Popular Music - August 2016

Tori Amos

• Under the Pink
• Scarlet's Walk
• Abnormally Attracted to Sin
• Audience bootleg - Melbourne 15 November 2014

Kate Bush - The Red Shoes
Marc Cohn - The Rainy Season
Paul Dempsey - Strange Loop
Eskimo Joe - A Song is a City
Gotye - Making Mirrors
Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Nik Kershaw - 15 Minutes
Level 42 - Running in the Family
Wendy Matthews - Cafe Naturale
Joni Mitchell - Mingus
Agnes Obel - Aventine
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
Seal - Human Being
Tears for Fears - The Seeds of Love
Tears for Fears - Elemental
Thrice - The Alchemy Index, Volume 1 (Fire)


Hmm. It would seem my sense of adventure is decreasing when it comes to popular music.

Admittedly, this list includes two albums that were new the month before (Paul Dempsey and Radiohead), which I was still exploring. But apart from that it feels like there are a heck of a lot of old favourites here. A little spurt of listening to Australian artists, an apparent fondness for artists associated with the 1980s...

It's all rather safe. Even if I'm listening to the Kate Bush album I listen to the least, it's still largely in my comfort zone.

I can't be adventurous all the time, because my notions of musical adventure require attentive listening and it takes a fair bit of time and energy. And a lot of my more exploratory listening in recent times has been on the classical music side.

Still, I'm a little bit disappointed. I don't see anything on this list that makes me think "ooh, I have something to say about that for the blog".

Sorry about that.

Classical Music - July 2016

Bach, J.S. - Christum wir sollen loben schon (We should already praise Christ)
Beethoven

• Piano Concerto No.1
• Septet
• String Quartet No.6
• Violin Sonatas 3 and 4
• Piano Sonatas 5, 7 and 9 

Chopin

• Barcarolle
• Polonaise-Fantaisie
• 2 Nocturnes, op.62 

Dvorak

• Symphony No.7
• String Quartets 4, 5 and 7
• Stabat Mater
• The Spectre's Bride
• Psalm 149
• Ave Maria
• Hymnus ad laudes in festo Sanctissimae Trinitatis
• Ave Maris stella
• O Sanctissima 

Faure - Violin Sonata No.1
Faure - Cello Sonata No.2 
Haydn

• Symphonies 82, 85, 87, 90, 95, 97, 98 and 102
• Stabat Mater
• Missa Cellensis in honorem BVM ('Cacilienmesse')
• Missa in honorem BVM ('Grosse Orgelsolomesse')

Holmboe

• Concerto No.3 (for clarinet)
• Inuit Songs
• Glemselshejren (The Heron of Oblivion) 

Mozart - Piano Concertos 8, 9, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22 and 27 
Nielsen - [various songs and choral works translated into English]
Nørgård - Two Pastorales (version with piano)
Schubert - Arpeggione Sonata
Schubert - Piano Sonata in A minor, D.845
Shostakovich

• Symphony No.14
• String Quartet No.12
• Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok
• Violin Sonata (2nd movement, orchestrated)

Sibelius - Symphonies 6 and 7
Sibelius - Tapiola

I didn't mention last month that I had begun listening to a new purchase, a box of Mozart's piano concertos performed by Murray Perahia and the English Chamber Orchestra. I wasn't familiar with the concertos, having only heard a couple of them on individual occasions, but I was aware of their reputation as containing some of Mozart's finest music.

That reputation is holding up well as I start exploring Perahia's recordings. Somehow, Mozart makes more sense as a great composer in this context. It's as if the combination of piano soloist with orchestra is a natural fit for Mozart's talents, his grace and style. It probably doesn't hurt that many of these works were designed to showcase his own pianism, and therefore his own strengths.

There were two other new purchases at the same time, and again I didn't mention them in the entry for June although I did start listening to them at the end of that month. One was a box of Haydn's masses (plus the Stabat Mater), which represents entirely new territory for me. Indeed, I don't know all that many masses by any composer.  So far my reaction has been a little variable, ranging from "that's sort of nice" to "I'm really, really enjoying this". And then in late July the masses were sidelined by a spontaneous project to decide which Haydn symphonies (of the 23 I own) are my favourites.

