears - Elemental
Not a very large pop music list (yet again), but an interesting one because I clearly was trying to pull out some albums that I hadn't listened to for a long time.
But one of the albums on that list is quite startling to me. It seems scarcely possible that I spent nearly 5 years without listening to The Soul Cages, but that's what my magic spreadsheet is saying. And this blog is backing that up.
(Additional thought: oh my goodness, have I really been posting this blog for that long?)
I wrote about The Soul Cagesback in 2011, and the things I said then are still accurate. How could they not be, given that I appear to have listened to the album twice more in 2012 before completely shelving it? There's been no real opportunity for my opinion of the album to change. All of the associations the album already held for me remain in place.
I just really, really don't listen to it very much any more. Despite considering it a masterpiece.
Bach, J.S. - Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden (Stay with us, for evening falls) Bach, J.S. - Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust (Delightful rest, beloved pleasure of the soul)
Barber
A Hand of Bridge
Vanessa: Intermezzo from Act III
Mutations from Bach
Beethoven - Symphony No.6
Beethoven - String Quartet No.10
Brahms - Symphonies 1 to 4
Brahms - String Quartet No.1
Bridge - String Quartet No.4
Debussy - Twelve Etudes
Dvorak
Suite in A, 'American' (original piano version)
Two Little Pearls
Album Leaf in E flat
Faure - 5 Melodies 'De Venise'
Faure - La bonne chanson
Haydn - Symphonies 34, 35 and 38
Holmboe
Sonatina for oboe and piano
Trombone sonata
Eco
Medtner - Three Hymns to Toil
Mozart - Piano Concertos 1 and 3
Nielsen - Symphony No.3
Nørgård - Symphonies 5 and 6
Rachmaninov - The Bells
Schubert - Schwanengesang
Schubert - Piano Sonatas in C minor and A, D.958 and 959
Schumann
Violin Sonata No.1
Nachtlied
Märchenbilder for viola and piano
Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No.1
Sibelius
Symphonies 5 and 6
7 Songs of Runeberg, op.13
Serenad
Smetana - Blaník
Stravinsky
The Firebird
Petrushka
Fireworks
Scherzo Fantastique
Villa-Lobos - Choros 4 and 9
Villa-Lobos - Suite Populaire Brésilienne for guitar
While I was still working through some of the purchases from late last year (Barber, Bridge, Dvorak, Medtner, some Schumann, Villa-Lobos, the Haydn symphonies which aren't even close to finished), I went and bought a few more things on a trip at the tail end of March.
And so the discs with the Shostakovich cello concerto, the Sibelius songs and the Schumann violin sonata were all added to the already sizeable collection of music "needing" to be listened to. I also bought some Stravinsky, but rather than starting with my purchase of The Soldier's Tale I decided it was time to start on a chronological survey of all of Stravinsky's music.
The biggest focus for April, however, was on Brahms' 4 symphonies. Having heard them all over the previous months, and having revisited the first 3 in March, this was the month when I listened to them enough to really feel some familiarity. I ended up listening to all of them together in the space of a few days.
And everyone of them is a first-class work. If pressed I would probably nominate Symphony No.3 as my favourite at the moment, but I would quite happily re-hear any of them. Brahms has a reputation as a bit of a perfectionist who tried very hard to suppress any music he wasn't satisfied with. This means that the quality of the things he allowed to be published is remarkably consistent. But along with that, each of the 4 symphonies has a different character. Two in minor keys (one more dramatic, one more tragic), and two in major keys (one more pastoral, one more heroic). Together they form a fine set and help show why Brahms is considered one of the true greats of classical music.
Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
george - Polyserena
Radiohead - Kid A
Thrice - The Alchemy Index Volume 4: Earth
Another month of records where I think... is that all the pop music I listened to? Possibly not, but it's all the albums that fulfilled the criteria for being entered into the records.
The Tori Amos merry-go-round is, of course, unlikely to ever stop spinning. It surprised me a little how long it had been since I last listened to Kid A (almost a year).
The only genuinely interesting entry on here is Polyserena, the first album by the Brisbane band george (the lack of a capital letter is their choice). It's quite some years since I listened to it because I've always reached for their second (and last) album Unity, which is one of my favourite albums of all time.
