Avant garde songs

Started by Mandryka, November 20, 2020, 04:32:39 AM

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Mandryka

I'm becoming more and more aware that song cycles have been really thriving over the past half century. So I thought I'd create a thread to make a note of what there is out there, starting with this baby



Review from The Guardian here, I don't think the reviewer is right to find anything severe or self effacing in the piano part, on the contrary.


QuoteAfter taking leading roles in the premieres of Pascal Dusapin's two most recent operas, Faustus, the Last Night in 2006 and Passion two years later, the Austrian baritone Georg Nigl asked Dusapin if he would compose some songs that he might include in lieder recitals. Instead of something modest, however, Dusapin produced this enormous cycle of settings of Nietzsche's early poems – 23 of them altogether, with four piano interludes, which last over 70 minutes in performance. Nigl gave the premiere with pianist Vanessa Wagner in 2011 as a staged concert devised and directed by the composer. Dusapin has likened it to a stripped-down piece of music theatre, which he subtitles "A miniature, unsystematic inventory of a few Nietzschean passions". Whatever its genre, it's an impressively wrought achievement, a gallery of Nietzsche's obsessions and preoccupations, with vocal lines that always seem to be on the brink of something momentously expressive, and piano writing that is economical and severely self-effacing.

This is the first time I can remember hearing Georg Nigl, he's bloody good.
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Mandryka

#1
Dusapin, by the way, has written other non operatic pieces for voice which I think are a bit interesting. I was lead to that O Mensch CD because I was most impressed by the music for female voice(s) here

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#2
While the Dusapin songs are, I think, clearly part of an old fashioned expressionist tradition - anyone listening to them cannot fail to think of Eisler or even Wolf -- Holliger's extraordinary song cycle Indluuchlen for countertenor and natural horn is much more bold, and I love it. I have no idea what it's about -- does anyone have the text?

Two performances, an electric intense one from a recent concert by Ensemble Contrechamps here

https://www.youtube.com/v/8VoD3CpnTVw

and a much more relaxed one here



This is impressive music -- recommended. Especially the Contrechamps!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

amw

Holliger, Kurtág & Sciarrino are probably the big names here. Kurtág in particular has always made song cycles the centrepieces of his career. I've never been that impressed with any of the Rihm songs I've heard, or with Lachenmann's Got Lost, etc. (more impressed with the various vocal-instrumental pieces by Barrett, Saunders, Ratkje, Czernowin, but not entirely sure if they qualify as songs)

T. D.

#4
Agreed on Holliger, Kurtag and Sciarrino. The Holliger songs I've heard aren't really to my taste for whatever reason, but they're clearly "significant".

In the realm of the more offbeat (weird?  ;)), I've enjoyed Scelsi's Canti del capricorno and Georges Aperghis's Recitations.
Also George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children.

Mandryka

Quote from: T. D. on November 20, 2020, 05:09:13 PM

In the realm of the more offbeat (weird?  ;)), I've enjoyed Scelsi's Canti del capricorno

Too demanding! I prefer the Hô cycle (I think it has a circumflex, not sure.)
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

steve ridgway

Quote from: Mandryka on November 20, 2020, 08:26:53 PM
Too demanding! I prefer the Hô cycle (I think it has a circumflex, not sure.)

Khoom is my favourite but I can listen to the Canti del Capricorno now, like the songs with a bit of instrumental accompaniment the most.

Mandryka

#7
Quote from: T. D. on November 20, 2020, 05:09:13 PM
Kurtag

Quote from: amw on November 20, 2020, 01:48:53 PM
Kurtág



Let me take the opportunity to mention my favourite Kafka Fragments. The one with the horsy on the front.

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Mandryka

Quote from: amw on November 20, 2020, 01:48:53 PMSciarrino

Quote from: T. D. on November 20, 2020, 05:09:13 PM
Sciarrino.

Is there anything that resembles a song cycle apart from Quaderno di Strada?  is Vanitas? Wiki lists it as a stage work. And the madrigals are madrigals - not quite the same as songs, but maybe I'm nitpicking.

What we don't have is a sequence for voice and instrument as far as I know, apart from Quaderno.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

T. D.

No, I don't think you're nitpicking. It's my laxity. I believe you are correct.

amw

Quote from: Mandryka on November 21, 2020, 11:19:50 AM
Is there anything that resembles a song cycle apart from Quaderno di Strada?  is Vanitas? Wiki lists it as a stage work. And the madrigals are madrigals - not quite the same as songs, but maybe I'm nitpicking.

