Listening Projects

[Joseph K]

While out on a walk just now I was reminded of a Will Self article in which he claims to read as many as 50 books as once:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/17/will-self-i-read-as-many-as-50-books-at-once

... except I thought, though not quite as many as 50, I pondered how I was acquiring many listening projects at once, having acquired a fair amount of music recently in addition to already having quite a lot, and of course there is always the vast amount available online.

Are people what I guess you could say 'disciplined' in their listening habits regarding things like boxed sets, or are you like me, more of a juggler initiating several or more listening projects at once? Ok, so I do have boxed sets where I have actually listened from beginning to end of each disk in a consistent sort of way but recently some of my listening projects peter out and I end up forgetting where I'd got to.

[jayne lee wilson]

I nearly always have two or three main themes - currently Simpson, Panufnik, Kancheli - which I concentrate upon very exclusively. At times anything else becomes difficult to listen to until the wave of enthusiasm comes to shore. These are inspired by , say, a new release, a review or article in Gramophone etc., and of course our discussions here. I prefer just focussing on one composer really, but - you know how it is!

They can indeed peter out or lose their way, all too often under the stresses of The Real Life.....it isn't always easy to get back on the wave...

But then there's...."Qobuz Fridays" when the "Discover" page on Audirvana/Qobuz puts up the New Releases.... so I have a browse around that to see whats new...this has often been the source for any number of unusual or obscure (and quite wonderful) Baroque releases, which Qobuz-People seem to have a keen interest in..
In fact I'm posting up another one soon!

Finally there's the Bedside Tivoli....my aubade/nocturne of something mellow first thing/last thing..... right now its Zelenka or "Telemann Polonoise" [sic!], before that Haydn String Quartets.....

[Joseph K]

[Roslynmuse]

I'm happy if I can keep up with my new purchases! But I do have overarching listening 'projects' as well - sometimes it's a composer, sometimes a big box set (and yes, it's easy to forget how far you have got with it if you take your eye off the ball for a while - that happened to me with the Complete Debussy box I bought last autumn), sometimes it is comparing and contrasting a couple of composers/ genres/ styles or soundworlds. Keeping up with interesting rep on BBC Sounds too. There was another similar thread just before Christmas and I remember thinking that it's easy to get too obsessive about the projects - I now like to keep it relaxed and throw in random pieces - new, or old favourites - so it never feels like a chore.

[vinteuil]

.

... suffolkcoastal has his mega-project, listening and following scores, alphabetically by composer, last report : day 297, Rimsky-Korsakov.

For me the music I wish to listen to will largely depend on mood. Yes, I may have themes for a time - and prior to a Building a Library might wish to listen a lot to various recordings of the same piece, or related pieces - but am happy to be diverted elsewhere : the wind bloweth where it listeth.

When a big box arrives I feel no obligation to 'go through every CD' - no more than I wd choose to read all of Thackeray at one go if I acquired a set. It's a library, to be consulted at will for the joy of it


.

[Richard Barrett]

I think I have "listening projects" (when I decide I'm going to investigate something at some length) and "obsessions" (when there's only one thing I'm interested in listening to), and sometimes they coincide. Sometimes the first turns into the second, or is interrupted by something that seems more urgent; the second tends eventually to fade out of its own accord. A few days ago I started a Monteverdi listening project and got through books 5-8 of the madrigals and the first half of Orfeo before it got put aside in favour of Kagel, the latter for "professional research" reasons, although his music was one of my first loves so to speak. There are still a few Kagel pieces I don't know at all, so it was very nice today to hear his 5th Quartet for the first time before moving on to more familiar territory.

[Petrushka]

I've found a 'listening project' a good way to get through part of a large boxed set in an interesting and structured fashion. I've recently been using Leonard Bernstein's Mahler cycle on Sony, mostly with the NYPO, together with the original programmes he used in live concerts given at around the same time as the Mahler by utilising a number of the CDs in the big 'Leonard Bernstein Re-mastered' box. I'm thinking of doing the same, if possible, with his Sibelius cycle.