But Polyserena is a pretty good album. All of the knowledge of musical styles that makes Unity so great and which has continued to show in the later careers of the members (first and foremost Katie Noonan) is detectable in Polyserena. The only weakness is that sometimes it feels like the skills are being shown off rather than being fully integrated and used in the service of the music. But it's well worth a listen.
Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats (On the evening, however, of the same Sabbath)
Wer mich liebet, der wird mein Wort halten (II) (He who loves me will obey my commands)
Bisher habt ihr nichts gebeten (Until now you have asked for nothing in My name)
Ihr werdet weinen und heulen (You shall weep and wail)
Es ist euch gut, dass ich hingehe (It is good for you that I leave)
English Suite No.6
Barber
Capricorn Concerto
Toccata Festiva
Third Essay for Orchestra
Beethoven
Symphony No.5
Piano Trio in E flat, op.70/2
Cello Sonata No.3
Mass in C
Brahms
Symphonies 1 to 3
Double Concerto
Intermezzos, op.116/4 & 117/1 (orch. Klegel)
Bridge
String Quartet No.3
Piano Trio No.2
Sir Roger de Coverley - string quartet version
Two Old English Songs - string quartet version
Debussy - Images, Books 1 & 2
Dvorak
Poetic Tone Pictures
8 Humoresques
Dumka and furiant for piano
Faure
Piano Quartet No.2
Barcarolles 2 to 4
Poème d'un jour
Songs, opp. 18, 23, 27, 39, 43, 46, 51, 87
Haydn - Symphonies 24, 28 to 31
Holmboe
Symphony No.11
String Quartets 19 and 20
Ballata
Mahler - Symphony No.1
Medtner - Three Pieces, op.31
Medtner - Etude in C minor
Nielsen - Cupid and the Poet: Overture
Rachmaninov - Etudes-tableaux, op.33
Rachmaninov - 14 Songs, op.34
Schubert - String Quintet
Schumann - Violin Sonata No.1
Schumann - Requiem for Mignon
Sibelius
The Bard
Humoresques for violin and orchestra
Two Serious Melodies for violin and orchestra
Five pieces for violin and piano, op.81
Smetana - From Bohemia's Woods and Fields
Smetana - Tábor
Villa-Lobos - Choros No.8
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras Nos. 3 and 4 (orchestral version)
A lot of this still represents working through new acquisitions, mostly several months after the actual purchase.
I made relatively good progress with the Bach cantatas (a number of years after purchase). I can't claim to have much memory of individual pieces, but the impression remains a good one, of music that is well worth getting to know better.
I also spent some time getting to know Brahms' symphonies better - a rather easier task with only 4 works that fit on a couple of CDs! But the rewards here were considerable. I think perhaps the 3rd symphony is my favourite, but they're all of high quality and I love the differences in emotional character between each one.
But the thing I simply much talk about here is the Schubert String Quintet. And it's worth specifying the album I've been listening to:
This is the same album that I'd already enjoyed so much for the Schoenberg (which is a sextet). The Schubert - music that I didn't previously know - is if anything even better. It's utterly magical music and is played with such perfectly controlled passion. And, despite the cover image, there's no sense of one "star" and the other players accompanying.
Obviously there's something to be said for the proposition that I ought to get know the recordings better, but... right now I feel as if this has already become one of my desert island discs, one of the very best things in my classical collection.
Tori Amos -Under the Pink
James Blake - Overgrown
Mariah Carey - Emotions
Paul Dempsey - Everything is True
FKA twigs - EP1
Wendy Matthews - Emigre
Janelle Monae - The Electric Lady
Damien Rice - 9
...though that doesn't explain all of the delay, it does explain a chunk of it.
So another month, another smallish dose of pop music (and almost all of it was listened to in a period of just 3 days in the middle of the month). The most notable thing here is that I made a conscious effort to listen to a couple of things that I hadn't heard in a long while: one album each of Mariah Carey and Damien Rice.
And in both cases my reaction was much the same. Yes, there are some okay things here, they're not terrible, but I also remember why I don't reach for this music on a regular basis.
The Damien Rice album is the more interesting case because I don't really know it very well. I didn't buy it, but not long after I received it as a present I made a conscious decision not to spend time getting to know it. All sorts of things about it felt like a continuation of his previous album, O, only lesser. And I didn't really like O a lot either, despite a number of friends raving about it.
