October 2012 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe (Jesus called to Himself the Twelve)
• Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn (Thou true God and David's Son)
• Ein ungefärbt Gemüte (An open mind)
• Die Elenden sollen essen (The miserable shall eat)
• Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (The heavens declare the glory of God)

Barber

• Songs, opuses 2 and 10
• Dover Beach
• Overture to The School for Scandal
• Cello Sonata
• Adagio for Strings

Beethoven

• Symphonies 3 and 4
• Piano Sonata No.23
• Triple Concerto

Bridge

• Berceuse (instrumental piece - orchestral version)
• Berceuse (song)
• The Hag
• Valse Intermezzo à cordes
• Chant d'espérance (Song of Hope)
• Serenade (orchestral version)
• Mid of the Night
• Adoration
• Norse Legend (orchestral version)
• Two Songs of Robert Bridges

Dvorak - String Quartets 1, 5, 8 and 12
Faure

• Piano Quartets 1 and 2
• Songs, opuses 18, 23, 27, 39 and 43
• Poème d'un jour
• Trois Romances sans paroles
• Ballade for piano
• Impromptus 1 to 3
• Barcarolles 1 to 4
• Nocturnes 1 to 5
• Valse-caprices 1 and 2
• Mazurka
• Elegie for cello and piano

Haydn - Piano Trio No.31
Holmboe

• String Quartets 4, 5, 10 and 16
• Symphony No.11
• Chamber Symphony No.2, 'Elegy'

Janacek

• String Quartet No.1, 'Kreutzer Sonata'
• On an Overgrown Path
• In the Mists
• A Recollection
• Variations for Zdenka

Liszt

• Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne (What one hears on the mountain)
• Tasso: Lamento e Trionfo (Tasso: Lament and Triumph)
• Prometheus
• Hungaria

Poulenc

• Trois Mouvements perpétuels
• Valse for Album des Six
• Pastourelle from L'Éventail de Jeanne (piano version)
• Two Novelettes
• Improvisations 1 to 10
• Les Soirées de Nazelles
• Novelette on a theme of Falla

Tcherepnin, A. - Piano Trio

I did mention the word 'avalanche' a little while back, right?...

Let's see.  The Bach is me still working through the box set I bought in March. Nearly at the end, now, and chronologically we're actually getting to a really interesting point: 1723,the start of Bach's tenure in Leipzig, where he wrote an... well, an avalanche of new music for performance in church.  This month, I listened to the pieces that got him the job, and the first pieces performed when he started. This is truly landmark stuff.

The new Holmboe continues with some more string quartets and Chamber Symphony No.2 which I know I liked.  Scarcely 'chamber' in terms of how it sounds.  For the string quartets... yes, it's getting a little tricky to remember which was which.  I do think I particularly liked No.5, but it's probably going to take a few goes before I know things like that for sure.

With Faure, as I mentioned last month, I went for the full-on experience, intermixing the new songs with all the instrumental music I already owned.  This month it meant I went from the 1st piano quartet, op.15 through to the 2nd piano quartet, op.45 - both marvellous works.  In between there was a strong focus on the amazing string of piano works that Faure produced from roughly 1881 to 1886.  There are just so many moments where a little turn of melody, or a harmonic shift, will give me a little buzz of pleasure.

Now, the songs!  The things I'm supposed to be listening to! The lighter songs (of which there are quite a few in this bunch) are never less than charming, but the one that really hit me was the more serious Les berceaux (The cradles). It's utterly beautiful, and I kept wanting to replay it even when I was 'supposed' to have moved on to later works.

The Bridge, Dvorak, Janacek, Liszt and Poulenc are all brand new (last month's Janacek and Poulenc weren't, and it was coincidence that I dusted off my existing recordings of those composers) and from box sets of at least 5 CDs, so there's plenty more to listen to.  With Bridge, I've decided to go chronological, which means I'm listening to his early works. And very nice they are too, but I'm effectively setting myself up to hear the deepening and darkening of his style which will apparently kick in once I'm past World War I (the pieces here are from 1901 to 1906).  With Poulenc, I'm not being chronological but taking all these piano miniatures more or less as they come on disc.

