What are you listening to now?

[Bonn1827]

Yes, I love the Piano Trio in B Major and I also have the Quintet in F Minor. I'll certainly look out for those others you've mentioned. I love the 4 Brahms symphonies - I can't choose!! Possibly 3 and 4? I have some of his solo piano music, Impromptus etc. and I don't find these very satisfying - I think they were his weakest works. Of course the two piano concertos are extraordinary, especially the 2nd.

Today and tonight I've been listening to the Chopin Etudes played by Ashkenazy. They are simply superb, each and every one. I'm glad I visited Chopin's grave last year to pay my respects and give thanks!

[Quijote]

I'm only posting this as I find the "Spiritual music" thread at the top of the forum welcome page off-putting, even worse than "Mozart & Waste Disposal".
Today : Giacinto SCELSI : "Anahit", Poème lyrique dédié à VENUS (!!!), with the Orchestre et Choeur de la Radio-Télévision Polonaise de Cracovie, directed by Jürg Wyttenbach.

[Quijote]

Yes, that's pretty good music Philip [St Colombe - see posting above. Ed.] and the movie was also "interesting". A bit slow, but different. I liked the music.

Yes, the music was the main "character" in that film. Still, I did like the film, apart from its advancing a conception of music 'as personal effusion, as transport from the here and now, as private retreat, as "transcendent" - that is the product of our pop-romantic time, not Sainte-Colombe's, and it fosters a mystique of art and its lonely makers [...]'. (Taruskin, The Danger of Music.)

[Quijote]

And whilst on the subject of "spirituality in music", another essay that forum members should read : Richard Taruskin, "Sacred Entertainments", in The Danger of Music and Other Anti-Utopian Essays. I won't enter the thread launched by Gerd. Read the essay, and you will have my riposte. That said, I thank (type in here the Deity of your choice) for Messiaen.

[Chris]

Today and tonight I've been listening to the Chopin Etudes played by Ashkenazy. They are simply superb, each and every one. I'm glad I visited Chopin's grave last year to pay my respects and give thanks!

I love Ashkenazy's Chopin.

[Bonn1827]

Yes, the music was the main "character" in that film. Still, I did like the film, apart from its advancing a conception of music 'as personal effusion, as transport from the here and now, as private retreat, as "transcendent" - that is the product of our pop-romantic time, not Sainte-Colombe's, and it fosters a mystique of art and its lonely makers [...]'. (Taruskin, The Danger of Music.)

I'm not sure I agree with your "pop-romantic time" reading. You are essentially arguing the old sociology of music chestnut that it had a "social" function, which we know it did. However, posterity has shown us that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive. I don't know how you could argue that some music is NOT transcendent, or that composers were not "lonely makers". Sure, there is a mystique and mythology attached to the "great composers" but, by definition, they were "lonely" makers - since it is a singular pursuit, rather like the intensive study of an instrument or even researching a PhD. It seems to me your comments (or Taruskins) stem from the now-fashionable, sometimes corrosive, "resistant readings" school - believe me, I taught all this to Extension level matriculation English students. We "interrogated" the texts and their makers to suggest that they suited a localized ideology but what these kinds of readings never did was to advance an idea that the "text" can transcend its context because of inherent greatness, values, compositional structure etc. I think the idea that we continue to "consume" music - CDs, radio, Mp3 etc. - gives rise to the idea that repeated hearings and further analysis yield insights about the composers' own philosophies and values. We know that Beethoven retreated into a world of his own music for justifiable physiological/psychological reasons and, voila, look what THIS gave us!! But, as usual, yours is an "interesting" idea to say the least of it.

[Roehre]

Today:

Vaughan Williams:
A Pastoral Symphony
Sernade to Music
from this Month’s BBC MM CD.

The Serenade doesn’t impress me at all.

The Pastoral suffers from imbalances due to the apparently live recording (though made in a studio !).
Nevertheless IMO it is a well balanced performance, a pity the trumpet [very hesitatingly, but IMO “authentically” played ] in the 2nd and the soprano in the 4th mvts are heard on the background, while the percussion [especially the glockenspiel in the 3rd mvt] is heard if it were played at the foreground.
I love the well defined lower brass line in the finale, btw.

Tcherepnin:
Symphony no.3

[Peter]

Gounod's Messe Solennelle de Cecile.