My fundamental problem with Rice's music is a feeling that it's constantly striking the same rather dour and miserable emotional tone, in a way that seems to suggest the listener is supposed to be impressed by how emotional it all is. Maybe I'm being deeply unfair here, but that's the impression I got: less genuine outpouring a la early Tori Amos, more artificial moping because it generates the right response in a certain kind of audience.
This many months after the re-listen I don't actually remember that much about the particular songs and whether any of them made a better impression after a gap of many years. So I guess I'll have to re-listen again.
Barber - Second Essay for Orchestra
Barber - Knoxville: Summer of 1915
Bartok - String Quartet No.6
Beethoven - Piano Concerto No.5
Beethoven - Piano Sonata No.24
Brahms - Symphonies 3 and 4
Bridge
String Quartet No.2
3 Idylls for string quartet
An Irish Melody (Londonerry Air) (quartet version)
Chopin
Piano Concerto No.2
Ballades 1 and 4
Impromptu No.2
Polonaise-Fantaisie
3 Waltzes, op.34
2 Nocturnes, op.48
Debussy
Children's Corner
Morceau de Concours
Le petit negre
Hommage a Haydn
Le plus que lente
Berceuse Heroique
Page d'Album
Elegie
Dvorak
Slavonic Dances, Series 2 (orchestral version)
Moderato in A for piano
Impromptu in D minor for piano
Question
Haydn - Symphonies 21-23, 40 and 72
Haydn - Cello Concerto No.1
Holmboe - String Quartet No.18, 'Giornata'
Holmboe - Gioco
Mahler - Lieder und Gesänge 'aus der Jugendzeit', Volume 3
Medtner - Four Lyrical Fragments
Nielsen - Symphony No.6, 'Sinfonia semplice'
Nielsen - An Imaginary Journey to the Faroe Islands
Nørgård - Symphonies 1 to 8
Nørgård - Images of Arresø
Prokofiev - Piano Sonata No.5 (original version)
Schoenberg - Transfigured Night
Schubert - Three Klavierstücke, D.946
Schumann - Symphony No.3
Schumann - 3 Romances for oboe and piano
Sibelius - Two Serenades for violin and orchestra
Smetana - Šárka
Villa-Lobos - Choros No.1
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras No.2
Vine - Symphony No.3
It's difficult to explain quite how I became fascinated with the music of Per Nørgård.
I can certainly tell how it started, which was with the piano trio Spell. It's a work from the period when Nørgård was working with an "infinity series" and creating music that very gradually changes and evolves. I found it hypnotic, and appealing in a way many other minimalist compositions were not. It gave me a genuine impression of momentum and goals.
But why go from that piece, plus an oboe sonata and a handful of short choral works, into purchasing a whole 8 symphonies?
Well, in truth some of the reasons are extra-musical. For one thing, I'm a sucker for sets, and the Da Capo label has created a "set" of 4 albums with 2 symphonies each. They're all available for purchase separately, were recorded at different times, have 3 different conductors/orchestras, and the artwork isn't entirely consistent, and yet... they're a set.
The artwork was genuinely a draw. I find these covers brilliant. After hearing the music, the idea of variation in them while having something in common is brilliant because (as the liner notes for at least one album explain), the symphonies themselves are a lot like that: each different and distinct, but related.
The music itself, though, which I did listen to online before purchasing... some of it seemed brilliant, and some of it seemed bewildering. But that bewilderment didn't put me off, it was the kind where I was intrigued and wanted to know more, to crack the code.
The first 3 symphonies were perhaps the most understandable. Symphony No.1 is relatively conventional, recognisable to a fan of Sibelius. Symphony No.2 comes from a similar soundworld to Spell, and Symphony No.3 is basically that soundworld on steroids, with everything louder and denser and overwhelming. It's quite a piece.
But what comes after that is music that is frequently quite unlike anything I've heard before. It's my reaction to Symphony No.5 I really remember. I'm not sure I even tried 6 to 8 very much, partly because the first impressions tended to be a chaos of noises. But also, thanks to the arrangement of the works on each disc, I knew there was something worthwhile on every album by this point. But we need to talk about Symphony No.5...
Very soon after the 5th symphony starts, the music slides upwards and... disappears into the air. It then comes crashing back down, the aural equivalent of an object that was fired upwards out of sight and then returns to earth once gravity gets the better of it.
