What are you listening to now?

[Roehre]

Today (circa 3 hours):

JSBach:
Cantata "Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem" BWV 159 (1729)

Rachmaninov:
Spring opus 20 (1902)

Bloch:
Printemps (2 pièces: no.2) (1905)

Bax:
Spring fire (1913)

Lajtha:
symphony no.4 op.52 "Spring" (1951)

Kabalevsky:
Spring opus 65 (1960)

Wolff:
Electric Spring (1970)

WFBon:
Le Printemps (1978)

Rorem:
Spring Music (piano trio, 1990)

CD "Miri it is" (Dufay Collective performing songs from medieval England)

[Sorrano]

Spring is sprung....the Kabalevsky sounds particularly intriguing, Roehre!

[Roehre]

Spring is sprung....the Kabalevsky sounds particularly intriguing, Roehre!

It is just some 6 minutes of nice Russian music, in the words of the composer: a longing to the beginning of spring at the end of a seemingly endless winter.
It is a nice sisterpiece to the very uplifting Pathetic Overture opus 64 ("Pathetic" in Russian not having the negative meaning it has got in English), another some 5 minutes of music.

"Light" music in the best sense of the word, Sorrano!

[Roehre]

Today:

Penderecki:
Partita (1972)

Berio:
Concerto for 2 pianos and orchestra (1972)

Louis Andriessen:
Dat gebeurt in Vietnam (1972)

Kagel:
Variationen ohne Fuge (1972)

Maderna:
Oboe concerto no.3 (1972/'73)

[Zevy]

Beethoven Violin concerto, Zukerman/LA Phil.

[Bonn1827]

Roehre, the other night I saw a program about outstanding pianists in the Van Cliburn Amateur pianists competition in USA. One played a work by Alkan and the other a sonata by Samuel Barber. Can you tell me anything about the piano works of Alkan and Barber as I would like to have some of these.

[Roehre]

Roehre, the other night I saw a program about outstanding pianists in the Van Cliburn Amateur pianists competition in USA. One played a work by Alkan and the other a sonata by Samuel Barber. Can you tell me anything about the piano works of Alkan and Barber as I would like to have some of these.

I'm afraid I cannot tell you much about Alkan, except that it is rather virtuosely composed music, in many respects similar to Liszt's, but lacking the latter's tunes.

If you however are thinking of Barber, then I would like to point out that his piano sonata (his only one, the whole of his piano output fits easily on one CD) is an excellent example of how American 20th century composers were able to write in 19th Century European musical forms (as in this case: a sonata) in their own (in Barber's case: modern romantic) style.

It takes two or three hearings to get grip on the piece, but that is in my experience approximately the same time you need to start to appreciate an unknown late Beethoven sonate, it discloses its beauties from then onwards, and I think it is a rewarding piece to take the trouble to do so.

[Bonn1827]

Thank you so much, Roehre. The Alkan was a virtuosic piece, but seemed interesting and worth pursuing. I notice on Amazon that there are several of his piano works available and I will pursue this. Also, the Barber is most definitely going to be purchased. I also like Copland's piano sonata - perhaps you know this one too?

Yesterday I was driving back from a 750km journey through NSW with my husband and was playing The Diabelli Variations CD of LvB on my car player. My husband doesn't know or really care for this music. I commented to him that many people would, upon hearing this, mostly likely say, "Oh that's nice, pleasant, etc. isn't it?" I replied that it was really none of these things and that most people didn't really LISTEN and, if they did, they would realize it was far more than "nice" etc. but profound, searching, insightful, illuminating and that Beethoven was pushing the boundaries. He didn't know what I meant, of course, but my point is how many people REALLY LISTEN to music of this kind? And for how many is it merely "nice, pleasant" etc? I think LvB was writing for intelligent, talented musicians and for the cogniscenti in the audience don't you? I'm proud to count myself in that happy band.

[Bonn1827]

Listening right now to the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition - Liszt B Minor sonata. Thrilling.

[Roehre]

Thank you so much, Roehre. The Alkan was a virtuosic piece, but seemed interesting and worth pursuing. I notice on Amazon that there are several of his piano works available and I will pursue this. Also, the Barber is most definitely going to be purchased. I also like Copland's piano sonata - perhaps you know this one too?

