What Are You Listening To Now? - II

[Stanfordian]

Wagner
‘Tristan und Isolde’
René Kollo - Tristan
Margaret Price - Isolde
Kurt Moll - King Mark
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Kurwenal
Werner Gotz - Melot
Brigitte Fassbaender - Brangäne
Rundfunkchor Leipzig,
Staatskapelle Dresden/Carlos Kleiber
Recorded 1981/83 Lukaskirche, Dresden
Deutsche Grammophon

[Bryn]

Ah, poor Rollo. Did the nasty men try to stretch his ears?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

if you are tuning in (or playing a CD or attending a performance of this) what’s your listening strategy for this?

I'd never heard the Second Quartet before today's broadcast, but I was at the HCMF performance of For Philip Guston (as was Bryn, although I didn't know that at the time). Before the FPG event, I wasn't entirely sure how I'd get through the piece - five hours seemed both a daunting and an exciting prospect; and that seemed to be the pre-attitude of many others I chatted to in the audience. In the event, a few seconds of Music eased all concerns and (as Schlee said of the 2nd 4tet) the whole thing seemed just to last for 25 minutes - and I was sympathetically cross when the atmosphere was "broken" so that the cold-ridden Carla Rees could take her cough medicine.

It was with this experience in my memory that I approached last night's broadcast (and, as I have a hacking great cough as I shrug off this cold, it's a damn good thing I didn't get to the concert itself!) - which made the 4tet something of a surprise: it was - as you & Bryn have commented - a much more active work, with (in this performance, which knocked over half-an-hour off their CD recording time) much brisker activity, and yes - more muscular. But I got used to that (Feldman can be muscular - I was bowled over when I first played Neither) and again quickly settled into the groove - and loved every conscious moment of the experience (yes - of course I nodded off every so often: this week I've had an average of three-four hours' sleep each night - but to reemerge into consciousness with these sounds caressing and testing the darkness was a singularly beautiful experience.

And one enhanced, incidentally, by knowing that BeefO & Bryn were both somewhere out there sharing the experience, too. Great to see Cali enjoyed it, too!

[mozart79]

Morton Feldman's six-hour long String Quartet No2

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Wagner
‘Tristan und Isolde’
René Kollo - Tristan
Margaret Price - Isolde
Kurt Moll - King Mark
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - Kurwenal
Werner Gotz - Melot
Brigitte Fassbaender - Brangäne
Rundfunkchor Leipzig,
Staatskapelle Dresden/Carlos Kleiber
Recorded 1981/83 Lukaskirche, Dresden
Deutsche Grammophon

- one of the greatest recordings of this work: and there are some formidable alternatives!

[Beef Oven!]

Fell asleep at about 3.30am

Woke up half an hour ago.

[ahinton]

Fell asleep at about 3.30am

Woke up half an hour ago.

I think that I will play the refrain from comment...

[Beef Oven!]

I'd never heard the Second Quartet before today's broadcast, but I was at the HCMF performance of For Philip Guston (as was Bryn, although I didn't know that at the time). Before the FPG event, I wasn't entirely sure how I'd get through the piece - five hours seemed both a daunting and an exciting prospect; and that seemed to be the pre-attitude of many others I chatted to in the audience. In the event, a few seconds of Music eased all concerns and (as Schlee said of the 2nd 4tet) the whole thing seemed just to last for 25 minutes - and I was sympathetically cross when the atmosphere was "broken" so that the cold-ridden Carla Rees could take her cough medicine.

It was with this experience in my memory that I approached last night's broadcast (and, as I have a hacking great cough as I shrug off this cold, it's a damn good thing I didn't get to the concert itself!) - which made the 4tet something of a surprise: it was - as you & Bryn have commented - a much more active work, with (in this performance, which knocked over half-an-hour off their CD recording time) much brisker activity, and yes - more muscular. But I got used to that (Feldman can be muscular - I was bowled over when I first played Neither) and again quickly settled into the groove - and loved every conscious moment of the experience (yes - of course I nodded off every so often: this week I've had an average of three-four hours' sleep each night - but to reemerge into consciousness with these sounds caressing and testing the darkness was a singularly beautiful experience.

And one enhanced, incidentally, by knowing that BeefO & Bryn were both somewhere out there sharing the experience, too. Great to see Cali enjoyed it, too!

[Bryn]

Fell asleep at about 3.30am

Woke up half an hour ago.

You outlasted me re. the time of dropping off, but I did manage to rouse myself for the last quartet of an hour or so. Good to hear at least some of the late, great James Tenney's recording of Cage's Sonatas and Interludes too. I am about to set the iPlayer to work to listen to the whole performance. Re. the volume level, the peak during the performance itself hit 2.3 dB below saturation, so I think it fair to say the engineers set their faders much too high. I also got the impression that the miking was not just close, but involved 'contacts'.

[Tapiola]

the engineers set their faders much too high.

Is there any truth in the story, oft-repeated by an old friend of mine, that after a performance of a particular work by Feldman, the composer muttered: "too f*cking loud!"?

(I recorded the String Quartet 2 last night for future listening, which, in this house of small children, is likely to be never.)

[Tapiola]

This weekend:

Wagner - Lohengrin (Bayreuth, 1958, conductor: Cluytens)

Charles Mingus - Mingus Ah Um.

[BBMmk2]

Hiya Stan, must get round to some Wagner opera! Maybe next year now!

[Bryn]

Is there any truth in the story, oft-repeated by an old friend of mine, that after a performance of a particular work by Feldman, the composer muttered: "too f*cking loud!"? ...

Possibly apocryphal re. a performance as such, but I have seen it cited as a common complaint during rehearsals of his works (along with too [expletive suppressed] fast). It's not just a question of playing quietly either. What he sought was a perception of sourcelessness re. the sounds coaxed from the instruments.

[Tapiola]

Possibly apocryphal re. a performance as such, but I have seen it cited as a common complaint during rehearsals of his works (along with too [expletive suppressed] fast).

[ahinton]

did manage to rouse myself for the last quartet of an hour or so.

Best Freudian that I've seen in a while!