Your Musical Discoveries of 2011

[TheGSMoeller]

My biggest and most pleasurable musical discoveries of 2011 are ...

...first, and the most important to me, is my continuing exploration of baroque music. In the past years I have found such enjoyment and amazement from this era. I personally find more musical evolution in the Baroque era than any other. This year I have focused on Telemann, Scarlatti(both A. & D.) & Biber, and I look forward to many more years of discovery.

I have to thank GMG here for two...
...the introduction to Rued Langgaard, I had obtained a recording of Music of the Spheres early in the year, but was lead to some more wonderful music, his symphonies, Antikrist opera, and some chamber music.
...and finally my quickly expanding collection of Haydn recordings. I have long been a deep admirer of his symphonies, but thanks to GMG, I was given many wonderful recommendations from string quartets to oratorios to solo piano. Just more proof that Haydn was the greatest composer of his era.

[Mirror Image]

I have to thank GMG here for two...
...the introduction to Rued Langgaard, I had obtained a recording of Music of the Spheres early in the year, but was lead to some more wonderful music, his symphonies, Antikrist opera, and some chamber music.

Langgaard is certainly a wonderful composer and a major find of mine many years ago. This year I acquired Antikrist and it's simply stunning. I was already familiar with the symphonies and Music of the Spheres, but Antikrist impressed the hell out of me.

[Lethevich]

McEwen's... everything. I already knew and liked the Border Ballads, but my admiration across all genres of his music has increased markedly recently.
Bowen's music outside of his great piano works, specifically his instrumental sonatas. His violin sonata is e-x-c-e-p-t-i-o-n-a-l, do give it a try if you want some Tchaikovskian/Rachmaninoffian intensity that almost no composers can pull off with any success.
Walford Davis's surprisingly fascinating violin sonata coupled with Bowen on EM Records
Koechlin's piano works and some orchestral music. I still don't like his chamber music, but I've gradually come to enjoy the orchestral music that I was slightly ambivolent towards before. The piano music I've come to enjoy in a proto-Messiaen sense in its lack of traditional melody-based material; it's composed in brush-strokes, almost. (Thanks to Corey and MI.)
Stevenson's Passacaglia. A major landmark of the "epic slab of piano music" composition school (Thanks to Luke.)
Rochberg's Caprice variations. A major landmark of the "epic slab of violin music" composition school.
Mahler's 6th. I never liked this piece before, maybe I'll get the 5th next and try to get past that silly opening (if I can deal with the opening of Havergal Brian's 7th, this should be no problem).
Speaking of which, Havergal Brian (to whom I almost always prefix his first name because it feels like I'm refering to our GMGer Brian) is a composer that I have finally sort of come to almost grasp. I have known his music for several years, but only liked his 27th symphony. I finally came to grasp his 6th by listening on repeat (the composer's music rewards this more than almost any other), and I am still not desensitised to it (Thanks to "that thread", which I participate in almost more than I listen to the composer's music.)
Biber and other members of the stylus phantasticus (Thanks to Antoine and Que.)
Schubert. 2010 was my Schumann year, and 2011 was for this guy. I am only beginning to grasp at just the three last piano sonatas, but what I have gotten from his solo piano music as a whole qualifies as an ongoing discovery for me. Another "last three" I obsess over are his string quartets. I already knew and loved the 13th before this year, but in the first half of the year I discovered the 14th, which I had for some reason rarely listened to until then. This was most enjoyable because I was comparing recordings at the same time, including the weird Quatuor Terpsycordes. I then logically moved onto the 15th quartet and initially drew a blank due to its unique language but came to really like it. The structural problems of the last two movements are still here, in duration terms, but they feel far more meaningful to the work than they do in the 14th. Then his lieder, I have listened to Winterreise around 13 times, and Schöne Müllerin maybe 7 or so, and was able to shake a friend out of a depressive patch after I had run out of other ideas by playing them der doppelgänger a few times - it works quite well as a metaphor for ill feelings.
The solo piano music of Josef Matthias Hauer was a pleasant surprise too - literary, emotional atonality in the Schoenbergian manner. Not so abstracted as to conceal a compelling nocturnal mood throughout in pieces such as the Hölderlin pieces (Thanks to Luke again, I think.)

