Classical Music - September 2016

Bach, J.S. - Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh allzeit (What My God Wants, May It Always Happen)
Beethoven

• Symphony No.1
• Romance for violin and orchestra No.1
• Piano Sonatas 6, 10 and 13
• Violin Sonatas 2, 5, 6 and 7
• String Quartet No.2
• String Quintet 

Chopin

• Mazurkas, op.67/2, 67/4 and 68/4
• Galop Marquis
• Largo in E flat
• Nocturne in C minor
• Waltz in A minor

Dvorak

• Requiem
• Mass in D
• Te Deum 

Haydn

• Missa Sancti Bernardi von Offida ('Heiligmesse')
• Missa in tempore belli ('Paukenmesse')
• Missa in augustiis ('Nelsonmesse')

Holmboe

• Symphonies 2, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 13
• Concerto No.1 (for piano)
• Epitaph
• Tempo Varibaile
• String Quartets 1, 2, 3, 9, 12, 13 and 16
• Violin Sonatas 1 and 2
• Primavera

Mozart - Piano Concertos 1 to 4, 15, 16 and 25
Nielsen - [various songs and choral works translated into English]
Nørgård - Inre och yttre landskap (Inner and outer landscape)
Nørholm - Three Songs for male choir, to words by Garff
Poulenc - Sonata for 2 pianos
Rachmaninov - Suite No.2 for 2 pianos
Ravel

• Piano Concerto in G
• Piano Concerto for the Left Hand
• Violin Sonata No.2

Schubert - String Quartet No.15
Schubert - Piano Sonata in G, D.894
Shostakovich - Symphonies 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12 and 15
Sibelius - Lemminkainen Suite
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

Quite a long classical list again. Although the length of the list doesn't always reflect the listening. For example, nine of Shostakovich's symphonies take up just one line. And Dvorak's colossal Requiem, which in some ways is one of the more challenging things I've listened to despite his innate tunefulness, doesn't take up any more space than the little scraps of Chopin's last works.

The Beethoven chronology is a little more scrambled than usual, because it catches the end of one of my time slices (works from around 1798-1800) and the beginning of another (works from around 1801-3). There's a lot development in those years, and the end of Beethoven's "early period" isn't all that far from the beginning of it!

One of the most pleasant surprises of the month was early Mozart. I had assumed that the first 4 piano concertos, which are essentially his arrangements of piano works by others, would be relatively uninteresting. But they were a real delight. It's true they might not have the depth of the more mature piano concertos, but listening to them was highly enjoyable.

And at the other end of a career, the late Haydn masses. I think it will take a while to really get to know these works well, but they are making a good first impression. The 'Paukenmesse' and the 'Nelsonmesse' in particular strike me as compositions I will want to return to quite a bit.

And, um... that's it. Having left the last post lingering so long, I don't want to dwell on this one. I want to catch up.

Popular Music - September 2016

Tori Amos

• Scarlet's Walk
• Unrepentant Geraldines
• Flicker (single)

Christine and the Queens - Christine and the Queens
Paul Dempsey - Strange Loop
Seal - Human Being
Thrice - Beggars
Megan Washington - There There

Another rather light month for pop music listening (partly affected, as is always the case, by my rule that a partial listen that gets interrupted doesn't count). There's plenty to talk about, though, because of the new entry on the list: the self-titled album from Christine and the Queens.

I stumbled across "Christine" (essentially just one person, not a band) on an episode of the Graham Norton Show.

I watch the show fairly regularly. It's quite rare, though, for the musical performance to grab my attention the way this one did. Pop music, undoubtedly, but art-pop. And a true performance piece, not simply a singer standing on the stage.

A few weeks later, Deezer chose another track from album, "Science Fiction" as one of their featured songs. After that, I decided that I had found a pop artist I wanted to hear more of. I can't remember now whether I sampled the whole album online before going out to find a CD copy. Yes, yes, I'm still buying CDs...

And Christine and the Queens is a fine CD. Those first two songs I heard are arguably among the best ones, but the album as a whole is strong. Lots of pop hooks, easily digestible but not mindless.

What annoys me, though (and this would have applied whether or not I chose physical media) is that the record companies have decided that I absolutely must listen to Christine and the Queens and not the album that Christine originally released, called Chaleur Humaine. Apparently, the French quotient of this French singer was too much for us all to stomach.

Some of the songs appear to be identical, though, and still include considerable amounts of French. Some have been rewritten, including the first two tracks I encountered. And in some cases the two albums have completely different songs.

This annoys me on two levels. The first is that I still believe in the integrity of albums and don't think this kind of thing should be done, though when it comes to a different language I can understand it. Plus, Christine and the Queens still flows well and some of the new songs are very good indeed.