Listening to the first minute of this clip is sufficient to demonstrate what I heard.
The first time I heard that, I was dumbfounded. Who could come up with a musical idea like that? The answer, of course, is Per Nørgård.
The later symphonies are full of such ideas. Insanely detailed, full of different instruments, nearly chaotic but also quite clearly not random. And in these Da Capo recordings, captured in top-quality sound.
On initial listens I struggled a bit to distinguish some symphonies from each other. Hence this exercise in February when I brought them closer together and focused on them, putting aside most of the other new music from my big purchase. I then heard the differences much more clearly. Eventually, I listened to all 8 symphonies in a single day.
I can't claim to love them all yet, because I can't even claim to understand them all yet. I've fallen in love with No.7, but I'm still struggling a bit with 6 and 8 and in fact No.5 is probably the toughest of all, full of sudden violent eruptions and silences and lacking clear signposts (it's not even clearly separated into movements).
But my goodness, even with the ones I don't yet understand, I want to hear them again. I want my ears to be tickled by all those weird and wonderful sounds that will gradually coalesce in my mind into meaningful musical structures.
Tori Amos - The Beekeeper
Toni Childs - House of Hope
Christine and the Queens - Christine and the Queens
Counting Crows - Recovering the Satellites
Sheryl Crow - The Globe Sessions
Peter Gabriel - Us
Gorillaz - Demon Days
Agnes Obel - Aventine
Megan Washington - There There
The popular music list is shrinking again...But it does include several albums that I apparently hadn't listened to in full for quite a long time.
And I kind of know why. Peter Gabriel's Us has never quite worked for me, though over time I've enjoyed it more. Some songs are excellent, but others are a bit dull, and I think the major problem is the flat production. You don't really notice the importance of production until you encounter a recording where it's a bit faulty.
Recovering the Satellites is sort of just... there. I actually quite like it when listening to it, but to date it hasn't made a strong impression (and I've owned it a fairly long time). I just don't remember the songs afterwards.
Demon Days on the other hand does make quite an impression. I guess it's just not the sort of music I want to listen to all that frequently. The first half is astonishingly good, with a series of songs cleverly sequenced so that the energy level keeps increasing. The second half falls away quite badly in comparison, although it does have a huge highlight in "Dare".
Herr Jesus Christ, wahr' Mensch und Gott (Lord Jesus Christ, true man and God)
Auf Christi Himmelfahrt allein (On Christ's ascension alone)
Es ist ein trotzig und verzagt Ding (There is a daring and a shy thing)
English Suite No.5
Barber
Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance
Die Natali
Commando March
Bartok - String Quartets 4 and 5
Beethoven
Symphony No.3, 'Eroica'
String Quartet No.9
Piano Trio in D, op.70/1
Piano Sonatas 22 and 25
Brahms
Symphony No.2
Violin Concerto
Piano Concerto No.2
Academic Festival Overture
Tragic Overture
Piano Pieces, op.76
Bridge
Phantasie String Quartet
Noveletten
3 Pieces for string quartet, H.43
Chopin - Variations on "Là ci darem la mano"
Debussy
Suite Bergamasque
Deux Arabesques
Reverie
Mazurka
Danse bohémienne
Nocturne for piano
Duparc - Melodies (complete)
Dvorak
Piano Quintet No.2
Six Mazurkas
Six Piano Pieces, op.52/B.110
Eben - Piano Trio
Haydn - Symphonies 6-9, 12-13, 16, 33, 36 and 'B'
Holmboe
String Quartets 16 and 17
Music with Horn
Moya (7 Japanese songs)
Koppel - Four Love Songs from Song of Solomon
Mahler
Kindertotenlieder
Lieder und Gesänge 'aus der Jugendzeit', Volumes 1 and 2
Winterlied
Im Lenz
Medtner - Three Novellas
Mozart - String Quintets 5 and 6
Nielsen - Symphonies 4 and 5
Nielsen - Pan and Syrinx
Norby - Herbst-Lieder
Nørgård - Symphonies 4 and 5
Prokofiev - Piano Sonatas 3 and 4
Prokofiev - Tales of an Old Grandmother
Rachmaninov - The Isle of the Dead
Ravel - L'enfant et les sortilèges
Rovsing Olsen - Two Lagerkvist Songs
Schierbeck - Den kinesiske fløjte (The Chinese flute)
Schoenberg - Transfigured Night
Schubert - Symphony No.9(8) in C, 'Great'
Schubert - Impromptus, Set 2 D.935
Schumann
Symphony No.2
Konzertstück for 4 horns and orchestra
String Quartet No.1
Adagio and Allegro for horn and piano
Fantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces) for clarinet and piano
Sibelius
Symphony No.4
The Oceanides
The Dryad
2 Pieces for violin and piano, op.2
Smetana - Vyšehrad
Smetana - Vltava
Stravinsky - Le Chant du Rossignol
Villa-Lobos
Choros 6 and 12
Bachianas Brasileiras No.1
Five Preludes for guitar
Another bumper crop of works, still with a large proportion coming from the big purchase I made a couple of months earlier.