What we don't have is a sequence for voice and instrument as far as I know, apart from Quaderno.
There are a few other individual vocal-instrumental pieces: Il Giardino de Sara, La perfezione di un spirito sottile, & some early songs. I guess other pieces I was thinking of like the madrigals, L'alibi della parola, Cantare con silenzio, etc, are really choral works, so I guess you're right that there's not much that actually qualifies as a song. (And yes Vanitas does belong with Macbeth, Lohengrin and Luci mie traditrici among the operas.)

Mandryka

#11
Quote from: amw on November 20, 2020, 01:48:53 PM
I've never been that impressed with any of the Rihm songs I've heard,

The problem I have is that they all seem to be part of a romantic expressionist tradition, possibly extending that tradition but as far as I can hear they're not experimental. Even Dusapin is more cutting edge vanguard avant garde sounding (slightly) that Rihm, when it comes to songs. There's something about the piano and voice combo which leads to composers getting their wings clipped maybe.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#12


Too confident to be called experimental, this has a distinctive modern sound. Birtwistle's 9 settings of Nerine Niedecker for voice and string quartet is an outstanding discovery. Alice Rossi has a voice I can listen to.

This is also a good place to recall a fabulous Feldman inspired song sequence that Birtwistle wrote, not on the above CD and as far as I know never commercially recorded, La Plage: Eight Arias of Remembrance, for soprano and little ensemble.

https://www.youtube.com/v/Bh5kPnZcPT8
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Well this certainly has the word "songs" in the title, and it is IMHO a bit special, Jennifer Walshe, Ukeoirn O'Conner: Three songs

https://www.youtube.com/v/UnPdy4szsHQ
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

T. D.

#14
I've always been fond of Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King*. Much better seen live, as there's a big theatrical element. Some Eastman discussion reminded me.

*I know it's off-thread topic, but "Songs" is included in the title.

Mandryka

Well if we're going to push the boundaries of song, I'm going to put this here, there are so many uses of vocalisations in Stockhausen's Luzifers Traum piano piece, and they're so effective, if it's not an avant garde song I'm a Dutchman. Someone once said to me that I'm reluctant to say what I think of the music I listen to, which is true, but I'll make an exception here. I like it very much

https://www.youtube.com/v/5bW9M8PlotI
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#16


Well, we've all heard of songs without words, many of these are songs without melodies. They are certainly boundary pushing and I'm not sure how to listen to them. I believe the booklet explains in some length what Christopher Fox was trying to achieve, what tradition he felt part of. If anyone can find said booklet online, please let me know.

QuoteThe 'catalogue' is about ideas, remembrance and the possibility of improbable connections. In itself as a sound work it is absolutely and positively unique.

The singers from Exaudi are excellent and their commitment to the project is palpable. I can assure you that when you're in the right frame of mind this is very satisfying music.

https://divineartrecords.com/recording/fox-catalogue-irraisone/

An example

https://www.youtube.com/v/uLBCLsr44xk



Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka


Elizabeth Hilliard first attracted my attention through her recording of Christopher Fox's Sea to the West for voice and tape


https://www.youtube.com/v/x6iiULz7ZLg


The CD it's taken from has some pieces by Gráinne Mulvey, and that led to me her song The Gift of Freedom, which I think is rather impressive

https://www.youtube.com/v/37sty56b2V8
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

https://www.youtube.com/v/KzitgQrp8J8

John Croft wrote a pair of songs for soprano and flute called méditions d'une furie. Cora Schmeiser has a most distinctive voice, it has a fragility which I think is attractive. These are worth hearing, they're a bit special.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

#19


Birtwistle's cycle Bogenstrich, inspired by Rilke's Liebes Lied, including two settings of the same poem and quite a variety of instrumental pieces for cello and piano in between - has a seriousness which makes me think of Brahms. Roderick Williams has a lovely voice, and Adrian  Brendel's plays the cello beautifully.

Birtwistle's songs have been a very satisfying discovery - this recording and the one above.


QuoteHow am I supposed to hold my soul so that
it doesn't touch yours? How should I
raise them above you to other things?
Oh, I'd like to put it somewhere
lost in the dark
in a strange, quiet place that
doesn't swing any further when your depths swing.
But everything that touches us, you and me, pulls
us together like a bow that draws a voice
from two strings . Which instrument are we looking forward to? And which violinist has us in hand? O sweet song.
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