What are you listening to now?

[Karl Henning]

Pierlot and his mates play John Jenkins. I think this cover is pornographic.

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

[San Antone]

Morning listening:



John Jenkins (1592 - 1678): Consort Music

Q

That is a fantastic set that I forget about and don't listen to nearly enough.  I just bought the Phantasm/Tye set and will be preoccupied with it for now, but will jump to Fretwork soon.

[San Antone]

Ars Nova Copenhagen / Paul Hillier
First Drop

Looks interesting - who are the composers?

[Madiel]

Looks interesting - who are the composers?

I can answer as I was just looking at the album myself: Howard Skempton, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Kevin Volans, Pablo Ortiz, Louis Andriessen, Gabriel Jackson, Steve Reich, Terry Riley.  According to the blurb most things are first recordings.

[Mandryka]

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

The artist is exhibiting her body in a revealing pose, she's asleep, her head is turned away, she has no chance to respond to our gaze. Defenceless, passive and silenced, laid bare for the the viewer.

The way he's lit it is also interesting.

[San Antone]

I can answer as I was just looking at the album myself: Howard Skempton, Michael Gordon, David Lang, Kevin Volans, Pablo Ortiz, Louis Andriessen, Gabriel Jackson, Steve Reich, Terry Riley.  According to the blurb most things are first recordings.

Oh.  I was confused by the use of Ars Nova in the title.  Thanks.

[Madiel]

Thread duty: Brahms, Sextet No.1

[asin]B000002ZKC[/asin]
It's over 3 years since I last listened to this. Which terrifies me.

[Madiel]

Oh.  I was confused by the use of Ars Nova in the title.  Thanks.

That's the name of the group. Ars Nova Copenhagen.

[San Antone]

That's the name of the group. Ars Nova Copenhagen.

I was even more confused than I thought.   

[amw]

Thread duty: Brahms, Sextet No.1

[asin]B000002ZKC[/asin]
It's over 3 years since I last listened to this. Which terrifies me.

Time is weird man

I apparently haven't listened to this in about 2 years so >.>

[Madiel]

The artist is exhibiting her body in a revealing pose, she's asleep, her head is turned away, she has no chance to respond to our gaze. Defenceless, passive and silenced, laid bare for the the viewer.

The way he's lit it is also interesting.

Okay, using terminology like "silenced" and "lit" makes me wonder whether you realise this is a painting, not a video clip. You're sounding like someone fresh out of Media Studies who thinks that everything fits within that context.

[Mandryka]

Okay, using terminology like "silenced" and "lit" makes me wonder whether you realise this is a painting,

I'm quite prepared to believe I've not used the right words.  What's the word if not "lit"? For the way the light falls? And she cannot express anything with her face, her eyes etc,  about her response to our gaze because her head has been painted turned away. Is that not "silenced"? There's probably a better word. What's the word for that artistic decision?

[Maestro267]

Enescu: Poéme roumain
Monte-Carlo PO/Foster

[Madiel]

And she cannot express anything with her face, her eyes etc,  about her response to our gaze because her head has been painted turned away. ... What's the word for that artistic decision?

I can't offer you a word. I can offer you a phrase: "in keeping with a vast number of painted figures that don't look directly out of the painting".

Painted figures do not "respond to our gaze" all that often. They don't behave like characters that are aware they are characters. Neither, might I add, do the majority of film or TV characters. The whole notion of breaking the wall between character and viewer in that way is a rather modern concept that is only employed occasionally.

You claim it's pornographic that she's not looking at us. I'd claim almost the opposite: that looking at you and engaging with you would suggest an interest in you and perhaps your desires. I don't know what kind of pornography you're watching, but to the best of my knowledge most pornography involves activity, not someone lying on a bed and failing to look up.

[Todd]

Zoltan Kocsis conducting some Bartok.  Kocsis nails the first movement.  The slower and quieter night music is mysterious and dark, the tuttis powerful and intense, and the wind playing is both superbly executed and perfectly balanced.  Kocsis' tempo choices all sound right and his transitions are seamless.  Those winds make the snappy Giuoco delle coppie a real treat, and the perfectly clear recorded sound allows one to enjoy both the wind parts and the contrasting parts at once with ease.  The side drum is uncommonly clean sounding, too, with each tapped out note close to an event, and there is no other recording that boasts such tight and fast bassoon playing, especially at around 4'-ish in.  The Elegia starts with dark hued night music, and though the climaxes are not as intense as some other versions, Kocsis keeps the playing tense and relentlessly forward moving at all times.  Kocsis does not pussyfoot around in the Intermezzo interrotto, which is the fastest in my collection, coming in at a fast and tight 3'46".  As a result the beautiful melody that gets interrupted is much faster than normal, but here it almost morphs into a dreamy dance, with the interruption a delight, and the music after the trombone glissando very circus-like.  The Finale, at 9'46", is not one of the fastest around, though the listener would hardly know that in the incredibly fast, agile, and frenetic opening, which is just spot on.  The slower music later on gets slightly more relaxed treatment, with the violas popping out of the mix a couple or so minutes in like in no other version.  The clarity of the recording allows every little detail to be heard, which leads to an almost overwhelming, giddy feeling in the music.  It's pure, vigorous excitement. 

That one of the great interpreters of Bartok's piano compositions recorded one of the greatest versions of the Concerto for Orchestra is not surprising. 