The other new purchase was a collection of Dvorak's sacred works and cantatas. In Dvorak's case the Stabat Mater was a real standout, a work whose first couple of movements in particular made a deep impression with their drama and feeling. The Spectre's Bride, a work of similar length, also made some impact though I was rather distracted by an English translation that rhymes. The Stabat Mater translation rhymes too, but in that case I had access to other translations of the same text. Why people feel the need to translate in rhyme and risk distorting the meaning of the original, I don't know. And for The Spectre's Bride the English rhyming scheme doesn't even match the Czech one. How pointless!

Also worth mentioning is that my Chopin listening reached some late masterpieces. The Barcarolle in particular has always seemed one of his great works, but the Polonaise-Fantaisie and the final pair of Nocturnes are also very fine. They point to new levels of sophistication that, sadly, Chopin did not live long enough to pursue much further.

Popular Music - July 2016

Tori Amos - Strange Little Girls
Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk
Beyonce - Lemonade
Toni Childs - House of Hope
Paul Dempsey - Everything Is True
Paul Dempsey - Strange Loop
FKA twigs - EP1
Jars of Clay - The Eleventh Hour
Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection
k d lang - Invincible Summer
John Mayer - Born and Raised
Joni Mitchell - Mingus
Over the Rhine - Ohio
Radiohead - The King of Limbs
Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
REM - Automatic for the People
Something for Kate

• Beautiful Sharks
• Echolalia
• Desert Lights
• Leave Your Soul to Science

Washington - Insomnia


Right. Having left this post lingering in draft mode for far too long, I'm going to dispatch it fairly quickly. I did listen to a much greater variety of pop music than I had in the previous couple of months, though in truth it's not quite that various in terms of how many artists I listened to.

July was the month that I got hold of a physical copy of the new Radiohead album. And at first, my reaction was mixed. I felt that it has a strong start, but I wasn't entirely sure whether the mellow feel of the album was a good thing or whether it was a bit monotonous.

Over a few more listens I came to appreciate the album more, which was no real surprise because that's what happens with most music. Familiarity with the songs means picking out the details and the distinctions. It's not yet at the point where I would rank it highly among Radiohead albums, but I've certainly enjoyed listening to it.

The other feature of the month was Paul Dempsey's new album, Strange Loop. Which led to a general binge of listening to Paul Dempsey both in solo form and as the lead of Something for Kate. It didn't take long at all for me to really start enjoying this album, with a couple of standout songs lodging themselves in my brain very quickly.

The singles are all standouts, with the first single "Morningless" being one of the most driving songs (um, no pun intended) of Dempsey's solo work, closer to Something for Kate than usual.

But on the whole it's the quieter, moodier songs on the album that have real magic. Dempsey now seems to have a very strong understanding of how to use a palette of sounds to create a mood.

And the song that I couldn't stop playing over and over, and completely failed to get tired of, was "Idiot Oracle". It floats so delicately, avoiding all square rhythms. "Morningless" avoids square rhythms too, as indeed is the case for many of Dempsey's songs, but where that one is neurotic, "Idiot Oracle" is light and air.

Classical Music - June 2016

Bach, J.S. - Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ (May you be praised, Jesus Christ)
Bach, J.S. - Nimm von uns, Herr, du treuer Gott (Take from us, O faithful God)
Beethoven - String Trio No.2
Berlioz - Les Nuits d'été
Chopin - Three Mazurkas, op.59
Debussy

• Cello Sonata
• Elegie for piano
• Les soirs illumines par l’ardeur du charbon 

Dvorak - Symphonies 4 to 9
Dvorak - The Heirs of White Mountain 
Faure

• Piano Quartet No.1
• Piano Quintet No.1
• L'horizon chimérique 

Haydn - Missa brevis (original version)
Holmboe

• Viola Concerto
• Symphony No.13
• Haiduc
• Quartetto sereno
• Sværm (string quartet version)
• 2 songs for choir, M.122
• Hemlängtan (Homesickness), op.34/1
• Ikke forlig (No Compromise) 

Mozart - Piano Concertos 14 and 24
Ravel - Sheherazade
Saint-Saens - Saltarelle
Shostakovich - Symphony No.13
Shostakovich - String Quartets 9 to 11
Vivaldi

