What were you listening to? (CLOSED)

[Lilas Pastia]

Various things by John Tavener (CDs: Out of the Night (various composers), Ikos (various composers), Thunder Entered Her, Children of Men (various), The Protecting Veil). Overall I think that I don't like his work, but there are a few really neat pieces.

Ikon of the Nativity: Very good, engaging from beginning to end and has a lot of melodic appeal.
Magnificat: This nearly pop music (but also fun).
The Lamb (for string orchestra)... I don't know WTF the purpose it is supposed to fulfil. Some people accuse Gorecki's 3rd symphony as being "made for CD" for people wanting "deep"/"spiritual" music to casually listen to and not of much interest in the concert hall, but at least that has some kind of grand sweep, and is dramatically impressive IMO. A 3 minute simplistic piece like The Lamb defies any reason for its existence, it's like film music, where else can it be used? Well, other than these annoying compilations...
Angels: is there anything more to this than the constant repeating?
Thunder Entered Her: This is as appealing as sitting through a sermon (to someone who is not that way inclined), how can it be so long?
The Protecting Veil: This is quite good, and being forced to use a slightly normal format (concertante) seems to have made it unexpectedly focused.
Lament of the Mother God: This actually resembles Hildegard occasionally - it's also rather long and slightly devoid of substance...
Canticle of the Mother God: Less directionless than the previous one, and kind of spooky - this is a pretty unique atmosphere.
Mother of God, Here I Stand: This is vaguely reminicent of Pärt, so at least tries to go somwhere, but like recent Pärt, it doesn't...
Funeral Antiphons: Like Ikon of the Nativity, this is nice tuneful choral music, why doesn't he always write like this...
Threnos: Just put a tune in it please agh...

To try to get an overview on these discs, all I can think is how boring his penchant for 10 minute+ choral works (without the chorus being used very much) with a lot of silence and solo (almost) narration is. Some of the shorter works can be quite appealing, but grr, a frustrating composer... Infinitely more so than even Pärt's recent work which is eminently listenable.

Edit: Tavener seems to be a really hard composer to listen to sympathetically, especially in a CD of just his work. In the Ikos CD, it has picked some of his more appealing ones, and combined them with other appealing pieces by different composers. The problem is, he doesn't seem to have enough appealing material to fill out a CD

Excellent post, Lethe!

I've valiantly tried, but this is just not for me. Some lovely sonorities here and there, amid a sea of formless mush.

[Lethevich]

I wish he wrote more in a more strict format, like the Protecting Veil: a requiem, a string quartet, anything!

This (thanks to a nudge in the right direction from Lethe):

That's the one I own too (scary as hell cover)

[Renfield]

You know, I'm embarrassed to admit that British composers' work, beyond Elgar and Vaughan-Williams, sounds to me more complicated than formal logic, in terms of names/types/styles: either I'm too used to "Germanic" composition patterns (and I mean the "appearance", mind you - as in "9 symphonies, 3 concerti, versus larks, veils and assorted natural imagery ), or I'm just not into the British composer "thing" enough, yet.


Edit: Lethe, I honestly did not read your response before I typed mine. Looks like I'm not alone, then! But does every British composer bar the two above (oh, and Britten!) use this indistinct format, or have I just been unlucky so far?

[Lethevich]

You know, I'm embarrassed to admit that British composers' work, beyond Elgar and Vaughan-Williams, sounds to me more complicated than formal logic, in terms of names/types/styles: either I'm too used to "Germanic" composition patterns (and I mean the "appearance", mind you - as in "9 symphonies, 3 concerti, versus larks, veils and assorted natural imagery ), or I'm just not into the British composer "thing" enough, yet.


Edit: Lethe, I honestly did not read your response before I typed mine. Looks like I'm not alone, then! But does every British composer bar the two above (oh, and Britten!) use this indistinct format, or have I just been unlucky so far?

Hmm, generally British composers of the 20th century were in some ways notorious for adhering to the "grand tradition" of tonal symphony writing, a couple of them even stuck to nine They got the metaphorical shit kicked out of them on the international (especially European) stage for being so conservative. Tavener is rather difficult to work out - similar sounding religious titles are used for both monolithic and tiny choral things, as well as small instrumental works, but he has perhaps more in common with modernism, with its sometimes excessive and confusing obsession with poetic titles for musical pieces.

But generally (outside of the modernists) most British composers seem reasonably straight-forward to me. RVW can be a bit sketchy, Flos Campi, for eg. is quite a bizarre pieice and hard to categorise, but generally he's quite formal in his chamber, choral and orchestral music - no more problematic than, say, Liszt calling a piano concerto Totentanz or Strauss's orchestral works being so diverse as to be hard to unify under just the umberella of "tone poem". I generally treat any British piece with a flowery name as being a tone poem until I discover otherwise, and generally it works well (RVW's Norfolk Rhapsody No.1 and In the Fen Country for example).

Edit: Actually I totally misread what you said, so me using RVW as an example sucks, as you've already said that is OK. Wow, I'm way too tired to be posting To use a few other examples - Malcolm Arnold used very traditional forms in his music, despite surviving all the way to the 21st century, plus being quite a bit more progressive than the mid-century symphonic composers.

[gmstudio]

I just LOVE this set...

[Mark]

That's the one I own too (scary as hell cover)

Looks like Rik Mayall.

And talking of things 'scary ass', isn't In Alium freaky?

And to Renfield: start further back with British music. Around 1910 or so. Then work forwards. Plenty of conventional forms in the 'archives', so to speak.

[Mark]

I generally treat any British piece with a flowery name as being a tone poem until I discover otherwise, and generally it works well (RVW's Norfolk Rhapsody No.1 and In the Fen Country for example).

Ditto. And didn't you pick two beautiful examples.

