La Taberna Maderna

Started by snyprrr, February 23, 2010, 08:17:57 PM

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petrarch

Quote from: snyprrr on May 12, 2014, 08:22:03 AM
'Aria' hates my speakers! I'm finding digital distortion early on, when the singer really cuts loose for a moment. Do you hear anything in this one?

Also, in 'Quadrivium', within the first few minutes, the first entry of the timpani hit gives me some distortion for a moment. What's up? These recordings are so wide open- they're the only recording that have ever given these (normal) speakers problems. And that guitar Donatoni disc on Strad. (track 2 right off the bat)

No issues sound-wise here on Aria (Neos) or on Quadrivium (Neos, DG).
//p
The music collection.
The hi-fi system: Esoteric X-03SE -> Pathos Logos -> Analysis Audio Amphitryon.
A view of the whole

Mandryka

It's interesting reading this discussion about Quadrivium because to me it sounds like obviously fun music, as enjoyable as anything I've ever heard, but I'm listening totally unalatically - just enjoying the tunes and the textures changing and the feelings.

Anyway, who's the best for Quadrivium? I'm listening all the time to Sinopoli, love it, but I wonder if there have been any very different ideas about how to play it. I also have downloaded a copy of Maderna playing it in a concert in 1971.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

snyprrr

Quote from: Mandryka on July 05, 2014, 09:15:21 AM
It's interesting reading this discussion about Quadrivium because to me it sounds like obviously fun music, as enjoyable as anything I've ever heard, but I'm listening totally unalatically - just enjoying the tunes and the textures changing and the feelings.

Anyway, who's the best for Quadrivium? I'm listening all the time to Sinopoli, love it, but I wonder if there have been any very different ideas about how to play it. I also have downloaded a copy of Maderna playing it in a concert in 1971.

The one on Timpani is ten minutes shorter, but I was getting dizzy comparing- I did hear a lot of the same sections- and they seemed in order. Since it's so improvised sounding, maybe the ten minutes doesn't make music difference? Will check again, but I think they're pretty music the same music, the same way. Same goes for the other two pieces on the Sinopoli disc as compared to Tamayo. I think those are the three recordings of the piece, though there might be a fourth?

Mandryka

Quote from: snyprrr on July 06, 2014, 08:03:27 AM
The one on Timpani is ten minutes shorter, but I was getting dizzy comparing- I did hear a lot of the same sections- and they seemed in order. Since it's so improvised sounding, maybe the ten minutes doesn't make music difference? Will check again, but I think they're pretty music the same music, the same way. Same goes for the other two pieces on the Sinopoli disc as compared to Tamayo. I think those are the three recordings of the piece, though there might be a fourth?

This improvised quality seems to me a real strength.  Quadrivium is music which sounds totally fresh all the time, and yet, in my opinion at least, it sounds coherent, not at all random or arbitrary, inevitable, natural flow of ideas.

Anyway, I think Quadrivium is a great piece of music. The only other piece I know by Maderna is the second quartet: I can't say I've ever heard a better serial quartet. So on the whole I feel very positive about Maderna. And I'd appreciate suggestions about other things to check out.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

torut

Quote from: Mandryka on August 13, 2014, 12:54:55 PM
This improvised quality seems to me a real strength.  Quadrivium is music which sounds totally fresh all the time, and yet, in my opinion at least, it sounds coherent, not at all random or arbitrary, inevitable, natural flow of ideas.
I have not heard Quadrivium, but I also like that "improvised quality" in some of Maderna's works. When I listened to Darmstadt Aural Documents Box 1 for the first time, the spontaneous feeling of Maderna's works attracted me immediately. There is an improvisation-feel in the concertos but it is not that they sound arbitrary or cliché. It is as if the music is growing organically.

Four works of Maderna are included in the set. Maderna conducted all of them.
Concerto per pianoforte e orchestra (1959)
Konzert Nr. 1 für Oboe und Kammerensemble (1962/1963)
Dimensioni IV (1964)
Konzert Nr. 2 für Oboe und Orchester (1967)

snyprrr

Breaking out the Maderna:

1) 4/5 Volumes of the NEOS Cycle

2) Arditti/Montaigne disc

3) Holliger/Philips 3 Oboe Concertos

4) something else... somewhere??... oh yes!, the classic old DG.


I got 4 Volumes of that NEOS Cycle and promptly did-not-get-Maderna-at-all. I had enjoyed the DG disc for some time, and the Holliger, and believed the Violin Concerto to be some holy grail. But at the time, all those Stradivarius discs were quite expensive, and mixed up in a way that deflected interest. Then came that NEOS Cycle. Aftera  long and hard bout of  CDCDCD, I got everything except Vol.1, which had the earliest works. The first work on Vol.2 seems to close out Maderna's proto-development. So, onward...

This will be my third go through.

So far I've only run the Piano Concerto of 1959. The first time around, I was "expecting" the autumnal, nocturnal and improvisatory sounds I'd heard in the 3 Oboe Concertos.. What I recall is, I just did-not-want.