• Concerto for Strings in D minor ('Madrigalesco'), RV 129
• Sonata a 4 in E flat ('Al Santo Sepolcro'), RV 130
• Sinfonia for Strings in B minor ('Al Santo Sepolcro'), RV 169
• Violin Concerto in C minor, RV 202 (Op.11/5)
• Violin Concerto in C minor ('Amato bene'), RV 761
• Concerto for 2 violins in G minor, RV 517
• Concerto for violin and cello in B flat, RV 547
• Kyrie
• Credo
• Magnificat
• Nisi Dominus in A, RV 803
• Lauda, Jerusalem

As I was writing this list out, it was looking a bit thin for a while. Only one Beethoven work? Only a couple of entries from my 'general' page for the composers I don't have large amounts of works from? But then I hit the composers who I spent a lot of time with.

Debussy is only represented by a few works, but this is the end of the chronological survey I started early in the year (a quick traversal by my standards). I've only listed the works I own a recording of (including the set of piano music that inspired this exploration), but did listen to other works along the way using online sources. So, now I have some ideas about what else I need to purchase, particularly chamber music and songs.

The similar Shostakovich traversal is not yet complete, but hit some very fine works this month. The 9th string quartet is one of my favourites now (particularly the finale which dominates the work), and I also think the 13th symphony is powerful (particularly the first movement).

The somewhat longer Holmboe traversal was also completed with the Viola Concerto being a late masterpiece. I then went and confused things by listening to some choral works from much earlier in his career from a newish CD.

But the thing that captured my attention the most this month only occupies one line in the list. I've owned recordings of Dvorak's 7th, 8th and 9th symphonies for a couple of years, and in the previous month I'd listened to the 4th symphony from a new set of the 4th, 5th and 6th. After first listens to those last two, I was sufficiently inspired to throw all six works into my listening, several times over in most cases.

And it was well worth it. Dvorak is one of the most immediately enjoyable composers with his great gift for melody. People who are not well-versed in Classical music (including one of my own relatives) find his music appealing.

I think personally I found the 9th and (somewhat surprisingly) 4th symphonies the ones I responded to the most, but really it's hard to find a Dvorak work that isn't a pleasure so long as one avoids the very early material when he knew about tunes but not about structure. The surprise regarding the 4th symphony is because it's earlier than any of the works I've previously enjoyed.

Popular Music - June 2016

Beyonce - Lemonade
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Incubus - A Crow Left of the Murder
Jars of Clay - If I Left the Zoo
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes

A surprisingly small collection. I think there were a few times where I started listening to something but didn't finish (damn work, getting in the way), so that's one explanation. There were also periods where particular classical obsessions dominated (such as streaming copious amounts of Vivaldi).

So there isn't really a lot to say here. There are still a couple of albums here that I'm getting to know, and others that I can depend on for enjoyment. I've still yet to sit down with the Elbow and Incubus albums in the way I normally would, and completely focus on them for at least one listen.

When I do I might have something to report!

Classical Music - May 2016

Beethoven

• String Quartet No.3
• String Trio No.4
• Violin Sonata No.1
• Piano Sonata No.8, 'Pathetique'

Chopin - Piano Sonata No.3
Chopin - Berceuse 
Debussy

• Berceuse Heroique (piano and orchestral versions)
• La boîte à joujoux (piano version)
• Twelve Etudes for piano
• Page d'Album

Dvorak - Symphony No.4
Haydn - Piano Trio in G minor, Hob XV:25
Holmboe

• Symphony No.12
• Preludes 5 to 10 for chamber orchestra
• Intermezzo Concertante for tuba and orchestra
• Eco
• Sonatina for oboe and piano
• Trombone Sonata
• Reminiscences for solo violin 

Janacek - String Quartet No.2, 'Intimate Letters'
Mozart - Symphony No.30
Rachmaninov - Symphony No.1
Schumann - Nachtstücke
Schubert - String Quartet No.14
Shostakovich

• Symphonies 10 to 12
• String Quartets 5 to 8
• Cello Concerto No.1

Snider - Penelope
Szymanowski - Roxana's Song (violin and piano version)
Szymanowski - Kurpish Song (violin and piano version)
Vine - Symphony No.3

The Holmboe survey covered a fairly short period this month, from 1987 to 1991. One reason for slowing down is that I don't feel I know this late Holmboe as well as some of the earlier periods. I have a mental impression of the evolution of his work up until around the late 1970s, but then it gets a bit hazy. Certainly the works after that are a bit starker, but what else can I say about them?