For my big new box of Dvorak's string quartets I'm jumping around, partly because of what I've read about the early quartets being somewhat long-winded.  And it's true that, while the earlier quartets are still nice, the musical material is more interesting and/or better handled in the later works.

I also had some warning about the quality of Liszt's symphonic poems, and it definitely does seem as if he gets a bit bombastic sometimes. But in general, the more I listened to these works the more I heard the structure and direction of the music, and got enjoyment out of the listening.

The most interesting find from these new boxes so far is probably the Janacek piano music, which really did repay repeated listening as I heard more of the strange subtleties and irregularities that give his work its distinctive sound.  The piece that grabbed me instantly was the 10th number from On an Overgrown Path, which is called The barn owl has not flown away!  There is something extraordinary about the fluttering figure that permeates this piece - and particularly something extraordinary about the performance of it by Paul Crossley, because I've sampled a couple of other versions online without it having quite the same impact.

My Beethoven listening took in the Eroica symphony (a name, unlike many others, given by the composer) and the 'Appassionata' piano sonata.  Both of them are every bit as amazing and extraordinary as the 'Waldstein' sonata I raved about last month, and prove it was no fluke.  As great as many of the earlier Beethoven works are, what sets these ones apart is the different world of sound.  There is more force and drama than before.

Having set myself up some kind of plan to listen to those 9 composers, I then suddenly got the urge to throw Samuel Barber into the mix. I hadn't listened to the famous Adagio for Strings for 2 or 3 years, but it's lost none of the beauty that made it an immediate 'hit' back when it was first performed on radio in 1938.  And there's much to enjoy in the other works as well.

This is one vast post, and it's basically me saying time and time again "ooh, this was good... and that was nice".  But in some ways that's the point (and I might just throw in now, that Tcherepnin piano trio is not something I enjoy and the only reason it will get replayed from time to time is that it's mercifully short). I'm trying to hunt down the GOOD stuff to add to my collection.  Despite the size of the recent purchases, I'm not just randomly adding whatever I can lay my hands on.  The 6 box sets in my latest purchase (one of which hasn't been heard yet) were whittled down from a selection of more than 100 that were available in a sale.  These were top choices, and I'd be disappointed if I wasn't getting rewards from them.

October 2012 - Popular Music

Tori Amos

• The Beekeeper
• Garlands (from The Beekeeper DVD)
• Gold Dust

Bryan Duncan - Mercy
Eskimo Joe - A Song Is A City
Patty Griffin - 1000 Kisses
Patty Griffin - Children Running Through
Missy Higgins - The Sound of White
Joni Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Tears for Fears - Raoul and the Kings of Spain

I finally completed the Joni Mitchell marathon, finishing with probably my favourite album.  I don't think it had the same impact as the equivalent Tori Amos listening exercise, simply because it was so much more spread out.  However, as well as listening to Hissing I did go back and listen to all the songs again, on shuffle, over the course of several days.

It certainly was interesting to hear the major shifts in Mitchell's voice, as well as the changes in style.  Another surprise was that some songs that I'm not very fond of seemed to work better when taken out of their usual album context.  One that particularly struck me was 'Lead Balloon' from Taming the Tiger, which frankly I usually think of as going down like a lead balloon.  For whatever reason, when it came on late in the shuffle I quite enjoyed it.

Bryan Duncan's Mercy has long been one of my favourite albums, and pretty close to my number one choice from the Christian contemporary music scene.  It's just that, until now, I've never owned a copy of it.  I can't even recall what brought it to mind during October, but after many years of thinking "I really ought to get that on CD", I snapped, logged onto eBay, and bought the first good-looking copy I found.

And it didn't let my memories down.  As far as I can gather, it was the biggest success of Bryan Duncan's career (the internet isn't so great at researching slightly obscure artists that were mostly operating in earlier decades), and as much as anything I think that's down to the darkness of the album.  Now, before anyone rushes out thinking they're going to get something seriously gloomy, I am talking in relative terms.  Duncan's music is naturally bright, sometimes even jokey.  But Mercy is the album where there's an added edge to the music, and to the subject matter. There are at least two songs that are about people having faced the tragedy of death - the tender 'You Don't Leave Me Lonely', and the utterly blazing 'Faithful to You' which is one of those rare songs that has such power that I can feel the need to play it several times in a row.  Like right now...