I am forgetting a lot, but that's a good thing as far as this increasingly obese post is heading.

Schnabel's symphony #2.

Wait, wait, wait... what? I have on-and-off been collecting Schnabel's compositions (around five discs so far) but didn't know that he wrote symphonies, let alone that they had been recorded. A quick look on Amazon UK indicates they may be OOP ;__; I hope I can find them somewhere.

Edit: whee, still available in the US expensive but worth it.

[marvinbrown]

   
  2011 has been a very interesting year for me as I have branched out of the core repertoire and explored new composers unknown to me.  All this thanks to HMV's budget EMI 3 CD boxsets (some of these were going for as low as £3!!):

  1- Villa Lobos: Bachianas Brasilieras etc.
       [asin]B000UZ4F10[/asin]

  2- Nielsen: Symphonies 1-6
      [asin]B000UZ4EX4[/asin]

  3- Lutoslawski: Orchestral Works
      [asin]B001BJ84BG[/asin]
 
  4- Ravel: Orchestral Works
      [asin]B000UZ4EYI[/asin]
 
  5- Mendelssohn: String Quartets
      [asin]B000UZ4EVG[/asin]

  The Lutoslawski set is to die for.  This modern composer took me by surprise.  His music has enough "grit" and"bite" to rival the best of Shostakovitch! I would encourage anyone interested in modern classical music and unfamiliar with Lutoslawski to pick up the recording I have posted above.  You get all his significant work, conducted by the composer himself at a budget price- WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR!

  marvin
           

[chasmaniac]

I discovered the 14th century. Funny that.

[asin]B00000204S[/asin]

And Morton Feldman. Can't forget him!

[Daverz]

Two Azerbaijani composers: Kara Karayev and Fikret Amirov.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

  The Lutoslawski set is to die for.  This modern composer took me by surprise.  His music has enough "grit" and"bite" to rival the best of Shostakovitch! I would encourage anyone interested in modern classical music and unfamiliar with Lutoslawski to pick up the recording I have posted above.  You get all his significant work, conducted by the composer himself at a budget price- WHAT MORE COULD YOU ASK FOR!

That's a great-looking set, but it should be pointed out that it doesn't contain ALL his significant work: it's missing late masterpieces like the 3rd and 4th Symphonies and the Piano Concerto. He also wrote some notable chamber music, including an awesome String Quartet.

[Mirror Image]

Koechlin's piano works and some orchestral music. I still don't like his chamber music, but I've gradually come to enjoy the orchestral music that I was slightly ambivolent towards before. The piano music I've come to enjoy in a proto-Messiaen sense in its lack of traditional melody-based material; it's composed in brush-strokes, almost. (Thanks to Corey and MI.)

You're welcome, Sara. I'm glad I could help you in some small way.

[marvinbrown]

That's a great-looking set, but it should be pointed out that it doesn't contain ALL his significant work: it's missing late masterpieces like the 3rd and 4th Symphonies and the Piano Concerto. He also wrote some notable chamber music, including an awesome String Quartet.

  Thank you Velimir  for refering me to Lutoslawski's other significant works.

One thing I will not do is miss out on an opportunity to rant and rave about this great and likeable man, Witold Lutoslawski!

It was through him & chance discovery of his third Symphony that I penetrated post-world-war-II modernism: the discovery of a decade though not this decade.

There are two recordings of him conducting his resigned 4th Symphony: both hard to find.



Don't miss out on the Interlude of 1989. As great, deep, moving, metaphysical a piece of music as has been written since Charles Ives' Unanswered Question:



The piano Concerto? Lutoslawski catching up with Gershwin and Rachmaninov, yet still sounding great. Its u to you to figure out if you prefer men, or women:



Third Symphony. Barenboim is still serviceable, though:




Did you say String Quartet? Beware what you wish for!





