September 2013 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• Ich hatter viel Bekümmernis (I had many afflictions) - 1723 version
• Es ist nichts Gesundes an meinem Leibe (There is no health in my body)
• Schauet doch und sehet, ob irgend ein Schmerz sei (Behold and see, if there is any sorrow)
• Sehet, welch eine Liebe hat uns der Vater erzeiget (Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us)
• Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele I (Praise the Lord, O my soul, No.1)
• Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and mouth and deed and life)

Barber

• Medea's Meditation and Dance of Vengeance
• Excursions
• Nuvoletta

Beethoven - Piano Sonatas 28 and 29
Beethoven - Cello Sonatas 4 and 5 
Brahms - Horn Trio
Bridge

• Enter Spring
• Oration
• Phantasm 

Dvorak

• Symphony No.9
• Cypresses for string quartet
• Songs my Mother Taught Me (transcribed for violin)

Faure

• Piano Quintet No.1
• Barcarolle No.7
• Impromptu No.4
• Le don silencieux
• Chanson
• Vocalise-etude 

Janacek - Říkadla (Nursery Rhymes) - choral version
Janacek - Suite for string orchestra
Liszt - Faust Symphony
Liszt - Anees de Pelerinage, Third Year
Mozart - Piano Sonata No.15
Poulenc

• Sonata for 2 pianos
• Sonata for piano, 4 hands
• Violin Sonata  

Rachmaninov

• Symphony No.1
• Suites 1 and 2 for 2 pianos
• Prelude in C sharp minor for piano

Ravel

• String Quartet
• Jeux d'eau
• Pavane pour une infante defunte (original piano version and orchestral version)

Schumann - Carnaval
Schumann - Symphonic Etudes
Vivaldi - Ascende laeta (Gladly climb) with Dixit Dominus, RV 595


My approach of listening to some composers chronologically seemed to be hitting some very rewarding moments in several cases this month.

Of all the magical things that Faure composed, his first piano quintet is one that holds an extremely special place for me.  It sometimes seems to be regarded as a difficult work - difficult for the composer, who took many years to complete it, and difficult for the listener because of it's somewhat withdrawn and reticent nature.  But it's exactly that reticence that makes me adore it.  This is not the music of big, grand tunes, but something inhabiting a deep inner world.

Beethoven is heading that way, too, as my listening reached the works that seem to be generally regarded as marking the start of his late style.  There's certainly a lot of inner depth here, although piano sonata no.29, the 'Hammerklavier' has its showy side too.

And then there's Bridge.  All three works I listened to this month are considered to be pretty major works from Bridge's later, more modern period.  Oration, which is essentially a cello concerto, is often considered the pick of the bunch, but while I did enjoy it I responded to it less than the other two.  I found Phantasm, essentially a piano concerto, to be particularly appealing.  It seems I may have a thing for single-movement piano and orchestra works from this period, as I've realised that Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini and Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand are nearly contemporaneous.  Rhapsody in Blue isn't that far off in chronology either.

I haven't been listening to Poulenc chronologically, but I'm continuing to notice a trend of appreciating some of the later works, and the Sonata for 2 pianos is probably the first larger-scale work I've listened to from that period, and also one of the best yet.  I'm definitely intending to explore this composer's later years more extensively once I've finished with the current set.

Elsewhere, from composers where I'm not focused on late works, Barber delivered a very nice surprise with the Excursions for piano.  I'm sure I've listened to these before, but probably in the midst of a lot of other pieces without the same sense of focus.  This time I thoroughly enjoyed the work, and was particularly taken with the second piece, 'in slow blues tempo'.

Hope you are too.

August 2013 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• Christus, der ist mein Leben (Christ, who is my life)
• Erforsche mich, Gott, und erfahre mein Herz (Search me, God, and know my heart)
• Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz (Why are you downcast, my soul)
• Keyboard Partitas 1 to 6
• Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue

Barber - Second Essay for Orchestra
Barber - 2 Songs, Op.18
Beethoven - Symphonies 7 and 8
Beethoven - String Quartet No.11, 'Quartetto Serioso' 
Bridge

• There Is A Willow Grows Aslant a Brook
• Sir Roger de Coverley (A Christmas Dance) - full orchestra version and strings version
• 2 Songs of Rabindranath Tagore  (orchestral versions)
• Vignettes de Danse
• 2 Intermezzi from 'Threads'
• 2 Entr'actes (Rosemary, Canzonetta)

Dvorak

• String Quartet No.4
• String quartet movement in F major
• 2 Waltzes for string quartet (arranged by Dvorak from piano pieces) 

Faure

• Songs, opuses 76, 83, 85 and 87
• Melisande's Song (from incidental music for Pelleas and Melisande)
• Papillon for cello and piano
• Sicilienne for cello and piano
• 8 short pieces for piano
• Impromptu 'No. 6' for piano (transcription of impromptu for harp)

Heller - 30 Progressive Etudes, Op.46
Janacek

• Sinfonietta
• Taras Bulba
• Lachian Dances
• Pohadka (Fairy Tale, for cello and piano)
• Presto for cello and piano 

Liszt

• Orpheus
• Heroide Funebre
• Die Ideale
• Two Episodes from Lenau's 'Faust' 

Minkus/Delibes - La Source (The Spring)
Mozart

• Symphony No.38, 'Prague'
• Piano Sonata No.14
• Fantasia in C minor 

Poulenc

• Suite Francaise (piano version)
• Francaise
• Promenades
• Improvisations 13 and 14
• Piece Breve on the name of Albert Roussel
• Bourree for the Pavillion of Auvergne
• Feuillets d'album (Album leaves)
• Capriccio for 2 pianos
• Elegie for 2 pianos
• L'Embarquement pour Cythere for 2 pianos

Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.1
Ravel - Menuet Antique
Schumann - Papillons (Butterflies)
Schumann - Davidsbundlertanze (Dances of the League of David)
Vivaldi - Filiae maestae Jerusalem (Mournful daughters of Jerusalem)
Vivaldi - Non in pratis aut in hortis (Neither in meadows nor in gardens)

That's a pretty long list! Although many of the works are quite short.

