Classical Music - November 2017

Bach, J.S. - Gottlob! Nun geht das Jahr zu Ende (Praise God! The year now draws to a close)
Bach, J.S. - Er rufet seinen Schafen mit Namen (He calls His sheep by name)
Barber

• First Essay for Orchestra
• Violin Concerto
• 4 Songs, op.13 

Beethoven

• Symphony No.8
• The Ruins of Athens
• Violin Sonata No.5 

Brahms

• String Sextet No.1
• Piano Quartet No.1
• Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel

Bridge

•  Suite for Strings
• Phantasie Piano Quartet
• An Irish Melody: Londonderry Air (string quartet version)
• Miniatures for piano trio, sets 1 to 3

Bruun - Vandring i Skoven (A Walk in the Forest)
Dvorak

• Symphony No.5
• String Quartet No.8
• Piano Quartet No.1
• Piano Trio No.2
• Theme and Variations for piano
• Dumka for piano
• 2 Minuets for piano 

Faure - Piano Trio
Franck - Violin Sonata in A
Haydn - Symphonies 52 and 64
Holmboe

• Symphony No.12
• String Quartet No.7
• Notations
• Quartetto Medico 

Liszt - Dante Symphony
Medtner - Skazki, opp. 42 and 48
Mozart - Piano Concerto No.7
Mozart - Piano Sonatas 3, 4 and 6 
Nielsen - Symphony No.3, 'Sinfonia Espansiva'
Nielsen - Aftenstemning (Evening Mood) 
Nørgård - Symphony No.6, 'At the End of the Day'
Pedersen (Fuzzy) - Seven Postcards from Ebeltoft and Vicinity
Prokofiev - Piano Sonatas 6, 7 and 8
Rachmaninov - Piano Concerto No.4
Rachmaninov - Symphonic Dances (2 piano version)
Schumann

• Myrthen
• Liederkreis (Heine)
• 3 Romances, op.28

Scriabin

• Piano Sonata No.6
• 2 Preludes, op.27
• 3 Etudes, op.65
• 2 Impromptus, op.14
• Polonaise, op.21
• 9 Mazurkas, op.25

Shostakovich - Symphonies 5 and 11
Sibelius - Eight Songs to words by Josephson, op.57
Vivaldi - Violin Sonata in C minor, RV 5

The pattern of listening here is pretty much the same as previous months, slowly but surely working through the various "programmes" I had set for myself. There are some quirks, such as my sudden decision to give Liszt's Dante Symphony a spin on account of the vague memory that this was a Liszt work I liked. And that's true. But finding Liszt that I can love is a slightly more difficult matter.

Beethoven's 8th symphony is always a highlight of any Beethoven traversal. Medtner's skazki are becoming more and more sophisticated. Prokofiev's wartime piano sonatas are rightly regarded as some of his best.

But the most notable information, for me, in this list is that I reached Schumann's "year of song". In 1840 the piano composer suddenly became a lieder composer. Which is remarkable not simply because of the abrupt shift in focus, but because of the incredible quality of what he produced. While I admit there are still many lieder by famous names such as Schubert, Brahms and Wolf that I haven't heard, my own view is that Schumann is the very best lieder composer of all. And that view is primarily based on the output from this one intense burst of activity, from February 1840 through to January 1841.

The inspiration seems to be in large part a desire to express his love for his soon-to-be/new wife, Clara. Myrthen ended up being a wedding present (as befits the title, because myrtle wreaths were used as wedding decorations) and is all about love, but Schumann kept on composing songs after completing that first project. And we can all enjoy the results.

September 2011 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S. - Cello Suites (complete, 2 recordings)
Bach, J.S. - Brandenburg Concertos (complete - 2 recordings for Nos. 4 and 5)
Haydn - Symphonies 102 and 103 ('Drumroll')
Scarlatti, D. - Keyboard sonatas - K.1, 3, 9, 17, 24, 27, 213, 214, 247, 283, 284, 380, 404, 443, 519
Schubert - Piano Sonatas in A minor and in D, D. 784 and D.850
Schumann

• Papillons (Butterflies)
• Davidsbundlertanze (Dances of the League of David)
• Carnaval
• Symphonic Etudes
• Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood)

Simpson - Symphony No.10
Telemann - Tafelmusik Volume 1: Overture, Quartet, Concerto, Trio, Solo
Vivaldi

• The Four Seasons (2 recordings)
• Violin Concerto in C, RV 171
• Kyrie in G minor
• Gloria, RV 588 with introduction Jubilate, o amoeni chori RV 639
• Credo in E minor
• Dixit Dominus, RV 594
• Lauda, Jerusalem
• Magnificat in G minor (1720s version), RV 610a
• In furore iustissimae irae (In wrath and most just anger)
• Longe mala, umbrae, terrores (Away with woes, shadows, terrors), RV 629

One of the things I did this month was compare different recordings of the same music.  I don't generally aim to get multiple performances of classical music into my collection, but my fondness for box sets does sometimes mean there's a bit of overlap.  And it's interesting to hear the different approaches that various musicians will take.

Some of the comparison was deliberate (the Bach Cello Suites for example - I think Rostropovich beat Tortelier in most of them, but honours were the other way in the 3rd suite), and some of it was quite accidental as a result of my massive new purchase.  Having been alerted to a sale of box sets, I ended up with 5 of them, and a whopping 32 CDs of new classical performances to explore.

That's a pretty overwhelming delivery of new music!

By chance rather than design, most of it comes from just one generation of composers.  I've got a lot of new Bach (1685-1750) as well as second, often considerably better versions of the Brandenburg Concertos. I've got some Telemann (1681-1767) for the first time, which has proved itself highly enjoyable.  It's about time the world's most prolific composer, allegedly, got some space in the collection - 18 pieces down, only around 3,000 more to go.

And I'm suddenly drowning in Vivaldi (1678-1741), after increasing my collection by about 1500 per cent!  The new performances of The Four Seasons are exciting and dramatic.  The sacred music is a bit of a mixed bag so far, some of it I like a lot and other bits aren't really grabbing me yet.

It's actually quite educational to get such a heavy dose of the one era, which I guess I'm not as familiar with as later music.  It's definitely helping me understand a bit more about the forms and styles of the late Baroque period.  Some things that I only knew as 'Bach' I now recognise as more general.  I'm getting a better sense of what's common to the composers of the time and what's individual to each of them.

Just before buying all of that, not only was I listening to my existing versions of the Brandenburg Concertos and The Four Seasons, I happened to be spending time listening to the first half of a 2-CD collection of the amazingly inventive keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757). So it really was a month full of music from around the 1710s to 1740s or so.

As well as the avalanche of Baroque, the other purchase was Schumann piano music.  And that's been a real surprise.  I had no idea just how radical, even strange, some of his work was.  In several of the early pieces I listened to this month (written when he was in his 20s), fragments of a minute or less zip by before being replaced by something else entirely.  It's pretty startling stuff when you consider that the previous generation was often creating sonatas that developed musical ideas on a large scale - not always, but often.  So to get, say, 21 Carnival 'scenes' stuffed into 27 minutes is really quite something.