What are you listening 2 now?

[steve ridgway]

Messiaen - Diptyque

[JBS]

Staying on the Jewish path, I queried Gemini about classical music and the term "kaddish," which I only know because of Leonard Bernstein, and he was the first recommendation, but the second was Salomone Rossi, and Gemini described it as joyous, so I selected that work: Yitgadal veyitkadesh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAJXZTGc56A

Apparently, according to Wikipedia, a kaddish is a hymn praising G-d, but this was demarcated as a full kaddish, so I asked Gemini what that was, and according to it in includes an extra paragraph beseeching G-d to accept the prayers of the Jewish people, so I understand, a bit, the framing, but, of course, I do not speak the language nor did I seek out a translation, so I am only appreciating it on sonic front, so only partial hermeneutics.

I do agree with the term joyous, but I don't find that term enough - the work feels holy to me, sacred - which is unusual, as all the masses and requiems I've heard are simply compositional forms/genres, but this gives the feeling of what chant does for me when it comes to the Christian faith - there is a purity to it, the lines are so clear, the music so flowing and lyrical - it is one constant uplift, as it were, and it is moving in only one direction - forward, onward, upward.

That is also an important point. If this was placed on a disc of Christian chant, I would not be able to differentiate it from the rest. There is nothing distinct in it for me - there is no tunefulness, as it were. It is glory; it is righteous aka entering the aesthetic realm of the Kantian sublime, but, for me, it is just another song amongst other songs.

High, high recommendation.

Ha! I had no idea such a game existed.

As for Kaddish--it's a prayer said only during communal prayers. Actual text is Aramaic. There are several forms of it
--Chatzi (Half)Kaddish, a short version recited by the prayer leader at certain points in the service. Essentially a transition between segments of the service.
--Kaddish Shalem, Complete Kaddish, the one Wikipedia referred to. (Yes, in Hebrew the word for peace is a form of the word for completeness.) Recited near the end of prayers.
--Kaddish Yatom,Mourner's Kaddish, the one most often meant in general conversation, said by a mourner at certain points in the service.
--Kaddish d'Rabbanan, which has an extra paragraph on behalf of those who study and teach Torah (in its extended sense of accumulated rabbinical teaching), said after a psalm or passage of rabbinical literature, usually recited by any mourners present.

Text and transliteration of the Mourner's Kaddish here. If the Aramaic looks like it can a tongue twister--yes it can, if you try to say it too fast.

https://bethabrahammemorialchapel.com/kaddish-prayer/

Rossi has a thread on GMG. I know because I'm the one who started it off.

[steve ridgway]

Xenakis - N'Shima, Pour Deux Mezzo-Sopranos Et Cinq Musiciens

[JBS]

@hopefullytrusting 's Rossi video led me to this

Contemporary composer*
Song of Songs in Hebrew, music in early 17th century style

*iirc he's the countertenor in this performance

[JBS]

So, I started off my search today with the name Boguslaw - I don't know why exactly, but at the way I say it in my head sounds badass, which led me to Boguslaw Jakubowski, a clarinetist, and per Presto - has a single recording of the works of Magdalena Cynk, a Polish composer I've never heard of. The piece I selected is Planetoidy, and it is made up of two sections: 3784 Chopin and 16689 Vistula 5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyCzbfb0sHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9mzEDlLUtc

It starts off in a manner that I love - with a solo clarinet - I love that hollow sound - it then passes it to the strings then to the piano et al. - in a round, as it were. There are clear folk elements, which, for me, makes the piece more appealing - they sound Jewish to me, but this is me also exoticizing. It then goes off into this parallel octave section, which is something I've not heard before, but it gives off hints of 12-tone, and I love how seamlessly it blended into the melody, which is now reminding of me of music I've heard around the Shivah - it is very mournful, and I love how it ends - abrupt - with one last sting.

The second section starts off similar to the first with a solo clarinet, but then the piano came before the strings, and the melody here has a lot more moving pieces, but it still retains what I would say is a Jewish element - but it cold be Polish, but I've always heard such tunes in a Jewish context not a Polish one, and maybe Poland has a much deeper history with the the Jews than I know - I know pretty much nothing about Poland. The piano is far more dominant, which I don't like - especially when you have the clarinet which could be doing some of that lifting.

The second section, in my opinion, is not as good as the first - the relationship between the first and second sections - feels like a single and its b-side, when the b-side truly is a b-side. There is some good momentum and motive development, but it lingers just a bit too long - it is 2 minutes longer than the first, and you can feel it. It raises for me the question of when does a composition begin-end - like books make sense to me, even ones with unclear narratives or ones built with no narratives - but music, at least for right now, is simply a mystery to me. There seems to be little connection between the start and the finish other than the composer said so, and one shouldn't trust the author or composer when it comes to their own work, but then who else can you trust?

First section - high, high recommendation.
Second section - just a recommendation.

And listening to this--the first part is very klezmerish, the  second not nearly as much. That may be a reason why I liked the first video much more than the second.