[Zevy]

Mozart Sonata in a, Dinu Lipatti. Very special.....

[Quijote]

I'm not sure I agree with your "pop-romantic time" reading. You are essentially arguing the old sociology of music chestnut that it had a "social" function, which we know it did. However, posterity has shown us that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive. I don't know how you could argue that some music is NOT transcendent, or that composers were not "lonely makers". Sure, there is a mystique and mythology attached to the "great composers" but, by definition, they were "lonely" makers - since it is a singular pursuit, rather like the intensive study of an instrument or even researching a PhD. It seems to me your comments (or Taruskins) stem from the now-fashionable, sometimes corrosive, "resistant readings" school - believe me, I taught all this to Extension level matriculation English students. We "interrogated" the texts and their makers to suggest that they suited a localized ideology but what these kinds of readings never did was to advance an idea that the "text" can transcend its context because of inherent greatness, values, compositional structure etc. I think the idea that we continue to "consume" music - CDs, radio, Mp3 etc. - gives rise to the idea that repeated hearings and further analysis yield insights about the composers' own philosophies and values. We know that Beethoven retreated into a world of his own music for justifiable physiological/psychological reasons and, voila, look what THIS gave us!! But, as usual, yours is an "interesting" idea to say the least of it.

Old chestnuts, you say? I have no idea right now how to respond to your posting Bonn, to be frank, as I find it a little confused. Let's start again, by you explaining to me what you understand by the word "transcendence", and I'll take it from there.

In the meantime, listening again to Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, this time with the score (Universal Edition), and marvelling at the writing. I don't know about you, but sitting in front of HiFi speakers detracts from the whole thing. I'd much rather hear this performed live, in some dingy bar in Berlin (or why not Vienna?). In fact any dingy bar, anywhere in the world. With a glass of Absinthe, and the right lighting.

[Quijote]

And talking of Schoenberg's Pierrot, I notice that the piano part is rather fiendish (I say that as a very mediocre pianist). Peter : have you ever played this work? I haven't as a 'cellist, though it wouldn't be beyond me (apart from about 200 hours of solid practice). The "singer's" part, on the other hand, would definitely be beyond me : not only am I bad singer, I wouldn't know how to handle the "sprechstimme". My favourite part : n° 19, "Serenade", as it for 'cello solo, voice and piano. It's very curious (the work as a whole, I mean) in that beside its atonal flavour, it is very "romantic" in terms of gestural "line".

[Bonn1827]

Old chestnuts, you say? I have no idea right now how to respond to your posting Bonn, to be frank, as I find it a little confused. Let's start again, by you explaining to me what you understand by the word "transcendence", and I'll take it from there.

In the meantime, listening again to Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, this time with the score (Universal Edition), and marvelling at the writing. I don't know about you, but sitting in front of HiFi speakers detracts from the whole thing. I'd much rather hear this performed live, in some dingy bar in Berlin (or why not Vienna?). In fact any dingy bar, anywhere in the world. With a glass of Absinthe, and the right lighting.

Dear Oscar Wilde,
By "transcendence" I mean 'moving beyond the realm of human description; to excel, surpass, not subject to the limits of the material universe; regarding the divine as guiding principle in man".

Oscar!! "Confusing" you say? (I have nothing to declare but my genius!!)

I think you really DO know what I'm talking about, don't you Philip!!

[Peter]

And talking of Schoenberg's Pierrot, I notice that the piano part is rather fiendish (I say that as a very mediocre pianist). Peter : have you ever played this work? I haven't as a 'cellist, though it wouldn't be beyond me (apart from about 200 hours of solid practice). The "singer's" part, on the other hand, would definetly be beyond me : not only am I bad singer, I wouldn't know how to handle the "sprechstimme". My favourite part : n° 19, "Serenade", as it for 'cello solo, voice and piano. It's very curious (the work as a whole, I mean) in that beside its atonal flavour, it is very "romantic" in terms of gestural "line".

No I can honestly say I haven't seen the score either, but I'll take your word for it and steer clear!

[Peter]

Listening today to Niels Gade symphony no.5 - unusual in that it includes a piano obbligato.

[Roehre]

Listening today to Niels Gade symphony no.5 - unusual in that it includes a piano obbligato.

Yes, actually it is a nice 19th C example of a Sinfonina concertante, like the 4th Symphony of Szymanowski's (from the 1930s !)