But the second annoyance, and the far greater one in this day and age, is that I'm denied the choice. It would be a trivial thing to allow Chaleur Humaine to also be available for download from iTunes and the like, but no. English language stores simply deny that it exists. It seems my best bet for purchasing Chaleur Humaine, which I would like to do having found a way to hear it, is buying a good old-fashioned physical CD from Amazon France.

It appears that there is a special tour edition of Chaleur Humaine that also includes the new songs added to Christine and the Queens and a couple of tracks, so that might be what I go for. But it's a perfect illustration that the way music is sold as digital files still doesn't reflect the way the internet works. Finding out about music from around the world is easy, and yet the record companies want to insist that they will decide what I listen to based on where I live.

Classical Music - August 2016

Bach, J.S. - Ich freue mich in dir (I rejoice in you)
Beethoven

• Romance for violin and orchestra No.2
• String Quartets 1 and 4
• String Trio No.3
• Piano Sonata No.11 

Chopin

• 3 Mazurkas, op.63
• 3 Waltzes, op.64
• Cello Sonata
• 2 Bourees

Dvorak - Saint Ludmila
Haydn

• Symphonies 83, 84, 86, 88, 89, 91-94, 96, 98-104
• Missa Sancti Nicolai ('Nikolaimesse')
• Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo ('Kleine Orgelsolomesse')
• Missa Cellensis ('Mariazellermesse')

Mozart - Piano Concertos 5, 17 and 18
Nørgård

• Spell (piano trio version)
• Four songs for male choir
• En livslang ven (A lifelong friend)

Rachmaninov - Preludes, op.23
Rachmaninov - 15 songs, op.26
Ravel

• Daphnis and Chloe
• La Valse
• Sheherazade
• String Quartet
• Piano Trio
• Violin Sonata No.1 (posth.)
• Berceuse on the name of Gabriel Fauré
• Tzigane
• Pavane pour une infante defunte (piano and orchestral versions)
• Menuet Antique
• Jeux d'eau
• Sonatine
• Miroirs
• Gaspard de la nuit
• Menuet sur le nom d'Haydn
• Ma mere l'Oye
• Valses nobles et sentimentales
• A la maniere de...
• Prelude
• Le Tombeau de Couperin

Schubert - Piano Sonata in D, D.850
Shostakovich - Symphonies 5, 8, 10 and 15
Shostakovich - String Quartets 13 to 15 
Sibelius - The Wood-Nymph
Vine - Symphony 4.2
Vine - Celebrare Celeberrime

The month started with a continued wave of Haydn listening, and ended with a wave of Ravel listening. And some other composers managed to get a hearing in between.

As I mentioned in the entry for July, I ended up deciding to listen to all 23 of the Haydn symphonies I own to work out which were my favourites. This was prompted by a poll on a forum about favourite Haydn symphonies. Not being entirely confident I would be fair to them all going by memory, I held a run-off.

Over several rounds, symphonies 93 and 102 were the winners. They were closely followed by symphonies 98, 99 and 103. Though of course this is all relative; it's not as if I didn't enjoy all the other symphonies that didn't make the cut.

I don't remember what, if anything, triggered the avalanche of Ravel. It may have been as simple as realising that it had been quite some time since I'd listened to most of this music. It turns out that it doesn't take a great deal of time to listen to Ravel's complete works (including use of online resources for works I don't own a recording of) as he was not a prolific composer and many pieces are quite short.

Still, the quality of what he wrote is very high. Personally I think he wrote some of the very greatest piano music, and what I know of his other work is equally impressive. Perhaps the small quantity of work is because he was so painstaking in getting it right.

Elsewhere, I reached the end of my chronological exploration of Shostakovich's works (with the last 3 string quartets, the final symphony and other material I listened to online)... and promptly turned around and started exploring the symphonies further. Many months had passed since I listened to the earlier symphonies after buying a box set in January, and I felt I wanted to get to know them better.

Symphony No.10, which I did already have another recording of, strikes me as a superb work. Symphony No.5 is not too far behind. Symphony No.8 I struggled with on this occasion. It felt in some ways like a re-run of the 5th symphony, only longer and bleaker, and I found myself disengaged.

The largest work I listened to during the month was Dvorak's oratorio Saint Ludmila. Frankly, it was a bit of a struggle compared to some of the other sacred and choral works I've been listening to. And that wasn't primarily due to the length, but the text. 19th century sensibilities were obviously a bit different to mine, as I couldn't warm to a story that seems to consist of a country converting to Christianity not because of any theological conviction, but because the leader fancied a woman and was told he had to convert in order to get her. That, and a little bit of good old-fashioned threatening about God's retribution. I wasn't inspired.

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.