Undoubtedly one of the highlights from that crop was finally having the original chamber version of Transfigured Night. I heard it something like 16 years ago in concert, and was transfixed. I then bought a recording by Karajan of the orchestral version... and frankly never ever liked it.
I doubt that's the fault of the performance, which seems to be consistently praised. I just think I prefer the piece in a chamber guise. Partly I have a general love of chamber music, but I also have a strong belief that when a composer chooses their instruments for a piece it means something. Cases where a work succeeds at the same level in transcription are few and far between in my view. Anyway, now having a chamber recording (with Janine Jansen the highest-profile member of the group), I expect the orchestral version will lie "gathering dust" (though the other work on the same CD will still get played).
Another rewarding new disc is the complete Duparc songs (performed by Thomas Walker, Sarah Allen and Roger Vignoles). Having heard for many years about the quality of Duparc's work, as well as his extreme self-criticism that helped ensure only the best compositions emerged, the music did largely live up to expectations. Even after a first listen, some of these songs rank among the best I've heard.
My exploration of the earliest Mahler songs, on the other hand, has been a little bit disappointing. Yes, there are signs of his style, but most of the time the impression is of a fairly gauche imitation of folk music. I had wondered whether the fault lay with Dame Janet Baker, trying to sound young and girlish when she definitely wasn't at the time of the recording. However, having (in a later month) heard her sing slightly later Mahler it's fine, so I think the problem is largely Mahler.
All of the Danish singing listed this month comes from a single album that I bought a couple of years ago, called Skønne Perler (Beautiful Pearls).
It of course includes a cycle from my beloved Holmboe, but it also introduced me to fine works by other composers. Schierbeck's The Chinese Flute is especially good. Well worth seeking out.
Tori Amos - From the choirgirl hotel
Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk
The Badloves - Get On Board
James Blake - Overgrown
Christine and the Queens - Christine and the Queens
Paula Cole - This Fire
Eurythmics - Be Yourself Tonight
Frou Frou - Details
Garbage - Garbage
Nik Kershaw - 15 Minutes
Wendy Matthews - Emigre
Janelle Monae - The Archandroid (Metropolis Suites 2 and 3)
Pearl Jam - Lightning Bolt
Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
Thom York - The Eraser
My awareness at the end of 2016 that my pop music listening was being swamped by classical listening led to a concerted effort early in 2017 to listen to more pop music. Here is the result, a decent number of albums on the monthly list for January.
Yes, I know it's now April. Catch up plans are forming...
The best part was that I did manage to listen to at least a few things that I hadn't heard in quite a while. The most extreme example of this was Get on Board which, according to my spreadsheets, I hadn't listened to for about 6 years.
Which surprises me because I have always genuinely thought it is a fine album, particularly as it's a debut. The Badloves made just 2 studio albums before breaking up, although Wikipedia tells me they made some fitful attempts to reunite, and lead singer Michael Spiby also did some solo work.
Spiby's silky voice is definitely a highlight, but more than that Get on Board has that balance that's so important to making a coherent album. There's a range of moods and tempos, but also a common sound and aesthetic. It's slightly old-fashioned (in some ways more 1970s than 1993), with folk and blues elements. It does perhaps dip ever so slightly for a couple of tracks in the middle, but there are still plenty of highlights.
And it was a considerable success, thanks to expertly selected singles. "Green Limousine" seems to have been the one that got the most attention, but the one that made me sit up and take notice was the debut single, "Lost". 3-minute radio-friendly pop songs don't come much nicer than this.