More Chamber music:

  OH MY GOD  !!! Now that's what I call "ranting and raving"  !! Well you have certainly made my search for future recordings easier/harder (look at all these choices!!).  Thank you for that.

  marvin

[snyprrr]

Lots of Great Stuff everybody!

[madaboutmahler]

Mahler's 6th. I never liked this piece before, maybe I'll get the 5th next and try to get past that silly opening (if I can deal with the opening of Havergal Brian's 7th, this should be no problem).

   

[Karl Henning]

   

Dude, you've got face it: not everyone is going to be enthusiastic about Mahler.

It's okay.

[Lethevich]

   

*hides* if it helps I've admired if not immediately loved the 7th since first hearing.

[Sergeant Rock]

   

I took her task in the Mahler help thread....

No, not really. I'd never do that. But I did point out a few things that might help her come to grips with the opening of M5. And you do realize, right, that what she means is that she's finally enjoyed M6 for the first time (MTT and Neumann performances).

Sarge 

[madaboutmahler]

*hides* if it helps I've admired if not immediately loved the 7th since first hearing.

*puts gigantic Mahler hammer aside*

I love the 7th
Mahler's not for everybody, at least you admire him.

Dude, you've got face it: not everyone is going to be enthusiastic about Mahler.

It's okay.

Karl, I know.... I just get very defensive. LONG LIVE MAHLER!

I took her task in the Mahler help thread....

No, not really. I'd never do that. But I did point out a few things that might help her come to grips with the opening of M5. And you do realize, right, that what she means is that she's finally enjoyed M6 for the first time (MTT and Neumann performances).

Sarge 

haha  Thank you Sarge - and thank goodness! 'Silly' was not a word I was ever expecting to be associated to the opening to M5... Have a nice evening.

[ibanezmonster]

The three composers I met this year, at the Gaudeamus Muziekweek in Utrecht (newly moved from Amsterdam), were Sergey Khismatov, Anna Korsun, and Vladimir Gorlinski.

Thanks, I'm checking out some of their stuff right now. It'd be interesting if they do turn out to be as well-known.

[North Star]

Prokofiev's piano works, violin sonatas, Romeo & Juliet
Bartók (I knew the Rhapsodies for Violin & Orchestra before)
Stravinsky (I knew Rite & Firebird before)
Brahms: Piano music
Dvorak: string quartets, piano quintet in A major
Janacek (I knew the violin sonata before)
Schubert: SQ No. 15, Schwanengesang

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

Basically I gave more tries listening to stuff other than music for full orchestra. E.g. music for strings only, or vocal music with lutes and harpsichord. Thinking about it I realize, the music is so full of happiness, sun, spring, flowers and birds Not.

a) Early Music especially w. Countertenor vocals.

[asin]B0015SRM52[/asin]
Venus Birds! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KwHErv7Ryk

[asin]B003XT8Y3U[/asin]
Music for a while! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwIXtwx2gi4

I sing this stuff in my car at his pitch. It works best in the morning

b) String quartets
Shostakovich No. 8 w. Borodin Quartet


Schubert: Death and the Maiden
[asin]B0012Y1I4U[/asin]
Also: The Murcof version of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am0TeTZNw3Y

[Orchestral]
Akira Ifukube: Eglogue symphonique pour koto a vingt cordes et orchestre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BYvOGeU7YM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2kdXR2Qo-E

[Outside of the classical domain]
A lot of Radiohead... Nude! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f013h8SDSio
Reckoner! A lot of their rather electronic stuff like Idioteque etc...
Also, new Plaid album Scintilli. But IDM is fading.

[Karl Henning]

I've even come to peace with the realization that not everyone is going to share my enthusiasm for Koechlin.

[PaulSC]

But IDM is fading.

Meh, some people would say the same about Shostakovich...