Classical Music - December 2016

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.

10. Chopin (30)
9. Shostakovich (36)
8. Nielsen (38)
7. Faure (39)
6. Debussy (45)
4.= Dvorak (49)
4.= Mozart (49)
3. Haydn (63)
2. Beethoven (80)
1. Holmboe (147)

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!

Popular Music - December 2016

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.

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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.