Bach, J.S. - Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (How beautifully shines the morning star)
Bach, J.S. - Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort (Sustain us, Lord, with your word)
Barber
Cello Concerto
Piano Concerto
Music for a Scene from Shelley
Medea ballet suite
Souvenirs ballet suite
Adagio for Strings
Serenade for Strings
Bartok - String Quartets 2 and 3
Beethoven
Symphony No.4
Triple Concerto
Piano Sonata No.23, 'Appassionata'
Brahms
Symphony No.1
Serenade No.2
Variations on a Theme by Haydn
Liebeslieder-Walzer (orchestral versions)
Hungarian Dances 1, 3 and 10 (orchestral versions)
Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel
Bridge - Miniatures for Piano Trio, Sets 1 to 3
Bridge - Phantasie Piano Quartet
Chopin - Andante Spianato and Grande Polonaise Brillante
Debussy
Preludes, Book II
Estampes
Pour le Piano
Images (oubliées)
L'Isle Joyeuse
Masques
D’un cahier d’esquisses
Danse (Tarantelle styrienne)
Ballade slave
Valse romantique
Les soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon
Dvorak
Slavonic Dances, Series 1 (orchestral version)
Eight Waltzes
Four Album Leaves
Two Furiants
Scottish Dances
Eclogues
Dumka for piano
Faure - Elegie in C minor
Faure - Papillon
Haydn - Symphonies 3, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 25, 27, 32, 37, 'A'
Holmboe
String Quartets 14 and 15
Nuigen
Brass Quintet No.2
Mahler
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Rückert-Lieder
3 songs from Das Knaben Wunderhorn
Martinů - Piano Trio No.1
Medtner
Three Dithyrambs
Three Arabesques
Four Pieces, op.4
Mozart - String Quintets 3 and 4
Nielsen
Symphonies 2 and 3
Helios Overture
Prelude to 'Sir Oluf He Rides'
Willemoes: Prelude to Act III
Maskarade: Overture and Cockerel's Dance
Nørgård - Symphonies 2, 6 and 8
Prokofiev
Piano Sonata No.2
Sarcasms
Visions Fugitives
Ravel - L'heure Espagnole
Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio Espagnol
Schierbeck - Den kinesiske fløjte (The Chinese flute)
Schubert
Piano Trio No.2
Impromptus, Set 1
Winterreise
Schumann
Symphony No.4 (1841 version)
Overture, Scherzo and Finale
Das Paradies und die Peri
Sibelius
Symphony No.3
Night Ride and Sunrise
Pohjola's Daughter
Dance-Intermezzo
Villa-Lobos - Choros No.10, 'Rasga o Coração'
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras 4 (piano version) and 6
The wave of listening to new music continued, with large swathes of Barber, Brahms, Dvorak and Nielsen. And Bach. Let's not forget that I've been slowly trawling through Bach cantatas for over 4 years now.
Among the things I particularly enjoyed here were the extensive suite from Barber's ballet Medea, the Bartok string quartets (which demonstrated very quickly why they're highly regarded), the 1st Brahms symphony (likewise), and quite a few of the Haydn symphonies.
Nielsen also impressed. The Helios Overture turned out to be a very fine evocation of sunrise and I definitely enjoyed both of these symphonies. Nørgård I will say more about later, though I will mention now that Symphony No.2 is one of the more immediately accessible ones in the series.
The Schumann orchestral works also tended to be enjoyable and Das Paradies und die Peri was a particularly nice surprise. On one level the plot of this oratorio is now distinctively old-fashioned, but I found that to be only a minor point because Schumann's music is so sensitive and he maintains the momentum more than many other composers would.
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As for the year as a whole, the approximate total of works listened to (a work being potentially a minute long or over 2 hours) was a rather startling 836. Easily the biggest total since I started keeping track, by a margin of several hundred.
I describe this as "approximate" because I suspect I accidentally erased a few 2016 entries by creating new 2017 entries, before I remembered I would eventually want to calculate the annual total. This is what I get for being so slow. I think I caught most of them though.
The large amount of buying during the year - not just the huge collection later on, but Shostakovich and Debussy near the start of the year and Mozart, Haydn and Dvorak in the middle, plus a few less bulky purchases - undoubtedly made a big contribution to this new record.
The top 10 most popular composers, in terms of works, did include the major newcomers but also featured some old warhorses of mine.
