Listening Project

Yes Brumas agreed, and Chris, there is an amazing variety of sounds. It is a fascinating piece. I think I'll give it another listen in the next couple of days.

The link Brumas posted Chris does give an outline of the structure, and as you can see I didn't look at it until after listening this afternoon. Having said that, I find it's sometimes better to listen without reading an analysis first to see what sense I can make myself of a piece. It pre-disposes you to watch out for this and pay attention to that if you read the analysis first, so it was interesting to read it after listening to it.

Must dash - I have to go and watch Naupilus' boys in action. 

Mark 

I'm flattered by your interest, Jane, even in where I keep my collection. Very ingenious the "raiders of the lost ark warehouse" finding. However, I don't think is anybody's business and we should not waste any time with this kind of existential problems. Anyway, the key issue is not where I keep my collection, but how I have to manage it. Particularly, when, in few or some years, I might be not able to keep listening in the same way, as I grow older and older and my health is not the best I could wish for.

Again thanks for your "interest" in almost anything has to do with Parla. And many thanks for the always entertaining posts.

Parla

Hi Mark,

Following at last from your amazing excursion under the stairs, I eventually ventured into the underworld where my old programmes are stored. From a lot of boxes of concert, opera and theatre programmes, I eventually found the one with all the BBC Symphony Orchrestra and related concerts. There, neatly filed (amazing, when did I do it?) were all the concerts I attended in the Music of Eight Decades series.  The only one a missed was the second, when Jessye Norman sang Messiaen's Poems pour Mi. Why I missed that, I can't imagine now, since it's a work I've known and loved for a long time.

OK, you don't have to be a mathematical genius to work out from the above that one of those I did attend was the one on 23 March (with a certain symphony by Lutoslawski, etc.!!!!) Hm! How could I have no recollection of this! Worrying! Incidently the second conductor had originally been announced as Hans Zender.

Highlights which I do remember include the first concert (Weill; Berliner Requiem, Henze; Fourteen Songs from 'Voices', with the London Sinfonietta), BBC Symphony under Boulez in Webern, Boulez, and Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin, Stockhausen, Dallapiccola and Berio (Circles) with the Sinfonietta under Lothar Zagrosek, Rattle and the London Sinfonietta in Birtwistle, Stravinsky (Requiem Canticles) and Tippett's Concerto for Orchestra, and another Sinfonietta concert including Kurtag's Messages of the late Miss R V Trousssova.  That last one was in June 1984, so you were probably busy with exams.

There was a lot more interesting stuff too from the BBC Symphony Orchestra's regular series.  Brings back lots of fascinating memories, which makes the blank about the Lutoslawski all the more worrying/surprising!

Chris

Chris, I didn't exactly meant that "I'm less interested to explore new repertoire with increasing age". What I wanted to say is that, after having, for years, explored enough of almost any sort of "new" repertory, I came to the conclusion that, after the glorious peaks of the Classics (including the Greats of the Romantic era), anything else seems, sounds and eventually is so much less substantive, important, significant, fulfilling etc.

Having said that, I don't mean we have to dismiss them out of the picture, but to concentrate too much on the minor, modern, post-modern, serial, avant-garde etc composers is like dealing with the "side dishes", ignoring the actual ambrosia...

Besides, a great deal of musicians, either soloists or playing in Orchestras, admit that it constitutes a great pleasure for them to perform, even repeatedly, a Symphony by Beethoven or Haydn or a Chamber music work by Schubert or Mozart than any "revelatory" new kind of so (easily) called masterpiece.

The other day, I attended a concert of the violinist of our Chamber group, performing some very "advanced" works for solo violin. One of them was by a certain Dutch composer called Andriessen (a household name for our contemporary stuff), where, at a certain time, the violinist has to perform some very meaningful "melodies" on her instrument, while, at the same time, she has to sing (!) "something" quite irrelevant! After this concert, fortunately, we have prepared another educational one for the young audiences, where she had to perform Mozart's Violin/Piano Sonata in e minor, K.304, Beethoven's Op.30, 3 in G  and the monumental one by Franck in A. You cannot imagine the pleasure, the fulfillment and sheer joy she had before, during and after the concert.

Finally, a great Italian Pianist (unfortunately not a household name in most of the parts of Europe) called Christian Leotta, in a concert in a major Asian capital, brought again to my attention an underrated, almost neglected but so wonderful Sonata for Piano by Beethoven, the lovely one op.14, no2, in G. (A subject for further analysis is Beethoven in G: It was not one of his favourite keys, but he escaped by writing some of his most individual, entertaining and sometimes inspiring works). By the way, Leotta has almost completed his cycle of Beethoven Piano Sonatas for the prestigious and eclectic Canadian label Atma. He is very solid, impressive and often...stormy. You may try one of his Volumes (each one is a double CD, containing enough Sonatas to sample).

Parla

Quite.

Those who "have not come to this conclusion", 50m, can they actually claim that there is any composer or any work of music in the more "modern" repertory that can musically stand next to the opus of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert or Brahms or Wagner and, if yes, which ones and on which grounds?

Parla