 And even the lighter moments on this album are mature and measured.  I certainly find it to be a satisfying listen, and I expect it will appear in the lists on this blog fairly regularly from now on.

September 2012 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (Now come, saviour of the heathen)
• Christen, ätzet diesen Tag (Christians, engrave this day)
• Bereitet die Wege, bereitet die Bahn (Prepare the ways, prepare the road)
• Erschallet, ihr Lieder (Resound, you songs)

Beethoven - Symphony No.2
Beethoven - Piano Sonatas 19 to 22
Faure

• Songs, Opuses 1 to 8
• Duets, Op.10
• Puisque j’ai mis ma lèvre (Since I've pressed my lips)
• Tristesse d'Olympio (Sadness of Olympio)
• L'aurore (The Dawn)
• Cantique de Jean Racine
• Violin Sonata No.1

Heller - 25 Etudes for Developing a Sense for Musical Rhythm & Expression, Op.47
Holmboe

• Kairos
• Sinfonia 2
• Chamber Symphony No.1
• String Quartets 1 to 3, 7, 8, 12 to 14
• Violin Sonata No.2
• Primavera
• Gioco
• Sonata for solo flute
• Bagatelle No.1 'Arabesque'
• Molto allegro scherzando for solo violin

Janacek - Sinfonietta
Janacek - Glagolitic Mass
Liszt - Anees de Perelinage, 1st year: Switzerland
Magnard - String Quartet
Poulenc

• Suite pour piano
• Nocturnes
• Villageoises
• Presto in B flat
• Two intermezzi
• Intermezzo in A flat
• Humoresque

The answer to that question about Holmboe's Kairos was that yes, I do like the four Sinfonias when they're all combined.  In all honestly I feel it drags a little in the centre, the problem being that Sinfonia 2, the longest, is generally at a slow pulse (although with fast episodes) and so is Sinfonia 1 before it.  The much more vigorous Sinfonia 3 provides a welcome change afterwards.

There was plenty more brand new Holmboe this month, with the string quartets being prominent.  Trying quartets from different parts of his career certainly brings out the changes in his style.  For example, quartets 7 and 8 come from a period of 'tougher' works, whereas quartets 13 and 14 are marvellously light and delicate.  I'd say those two are among the favourites thus far, along with number 2, but of course it's going to take a long time to properly digest all the different works.

Elsewhere in Holmboe's chamber music I easily warmed to the light touch of both Primavera (for flute, violin, cello and piano) and Gioco (for string trio).  Although it's not entirely clear to me why a Danish composer should be so keen on using Italian titles.  I suppose he was tapping into the previous centuries where Italian essentially was the language of music.

Elsewhere I was frequently tapping into French.  Magnard was a brand new composer to me.  His string quartet is quite dense, full of notes and full of different ideas in the outer movements especially, and it did take me several listens to get into it.  I realised that my knowledge of string quartets basically jumps from Schubert to Shostakovich and completely bypasses the Romantic period, so this was really my introduction to what a string quartet from late Romanticism would sound like.  And after several listens, I was in fact quite taken with it.

And then there's all the new Faure songs.  I bought the Hyperion/Graham Johnson collection of complete songs (although I now think it's possible they may have missed a work - outrageous!) which, rather than being purely chronological, scatters the songs thematically while keeping acknowledged 'song cycles' intact and being fairly chronological within each theme.

I have mixed feelings about this.  In the case of the early songs I have no problem, because it's known that these first 10 opus numbers were assigned fairly randomly after the fact.  But even then, the CDs sometimes separate songs that logically belong together, and there are later examples where it's clear from the series' own timeline that songs were written and published together but they still appear on separate discs.

The beauty of iTunes is that it enables me to reassign songs to new 'albums' to correct this in cases where I feel there's a benefit to hearing a group of songs together.

