What are you listening 2 now?

[Symphonic Addict]

Bartók: Sonata for two pianos and percussion

It's been high time since my last listen to this work. Fascinating and original as ever.

[Symphonic Addict]

Taneyev: Piano Quintet in G minor

Russian chamber music doesn't get better than this towering masterful quintet. It's that great!

[SimonNZ]

[steve ridgway]

Pierre Henry - Astrologie

[steve ridgway]

Scelsi - Ohoi

[steve ridgway]

Pierre Henry - Le Livre Des Morts Égyptien

[Selig]

Fortunately it has been re-released by Brilliant.

Yes, and with more material! The Amadeus issue, being a single CD, contains only 5 P&Fs. It is missing BWV 537, 538 "Dorian" and 545, FYI @AnotherSpin

[AnotherSpin]

As I recall, Janacek was not especially religious either!

It's worth clarifying what religious actually means. I'm drawn to Osho's understanding of it. To be religious, said Osho, is not to follow a creed but to live in communion with existence: "Religion is a dead rock; religiousness is a flowing river." It is not belief but awareness, not obedience but celebration. The truly religious person dances, laughs, meditates, without scripture, without priest, without fear. Religiousness is not a system but a sensitivity, a way of being wholly present, wholly alive.

In Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's view, religion is not about believing in God, but about knowing oneself as God, not as a person, but as pure being. He dismissed dogma and tradition unless they pointed inward: "The unchangeable can only be realized in silence." Silence, not scripture, is the gateway to truth.

[AnotherSpin]

Yes, and with more material! The Amadeus issue, being a single CD, contains only 5 P&Fs. It is missing BWV 537, 538 "Dorian" and 545, FYI @AnotherSpin

Thank you. I saw both editions on Qobuz and decided to start with the earlier one. That way, I'll have a reason to listen to the more complete version also.

[AnotherSpin]

Death is but a ripple in the dream of form, an illusion fading into the stillness of the real. The self neither arrives nor departs; it simply is, untouched by the play of beginnings and endings.

To die is to awaken from the masquerade of separation.

[Que]

Morning listening:



A collection of of 15th century English music by the Binchois Consort, built around the Missa Nobilis et pulchra by Walter Frye.
Amazing performances. Recommended for those interested in Early English polyphony!

https://earlymusicreview.com/music-for-saint-katherine-of-alexandria/

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Jun/Katherine_Alexandria_CDA68274.htm

[AnotherSpin]

Hieronymus Praetorius: Motets

Alamire - David Skinner
Stephen Farr
His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts

[AnotherSpin]

Heinrich Scheidemann
Melchior Schildt
Delphin Strungk
Matthias Weckmann

Manuel Tomadin & Giuseppe Maletto

[Traverso]

Mozart

Symphonies 14-17

[Todd]

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Amirov: Shur & Kürd Ovshari.

[Mister Sharpe]

It was gratifying to me to see on Classic FM's list of "The 10 Greatest Pieces of Music by Ralph Vaughan Williams," inclusion of a Serenade to Music (choral version), one of his most outstanding accomplishments, to my ears. So many similar lists do not include it and even many of VW's most devoted fans eschew the work. If you are one of those - and I don't mean to put you on the spot and I certainly do not want to be confrontational about it - but if you feel comfortable explaining why you dislike it, or what there is about it that causes you to dismiss that work (or prefer the instrumental version), I'd be grateful to understand better, 'cause there are many who don't care for it.  In Nov., 1954, VW was at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, where he gave lectures and the Serenade was performed, among other works.  Born too late, I was only three years old but just 100 miles away...    

[hopefullytrusting]

Today, and it might be the only classical today - depends on how the rest of the day unfolds:

Piston's Chromatic Study on the Name BACH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WLSQY7fujI
Organist: Su Lee

Piston is a composer I know pretty much nothing about, other than that his compositional naming scheme appears to be in the manner of a technical communicator - concise and precise. Some of his titles are so blunt, they make you chuckle. He's pretty much this is what it is, and you're like, yep, that is what it is. I also know that he is known more for being a teacher than a composer - wonder if that cliche is true about those who can't do - teach - hmmm, wonder if that is true for me?

For me, it is the organ. I've never heard a bad composition on it - composed by a proper composer. It is deep, meditative, resonant, and it fills the room like the tabernacle. What I like about the organ is that it is an instrument of viscerality - pretty much every other instrument, outside of the deep brass - trombone and tuba - are incapble of this - where the sound resonates in the bones - strings are too puny, and the winds aren't constructed for that kind of power. You pretty much have the organ, the trombone, the tuba, and I imagine there is a percussive instrument that could accomplish this feat as well - the gong, the hammer.

Sadly, this feels like any old organ piece - nothing about it sticks out and it just blends, seamlessly, into the repertoire. It is well-composed and well-played on an impressive organ, but nothing about it stands out - that also may be the point - subsumption of the music to the task - that feels very Piston - to make the instrument instrumental.

Recommend - I mean, in the end, it is a short, solid organ piece - can't go wrong with that.

[Mandryka]

Kagel's Vox Humana - masterpiece IMO - the more Kagel I hear, the more impressed I am.

[Que]

Very good.