Milhaud

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But S_A (#29) - you are giving reasons why you don't like the works you mention, not providing evidence that the works themselves might be "duds". Is the experience of a thirteen-year-old in an amateur performance of the St John really proof of a deficiency in its composition?

Again, with apologies for the digression.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

one of the things i find attractive about Milhaud and his complete works is that it is very difficult to actually digress ....

[ahinton]

Composer (and conductor, assuming he doesn't have a double) Leif Segerstam has just completed his Symphony No. 285. Has anybody on this board heard any of them? I suspect they are very diverse.

Segerstam's tally (or is it folly?) means that English symphonist Derek Bourgeois, who is on Symphony No. 96 "must try harder". Bourgeois does get my award for best titled symphony .... No.52 is called "The Halfway".

I wasn't gong to mention Segerstam and what might on the face of it seem to be as much like an obsessive/compulsive creative disorder as one might hope to encounter anywhere becuse he's still alive (and he's bigger than me! - and bigger than most of us, in every way!). I have to say that I don't "get" what he's about with his 24-minute pieces. Brian famously composed 16 symphonies after his 80th birthday; Segerstam's written that many just this year! That said, some of his performances of Sibelius, Nielsen and (to a lesser extent) Pettersson are quite simply peerless; it just surprises me how he finds time to conduct them (or indeed anything else) at all, let alone so wonderfully!

I've heard very little of Bourgeois in years but was aware of his ever faster growing symphonic output; he's written almost half as many symphonies this year as has Segerstam. I have to admit that hearing of his Symphony No 94 The Predictable gave me a reminder after many years of those "Peter Simple" Daily Telegraph pieces...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

clearly a complete works strand on R3 in the afternoon could last for all eternity ....

[Serial_Apologist]

But S_A (#29) - you are giving reasons why you don't like the works you mention, not providing evidence that the works themselves might be "duds". Is the experience of a thirteen-year-old in an amateur performance of the St John really proof of a deficiency in its composition?

Again, with apologies for the digression.

I wouldn't be able to judge whether or not something was a dud, tbh ferney.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wouldn't be able to judge whether or not something was a dud, tbh ferney.

It is difficult, isn't it - I love analysing Messaien: the way the ostinati are crafted, the rhythmic intricacies, the block construction (and the way the proportions of the lengths of these blocks often match those of the rhythmic cells - as do many of the intervals between the notes in chords). I just don't like the way much of it sounds!

[Bryn]

It is difficult, isn't it - I love analysing Messaien: the way the ostinati are crafted, the rhythmic intricacies, the block construction (and the way the proportions of the lengths of these blocks often match those of the rhythmic cells - as do many of the intervals between the notes in chords). I just don't like the way much of it sounds!

Hmm, always stuck me that Messiaen delivers the material for such analysis on a plate. It's precisely the noise it makes that I find so attractive.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

ah Messiaen - one of the few concerts in which i experienced pain listening to music; truly obnoxious static noise ... ahem ...

Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum ... lasts for 33 eternities an awful work ...

i for one could not listen to any of his works - along with Britten's oeuvre i am allergic to them

[Bryn]

ah Messiaen - one of the few concerts in which i experienced pain listening to music; truly obnoxious static noise ... ahem ...

Messiaen Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum ... lasts for 33 eternities an awful work ...

i for one could not listen to any of his works - along with Britten's oeuvre i am allergic to them

Wonderful work I fell in love with at first hearing, despite the dreadful kitchen department instruments in use by the BBCSO at the time Dorati conducted the UK premier. Now that's a work where analysis really is a piece of cake. Boulez did it proud for Erato/CBS/Sony, but had lost the plot by the time he recorded it with the Clevelanders.

[jayne lee wilson]

Another huge fan of Et Exspecto here! Also happens to be a great challenge for a hifi... (most Messiaen is great for a demo...)

Also love the sound it makes** of: Eclairs sur l'au-dela, Canyons aux Etoiles, Reveil des Oiseaux, Oiseaux Exotiques.... often like to play Catalogue d'Oiseaux in the bedroom.... real turn-on that one.

**The music isn't bad either. Always hated Beecham's puritanical remark anyway. Odd coming from a Delian...

(Anyone mention Milhaud's Symphonies? Well worth a go, and if you can find Plasson's gorgeous DG Toulouse efforts (1&2, 6&7) they just shade it over Alun Francis - though his integrale on CPO is a thing of wonder...)

[ahinton]

Another huge fan of Et Exspecto here! Also happens to be a great challenge for a hifi... (most Messiaen is great for a demo...)

Also love the sound it makes** of: Eclairs sur l'au-dela, Canyons aux Etoiles, Reveil des Oiseaux, Oiseaux Exotiques.... often like to play Catalogue d'Oiseaux in the bedroom.... real turn-on that one.

**The music isn't bad either. Always hated Beecham's puritanical remark anyway. Odd coming from a Delian...

(Anyone mention Milhaud's Symphonies? Well worth a go, and if you can find Plasson's gorgeous DG Toulouse efforts (1&2, 6&7) they just shade it over Alun Francis - though his integrale on CPO is a thing of wonder...)

Much as I'm largely with you over Messiaen, I have indeed heard most of Milhaud's symphonies over the years and have been fairly consistently underwhelmed; he's an interesting composer whose best work might been been better known had there not been so very much of the rest and, had he only written about one-tenth of what he did but managed to come out with at least one work of the order of (and of course I don't mean "sounding anything like!"), say, Florent Schmitt's Piano Quintet, Roussel's Third Symphony, either of Dutilleux's symphonies or Boulez's Pli selon pli, we'd be celebrating him far more than we do...

[mercia]

I listened to Le boeuf sur le toit in last night's R3 concert - I hadn't appreciated that the piece has such a complicated harmonic 'progress' and that Milhaud was making a satirical point by going through all 12 major keys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_b%C5%93uf_sur_le_toit