Yesterday I was in a free space and gladly put it in. This time around I was much more receptive. This PC may be one of the most experimental I've ever heard. It was written for Tudor, so- pling!- that's why I'm hearing string plucking, and all manner of Cagean sounds, all done a completely different source, Maderna: it's always interesting to hear another Composer's take on another's innovation. Maderna is more spare, separating each gesture with silence.

Silence seems to be my biggest beef with Maderna. With Maderna, you get everything at HIS pace. It seems a lot of his pieces take place in a cauldron, or vat, or tub... the indeterminacy. There's definitely a BigLebowski slacker feel to all Mature Maderna= fast music is only "outbursts"... short silences are the default, then solos, then groups, sections, and tuttis, all mixed up as if on whim...

Paging Mr. Segerstam???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


woooah :o


Anyhow!- at 20 minutes, the Piano Concerto is just the right length for really drawing out his vision. You'll think it's over a few times. The ending meanders into nothing. All is pure timbre.

I suppose the closest thing to describe would be Cage's PC, and Atlas E. Here we have the Italian version, if I may be so crass. However, I do hear here... perhaps it is Cage's technique "played" by a Catholic (and Comm.??) instead of a (whatever Cage thinks he was, lol()...? I think you have to consider that though- I'm not quite sure how it affects the organization
.

With Maderna 1956-73, from one piece to the next I'm not quite sure what I'm going to get, but it all has a certain feeling which, as you can read here, is really hard to pin down. He's certainly defied my expectations, and demands that I give him multiple chances.

His earlier stuff reminds me on Feldman's early "noisy" ohase, loud serialsmo. But, Mature Maderna sort of just IS. "Hey, it's me."

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I suppose the lounging melodies would also seem "Italian"... and Bergian... wein...



Just look over this Post. Maderna sounds like this Post reads, lol!! :P


GioCar

This bump makes me want to listen to some of his music, starting from one of my favorite pieces of his early years:

[asin]B002ZCWA0O[/asin]
Composizione n. 2 (1950)

It's just amazing how the tender melodic line of the Seikilos epitaph, utilized as "incipit"

grows in complexity throughout the course of the piece while the music always preserves its dreamy, lirical quality.


Mandryka

#67
Quote from: snyprrr on February 11, 2017, 10:31:01 AM

Just look over this Post. Maderna sounds like this Post reads, lol!! :P

I think this is one of your best posts actually! The concerto sounds like what you say it sounds like. And I think what you say about late Maderna generally is interesting, I'll think about it. Thanks for mentioning the concerto, I hadn't heard it before.

In that concerto, the gestures sound all a bit random. A random mosaic of disconnected ideas.

Got it now, it's like it's in movements, the Middle "slow" movement starting at about 6 minutes. This is an interesting piece!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on February 14, 2017, 01:48:42 PM
This LP shocked me early last year:




I know three recordings of quadrivium and that's probably the best - but I must say I think Maderna's 1971 recording is worth seeking out. The one I didn't like was on Neos, and I've just noticed there's one by Carlo Miotto which I'll try to hear later today.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

snyprrr

Quote from: Mandryka on August 13, 2014, 12:54:55 PM
This improvised quality seems to me a real strength.  Quadrivium is music which sounds totally fresh all the time, and yet, in my opinion at least, it sounds coherent, not at all random or arbitrary, inevitable, natural flow of ideas.

Anyway, I think Quadrivium is a great piece of music. The only other piece I know by Maderna is the second quartet: I can't say I've ever heard a better serial quartet. So on the whole I feel very positive about Maderna. And I'd appreciate suggestions about other things to check out.

Quadrivium

Been going back and forth between Sinopoli and Tamayo... "fun music"... ahhh.... I'm just not hearin' it... DG (36mins.) and NEOS (26mins.) and it almost all is starting to sound like mush to me, though I can barely make out the razor blade connections between the former, Tracked CD, and the latter, which seems an oblique mass of 26mins. straight.

really having problems with the seeming improvised quality, or sumptin

snyprrr

Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on February 18, 2017, 02:20:22 PM
^^

https://youtu.be/YLV5DUu1zqw

yea,... sounded just like the Tamayo... I think, had this been "written in stone", the conductor would conduct it that way, but, because it's so free, I feel that certain things are lost- in the intro, when the flutes finally come into the percussion melange, had that been strictly noted, it might have more of a bubbly bounce, but, because it's freer, we don't hear the strict "science",... we hear the human interpretation...

I dunno, I just can't handle "looseness"... sometimes I get the same way with Xenakis's strictly notated aleatoric sections, which, frankly, do have a certain improvisatory quality (like the middle section of 'Metastasis' or the whole of 'Achorripsis')-

actually, 'Achorripsis' sounds a lot the the "problems" I have with Maderna, BUT, in that particular piece, the "ennui" works for me- of course, it's a much shorter piece

maybe thaaat's the rub?

snyprrr

Australlung (is that right?)