It's incredibly useful in having the performance archive of many orchestras available on the internet. The NYPO site also has a replica of the printed programme, where available. In planning some other mini-festivals I also use the excellent VPO and RCO performance archives, the Proms archive and the Herbert von Karajan archive. As many know, I love compiling my own 'CD Concerts' (even including the interval) but I find these performance archives give a fascinating window in which to see how conductors built their own programmes and then duplicate them on CD.

The most interesting listening project I've so far had was to duplicate every one of Simon Rattle's 'Towards the Millennium' orchestral programmes. I not only stuck to it but, in order to do it, I bought CDs of missing items plus a DVD that Bryn happily supplied of items impossible to find elsewhere. It was a truly amazing listening project, especially hearing music I'd not heard before, and I keep on saying I'll repeat the exercise some time.

[mikealdren]

My current project is the 'Complete Grumiaux'. Pure pleasure although the packaging is not good, The CDs are arranged around a central core in a square box that doesn't fit standard CD storage and the CDs are in envelopes in sets of between 1 and 4 CDs. The packing makes extracting CDs from sets of 3 and 4 difficult. At least the square box contains a large format booklet.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have "themes". Over last summer I went through all my American jazz recordings, in chronological order. Then I started work on classical composers who I feel have had influence on other composers or musical trends - again in chronological order, of birth in this instance. That left all the composers of lesser influence, and I have now reached those with surnames beginning B - Bacewicz right now. This makes a big difference from my usual tendency to follow through by way of contexts, trends, and/or eras. I get "deep in" and can't at all understand people who find it fulfilling let alone possible to hop haphazardly from one thing to another - happy in my preconceptions, which have served me well, and have now been fixed for too long to want to be changed.

[vinteuil]

I get "deep in" and can't at all understand people who find it fulfilling let alone possible to hop haphazardly from one thing to another...

... my closest friend from university days had an approach akin to yours. For x years he wd only read German literature, followed for y years Italian, z years French, &c. I happened to have come across a German writer I thought he wd really appreciate - Raabe or Stifter, can't remember - and very much wished, sharing my enthusiasm, to get him to enjoy it. Not possible - he had 'moved on' from German and was now deep into Portuguese (or Hungarian or Greek), not at all possible to read an author not on his current cursus. He died before I could get him to see the limitations of his approach...

I think when I was younger I wd vacuum up a whole series - say all the Bach cantatas - but now (having done that) I'm happy to dip in to the ones that currently attract me. I'm too old to feign an interest I don't have - I remain a butterfly -

- happy in my preconceptions, which have served me well, and have now been fixed for too long to want to be changed.

.

[Dave2002]

I've found a 'listening project' a good way to get through part of a large boxed set in an interesting and structured fashion. I've recently been using Leonard Bernstein's Mahler cycle on Sony, mostly with the NYPO, together with the original programmes he used in live concerts given at around the same time as the Mahler by utilising a number of the CDs in the big 'Leonard Bernstein Re-mastered' box. I'm thinking of doing the same, if possible, with his Sibelius cycle.

I didn't know anything like this existed!

I have seen a programme from the NYPO which my father had - though it may now have been lost. I don't know exactly which day it was, but I looked for concerts between 1940 and 1945 with Bruno Walter as conductor - and this at least looked a familiar format - https://archives.nyphil.org/index.ph...ortDate&page=5

This page indicates that there is more in the archive library - possibly including conductor's scores. Bernstein in particular is mentioned. Fascinating.

https://leonardbernstein.com/resources/for-scholars-and-researchers/new-york-philharmonic-digital-archives

[Roslynmuse]

Massive listening project still procrastinating on after 10 years: 400+ cassettes amassed during the '80s and '90s, of which maybe 50% comprise contemporary music R3 broadcasts. It's going to be a case of listen, then digitise or bin (as unfortunately most charity shops don't take in cassettes any more).

With the benefit of hindsight, the 2020 lockdowns would have presented the opportunity of a lifetime for such a home-based, time-intensive project, but Spotify and YouTube somehow jumped the queue! But you never know, there may be more lockdowns this Summer

Are your cassettes labelled? Mine aren't (or at least not consistently) so there's an element of lucky dip if not Russian roulette about listening to all those old Music In Our Time broadcasts!

[Joseph K]

Thanks for the replies. Like me, it seems most people like to mix a logical kind of listening 'project' with more spontaneous choices.