What Classical Music Are You listening to Now? III

[Mandryka]

Listening to the first recording of Barraqué’s Au delà du hasard, someone just sent me a transfer of this LP (if anyone wants it, PM)

https://i.discogs.com/hY8zfZpDXoer91PIeusr0a6yKcjw2xptxVJbyAy8Rlc/rs:fit/g:sm/q:40/h:300/w:300/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTYzNTI1/MDQtMTQyMDY1MzYy/OS00OTA4LmpwZWc.jpeg

Bad but listenable sound, interesting music and committed performance. «Interpretation habitée» as they say.

The wiki makes it sound like a suitable subject for a book

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/..._Au_del%C3%A0_du_hasard

Are there any composers as conceptually, «philosophically» tuned in and turned on? Composers who would write music based on a difficult idea like in the Broch quotation mentioned in the Wikipedia article? Birtwistle was I guess, but he’s no longer alive.

Hector Parrà maybe. Rihm?

[RichardB]

Listening to the first recording of Barraqué’s Au delà du hasard, someone just sent me a transfer of this LP

I remember that LP sounding pretty good actually, it was what convinced me that Barraqué was a great compposer, though I haven't heard it for many years, since it was superseded by the Klangforum Wien recording.

Composers "as conceptually, «philosophically» tuned in and turned on?" If Birtwistle makes that list (or for that matter Rihm or Hector Parra) I would say hundreds if not thousands of others would. Unless I'm getting the wrong end of your stick.

[Mandryka]

I remember that LP sounding pretty good actually, it was what convinced me that Barraqué was a great compposer, though I haven't heard it for many years, since it was superseded by the Klangforum Wien recording.

Composers "as conceptually, «philosophically» tuned in and turned on?" If Birtwistle makes that list (or for that matter Rihm or Hector Parra) I would say hundreds if not thousands of others would. Unless I'm getting the wrong end of your stick.

Yes, I think the transfer I have is the problem.

What impressed me was the idea that Barraque should have been inspired (in some way -- don't press me on how!) by those words of Broch --

Mais où tes courants multiples se croisent et vers un but convergent,
– un courant étant déterminé par l'autre. – c'est
là seulement que tu manifestes la stabilité,
l'objet et le nom d'une vérité terrestre, entr'unis,
appelés à l'unité, pour qu'ils soient ton miroir.

Prima facie a pretty complex idea, if it makes sense at all. Or maybe, now I look at it again, it's just the old still point of the turning world trope again!

When I mentioned Birtwistle, I was thinking of the complexity in the narrative of The Mask of Orpheus, where there are (I think) convergent currents intersecting and moving towards a single objective. Or at least, that's what I felt when I saw it at the Colloseum a few years ago, And when I mentioned Parra I was thinking of his opera Hypermusic really -- all the "inspiration" he says he takes from physics and other sciences.

At some point I'm going to have to read the Broch!

[smittims]

Hi, pastoralguy, the Duparc songs are a wonderful little world of their own. I expect you've read that despite a long life, he was so self-critical that he left little else.

For me the classic recording is by Charles Panzera with his wife at the piano. One of those discs best saved for a relaxed evening when you won't be interrupted.

[RichardB]

When I mentioned Birtwistle, I was thinking of the complexity in the narrative of The Mask of Orpheus, where there are (I think) convergent currents intersecting and moving towards a single objective. Or at least, that's what I felt when I saw it at the Colloseum a few years ago, And when I mentioned Parra I was thinking of his opera Hypermusic really -- all the "inspiration" he says he takes from physics and other sciences.

So actually you were talking about their librettists...

[Mandryka]

So actually you were talking about their librettists...

Not just the librettists - here’s Parrà’s essay on the collaboration in Hypermusic

https://www.kairos-music.com/sites/default/files/downloads/0013042KAI_D_E.pdf

[RichardB]

Not just the librettists - here’s Parrà’s essay on the collaboration in Hypermusic

So what you mean is technocratic pretentiousness?