I suddenly realised during the month that I had abandoned Mozart some 18 months ago, leaving him hanging mid-chronology. I suspect this was mostly due to shifting my focus to other composers when I bought new CDs, but it may have also had to do with the Sonata and Fantasia in C minor, works with which I'm relatively unfamiliar.  And that, in turn, is mostly because I simply don't like the Fantasia very much. I still don't, but it turns out that I quite like the sonata on its own. From now on I'll be more likely to ignore the traditional pairing of the 2 works.

The Bach cantatas are back. I acquired another 10 CDs worth, which still, amazingly enough, means that I have less than half of the total.

Just when I start thinking that this might be overkill and my fetish for complete sets might be unwise in this instance, there's some magical little bit of music that makes me think it's worthwhile exploring all this Bach.  Christus, der ist mein Leben (BWV 95 in the standard Bach catalogue) has this amazing tenor aria in it that I found myself listening to repeatedly - in fact I've just put it on again while writing this. I would post a link if I could find a version that I enjoy as much as the one that I have, which is by Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan.

My listening to the orchestral works of Frank Bridge has recently reached the 'late' works, and There Is A Willow Grows Aslant A Brook is a piece full of eerie magic. The title is a line from Hamlet, the beginning of the description of Ophelia's drowning, and the music fits this imagery wonderfully well. Special mention for atmosphere must also go to Janacek's Pohadka, which I found completely enchanting from the very beginning.

Liszt, too, managed to engage me a couple of times this month. Heroide Funebre (somewhat difficult to translate - one version I've seen suggested something like 'funeral letter to a hero') is one of the more moody symphonic poems, and so is rescued from Liszt's tendency for blustering. But even more successful were the Two Episodes from Lenau's 'Faust'.  The second piece is much better known on its own as the first Mephisto Waltz, but I found both of them to be quite satisfying and Liszt explicitly wanted them treated as a pair.

The two Vivaldi works I listened to are both introductory works for a Miserere, a psalm setting used for Good Friday, but the Miserere itself is lost.  Both of the introductions are, not surprisingly, also quite moody!

March 2013 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S. - French Suite No.2
Barber - Violin Concerto
Beethoven - Piano Sonata No.26
Beethoven - Sextet for Horns and String Quartet
Bridge

• The Sea
• Dance Poem
• Summer
• The Pageant of London
• Where she lies asleep
• Love went a-riding

Chopin

• Impromptu No.1
• Berceuse
• Waltzes, opuses 69 and 70 (published posthumously)

Dvorak - String Quartets 3 and 13
Faure

• La bonne chanson
• Cinq mélodies 'de Venise'
• Valse-caprice No.3
• Shylock suite (piano version)
• En prière

Holmboe

• String Quartets 15, 17, 18, 19 and 20
• Quartetto Sereno (completed by Nørgård)
• Haiduc (Marauders)
• Reminiscences for solo violin

Janacek - Mládi (Youth)
Liszt - Les Preludes
Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time
Poulenc

• Villageoises
• Presto in B flat
• Two intermezzi
• Intermezzo in A flat

 I think the investment in the music of Frank Bridge is beginning to pay off.

Not that I haven't 'quite liked' the earlier works.  But as I've moved through the orchestral music chronologically, I've now hit a piece that truly satisfied me.  That piece was the Dance Poem.  Hopefully there will be more works that I appreciate to the same extent as I continue, ever so slowly, to explore this repertoire.

Conversely, I'm beginning to give up on Liszt a little bit. There's a lot of incident in these symphonic poems, but it's not often that I feel like all those incidents add up to some genuine, structural drama. I've no doubt that I will go back and try all of these works again at some point, but out of all the purchases I made in the 2nd half of last year, the Liszt symphonic poems are probably the ones least likely to make me feel like I want to have a second listen soon after the first.

Well, except for the early Dvorak quartets.  The later ones are very good. The first few are a bit like the Liszt - lots of nice tunes, but not a lot else.

The work I probably spent the most time listening to this month was Faure's La bonne chanson, and here I'm still puzzled.  Here is one of my very favourite composers, here is what is considered one of his great masterpieces... and I didn't really respond to it all that well.  Is it me? The performance? The fact that the song cycle is insanely complex and I just haven't grasped it all yet?

I did try. I tried a lot. I listened to the songs separately and as a complete cycle. I did it reading the words (knowing little French) and putting the booklet aside to focus on the music.  And while I admired a great deal, I never really fell in love with it.

Which is damned odd. This is Faure we're talking about. I obsess over his music at times.  And I enjoyed the Five Venetian Melodies quite a lot - same composer, same poet, written only a year or two earlier.  I also know that within the few years after La bonne chanson, Faure wrote the 3 piano pieces that convinced me of his genius in the first place.

The difference in my attitude is instructive. With Dvorak (and to a lesser extent Bridge), I put my weak response down to Dvorak's relative immaturity.  With Liszt, I put another work on the pile of Liszt mediocrities.  But with Faure, I'm determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of why he hasn't made me ecstatic.