response 55 of 156:

Jan 20 19:35 UTC 2000

Just picked up the CD with the premiere recordings
of Elliott Carter's Clarinet Concerto and "Symphonia:
sum fluxae pretium spei."  The latter is a 45-minute
piece in 3 movements based on a poem called "Bulla"
("The Bubble") written in Latin by 17th c Brit poet 
Richard Crashaw.  It is Carter's longest work, and,
after his Concerto for Orchestra and Symphony of
Three Orchestras, his greatest orchestral work.  If
you're a Carter fan, you'll understand what I mean
when I say that it has the ability to surprise you
with every single note -- you never would've predicted
what comes next -- and yet, after you've heard it, it
seems inevitable, as if Carter couldn't've done it 
any other way.  How he does that has been the subject
of much debate and analysis, but I tink it just comes
down to genius.  Carter was 88 years old when he
completed these two works, and, as far as I know, is
alive and well and still composing at the age of 91.  
An absolutely amazing guy.

response 57 of 156:

Apr 2 15:31 UTC 2000

An EMI CD rerelease of some Vaughan Wiliams music:
An Oxford Elegy; Sancta Civitas; Flos Campi; and
Whitsuntide Hymn.  

Flos Campi is Vaughan Williams in full-blown 
pantheist/mystical mode.  It's almost on a par with
the Pastoral Symphony and the Fantasia on a Theme 
by Thomas Tallis.  I've always heard the influence
of Ravel in this piece.  RVW had been studying with
him, and was obviously under the spell of Daphnis
and Chloe when he wrote Flos Campi.  (Wordless choir,
wind-blowing-in-the-trees sort of thing.)  It isn't
easy to get your ears around: you've just sunk into 
the disorientingly dense bitonal opening, thinking 
my aren't we modern, when that fruity choir comes in.  
Gustav Holst, who was a greatfriend and supporter
of RVW, claimed he never did "get" Flos Campi.  Imho,
this is the one piece where RVW comes completely
unbuttoned.  But it's definitely worth a listen.

An Oxford Elegy is one of my all-time favorite RVW
pieces.  It's for orchestra, choir and speaker.  The
speaker reads lines from Matthew Arnold's poems "Thyrsis"
and "The Scholar-Gypsy," and the choir sometimes sings
the words, sometimes vocalises.  The music is absolutely
ravishing.  The only CD of this piece up until now has
been one by a horrible American ensemble.  This new CD
is like a giant sigh of relief for me, since I don't
have to dust off my old LP of this performance anymore.

Sancta Civitas is a major work for chorus and orchestra.
Along with Flos Campi, it was the most "modern" of RVW's
compositions until the 4th symphony.  Tremendous music
on religious themes from a "Christian agnostic."

response 59 of 156:

Apr 8 21:59 UTC 2000

Re 56:
The library did not have that new recording, so I checked out one that had
the Holiday Overture, the Suite from Pocahontas, and Syringa on it.  I had
certain preconceptions about what it was going to sound like from the
description of Carter's music in #55, but it didn't match my
preconceptions, so I was a little disappointed.  I should probably listen
to it again now that I'm not expecting any particular sound, to give it a
fair chance.

response 61 of 156:

Apr 17 21:12 UTC 2000

Right, Syringa is from sometime during the 70s.  Are there any pieces in
particular that you'd recommend?  I'll make another pilgramage to the library
to see if they have any of them.

response 63 of 156:

May 13 14:31 UTC 2000

Picked up a CD rerelease of Ernest Bloch's two
Concerti Grossi and the rhapsody for cello and
orchestra called "Schelomo," all conducted by
Howard Hanson on Mercury.  For good measure, I also 
bought a brand-new CD of Bloch's Avodat Hakodesh
performed by a South African orchestra & chorus.

The Concerto Grosso #1 was the first Bloch music I 
ever heard.  I liked it immediately, as I suspect 
everyone does on first hearing this engaging neo-
baroque piece.  The second Concerto Grosso and Schelomo 
are both equally listenable, but CG #1 rules.  