I did LOL: the second video had only one view before me, so you may be the first person (and me the second) outside of the composer, the performers, and their families to have heard it.

[AnotherSpin]

Guillaume de Machaut: Remede de Fortune

Blue Heron

[hopefullytrusting]

I did LOL: the second video had only one view before me, so you may be the first person (and me the second) outside of the composer, the performers, and their families to have heard it.

This is sort of what I hope to focus on, if I can conceptualize it properly - unnotability.

Gregor Weichbrodt did something conceptual when he generated the Dictionary of non-notable Artists based on Wikipedia's criteria.

I am endlessly fascinated by it, and classical music is ripe with it.

[Madiel]

Medtner: Four pieces, op.4

[Madiel]

I am endlessly fascinated by it, and classical music is ripe with it.

Not half as ripe as pop music. It's a numbers game.

[hopefullytrusting]

Not half as ripe as pop music. It's a numbers game.

Very true, right behind me I have the entire All Music Definite Guides, and they are full of artists who no one has heard of, lol - and they were big enough to make it into a guide, lol, but I find classical music, at least in this sense, lot more interesting - say a case like Saint-Lubin, who both Beethoven and Schumann praised and hosted both Liszt and Mendelssohn.

[steve ridgway]

Kagel - Pan

[AnotherSpin]

Robert Jones
Nicholas Ludford
Robert Hunt

Blue Heron

[AnotherSpin]

[Madiel]

Vivaldi: Flute concerto in D minor 'Il Gran Mogul', RV 431a



The 'new discoveries' volumes are a bit of a departure from the original conception of the series, as the works here are not things found in the Turin library but that turned up in other parts of the world. But Sardelli has become the official inheritor of the Ryom catalogue so it makes sense that he'd be the one to the record these works.

This recording immediately strikes me as more interesting and characterful than the main flute concerto volume in the series. Later on I'll be listening to arias, a violin concerto and a couple of violin sonatas.

[Que]

One of my top picks for music from the Trecento:

[Traverso]

Mozart

CD 8

[Harry]

Johan Helmich Roman 1694-1758
7 assaggi per Violino solo.
Fabio Biondi, Violin.


The Assaggi, which rarely last longer than twelve minutes, are a fascinating melting pot of the various aesthetics that were popular in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In his time Roman was an important figure in the violin world, his career as an excellent violinist took him all over Europe and gave him the opportunity to meet many important personalities on the German and southern European stages, as well as composers and famous performers, especially in Italy, where he visited Tartini. He played with Handel , and in Dresden he met Pisendel, who enchanted everyone with his playing at the time, and in Hamburg he probably met Telemann, whose fantasies for solo violin he studied intensively. Fabio Biondi explores this little-known area of European late Baroque with almost lavish generosity and a high degree of eloquence, lending Roman's work a subtle touch of Italian flair. One can easily conclude that first of all, the music is fascinating, that Biondi's performance is breathtaking, and the recording is SOTA. It you like Telemann's works for solo violin this one will also tick all boxes. Firmly recommended.

[hopefullytrusting]

I figured I should probably link to the composer I likely refer to the most: Leon de Saint-Lubin

Agniescka Kucala embodying the first of his Op. 42 Grand Caprices:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY14oiYzaWQ

My relation to this piece is primal - for me, it is the peak of everything that the violin is capable of, and why I find so much violin music deficient - this is the piece I am judging all of them by, and when you hear perfection - everything will sound diminished in its wake - this is not the perfect rendering, but it is pretty bloody close, so close that I find it shocking - the perfect rendering used to exist in a recording I had, but I long ago lost that recording - well, lost is the wrong word - let us just say it is gone, but some things are better left to memory.

Regarding technique, this is at the level of Paganini or above - that is one of the reasons Saint-Lubin is so relegated to the dustbins save for some of the true great virtuosos who pull out his works when the audience demands encore fireworks - see Ricci's seminal recording, Virtuoso Music For Solo Violin, for the best example of this. This style of violinism, for me, is a relative lost art, but this style of performance, in general, is a lost art. There are still some pianists who embody this, like Wang, but they are few and far between.

Classical music, at least at the level of the popular - so that of the famous orchestras - has become more and more homogenized per the dictates of the grips of a capitalism or worse yet a patronage that they cannot escape from. A culture only for the "rich" is hardly a culture at all, and the tastes of the "rich" are so boring and performative. I am reminded of this scene from Wall Street, which I think encapsulates the whole rigamarole:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLAan2iZs_Y

Even the dawn becomes banal in the wake of capitalism.

[Madiel]

Mozart: String quartet no.21 in D major, K.575

[Traverso]

Bach

 The so-called "Triple Concerto" BWV 1044, one of those pieces by Bach that always fills me with renewed energy, a ray of light in these confused times. When you listen to this music, windows will be opened; happy is the one who can let this music resonate in their heart and find joy in being connected.