[Mandryka]

So what you mean is technocratic pretentiousness?

There, we agree!

[Stanfordian]

Richard Strauss
Four Last Songs
Five Orchestra Lieder
Renée Fleming (soprano)
Der Rosenkavalier suite
Houston Symphony Orchestra / Christoph Eschenbach,
Recorded 1995 Jones Hall, Houston, Texas
RCA Victor Red Seal

Brahms
Piano Trios 1-3
Renaud Capucon, Gautier Capucon & Nicholas Angelich
Recorded 2003 Auditorium de la Cite dea Arts, Chambery
Virgin Classics

[Stanfordian]

Parry – ‘The Complete Music for String Quartet’
Quartet No. 1 in G minor
Quartet No. 2 in C major (ed. Jeremy Dibble)
Quartet No. 3 in G major (ed. Michael Allis)
Scherzo in C (ed. Jeremy Dibble)
Archaeus Quartet
Recorded 2017, Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Salehurst, East Sussex
MPR102 label, CD

Handel – 'Arias'
Arias from Alcina, Hercules, Agrippina, Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Joshua,
Ariodante, Theodora, Amadigi di Gaula, Orlando, Ariodante & Rinaldo
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo-soprano)
Venice Baroque Orchestra / Andrea Marcon
Recorded 2006, Gustav Mahler Saal, Kulturzentrum Grand Hotel, Toblach
Archiv Produktion CD. Quite beautiful singing.

[Ian Thumwood]

Beethoven Piano Sonatas - just about every thing Music can do is in them . The Opus 49 set for beginners , the late sonatas for virtuosi . When you can play a few then you might be ina position to appreciate their endless fascination . Really up there with Shakespeare in my view ….

EH

I briefly had a look through a couple of these sonatas on Friday albeit I do not usually get sufficient free time to play the piano. I have to say that I find the Schirmer editions to be really poorly printed. My copy had belonged to my Mum but I have learned my lesson with this publisher as the music is not at all clear. I have found this to be the case with quite a few of their publications. If there is a Henle Verlag alternative, I would choose that in future - just find that their editions are much clearer but the extra money is worth it because the manuscript is far easier to read.

[Bryn]

EH

I briefly had a look through a couple of these sonatas on Friday albeit I do not usually get sufficient free time to play the piano. I have to say that I find the Schirmer editions to be really poorly printed. My copy had belonged to my Mum but I have learned my lesson with this publisher as the music is not at all clear. I have found this to be the case with quite a few of their publications. If there is a Henle Verlag alternative, I would choose that in future - just find that their editions are much clearer but the extra money is worth it because the manuscript is far easier to read.

https://pianodao.com/2019/12/11/the-beethoven-sonatas-the-new-jonathan-del-mar-edition/

I am no pianist but I invested in this set a few years ago and have found it both clear and well-presented. I previously has the Schirmer but that will now go back to a charity shop, probably the Oxfam in Kensington High Street, since they seem to have a small but decent printed music section.

[RichardB]

Now playing: Peter Serkin's Vingt regards. I don't think I've listened to this recording since the days of LPs. It's at least as good as I remembered it, even now that there are so many other recordings around. Serkin is so alive to the colours of Messiaen's piano writing, in particular when there are multiple almost independent musical layers to separate from one another.

[Pulcinella]

Now playing: Peter Serkin's Vingt regards. I don't think I've listened to this recording since the days of LPs. It's at least as good as I remembered it, even now that there are so many other recordings around. Serkin is so alive to the colours of Messiaen's piano writing, in particular when there are multiple almost independent musical layers to separate from one another.

As evinced in Tashi's recording of the Quartet for the end of time.....

https://www.discogs.com/release/2498774-Messiaen-Tashi-Quartet-For-The-End-Of-Time

[RichardB]

That's a great recording too of course, as is the same group's Takemitsu disc.