And with the Preludes in particular, I was spending time getting to know them as distinct individual pieces, because on a first hearing it's easy to hear all 10 as similar works with nearly identical instrumentation. But in fact the character and mood of them varies considerably.

I think the most interesting exploration during the month, though, was of Shostakovich. The symphonies in particular were great listening experiences. The 10th symphony I already knew, although I wouldn't say I know my existing recording (Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra) all that well. My new set (Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra) certainly made me think it's a great work.

But then the 10th has a great reputation. More surprising was how much I enjoyed the 11th symphony, which sometimes gets criticised. Admittedly, I didn't think it was the best thing Shostakovich ever composed, but all of it was good and the final movement was superb. Even the 12th symphony, which has a distinctly bad reputation, seemed to me to be decent music on the whole.

I think reactions to Shostakovich are, more than for any other composer, wrapped up in political ideas and extra-musical associations. Some of these are legitimate things to take into account, whereas others strike me as fairly tenuous distractions. People are constantly telling listeners to look out for codes in Shostakovich's music instead of just letting the music to speak for itself. Yes, some of the music was undoubtedly written with political considerations in mind, but in the long term that's just a context. What's ultimately going to matter, when the Soviet Union period is a historical footnote, is whether the music itself makes people feel something. More often than not the answer is yes.

Popular Music - May 2016

Tori Amos - From the Choirgirl Hotel
Tori Amos - Night of Hunters
Beyonce - Lemonade
Toni Childs - House of Hope
Paul Dempsey - Everything is True
Francis Dunnery - Tall Blonde Helicopter
Radiohead

• The Bends
• Kid A
• Amnesiac
• Hail to The Thief

Sting - Live in Berlin (CD version)
Rachael Yamagata - Chesapeake
Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes 

Goodness me, is that the time?

I set everything up so that I could be punctual with my posts about May, but then didn't follow through.

It was an exciting month in pop music for me. So many albums I was interested in appeared in such a short space of time, although the listening list doesn't quite convey that. Obviously I jumped on the Beyonce bandwagon. Because I'm still one of those people who likes to have a physical product I had to wait a little while, but I'm also not one of these people who gets in a state if they can't have something the moment it's announced.

Besides, it was definitely worth the wait. In some ways it's too soon to be certain how much I like Lemonade, but it certainly didn't take long to know that I was impressed with it. It's a bold album, taking all sorts of risks - musical risks with the diversity of styles, and big huge thematic risks. How much this is art imitating life is not something I'm going to speculate on, but the story laid out on the album is a vivid one (and it should be acknowledged that the work itself points to it being highly personal). It's very rare to have a pop album that has such a clear thematic arc, made even more explicit in the video version.

And the videos are worth talking about, because there's something different going on compared to Beyonce's previous album.  On Lemonade, the spoken word is just as important as the sung, and many of the songs are interrupted. Where Beyonce played as a sequence of (very good) music videos, Lemonade plays more like a single film with music.

News of a new Radiohead album led me into a bout of reminding myself how much I liked the old ones, which was just as satisfying as I'd hoped. I did get to hear the new one online thanks to a BBC streaming of it. However, the wait for a physical copy was longer. At the time of writing, I still haven't bought it due to some personal circumstances that meant it wasn't convenient to rush out on the CD release date in June.

And then, in a less surprising move, Paul Dempsey released his 2nd solo album. So I decided it really was time to get to grips properly with his 1st one, which I only bought last December. It's slightly more melodic and slightly less forceful than his band work, but cut from similar cloth. And given how much I like Something for Kate, that's a good thing.

I did buy his new album very shortly after it came out. But, at the time of writing, I still haven't listened to it. It is sitting on the top of a pile, waiting for the moment when I can give it the genuine attention it deserves.

The moment is getting closer. But what's the rush?