Well, this is the "Big" piece, for female reciter/singer, tape, and orchestra...


again,... just.don't.like.or.want.


Here, again, the loose feeling is what gets to me... but all that pales in comparison to the recitation. Just can't stand recitation in music... and this does sound just a little tad touch of 60s pretentiousness. BAZ I could handle, AND ENJOY (Requiem), but here I just get another dollop of what doesn't work for me.

ahhhh... Maderna...


I was so happy with just the DG and the Philips oboe concertos, then I got this NEOS Cycle and I JUST DON'T GET IT...

I just can't stand written music with an improvised feel,... or something???....


I do like other works in the NEOS, but the big ones, 'Australlung', the Violin Concerto, Quadrivium,... eh,mm,uh,...


Don't worry- 'll keep trying- I mean, I paid bout $100 for them, so, hey, I BETTER get something out of them!!!

snyprrr

Aura (1972)

Again, sounds like mush to me. I have three recordings, and I struggle to, again, "get it"... Maderna's truly the most challenging Composer that I am personally encountering. The improv quality of what I'm hearing in a lot of the late stuff I just "won't" handle...

curious case...keep trying...

snyprrr

Death Laid An Egg (1968)

Maderna's score for this psychedelic Italian "horror/proto-Giallo" satire concerning the goings on at a chicken factory (!) is literally one of the hardest pills to swallow. It does certainly fit in the context of the film, and sounds nothing less than Morricone's Avant-Experimental bewilderment to the extreme, but, if just listened to, it can be supremely annoying.

However, it's all worth a peek for the lolz. They even create monster Perdue chickens (all breast, no head- hilarious and curiously... TRUE!!) that get "whacked". Bizarro stuff!!

...starring Gina Lollobridgetonowhere...

snyprrr

Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on April 18, 2017, 04:47:09 PM

.......... ???  :-[

those NEOS disc presented a Composer I was totally not looking for. Now thayt I have him, I've had to "understand" him, and he's more complex than I had thought... he really does a lot of different stuff...

I've always loved the 3 Oboe Concertos (Philips; Holliger), and I've had that DG for a couple of decades... it was those NEOS discs that put me on my ear...


I know you're questioning: Maderna? most challenging? really?  yea, mainly because I don't "like" what I'm hearing... his Segerstam like attitude of "ok, let's put the kitchen sink in"... I wasn't ready... too "loose"... I was used to such regimentation, and here comes Maderna making everything sound like a "jam session for composer/conductor"


Maderna said he wrote "conductor music"...??...


Yea, I don't really "love" what I've heard on the NEOS discs... I do "love" the oboes concertos... I don't know how much the exemplary Philips recording has to do with that.




I have three recordings of 'Aura'... it hasn't helped me like it that much better... I'm not saying Maderna is ... gulp...

AMORPHOUS

BUT, THAT IS ONE FACTOR THAT USUALLY mitigates against me appreciation of a Composer, that feeling of drifting ennui... though, Maderna isn't "depressed" sounding...


Cage + Maderna



Let me know how you go here...

GioCar

My belated celebration for his centenary (he was born on the 21st of April 1920).
Now listening to the amazing Quartetto per archi in due tempi played by the Arditti


ritter

Oh, I missed that date. As a fan of Maderna (the composer and the conductor), I'll probably listen to his magnum opus, the Hyperion cycle, tonight.


vers la flamme

I don't think I've ever knowingly listened to Maderna—seems as good a time as any to start.

What are some key works? I see some talk about oboe concertos, a violin concerto, Quadrivium, Aura... anything else?

Mandryka

Quote from: vers la flamme on April 29, 2020, 03:38:28 AM
I don't think I've ever knowingly listened to Maderna—seems as good a time as any to start.

What are some key works? I see some talk about oboe concertos, a violin concerto, Quadrivium, Aura... anything else?

Quartet in 2 tempi
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

ritter

#79
Cross-posted form the "Purchases Today" thread:

Quote from: ritter on April 04, 2022, 06:27:03 AM
... but I did get hold of two major additions to the bibliography on Bruno Maderna (which were published in 2020, coinciding with the centenary of the composer's birth):


Mario Baroni's and Rosana Dalmonte's book is a "real" biography, rather than a musicological study. Very well received by the Italian press when it was released.


800+ pages of writings and fragments by, and interviews with, Maderna. So far, a cursory glance at some of the texts indicates that Maderna is a pleasure to read.

EDIT:

And a major new release (cross-posted from the New Releases thread):

Quote from: ritter on April 06, 2022, 09:19:39 AM
Also coming in May, what looks like a major addition to the discography of Bruno Maderna:




The selections on on this set appear to be different to those of the now hard to find Eötvös recording on Montaigne —which was actually made 10 years after this 1981 live recording now being released by Tactus—, but Hyperion was a work-in-progress that was constantly changing during the last decade or so of the composer's life.