As for the actual songs... my goodness, but Faure could write a melody!  These early songs include some of his most popular.  And it's worth bearing in mind that 'early' in Faure's career includes works written in his 30s.  There are some teenage songs here, of variable quality, but there are also works of a quite mature composer.

Après un rêve (After a dream) deserves its fame, but the Sérénade Toscane (Tuscan serenade) in a similar style is just as wonderful.  Other songs I found bouncing around in my head hours or days after heaing them included Chanson du pêcheur (Song of the fisherman - lamenting a dead wife), L'absent (The absent one), Tristesse (Sadness) and Puisque j’ai mis ma lèvre which was never even published.

Having decided to unravel the chronology and grouping of the Faure songs, I then decided I was going to listen to all my Faure in opus number order - perhaps a somewhat mad decision given how much new music I have to listen to anyway.  But he's one of my favourite composers, and thanks to this new purchase I now have recordings of much of his work.  It will be interesting to hear the gradual changes of style, and indeed it might lead me to appreciate even more the complexities of his later, more 'difficult' style as the easy soaring tunes of the earlier work start to disappear.

Let's face it, I probably just wanted an excuse to listen to the marvellous 1st violin sonata again...

Now I've written a fairly long post without even mentioning that my Beethoven listening took me as far as the 'Waldstein' piano sonata, Op.53.  The entire point of this listening in opus number order is to hear stylistic developments, and the Waldstein is, quite simply, a revelation.  Within half a minute you realise you're hearing something that is not only radical for Beethoven, it's probably unlike anything written for piano by anyone up to that point.  It is truly astonishing, and truly a masterpiece.

September 2012 - Popular Music

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
Delirious? - Glo
Gomez - Bring It On
Jars of Clay - Furthermore: From the Studio
John Mayer - Battle Studies
Joni Mitchell

• Clouds
• Mingus
• Dog Eat Dog

Beth Orton - Daybreaker
Sting - Mercury Falling
Washington - I Believe You Liar
Rachael Yamagata - Happenstance

Not an enormous amount of pop music listening going on at the moment.  The most notable item on the list is Aladdin Sane, which I had heard before but which was officially added to my collection this month.

After having given much thought to which of the myriad David Bowie 'best ofs' to buy, and finally getting hold of one about 18 months ago, I promptly stopped listening to it because I wanted to explore his actual albums.  My curiosity about a person's body of work got the better of me, as usual.

I'm not sure exactly what I was looking for, because I actually already own several Bowie albums, none of which have yet made it onto this blog and none of which (so far) strikes me as entirely satisfactory.  I suppose I was looking for that satisfactory album, even though I had a sneaking fear that it might not exist.  Bowie himself has predicted the death of the album in the age of iTunes and shuffling playlists, and I couldn't help wonder if this was just because he was someone who actually struggled to put together a complete and coherent album.  Was he, in fact, a 'singles artist'?

So I started at the beginning and sporadically listened to Bowie albums.  REALLY at the beginning. Bowie's 1967 album is quite fascinatingly odd.  Space Oddity seemed fairly uneven, The Man Who Sold The World is strange and yet not that interesting.  Hunky Dory showed promise, but ultimately the really strong songs are the ones that already appear on my compilation.  And while I know Ziggy Stardust is supposed to be a landmark, I can't say that it does a lot for me.

I already had hopes for Aladdin Sane from the several tracks on my compilation, and it justified those hopes.  Maybe it's the amazing piano playing of Mike Garson. I'm a sucker for good piano.  But I think even in the tracks that are rockers and don't feature piano, there's something more sophisticated about this album compared to Ziggy.  So I went out and bought it.  It is now officially designated as "the David Bowie album that I like".

There could be others, as I've been terribly distracted by other music and have only got as far as Diamond Dogs - which I also quite like, but again I feel that the strongest material is on my compilation and I'm unsure that I'll gain much by having the entire album.

However, it's entirely possible that sometime circa 2018, readers of this blog will see that I have gone and bought every Bowie album.  For now, though, Aladdin Sane is the one I'm happy to reach for and think "yeah, this guy deserved his fame".

