What are you listening to now?

[Karl Henning]

https://www.youtube.com/v/-WCZ77mt2aE

[Karl Henning]

https://www.youtube.com/v/JpI9Zr8rqW4

[Karl Henning]

No surprise:

https://www.youtube.com/v/3mZaW-OEox8

[SonicMan46]

Karl - enjoyed your 3-movement first symphony, and the name: Becalmed Surfaces (Adventures in Sonic Seismography) - liked the combo of a lot of winds w/ percussion - curious how many (and type of) strings were used? I went to your website for some idea of the instruments included (pic below) - thanks for sharing.  Dave

[SonicMan46]

Rolla, Alessandro (1757-1841) - Violin Concertos w/ Paolo Ghidoni & Orch da Camera Mantova - Rolla was known as a violin virtuoso and also a teacher of Paganini - went through most of my Rolla collection a few days ago and no 'Violin Concertos' (he wrote 21), so a new arrival to correct that deficiency -   Dave

 

[Mandryka]

This is a brilliant performance of excellent music, but a mediocre recording, some might say an unacceptably reverbarent recording. There came a point half way through where I was suddenly reminded how poetic Francesco da Milano's later Fantasias are, and how poetic Sandro Volta is. What a shame that Brilliant didn't serve him better.

[Karl Henning]

Karl - enjoyed your 3-movement first symphony, and the name: Becalmed Surfaces (Adventures in Sonic Seismography) - liked the combo of a lot of winds w/ percussion - curious how many (and type of) strings were used? I went to your website for some idea of the instruments included (pic below) - thanks for sharing.  Dave

Many thanks, Dave! Perhaps someday we'll hear it played by people 

The scoring is:

piccolo
2 flutes
2 oboes
2 clarinets
bass clarinet
2 bassoons

2 horns in F
2 trumpets
2 tenor trombone
bass trombone
tuba

timpani
percussion (2 players)

strings (i.e., violins I & II, violas, cellos, double-basses)

So . . . not a large orchestra.

[Marc]

J.S. Bach, Trio in D minor, BWV 583.

Dorien Schouten, Hinsz-orgel, Bovenkerk, Kampen, NL.

http://allofbach.com/en/bwv/bwv-583/

Balm for the soul.

[SonicMan46]

Many thanks, Dave! Perhaps someday we'll hear it played by people 

The scoring is:

piccolo
2 flutes
2 oboes
2 clarinets
bass clarinet
2 bassoons

2 horns in F
2 trumpets
2 tenor trombone
bass trombone
tuba

timpani
percussion (2 players)

strings (i.e., violins I & II, violas, cellos, double-basses)

So . . . not a large orchestra.

Thanks Karl - yep, I saw the 'MIDI Demo' heading on playing the first movement - and also enjoyed a 'small' orchestra - good luck in finding a real presentation.  Dave

[Karl Henning]

Believe it or not, Dave, a conductor in the area allowed me to send him the score.  No promise that he will be able to look through it soon nor that anything will come of it after;  but—he let me send it to him!

[Karl Henning]

https://www.youtube.com/v/R4Ag-SloSX0

[Karl Henning]

Respighi
Gli uccelli, P.154
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields
Marriner

[ritter]

Finding this quite attractive this time around. Domaines appears to me as a "transitional" work by Boulez (in line with Éclat-Multiples, I'd say), with one eye looking to his previous achievements, but the other staring at what would become his Spätstll. It is a fun piece!

[asin]B0000007L8[/asin]

[Malx]

Per Norgard, Symphony No 5 - Oslo PO, John Storgards.

[listener]

Henning KRAGGERUD    Equinox   24 Postludes in all keys for violin and chamber orchestra  (one for each time zone)
Henning Kraggerud violin and leader     Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orch

Jörg WIDMANN:  Violin Concerto,  Antiphon for Orchestral Strings
Island of the Sirens for solo violin and  19 Strings
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Swedish Radio S.O.,   Daniel Harding, cond.

modern but not impenetrable

[Mahlerian]

I recall you saying that you'd never heard any music you would regard as atonal. And indeed you are criticising the concept again.

