Originally posted by Stanfordian
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I would have played the Bach after the Strauss, in order to recover my sanity! -
Proms Inspires, Sensuous Delights....
Brahms Symphony No.3.
Tapiola Sinfonietta/Venzago. Sony CD.
(Simply one of the best on record, in whatsoever context).
Robin Holloway Sea-Surface Full of Clouds Op.28.
Sols/Chor/CLS/Hickox. Chandos CD.Comment
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Dave Smith's 5th piano concert – "Alla reminiscenza" (1993–4)
Dave retired from lecturing at Hertfordshire University 5 days ago. Fond as I am of just about everything I know of his music, this is my favourite. A very evocative performance given by him at the old BMIC venue off Oxford Street, many moons ago. The cloudburst and thunder, clearly heard through the open window, at the end, just added to the occasion.
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Originally posted by Stanfordian View Post
I'm so glad you told me that!
Yesterday I found out that André Jolivet, whose music I am having a bit of a love affair with at the moment, composed two piano sonatas. A friend once suggested that I should try and get the score of the first, as I would enjoy playing the Debussian slow central movement. The work was in fact composed in 1945, either in tribute to or as a memorial to Bartok. Given that Bartok had only died that same year, it would have had to have been composed in rather quick time. I'm not sure if Jolivet composed with white heat speed - there is much intricate detailing in the rhythmic working of even his more conventional pieces from that period (1945) suggesting need for fastidious care - but, apart from the impression created by the opening movement that Dutilleux must have been inspired by it for his own sonata of 1948, this turned out for me to be one of the disappointments in this composer's somewhat chequered output (as I am discovering).
Far more to my liking - and for me a brilliant work crying out for performance, nay broadcast, was the altogether tougher Second Piano Sonata of 1957, which probably signalled the turn to the less saccharine, more radical forms of expression of his late period. Here it is:
This, together with the Third Symphony, to which I have linked on the Electronics etc. thread, are among my most thrilling discoveries of the year.Comment
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I have a large collection of French music including some Jolivet. I rather enjoy his 'Chant de Linos'.Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
Yesterday I found out that André Jolivet, whose music I am having a bit of a love affair with at the moment, composed two piano sonatas. A friend once suggested that I should try and get the score of the first, as I would enjoy playing the Debussian slow central movement. The work was in fact composed in 1945, either in tribute to or as a memorial to Bartok. Given that Bartok had only died that same year, it would have had to have been composed in rather quick time. I'm not sure if Jolivet composed with white heat speed - there is much intricate detailing in the rhythmic working of even his more conventional pieces from that period (1945) suggesting need for fastidious care - but, apart from the impression created by the opening movement that Dutilleux must have been inspired by it for his own sonata of 1948, this turned out for me to be one of the disappointments in this composer's somewhat chequered output (as I am discovering).
Far more to my liking - and for me a brilliant work crying out for performance, nay broadcast, was the altogether tougher Second Piano Sonata of 1957, which probably signalled the turn to the less saccharine, more radical forms of expression of his late period. Here it is:
This, together with the Third Symphony, to which I have linked on the Electronics etc. thread, are among my most thrilling discoveries of the year.Comment
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Xenakis: "Orchestral Works" (Mode)
I do hope that Brian Brandt is able to get the necessary funds together to release the promised Bly-ray version at some point.Comment
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Dufourt’s L’origine du monde. Some mysteries about this piece:
1. How to make sense of the reference to the Courbet pic.
2. How to understand Dufourt’s comment on time
Kawka is conducting - he makes it sound very nice indeed, and that despite the heavy portentousness, which for me is often a problem with Dufourt! The music is a sublime force of nature, the aural equivalent of a forest fire or something.Time is treated in a paradoxical manner - it unfolds both slowly and quickly. Its evolution is unique, accountable to the law of internal distortion, with a contradictory character that is the source of the form. Time is dependent on variable dominants, its course is interrupted then reinstated, never ceasing to progress, sometimes oscillating, sometimes polarised, able to distend or contract in upon itself.Last edited by Mandryka; 05-08-21, 19:09.Comment
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Originally posted by Mandryka View Post
Dufourt’s L’origine du monde. Some mysteries about this piece:
1. How to make sense of the reference to the Courbet pic.
2. How to understand Dufourt’s comment on time
Kawka is conducting - he makes it sound very nice indeed, and that despite the heavy portentousness, which for me is often a problem with Dufourt! The music is a sublime force of nature, the aural equivalent of a volcano or something.
The picture's quite something! Anyway, thanks for bringing this piece to our attention. I knew of Dufourt but had never searched out and listened to his music. I have it on via youtube, currently.Comment
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Messiaen
Le Tombeau resplendissant
Les Offrandes oubliées, méditation symphonique
Un sourire
L'Ascension - Quatre meditations symphoniques:
a) Majesté du Christ demandant sa gloire à son Père
b) Alléluias sereins d’une âme qui désire le ciel
c) Alléluia sur la trompette, alléluia sur la cymbale
d) Prière du Christ montant vers son Père
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich / Paavo Järvi
Recorded Live & Studio 2019, Tonhalle, Zurich
Alpha Classics, CD
Sabine Devieilhe & Alexandre Tharaud – ‘Chanson d'Amour’
Mélodies by Fauré, Debussy, Ravel & Poulenc
Sabine Devieilhe (soprano),
Alexandre Tharaud (piano)
Recorded 2019 Siemens-Villa, Berlin
Erato CD, new releaseComment
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Mahler
Das Lied von der Erde
Ludwig/Wunderlich/KlempererComment
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André Jolivet, Symphony no.3, with the Orchestre National de France conducted by the composer... following upon a mention by Serial_Apologist of this work, whose existence I was unaware of. I'm thinking how fine it would be to hear this dense and multilayered music recorded digitally with better balance and accuracy (it's a live recording from 1966 and seems to be the only recording that exists), but even so it's possible to hear what a beautiful and original composition it is. Thanks S_A for mentioning it!Comment
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Moving on... Hugues Dufourt, Lucifer d'après Pollock for orchestra, with the Luxembourg Philharmonic and Pierre-André Valade. Well, this did nothing for me at all apart from fill half an hour with more or less anonymous "modern" orchestra stuff... if that's how Pollock's painting "sounds" to M Dufourt, he and I must be seeing something very different in it. The other piece on the CD, Voyage par-delà les fleuves et les monts, is, like many of HD's pieces, also a response to a painting, this time a landscape by the 10th century artist Fan Ku'an (whose name isn't attached to the title as it is in Lucifer and many other Dufourt pieces, I wonder why this is), and it's more attractive as an expression of slowly shifting "spectral" sonorities. On the other hand, so much contemporary music for orchestra similarly consists of slow-moving "landscapes", as if this were the path of least resistance when you have a stage full of instruments, and I didn't find this one more memorable than most.Comment
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I'm feeling the same way about his Saturne, which I'm currently 34 minutes through. Lukewarm...Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostComment
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