What are you listening to now?

[Peter]

As I'm reading yet another Tchaikovsky biography (David Brown) I'm listening to his rather neglected 1st symphony 'Winter dreams' (quite appropriate!) - it has some fine moments but occasionally forced academic writing is apparent. I love the slow movement and the first is also rather fine.

[Michael]

I was listening to the very man as I came online. "Swan Lake".

[Roehre]

Today:

Cage:
Winter Music (1957)

Henze:
Royal Winter Music (1979)

Holst:
A Winter Idyll (1897)

Maxwell Davies:
House of Winter (1986)

Barber:
Vanessa op.32: Must the Winter come so soon? (1957)

Zimmermann:
Présence (1961)

Stockhausen:
Beethoven opus 1970 (excerpt)

Liszt:
4 Mephisto-walzer S.514, 515, 216 and 696

[Bonn1827]

Peter, your comments about "forced academic writing" in "Winter Dreams" reminds me tangentially of an anecdote I read in the autobiography of Richard Rodgers. This theatre composer was, of course, trained in classical music. He wanted to be appreciated by listeners whom he considered the cognoscenti (like most composers, I should think). He was conducting the overture to one of his musicals and had inserted a few bars of his own paraphrasing the work of Tschaikovsky. He heard a single person laugh from the back of the theatre and said to himself, "this is the person I've written this for"!!!

If we are critical of a piece of music because we understand it well enough this can only be what the composer hoped for!! (Rather awkwardly expressed, 'tut mir lied'.)

[Peter]

This morning BBC radio 3 with my porridge - Humperdinck's overture to Hansel and Gretel which I think is running at Covent Garden now.

[jamesofedinburgh]

If we are critical of a piece of music because we understand it well enough this can only be what the composer hoped for!! (Rather awkwardly expressed, 'tut mir lied'.)

Reinterpreting critical in the widest sense - as positive or negative in intent - perhaps this is part of what Haydan was after in The Creation (which I have been listening to of late). It strikes me as a singspiel cantata, the Archangels sing little arias that could have come from the Magic Flute, and in one number the D-minor of Mozart's Requiem or Piano Concerto #20 is evoked. I think Haydn was writing for at least two audiences here, the people who will respond to the music naively, and those who will appreciate the subtleties of allusion. Given the cultural level of his listeners, he probably had more opportunity to smile to himself than Rodgers.

A marvellous piece, full of idealised innocence and perpetual sunshine in several of the arias - a sort of classical 'Candy Rock Mountain' if that thought doesn't offend. Coupled it last night with Schoenberg Opus 10 of which mainly the first piece of the set (truly magnificent) impresses me.

[Bonn1827]

"The Creation" is a beautiful work and, yes, I was thinking of classical opera too. Haydn did write so many operas and these have been badly neglected, unfortunately.

The Adam and Eve duet is just glorious - "so wunderbah"!! I adore this section of the work and am keen to know more of Haydn's sacred works. Just as I was beginning to think there wasn't much music new to me, I am pleasantly surprised and eager to explore further.

You mentioned the "mechanical" nature of some early polyphonic music with a cantus firmus, and you do suggest that it is still lovely music. I'm thinking of Isorhythm, Hocket etc. as being mechanical like this but I disagree that, for example, the early Motet, based as it was on a cantus firmus and Conductus, is or was mechanical. Having sung some of this kind of music from the late medieval/early renaissance period whilst at university I came to love its (for me) "novelty" and sheer beauty. Perhaps (somewhat ironically) the absence of a clear, rhythmic pulse is what imbues it with a "mechanical" flavour? The lack of familiarity to our ears is something somebody on these pages once alluded to as well.

[jamesofedinburgh]

I haven't heard the Adam and Eve duet yet, I have been skipping around the recording to start with. Haydn sometimes gets a bad press as being somehow shallow or second rate though a 'fine craftsman'. This is very sad and misguided. At the same time, many professional musicians have the affectation of preferring Haydn to Beethoven which simply amazes me - they should know better, and that's no slight on Haydn.

Yes, hockets are an excellent example of mechanical music. By 'mechanical' I did not mean uninteresting, just that there is a certain 'sameness' to the techniques unless, I suppose, one is a scholar of such music in which case the subtle watch-like mechanism of each motet and each mass exists sui generis. I don't find Dunstable mechanical (though he can be somewhat overly sweet in sound, almost cloying - the Stevie Wonder of his day, if you like).

If you want to hear modern mechanical music, try Harrison Birtwistle - he would be quite happy to have his music described as mechanical. He has said in interviews that one of the biggest influences on him was looking at and tinkering with old industrial machines when he was a child (he's from the North of England) and it shows in his music.

[Sorrano]

This morning: "Scenes de ballet " by Glazunov (Not sure if the spelling of his name is correct here; that is how it is listed on the playlist).

[Michael]

This morning BBC radio 3 with my porridge - Humperdinck's overture to Hansel and Gretel which I think is running at Covent Garden now.

I never realised Humperdinck wrote cereal music.

[Roehre]

Today:

Tchaikovsky:
Symphony no.1 op.13 “Winter dreams”

Vaughan Williams:
Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Magnificat

Reimann:
Wolkenloses Christfest (1988?)

Holliger:
Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons from the Scardanelli cycle, 1979)

Haubenstock-Ramati:
Vermutungen über ein dunkles Haus (suspicions about a dark house, 1967)

[Bonn1827]

Robert Schumann:

Symphonic Etudes, Posthumous Etudes, Papillons, Op.2/Murray Perahia

I look forward to the Schumann Geburtshaus in Zwickau next year!!

Later in the day -
"The Mirror of Narcissus" - Songs by Guillaume de Machaut/Gothic Voices/Christopher Page

(Beautiful monody and polyphonic songs from the 14th Century: forms such as virelai, ballade, rondeau, motet)

[Roehre]

Today:

Moeschinger:
Bläserquintett auf schweizerischen Volksliedern op.53 (1941)
(Wind quintet on Swiss folksongs) (R3: TtN)

M.A.Charpentier:
Messe de Minuit pour Noël (c.1695)

Martin:
Maria Tryptichon (1968)
In Terra Pax (1945)

Honegger:
Une Cantate de Noël (1953)

Penderecki:
Symphony no.2 “Christmas symphony” (1980)

[Bonn1827]

Heinrich Schutz:

"The Christmas Story" ("Die Weihnachtshistorien")

and

Giovanni Gabrieli

"Four Christmas Motets"

The King's Consort/Robert King

[Roehre]

Christmas Eve:

Mozart (the latest BBC MM CD):
Mass in c KV427
Symphony no.40 KV440

Respighi:
Trittico botticelliano

Rubbra:
Advent Cantata: Natum Maria Virgine op.136 (1968)

Liszt:
Weihnachtsbaum (Paris manuscripts, S.185a)
Weihnachtsbaum (published version, S.186)
Weihnachtslied S.502

Bax:
Christmas Eve in the Mountains (1912)