What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Mandryka]

Georg Friedrich Haas, In Vain.

[BBMmk2]

This morning. Listening to last night’s Prom.

Vaughan Williams
Symphony No.4
Sir Michael Tippett
Symphony No 4
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Andrew Davis.

[Stanfordian]

Debussy
Fantaisie for piano & orchestra
Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano)
Première Rapsodie, version for clarinet & orchestra
Paul Meyer (clarinet)
Rapsodie for saxophone & orchestra (orch. J. Roger-Ducasse)
Alexandre Doisy (saxophone)
Deux Danses for harp & strings
Emmanuel Ceysson (harp)
Orchestre National de Lyon / Jun Märkl
Recorded 2010/11 Auditorium de Lyon, France
Naxos – Debussy Orchestral Works, Vol. 7

Stéphanie d’Oustrac – ‘Invitation au Voyage’
Mélodies Françaises from Duparc, de la Presle, Debussy, Boulanger & Hahn
Stéphanie d’Oustrac (mezzo-soprano) & Pascal Jourdan (piano)
Recorded 2014, Espace culturel C.J. Bonnet, Chapel of Jujurieux, Ambronay
Ambronay Éditions

[Mandryka]

Georg Freidrich Has, In Vain. Second time in 24 hours. I guess there’s something about it which has caught my imagination.

[Joseph K]

Disk no. 20: Boulez, Pli selon Pli. The last version of course.

[BBMmk2]

John Adams
Harmonielehre
The Chairman Dances
Two Fanfares:
Tromba Lontana
Short Ride in a Fast Machine
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle.

[Stanfordian]

Rossini
Semiramide, opera in two acts (1823)
Semiramide - Albina Shagimuratova (soprano); Arsace - Daniela Barcellona (mezzo-soprano);
Assur - Mirco Palazzi (bass); Idreno - Barry Banks (tenor); Oroe - Gianluca Buratto (bass);
Azema - Susana Gaspar (soprano); Mitrane - David Butt Philip (tenor); Nino’s ghost - James Platt (bass)
Opera Rara Chorus,
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Sir Mark Elder
Recorded 2016 Henry Wood Hall, London
Opera Rara, 4 CD set

[Joseph K]

[ahinton]

To what extent and in what ways would you say that he developed in the 54 years since this piece?

By the way, I see that he died yesterday.

[Serial_Apologist]

To what extent and in what ways would you say that he developed in the 54 years since this piece?

By the way, I see that he died yesterday.

This is my first ever encounter with Hespos' music. The mainly German commentaries, plus not having much else to hand of Hespos' music, renders any sort of assessment of him impossible, so one waits for guidance from anyone who knows more. I'm not normally attracted to harshness, but there is something compelling in a good sense about this music.

[ahinton]

This is my first ever encounter with Hespos' music. The mainly German commentaries, plus not having much else to hand of Hespos' music, renders any sort of assessment of him impossible, so one waits for guidance from anyone who knows more. I'm not normally attracted to harshness, but there is something compelling in a good sense about this music.

Over to RichardB whom I believe studied with him...

[teamsaint]

This is my first ever encounter with Hespos' music. The mainly German commentaries, plus not having much else to hand of Hespos' music, renders any sort of assessment of him impossible, so one waits for guidance from anyone who knows more. I'm not normally attracted to harshness, but there is something compelling in a good sense about this music.

Record liner notes here in English, S-A.
Fill ones boots, as the Queens English would have it

http://dream.cs.bath.ac.uk/AvantGardeProject/agp94/German_1959-69.pdf

( just imagine having RB as a student )

[Serial_Apologist]

Record liner notes here in English, S-A.
Fill ones boots, as the Queens English would have it

http://dream.cs.bath.ac.uk/AvantGardeProject/agp94/German_1959-69.pdf

( just imagine having RB as a student )

Most grateful, thanks, TS. The liner shares that characteristic of all translated German text in reading the way a German might say the same thing in English, in that clipped, pointed - manner - in - which - every - word - is - precisely - delivered - and - separate - from - its - successor.

[RichardB]

This is my first ever encounter with Hespos' music. The mainly German commentaries, plus not having much else to hand of Hespos' music, renders any sort of assessment of him impossible, so one waits for guidance from anyone who knows more. I'm not normally attracted to harshness, but there is something compelling in a good sense about this music.

This piece dschen was inspired by the playing of Peter Brötzmann, and I know of another composition by Hespos which is dedicated to Albert Ayler, so what you may be finding compelling is the free jazz connection. The sounds of his music act on one another not dissimilarly to the way improvising performers might interact, although his compositional structures unfold in a way that improvisation couldn't, often veering between violent outbursts (where the players often use their voices as well as their instruments) and the most delicate kinds of almost-stillness. One aspect that isn't so apparent from listening alone is the way in which many of his pieces involve a theatrical component as well as sound, in a way that's reminiscent of Artaud's "theatre of cruelty" (in one piece I've seen, entitled seiltanz ("tightrope dance"), a percussionist arcwelds his way out of a metal cage during the performance). Most importantly, maybe, he didn't belong to any school or established style of composition and wasn't interested in promulgating his own style but rather saw it as a way to activate the imagination of listeners.

I can't claim to have been his student although when I first encountered him and his work, at the Darmstadt course in 1984, I lost no time in cornering him to ask his opinion about the scores I had brought with me. His response was that the music is was writing consisted "only of notes", and that I ought to scrape away at them to reveal the inside of the sounds, or something like that. Anyway, this advice was decisive, not only in terms of compositional direction, but also, much later, in terms of teaching, in that one well-chosen and precisely aimed comment can be more valuable than months of work on technique.

[Joseph K]

This piece dschen was inspired by the playing of Peter Brötzmann, and I know of another composition by Hespos which is dedicated to Albert Ayler, so what you may be finding compelling is the free jazz connection. The sounds of his music act on one another not dissimilarly to the way improvising performers might interact, although his compositional structures unfold in a way that improvisation couldn't, often veering between violent outbursts (where the players often use their voices as well as their instruments) and the most delicate kinds of almost-stillness. One aspect that isn't so apparent from listening alone is the way in which many of his pieces involve a theatrical component as well as sound, in a way that's reminiscent of Artaud's "theatre of cruelty" (in one piece I've seen, entitled seiltanz ("tightrope dance"), a percussionist arcwelds his way out of a metal cage during the performance). Most importantly, maybe, he didn't belong to any school or established style of composition and wasn't interested in promulgating his own style but rather saw it as a way to activate the imagination of listeners.

I can't claim to have been his student although when I first encountered him and his work, at the Darmstadt course in 1984, I lost no time in cornering him to ask his opinion about the scores I had brought with me. His response was that the music is was writing consisted "only of notes", and that I ought to scrape away at them to reveal the inside of the sounds, or something like that. Anyway, this advice was decisive, not only in terms of compositional direction, but also, much later, in terms of teaching, in that one well-chosen and precisely aimed comment can be more valuable than months of work on technique.

Thanks for this. Some of the piece actually reminded me somewhat of Pharaoh Sanders' playing with John Coltrane - I wish I'd mentioned this observation, rather than just thinking it at the time!

The theatrical element you mention puts me in mind of some of Klaus K. Hubler's work.