The playing and sound of this disc is so good that it's the only one that I decided to listen to the entire disc straight through.  It includes quite probably the best ever recording of the Dance Suite and an exceptional recording of the Hungarian Peasant Songs.  It's one of the very best Bartok recordings in my collection.

[North Star]

The artist is exhibiting her body in a revealing pose, she's asleep, her head is turned away, she has no chance to respond to our gaze. Defenceless, passive and silenced, laid bare for the the viewer.

The way he's lit it is also interesting.

These are exactly the things that make the image a far less provoking nude than Titian's Venus of Urbino, or Manet's Olympia - where the naked woman is aware of us watching, and doesn't mind it at all. The strategically haphazard clothing on the album cover certainly adds to the erotic nature of the painting (and the red face certainly indicates something too), but to say it's pornographic is silly. And I don't see how the illusion of light in the painting affects its eroticism specifically. I do think that the woman of the painting has very peculiar tan lines.


Thread duty
A bunch of middle period Beethoven sonatas from Badura-Skoda's Astrée cycle

Murail
Les Travaux et les Jours
Nonken

[amw]

You claim it's pornographic that she's not looking at us. I'd claim almost the opposite: that looking at you and engaging with you would suggest an interest in you and perhaps your desires. I don't know what kind of pornography you're watching, but to the best of my knowledge most pornography involves activity, not someone lying on a bed and failing to look up.

If you are a feminist of a certain persuasion (which I am) pornography is more of a symptom of a larger culture of turning women into objects for male consumption, which some have called porn culture and which stretches into advertising, art, literature, etc. (Obviously there's also porn with no women involved, which has its own issues but that's not one of them.) Fundamentally porn culture is not only "about" denial of agency, but the fact that women and girls are denied agency is pretty much the entire appeal of pornography; the presumed-male viewer has power over the female depicted and does not have to obtain her consent or go to the trouble of treating her like a human being. A lot of pornography or quasi-pornographic material (art, film etc) is similar: paintings of women bathing (acting as though they are unaware they are being looked at), porn films that are supposedly hidden camera recordings or leaked footage, and obviously the extraordinary lengths men will go to to obtain nude photographs of celebrities without that celebrity's consent, even when she may have actually appeared nude in a film or tv show or whatever. Or the whole upskirting thing, or posting compromising photos/videos of ex-girlfriends as a way to get back at them, etc.

I guess it's not just feminists, you could also read John Berger or whoever, but anyway.

Honestly though that's a lot of classical music album covers with people on them and you just get desensitised lol

[Mandryka]

These are exactly the things that make the image a far less provoking nude than Titian's Venus of Urbino, or Manet's Olympia - where the naked woman is aware of us watching, and doesn't mind it at all. The strategically haphazard clothing on the album cover certainly adds to the erotic nature of the painting (and the red face certainly indicates something too), but to say it's pornographic is silly. And I don't see how the illusion of light in the painting affects its eroticism specifically. I do think that the woman of the painting has very peculiar tan lines.

He's got the head out of the way and he's highlighted  the breasts. The head turned away compounds her vulnerability and passivity.

[ritter]

My own private Berio festival continues with a major (but IMHO underrated) work, Epifanie:

[asin]B0002K71UA[/asin]
This piece is a sort of meta-Berio, with a huge orchestra being deployed, his original but masterful use of the voice being apparent in the vocal numbers, and with the introduction of (limited) chance elements, as the orchestral movements can be ordered following the conductor's fancy (with the vocal numbers are inserted between them).

Cathy Berberian is stunning, as can be expected, and I was pleasantly surprised to (re)discover that a passage from Proust's À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur ("Je regardais les trois arbres...") is one of the texts set to music (along with extracts from Joyce, Claude Simon, Antonio Machado and Brecht).

[Madiel]

If you are a feminist of a certain persuasion (which I am) pornography is more of a symptom of a larger culture of turning women into objects for male consumption, which some have called porn culture and which stretches into advertising, art, literature, etc. (Obviously there's also porn with no women involved, which has its own issues but that's not one of them.) Fundamentally porn culture is not only "about" denial of agency, but the fact that women and girls are denied agency is pretty much the entire appeal of pornography; the presumed-male viewer has power over the female depicted and does not have to obtain her consent or go to the trouble of treating her like a human being. A lot of pornography or quasi-pornographic material (art, film etc) is similar: paintings of women bathing (acting as though they are unaware they are being looked at), porn films that are supposedly hidden camera recordings or leaked footage, and obviously the extraordinary lengths men will go to to obtain nude photographs of celebrities without that celebrity's consent, even when she may have actually appeared nude in a film or tv show or whatever. Or the whole upskirting thing, or posting compromising photos/videos of ex-girlfriends as a way to get back at them, etc.

I guess it's not just feminists, you could also read John Berger or whoever, but anyway.

Honestly though that's a lot of classical music album covers with people on them and you just get desensitised lol

*shrug*

I should probably defer to people who are women or who are interested in women, but I can't see what is that arousing about a woman that is just lying there in this fashion, not conveying any kind of energy or interest; it seems to me a lot less arousing than any number of other situations. And that's even allowing for the points that you're making. Yes, a lot of pornography reduces women to sexual objects, but the aim is usually for them to be animate sexual objects. There's a big difference between being denied agency and looking like a rag doll.

But maybe my failure to be interested in female breasts is misleading me. Then again, I'm not the only one having this reaction.