Bloch was a Swiss composer who came to the USA in the 
late 1930s because he was Jewish and feared for his life.
The Jewish element in his music is sometimes criticised
as being overly colorful and superficial.  That may or 
may not be.  All I know is that I practically wore out my 
LP of Leonard Berstein conducting the Avodat Hakodesh, 
which is the Jewish morning service.  This new recording 
isn't as good, but the haunting beauty is still mostly
there.  It starts out a tiny bit like Brahms' Deutches
Requiem, but it is soon suffused with a morning radiance
that stays with it until the final section, where the
morning changes to mourning for the Kaddish.  The tzur
yisroel still give me goosebumps.  The omein at the
end of the yih'yu still brings tears to my eyes.  Now I
have to see if the Bernstein version has been released
on CD yet.

response 65 of 156:

May 13 15:18 UTC 2000

My apologies for this drift, but I think I might've 
found the answer on http://www.jewfaq/com/

"Although the prohibition on pronunciation applies only 
to the four-letter Name [ie, YHVH], Jews customarily do 
not pronounce any of God's many Names except in prayer or 
study. The usual practice is to substitute letters or 
syllables, so that Adonai becomes Adoshem . . ."  

Bloch's Avodat Hakodesh is not strictly either prayer or 
study.  It's a musical composition that uses the words of 
the Jewish service as text.  Therefore, adoshem rather than 
adonai.  I realize it isn't wise even for a Jew to try and 
second-guess the rabbinical authorities, much less for a 
gentile to do so, but that's my theory.

response 67 of 156:

May 17 17:05 UTC 2000

I am very fond of Bloch's Concerto Grosso No. 1, and wish he'd written 
more like it.  The other work of his I like most is the Piano Quintet, 
which dates from around the same period.  His echt-Jewish music, like 
the famous Schelomo and the above-mentioned Avodet Hakodesh, is of less 
appeal to me.

The day that it becomes forbidden for Jews to argue with rabbinical 
authority is the day I turn in my Jewish union card.  (No, there isn't 
really such a thing as a Jewish union card.)  Jews are already forbidden 
to say God's real Name (the Tetragrammaton, the one spelled YHWH in 
Roman characters); it seems to me silly the way some observant Jews go 
into contortions to avoid saying the substitutes which aren't even His 
Name, and "G-d", which they often write, looks like a dirty word (a la 
"s-x" or "f--k").  God wasn't impressed when Adam and Eve tried to hide 
themselves under fig leaves; why should he be impressed by a dash?

But that's my opinion.  Have two Jews: get three opinions.

response 69 of 156:

Jun 21 05:05 UTC 2000

I recently got a new recording of Steve Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_,
written and originally recorded in 1976. I had previously heard only Reich's
later work including _Tehillim_, _New York Counterpoint_, and _City Life_,
so this piece was a bit more minimalist and took me a bit longer to get into.
I actually found it rather boring the first time I listened to it (it is
written in 14 sections, but they don't have as distinct characters as the
4 movements of _Tehillim_ or the 5 of _City Life_), but now I find it 
simply gorgeous...

response 71 of 156:

Feb 28 18:17 UTC 2001

I'm not a real Ashkenazy fan, but for some reason when I recently felt 
like getting some CD collections of Beethoven's piano sonatas and 
Sibelius's symphonies, I ended up with Ashkenazy playing the Beethoven 
and conducting the Sibelius.  The CD sonata collection conatins 
the "named" sonatas: Waldstein, Pathetique, Pastoral, Moonlight, Les 
Adieux, etc.  The sound is way superior to my old Alfred Brendel LP 
set, but the playing isn't as good.  I hear something a little vulgar 
and overdone in Ashkenazy sometimes.  It comes close to ruining the 
Waldstein.  It works better on the Sibelius symphonies.  In fact, he 
reins it in to just the right degree on the 6th, where the endings of 
the first and second movements need to sound as if a beautiful woman 
has quietly but unexpectedly walked out of the room.  

I've been working my way through an 8-CD set of Adrian Boult conducting 
Vaughan Williams' 9 symphonies and selected other orchestral music.  
Boult is still unsurpassed.  His recording of the pretentiously named 
and very uneven ballet score "Job: A Masque for Dancing" brings out the 
best in it, which is very nearly the best RVW ever did.  The cloud of 
dissonance that the first theme dissolves into leaves me dizzy.

response 73 of 156:

Mar 1 17:35 UTC 2001

Okay I take it back.

response 75 of 156:

Oct 24 02:51 UTC 2001

I'm curious about the term "movie music."  Do you mean disjoint?  "Odd"
dynamic changes?  Some combination of these things?

response 77 of 156:

Oct 24 13:06 UTC 2001

The only name I recognise is Johnny's.  His music doesn't seem less
"substantial" to me than most others I listen to.  Then again, I _do_ like
theatre music:  Wagner, Rossini, and Handel, for instance.

(I wish I could remember which movie it was that credited "Johnny Williams"
for the musice; a '60s western is all that comes to mind.)

response 79 of 156:

Oct 25 11:41 UTC 2001

Pronounced gor-RET-skee-oyd, you know.