I may well be the only person on the planet (outside of Denmark?) that listens to so much Holmboe, but that's a result of going on surveys across his entire output. It's also influenced by the fact his works are rarely lengthy, and that there simply are quite a lot of them!
Tori Amos - Abnormally Attracted to Sin
Tori Amos - Unrepentant Geraldines
Toni Childs - Keep the Faith
Christine and the Queens - Christine and the Queens
Janet Jackson - Janet
Sting - Mercury Falling
Another month with not much pop music, if my records are to be believed. And they generally are, although they won't include any half-listens, incomplete selections or music I don't actually own.
I did go out of my way to explore some long-forgotten corners of the library. Neither the Toni Childs album nor the Janet Jackson album had been listened to for a number of years. And neither, to be honest, is anything wonderful, but they are least decent. I quite enjoyed Janet in particular, but it's still a bit uneven.
For the year as a whole, it seems I listened to 91 different albums, EPs or singles. Which is a bit low. It's not even two a week, which is quite disappointing.
I could of course quite easily boost the number by slapping albums on as background noise and paying as little attention to them as possible, but that really isn't my preferred mode of listening. I think one of the things holding back the list has been my reluctance to add some new albums into rotation without listening to them carefully, with lyrics at hand at least once... and then not investing the time required to make that happen. Classical music - and in particular, Classical music without any lyrics - has generally been winning the competition for my time. As has good television, and less good internet.
This might change soon, when I've reached the end of my big collection of Classical purchases. I'm not sure. Maybe it's become my main habit.
Or maybe I'm just repeatedly listening to the pop music I like the most. Tori Amos of course remains a staple, with 12 entries for the year. Radiohead and Something for Kate/Paul Dempsey are also very well represented. There was some variety in my listening to Thrice and Jars of Clay, and after that it falls away badly. It seems I only listened to one full Kate Bush album all year!
It's worth mentioning that for many artists I might only have 1 or 2 albums in the first place, but nevertheless I do feel I need to work on the diversity here. That was one of the intentions of keeping track of my listening, to identify things that I hadn't listened to for some time and then listen to them. It seems that on the pop music side of things, it's only working intermittently.
And now, perhaps, you can see part of the reason why my popular music listening had died down.
The sheer explosion in the size of this list is due to a couple of factors. There are quite a few obscure names here as a result of a single disc of Faroese choral music. Not all of the composers represented are Faroese, but in those cases their work can be found in Faroese renditions, including in hymns.
But the other, bigger factor is that I made the biggest bulk purchase of music I'd ever made, and the majority of it arrived during November. A favourable exchange rate meant I seized an opportunity to make a serious dent in my long-term shopping list.
And so here we have a wealth of new recordings - Barber's orchestral works, Bartok's string quartets, Brahms' orchestral works, chamber music by Bridge, piano music by Dvorak, Haydn symphonies and quartets, Mahler, Medtner, Mozart quintets, Nielsen, Nørgård symphonies, Prokofiev piano, new Schubert, Schumann, Smetana and Villa-Lobos.
Phew. And these are just the first fruits.
Of the material that I listened to in November, the Brahms was a real highlight. The 1st Piano Concerto turned out to be a big, powerful work that satisfied me a lot more than most concertos do. The Barber and Schumann symphonies were also both very interesting, as was my most concentrated listening yet to Nørgård, almost certainly the most 'modern' composer in my collection.
It was of course all a bit much to take in and remember in detail, but I was generally pretty happy with my purchases. Now, if I can just make these posts a little closer to the actual listening...
Live recordings: Fort Myers 17/11/07, Melbourne 18/11/07, Clearwater 20/11/07, West Palm Beach 21/11/07, Brisbane 21/11/14
Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
Beyonce - Beyonce
Beyonce - Lemonade
Christine and the Queens - Christine and the Queens
Janelle Monae - Metropolis Suite II
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Thrice - The Alchemy Index: Water and Air volumes
Rachael Yamagata - Chesapeake
There's no way around it. My popular music listening has stagnated significantly in recent months. As much as anything, this is a function of the way in which I tend to listen to popular music compared to classical music.
Popular music largely sits on my iPhone and gets taken to work. Classical music largely sits on CDs and gets played on my CD player at home. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's most definitely the trend. To a large extent this is due to the greater effort required to get classical music into iTunes in a format I find satisfactory, with sensible metadata.