Yesterday I was driving back from a 750km journey through NSW with my husband and was playing The Diabelli Variations CD of LvB on my car player. My husband doesn't know or really care for this music. I commented to him that many people would, upon hearing this, mostly likely say, "Oh that's nice, pleasant, etc. isn't it?" I replied that it was really none of these things and that most people didn't really LISTEN and, if they did, they would realize it was far more than "nice" etc. but profound, searching, insightful, illuminating and that Beethoven was pushing the boundaries. He didn't know what I meant, of course, but my point is how many people REALLY LISTEN to music of this kind? And for how many is it merely "nice, pleasant" etc? I think LvB was writing for intelligent, talented musicians and for the cogniscenti in the audience don't you? I'm proud to count myself in that happy band.

that is a problem: listening to music means concentrating on the piece, as well as maintaining a concentration span which takes anything between a couple of minutes and up to two hours (the length of an opera act or the 1 1/2 hour of Mahler's third symphony).
And (for me at least) it is possible to listen to music at different levels: strictly emotional, or structural, or a combination.
Henceforth a really great piece (profundity/emotionally and technically) might impress less than a medicore piece which for one reason or another hits you on the head.
But all this is basically only possible if one takes the trouble to listen to the music (and again, and again, as many of the "secrets" are only discovered/disclosed after repeated listening), hardly when it is used as a kind of noisy wall paper or muzak.

Back to Copland, Barber and Beethoven.
Barber's sonata (1949, 4 mvts -opening/scherzo/slow-mvt/finale-, some 20 minutes) is a full blown "Neo"-romantic sonata in which Barber does use then new compositional techniques like some twelfe-tone-row as well (but you become only aware of the 12-tone if you study the score).

Copland's (1939-'41, 3 mvts -slow opening/scherzo/slow finale-, some 23 mins long) is not an "easy" piece, it doesn't belong to the "popular-style" works of his (like Salon Mexico, Rodeo, Billy the Kid etc), it belongs to the more "severe" Copland, sometimes polytonal and rather modern (for the then public, that is).
Copland himself described the piano sonata as "monumental, or trying to be monumental, at any rate. It's very serious".
The (slow) opening mvt is a fairly standard sonata-structure with hummable melodies. The vivace middle mvt is quintessential Copland (a mildly jazzy scherzo, rhythmically quite american I'd say). The slow finale is austere, grand, massive, perhaps even "immobile".

IMO in beethovenian terms: mvt 1 is something similar to opus 90 1st mvt, mvt 2 a combination of the jazzy variation from 111 and the scherzos from 101 and 106, mvt 3 a heavily harmonized/chorded Hammerklavier 3rd mvt.

Hope this is of any help, as how to put in words that only can be heard?

[Roehre]

Today:

Goehr:
Sinfonia opus 42 (1980)

Torstensson:
Urban Songs (1992)

Kayn:
Apeiron (from:Infra) (1979)

Lachenmann:
Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied (1980)

Occitan Anonymus 12th Century:
Song of the Sybille

[Bonn1827]

Yes I know the Copland piece and this is why I want it. I also admire his more "accessible" music for theatre and film etc. I want to know more about American art music as I'm a huge devotee of the music of the American Musical Theatre - Gershwin, Kern, Porter, Rodgers, Berlin, Bernstein and their librettists.
This is the most extraordinary, lyrical, intelligent and innovative music (and for Gershwin I would add "muscular") written for a "popular" genre. All I can say is those audiences were much more sophisticated than today's!! I think Stephen Sondheim is the last of that wonderful generation of musician/composers.

But back to listening. I do admire all good music - as diverse as the above and including the Beatles, Stones, Doors, Dire Straits etc. - including jazz (OMG Ella Fitzgerald!) and film music. But you're right: one listens quite differently to these, as I do to Cole Porter (whose keys and key changes are clever and sophisticated, not to mention the lyrics!). All enjoyable, but never the profundity of experience for LvB et al, which I seem to need more of as each day passes. So the art of listening seems inextricably linked to the phases of one's life - and nobody knew this more than LvB, for we have his so-called "periods".

Please recommend some good "modern" music as I'm still at Bartok, Webern, Berg and some Messiaen. I feel there is so much more to know and love.

[Roehre]

today:

JSBach:
Cantata "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern" BWV 1 (1724)(the only Bach cantate which survived for Annunciation, March 25th)

Carter:
Concerto for orchestra (1969)

Ferneyhough:
Epicycle for 20 strings (1969)

PMDavies:
Eight songs for a Mad King (1969)

Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361):
Aman novi
Heu Fortuna Subdola
Tribum que
Quoniam secta
Merito hec patimur

[Zevy]

Mozart "Hoffmeister" Quartet & the 3 "Prussian" Quartets/Guarneri Quartet. The "Late" Mozart Quartets

[Michael]

Beethoven, "Waldstein Sonata", Ashkenazy.