[Renfield]

But generally (outside of the modernists) most British composers seem reasonably straight-forward to me. RVW can be a bit sketchy, Flos Campi, for eg. is quite a bizarre pieice and hard to categorise, but generally he's quite formal in his chamber, choral and orchestral music - no more problematic than, say, Liszt calling a piano concerto Totentanz or Strauss's orchestral works being so diverse as to be hard to unify under just the umberella of "tone poem". I generally treat any British piece with a flowery name as being a tone poem until I discover otherwise, and generally it works well (RVW's Norfolk Rhapsody No.1 and In the Fen Country for example).

Oh yes, Vaughan-Williams is fine. It's the rest I worry about! But that last method could well do the trick, for me.

(I tend to like knowing what it is I'm listening to, when expanding my repertory of "listened-to's". )

And Mark, I just might. In fact, British composers' music is a field I'm thinking of expanding into, once I'm more acquainted with my present "subject of focus": Wagner!

[George]

Schubert
D 845
Richter
Living Stage

[Lethevich]

Oh yes, Vaughan-Williams is fine. It's the rest I worry about! But that last method could well do the trick, for me.

(I tend to like knowing what it is I'm listening to, when expanding my repertory of "listened-to's". )

And Mark, I just might. In fact, British composers are a field I'm thinking of expanding into, once I'm more acquainted with my present "subject of focus": Wagner!

The one major thing to be aware of with 20th century British music was that while music was essentially dead during the 19th century, there were a lot of "academic" British composers, who wrote symphonies and chamber music in the usual formats just because they could - and they then got jobs teaching people in music schools to do the same. This means that there is some overflow of these composers into the early 20th century, Stanford is a good example of this (Parry too). He has written some appealing music, but nothing to collect obsessively, and his comments on being bewildered by RVW's (a student of his) comparatively unconventional music kind of reveal him to be a rather reactionary figure, content to go nowhere much.

There is some amazing music as well though, the passionate music of Finzi, the slightly more acquired taste music of Rubbra (some find his symphony cycle to be bland as hell, some find it a wonder), the incredibly acquired taste music of Brian and the acquired taste beyond all sanity music of Sorabji. There are a few stoic outsiders like these (Robert Simpson is another example) who wrote their rather unpopular music simply because they felt that they must, as they could write no other way. There wasn't really many stylistic extremes in the middle of the century by these tonal writers, but it's the gradual differences between them that I find interesting. Some are influenced by French music as well as native (Delius, RVW), there are some beautiful setters of songs (RVW, Warlock, Finzi), a lot of subtle variety opposed to the extreme personal styles of the modernists of the 50s-60s.

[Solitary Wanderer]

[Mark]

The one major thing to be aware of with 20th century British music was that while music was essentially dead during the 19th century, there were a lot of "academic" British composers, who wrote symphonies and chamber music in the usual formats just because they could - and they then got jobs teaching people in music schools to do the same. This means that there is some overflow of these composers into the early 20th century, Stanford is a good example of this (Parry too). He has written some appealing music, but nothing to collect obsessively, and his comments on being bewildered by RVW's (a student of his) comparatively unconventional music kind of reveal him to be a rather reactionary figure, content to go nowhere much.

There is some amazing music as well though, the passionate music of Finzi, the slightly more acquired taste music of Rubbra (some find his symphony cycle to be bland as hell, some find it a wonder), the incredibly acquired taste music of Brian and the acquired taste beyond all sanity music of Sorabji. There are a few stoic outsiders like these (Robert Simpson is another example) who wrote their rather unpopular music simply because they felt that they must, as they could write no other way. There wasn't really many stylistic extremes in the middle of the century by these tonal writers, but it's the gradual differences between them that I find interesting. Some are influenced by French music as well as native (Delius, RVW), there are some beautiful setters of songs (RVW, Warlock, Finzi), a lot of subtle variety opposed to the extreme personal styles of the modernists of the 50s-60s.

Great post, Lethe. Pretty much 'nail-on-the-head' there.

If I were to add anything, it would be this: some British music, post-wars, has an angularity and dissonance to it which can take one almost by surprise if what one is expecting is simply pretty pastoral music that puts one in mind of the Sussex Downs. You need to be prepared for this - I wasn't at first, and got quite a shock moving from Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia to his Fourth and Sixth Symphonies.

[George]

Schubert
D 850
Richter
Living Stage

[BachQ]

Beethoven Seventh Symphony under Paul Kleitzki

[Lethevich]

I was still listening to Tavener but I really have to stop now...

Britten - Cello symphony; Sinfonia da Requiem (London)



If his interested laid in that direction, Britten could've constructed a symphony cycle of truly Mahlerian proportions - his Sinfonia da Requiem occasionally stinks of Mahler's 10th IMO - I often wonder what it would've been like if he focussed on a symphony cycle opposed to opera cycle. I'm happy with the operas though

[Mark]

Bliss: Volume I of his chamber music on Naxos.

Now here's a good example, Renfield, of a British 20th century composer whose music some find 'difficult'.

[SonicMan46]

RIP Thea King

SW - thanks for the remembrance, she 'passed away' in June of '07 (and checking was 81 y/o!) - I have plenty of CDs w/ her on the clarinet, one of my favorite instruments - glad that she left so many recorded perfomances! 

[Solitary Wanderer]

[Mark]

Have you had chance to really 'experience' this recording, Chris? Lights out, volume up, comfy chair? Certainly the finest recording and performance in modern sound.

[Solitary Wanderer]

Have you had chance to really 'experience' this recording, Chris? Lights out, volume up, comfy chair? Certainly the finest recording and performance in modern sound.

Not yet mate. I'm working in my office for this second spin so its lovely and peaceful.

I will give it the 'A' treatment at some point