What this means, though, is that when I open up my iPhone, the same subset of my popular music collection will always be there unless I've actively done something to change what's on there. Yes, at this point someone will point out to me the existence of Apple Music and the cloud, but that's not a route I've taken. Nor am I inclined to take it. I like personal control and curation of my music.
For classical music, by contrast, all of my CDs are available in my house. The entire collection is at my disposal when listening at home.
There's also the fact that my popular music collection is still not fully catalogued in the way that the classical one is. And so I'm less likely to engage in the systematic listening, and projects, that characterise my classical listening - systems that were originally designed to stop me from listening to the same old things over and over again.
This is an elaborate way of explaining why I look at this small list of popular music works listened to in November (not including things I sampled or streamed that I don't own), and don't feel that I have anything to say about any of them.
Liebster Immanuel, Herzog der Frommen (Dearest Immanuel, Ruler of the Pious)
Meinem Jesum lass ich nicht (I will not Leave my Jesus)
Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (In Peace and Joy I Shall Depart)
English Suites 1 to 3
Beethoven
Symphony No.2
Piano Concerto No.3
The Creatures of Prometheus
Piano Sonatas 14, 16, 17 and 18
Violin Sonatas 8 and 9
Variations on 'Bei Männern, weiche Liebe fuehlen' for cello and piano
Berlioz - Sur les lagunes from Les nuits d'été
Brahms - Piano Pieces, op.118
Chopin - Fantasy on Polish Airs
Chopin - Krakowiak
Dvorak - Biblical Songs (piano and orchestral versions)
Faure
Violin Sonata No.1
Piano Quartet No.1
Nocturnes 1 to 5
Barcarolle No.1
Valse-Caprices 1 and 2
Impromptus 1 to 3
3 Romances sans paroles
Ballade
Mazurka
Fugues, op.84/3 and 6
Songs: early Hugo settings, Opp. 1 to 8, 10, 18, 23, 27, 39/4, 51/4 and 76/1
Cantique de Jean Racine
Gudmundsen-Holmgreen - Jubilemus
Haydn - Masses: 'Theresienmesse', 'Schöpfungsmesse' and 'Harmoniemesse'
Haydn - Missa brevis in F (1749 version and 1805 version)
Holmboe
String Quartets 4 to 10
Piano Trio, op.64
Quartetto Medico
Quartetto, op.90
Aspects
Brass Quintet No.1
Violin Sonata No.3
Mozart - Piano Concertos 6, 7, 10, 13, 19, 23 and 26
Mozart - Rondos for piano and orchestra, K.382 and 386
Nørgård / Holmboe - Sinfonia Profana (Quodlibet)
Nørholm - Love's Philosophy
Nørholm- Three songs for male choir, to words by Kierkegaard
Rachmaninov - Cello Sonata
Schubert - Piano Trio No.1
Schumann - String Quartet No.2
Shostakovich - Symphony No.3
Vine
Symphonies 1 to 6
Celebrare Celeberrime
2 movements from Knips Suite (String Quartet No.1)
String Quartets 2 and 3
I drafted the list for October ages ago and then never went back to write any commentary for it.I'm thinking about changing the format of this blog, but I'll at least finish off 2016 properly...
The thing I remember most clearly from this list is embarking on a new exploration of Faure's songs, but going by poet rather than pure chronology. This explains the somewhat patchy list of opus numbers, but it's not all that patchy because in most cases Faure's interest in a poet was during a specific period of his own career. So for instance there is a lot of Victor Hugo very early on, but then Hugo settings disappear.
And along the way I'm listening to the instrumental music from around the same period. Any excuse to listen to such excellent music is fine by me.
Another thing I did was listen to as much Carl Vine as I could get my hands on. The above works represent recordings I own, but I also hunted down other works online. In truth, though, the discography is quite patchy, even using Vine's website as an information resource.
The music itself is also sometimes patchy in my opinion. Symphony No.5 was a massive disappointment for me, and Symphony No.6 only a partial rebound. But the first 4 symphonies have many good things in them, as do the string quartets. And I really do need to purchase a recording of at least the 1st piano sonata.
And, um... I do remember thinking those late Haydn masses are pretty great. I just can't remember much detail right now. They shall have to be listened to again!