August 2012 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S. - Ich hatter viel Bekümmernis (I had many afflictions) - 1720 version
Bach, J.S. - Der Himmel lacht, die Erde jubilieret (The heavens laugh, the earth rejoices)
Bach? - Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele II (Praise the Lord, O my soul, No.2)
Beethoven - String Quintet
Beethoven - Piano Sonatas 16 to 18
Heller - 25 Melodic Etudes, Op.45
Holmboe - Violin Sonata No.1
Holmboe - Sinfonias 1 to 4
Liszt - Venezia e Napoli

This list includes the vanguard of what has since become an avalanche of new classical music.  I still haven't finished that collection of Bach cantatas I bought back in March, and yet I decided to burden myself with a wealth of new Holmboe and Faure, along with a dash of Heller.  Well, alright, not really 'burden'.

One of the first purchases was Holmboe's Kairos.  No, you won't find it on the listening list above.  But in fact you will.

Kairos is a fairly rare construction of 4-pieces-in-1.  Or perhaps 4-into-1, as there's good reason to suppose that at least the first 3 were conceived as separate pieces first.  Each of these Sinfonias for strings is a single-movement work, perfectly listenable to on its own.  Which is how I listened to them during August.

A few years later, though, Holmboe wrote a fourth Sinfonia which is multi-movement, and a little bit different in character to the others.  I also listened to this on its own... but split it up and wrap it around the other three, and hey presto, you've got a single work: Kairos.

As I understand it, the concept derives from the difference betwen 'psychological' time, or the right moment (kairos in Greek) and 'chronological' time (chronos in Greek). It seems to me that Holmboe is deliberately illustrating the effect that music sounds different depending on what you've heard before it.  Which thrills me no end, because it's something I've been hammering on about for years (not least on Tori Amos forums - my apologies to anyone who's heard this broken record too many times).

The human brain really isn't terribly good at judging absolute values.  It's difficult for us to correctly judge speed, temperature, decibels, or pitch.  Whereas we're extremely good at measuring relative values.  Faster/slower, hotter/colder, louder/softer, higher/lower.

So take a block of music and put it in a different context, and it will mean something slightly different.  If the opening of a piece becomes the opening of the 4th movement, it won't come across in quite the same way.  If there's 15 minutes of music in between two movements that used to be next each other, the lead-in to the second of those movements has become completely different and will affect how it's heard.

Of course, none of this makes a huge difference to the quality of the music, but on listening to the Sinfonias as separate pieces they've got all the characteristics of Holmboe that make me so enthusiastic, particularly the sense of a line carrying right through a piece - although that's less true of the 4th, which is broken up and considerably more quirky.  Given that this is all string music, it's important that he keeps the interest up rather than having a generalised mass of sound. Each piece has changes of pace and of texture that kept me interested.

So, I like them on their own.  It remains to be seen what I'll think of them together.

August 2012 - Popular Music

Tori Amos - Under the Pink
Fiona Apple - When the Pawn...
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
Gotye - Making Mirrors
David Gray - A New Day at Midnight
Patty Griffin - Impossible Dream
Wendy Matthews - Emigre
Wendy Matthews - The Witness Tree
Joni Mitchell

• Ladies of the Canyon
• Court and Spark
• Dog Eat Dog
• Turbulent Indigo

Powderfinger - Vulture Street
Radiohead - OK Computer
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Simply Red - Picture Book
Something for Kate - Beautiful Sharks
Something for Kate - Desert Lights
Talk Talk - The Colour of Spring

I jotted down this list at the start of September, but no thoughts to go with it. My initial reaction when looking at the list again was... did I have any thoughts?  Not a good prospect for this blog.

Then, however, the entry that jumped out at me was the last one, for The Colour of Spring.  Which it seems I may not have talked about before.  And that surprises me given how often I listen to it.

It really is one of those albums that has become so comfortable for me.  I see the title, I start hearing parts of 'Happiness Is Easy' in my head and think "yes, I enjoy listening to that".  And so I pop it on quite frequently, and always with pleasure.  The tapestry of sound weaving in and out and around my head always gives me pleasure.

