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.
Thursday, 21 September 2017
Tuesday, 19 September 2017
Popular Music - June 2017
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.
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.
Sunday, 17 September 2017
Classical Music - May 2017
Barber - Fadograph of a Yestern Scene
Barber - Canzonetta (orchestral version)
Beethoven
Dvorak - Lullaby and Capriccio for piano
Haydn - Symphonies 39, 41 and 58
Holmboe
Medtner - 2 Elegies
Nielsen - Symphonies 1 to 6
Poulenc - Suite française (version for cello and piano)
Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet
Rachmaninov
Schubert - Piano sonata in B flat, D.960
Schumann
Sibelius
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras No.7
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.
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
- (Nocturne and) Scherzo for cello and piano
- Intermezzo for cello and piano
- Khamma (piano version)
Dvorak - Lullaby and Capriccio for piano
Haydn - Symphonies 39, 41 and 58
Holmboe
- Sværm (Swarm) (string quartet version)
- Quartetto Sereno
- Haiduc
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
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
Sibelius
- Symphony No.7
- Suite for violin and orchestra
- Tapiola
- 7 Songs, op.17
- The Rite of Spring (1947 version)
- Le Chant du Rossignol
- The Soldier's Tale
Villa-Lobos - Bachianas Brasileiras No.7
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.
Wednesday, 6 September 2017
Popular Music - May 2017
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 Cages back 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.
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 Cages back 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)