That's not quite true.  I've said that I've never heard atonality; I've never heard any music as atonal.  Atonal has no perceptual or practical meaning to me (and to several other composers I'm aware of).  I'm open to the idea of atonality having some definition, but it can't be defined as it conventionally is in popular discourse, because that definition makes no sense.

It's not that I've never heard any music that I regard as some specific thing called atonal.  I've never heard any music that actually fits the conventional definition of atonal, and I don't define the word "atonal" in my mind as having any specific meaning, because it seems to be used loosely both by popular and academic authors.  Academic authors often use it in a circular way, ie atonal music is music that people call atonal.

The word ether can be used in many ways, some of them referring to things that exist, but there is no such thing as a substance through which light travels.  The existence of a word and a definition for that word doesn't mean that the thing referred to actually exists in reality.

Schoenberg, on the other hand, clearly had heard music that he regarded as atonal and accepted the concept.

...Well, that's unless you put this remark in the context of his other remarks, where he criticizes the concept of atonality as nonsensical.  I think he was saying that if atonal music existed, it would be such and such, but his English was not sufficiently sophisticated at that time (this was shortly after his move to the US) to explain it clearly.  If he were saying that he believed that atonal music was an actual thing, it would be unique in his remarks, conflict with his stated views before and after.

It also wouldn't contradict my point in posting that quote, which is to provide a rebuttal to people who think that Schoenberg set out to write atonal music without centers.

(The whole conception of every note being a tonal centre has its own problems, but that's a different issue. The most fun way to explain the problem is to encourage you to see The Incredibles. The first one that is, I don't know whether the same philosophical problem appears in the sequel.)

I know what you're talking about.  I don't think that Schoenberg's music actually does equalize all centers, or that he intended it to.  His practice weighted certain tones over others quite clearly and played with the implications of the new chromatic harmony without making all tones equally likely in any given situation.  If it weren't so, then any ending would seem arbitrary.  My experience with Schoenberg's music is that the endings do not feel arbitrary at all.

I think what he meant in this and other similar remarks was that the practice of excluding tones from the equal tempered scale for the purposes of creating a hierarchy of regions no longer exists.  Already in the tonal system, the materials associated with one key can be associated with any other (he explains this in Harmonielehre).  In Schoenberg's mature practice, the hierarchies of functional tonality are replaced with other kinds of hierarchies, melodic and harmonic, but it does not remove all hierarchies whatsoever.

But the issue with the quote is simple: it shows Schoenberg recognising the existence of atonal music.

That's if he changed his views for one single interview before changing them back later on.  That seems unlikely to me.

[André]

Jill Gomez is a singer's singer. Whether she sings Mozart or Canteloube, she throws her heart into the experience like few do. Netania Davrath has this repertoire under her skin, and it's high praise indeed to put Gomez in the same company. Vernon Handley is much more than a mere accompanist here, and the RLPO play beautifully. Even the cover art is excellent: one of Canteloube's most fetching songs is La fiolairé (The Spinning Girl), the subject of the art cover by Millet, Une chevrière auvergnate.

A winner.

[SymphonicAddict]

Revisiting this pinnacle of musical art. It doesn't matter how many times I listen to it, always overwhelms me. The 4 movements are incredibly well-crafted in every way, with a truly accomplished mastery that is characteristic of geniuses. This performance is not less than sharp and muscular. A desert-island disc.

[Que]

Morning listening is the 2nd disc of this newly acquired Schütz recording:

[asin]B000004433[/asin]
It came recommended here, but it has been a while ago and I forgot who to thank...
Gordo perhaps? 

Q

[haydnguy]

CD #4 from the boxed set: A Secret Labyrinth - A Celebration of Music from the Middle Ages to Renaissance
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UTOPIANS TRIUMPHANS - The Great Polyphony of the Renaissance
Huelgas Ensemble
Paul Van Nevel

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51oN0%2BUCMsL._SX425_.jpg