I have no memory of being aware of Talk Talk in the 1980s.  They were a much later discovery for me.  The main cataylst for that was this wonderful blog, which I was introduced to via his writings on Tori Amos albums.  His description of Talk Talk intrigued me.  Here was a band that had evolved rapidly across the space of a few albums.  And I'm definitely interested in bands that evolve, rather than churning out more of the same style.  Radiohead would suggest itself as a more recent example of a band that drew me in with their ability to do different things.

Another catalyst was No Doubt's cover of the song 'It's My Life', which was one of those things I became very obsessed with around the time of first hearing it.  Those key changes between verse and chorus were so smooth, so skillful, and so utterly delicious.

It happened that The Colour of Spring was the first Talk Talk album I heard, because a work colleague lent it to me.  It's possible that it's remained my favourite of the three I have (the others being It's My Life and Spirt of Eden) simply because it was my entry point, but I think it is more that it's an album of transition between two styles.  I tend to like transitional albums.  Here, it's a move from more mainstream pop to the radical ambient work that followed.  Caught in the middle, The Colour of Spring is pop that's full of subtle little moments, interesting instruments, often a quiet sense of repose and an air of sophistication.  It adds up to an album that is highly listenable and doesn't come across as dated 1980s material. It is most definitely one of those albums that I can't see myself tiring of.

July 2012 - Classical Music

Bach, J.S.

• Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt (Just as the rain and snow fall from heaven)
• Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn (Walk in the way of faith)
• Mein Gott, wie lang', ach lange? (My God, how long, ah long?)
• Komm, du süße Todesstunde (Come, thou sweet death's hour)
• Nur jedem das Seine (To each only his due)

Beethoven

• String Quartet No. 6
• Septet
• Symphony No. 1
• Piano Sonatas 11 to 15
• String Quintet

Faure - Fantasie for Piano and Orchestra

Back to the Bach after a break! Sorry, I just wanted to say that...  but yes, I re-embarked on exploring my box of cantatas.  With reasonable results, but to be honest at the moment the different pieces tend to blur into each other and I find it hard to comment on anything in particular.

With Beethoven it's easier. Probably because these pieces are more familiar, but also because I respond really strongly to many of them.  This month's listening included a group of piano sonatas where the experimentation with form is noticeable, although my favourite of the bunch is probably the most 'conventional' one in that sense, the sonata in D major Op.28 known (not unreasonably) as the 'Pastorale'.  And that was immediately followed by another personal favourite, the string quintet Op.29.

One of the more disconcerting effects of keeping track of my music listening using spreadsheets is that I can see just how long it is since I last listened to something.  And in the case of classical music, where I've been keeping records for several years, it can come as a shock.  I have memories of getting to know Op.28 that are quite specific and vivid, and it feels like it was only a short time ago, but then Excel told me I hadn't listened to it for nearly two years.  By the time I get to some later Beethoven works, I'll hit things that Excel tells me I haven't listened to in over three years.

Yet I can still hear many of them in my head.

I have more music than it seems I can sensibly listen to, but I'm continuing to add to it (more purchases on the way as I write...).  Does it really matter? I'm not sure. The more music I have, the more any given work in my collection is likely to sound interesting and fresh when I get around to revisiting it.  The fact is that I find most things in the collection rewarding, and I rarely buy anything that hasn't already been considered for a while before purchase.

I sometimes don't know what depresses/scares me more, the vast amount of great music to listen to, or the far vaster amount of mediocre music that is hiding it.

The best solution seems to be to keep listening, and keep responding, and just accept that this is how things are.  I'm just one person among billions past and present, and even if only a tiny fraction of those other people manage to produce something that amazes, moves or thrills me, there's going to be a lot of those amazing, moving, thrilling moments to find and enjoy.

And really, one of the main functions of this blog is to try and let other people know about some of those moments, to share them.  Not that this particular post is doing a particularly good job, I grant you. But I hope that people occasionally read something that makes them go and explore a new musical avenue, even if it takes several years.