This is a trilogy of sorts – snapshots of a reluctant modern-life participant, family-preoccupied humanoid and erstwhile classical music listener. I make no apologies for the stream-of-cheese-whiz philosophy contained herein. It’s everything and nothing to do with classical music, as usual………….
The Technology Challenge:
In a fit of supreme irony, I am finding myself exiled from my usual technologically-dependent downtime by the very technology I have come to depend on! A few weeks ago I had another desktop computer meltdown and after several attempts to revive the hard drive I opted to buy a replacement laptop instead. (Of course I was anticipating the meltdown for awhile and backed up all the important files, thank goodness!) Up ‘til now I would describe myself as a reluctant laptop user – never cared for them. Yet I took the plunge to shift gears for a variety of reasons – not the least of which is seeing the computer towers of yore piling up reflective of the general trend towards obsolescence. Maybe the laptop will leave a smaller “footprint” ? Yet, when I finally make the decision to compose another (long overdue) entry here – the new laptop goes into hyper “update” mode. For the better part of the evening I’ve been watching this nifty little image on my screen while I sketched out this entry on blank paper:
Fun! You know it’s bad when windows tells you “it’s going to be awhile”. Usually the messages are upbeat and overly optimistic. Pessimism does not bode well coming from Microsoft. So, though I am now typing away – last night this part of the entry began life as handwritten notes. How crude! Well, when the ideas hit after months of NOTHING – time to go medieval. It was not Gregorian Chant that prompted the brain-flow, however. Yesterday I found a nice copy of this well-regarded 2CD set of Bartok’s string quartets:
In fact, I’ve had this sitting in my wish list pile on amazon for the longest time – just never “bit” so it all works out (got mine for only $2 yesterday!). Another reason for the wait was the knowledge that: A) I’d gone off Bartok for a while – not ready to wrestle with the challenge of listening to more yet and B) I’d reached the conclusion that string quartet music is not my first choice of listening for “serious” music. The latter reason was reached not without a certain amount of reflection. I mean – in theory I ought to like string quartets if only because of the ensemble arrangement. Four musicians can whip up a lot of interest – in blues, rock, folk – all kinds of music. Yet, when it comes to four string instruments – what comes across often sounds kinda samey, if that makes any sense. Not a lot of diversity in the timbre category. Even piano trio music sounds better to me. One different instrument provides enough of a contrast to get me interested. So, string quartets have been relegated to the B-list for me, alas.
Well, being a determined listener – I snagged this set anyway and, while handwriting the notes to this entry, I listened to Bartok’s string quartet #1. Now this is probably not what experts would suggest to do. Though I will say, there have been other examples of challenging music I’ve cracked the code of via casual initial exposure. Ornette Coleman started out for me like that. Yet, by the time I hit the 3rd movement of Bartok’s 1st string quartet I had to stop writing. That’s when my dedicated listening kicked in (right about the 6 minute mark actually). So my first dip into Bartok’s string quartets was successful and, more importantly, enjoyable. There was a lot of cool stuff going on during that 3rd movement – I need to hear it again soon. Yet, I want to move on to the others – maybe one at a time. Perhaps a good approach.
After Bartok, I decided to troll the CD stacks to see what discs I’d forgotten I’d had – to see if there was anything interesting to check out since I was doing the CD thing that night. I pulled off the shelf a Dorati Living Presence disc of Scheherezade by the Minneapolis Symphony.
I have to say the sonics were quite enjoyable, though there was a pretty obvious tape splice during the first movement (maybe not so evident when listening through speakers but I had headphones on – oh well). Aside from that I quite liked the reading from Dorati, though the fourth movement was about the fastest I’ve ever heard it played! Not sure I liked that tempo, ultimately – but it was an interesting reading. What also sealed the deal to play that CD was the inclusion of “The Moldau” as a separate featured piece. I really love that music – from Smetana’s Ma Vlast. I actually have a good CD of that whole work (and a few LPs as well) – the entire deal is worth hearing, really. It had been awhile since I listened to that – so good!
By this point I’d written about three pages of notes to get me rolling on what you are reading now, but I was pretty tired. I scrounged around for another CD and found one of those Naxos historic CDs sourced from 78s – in this case early performances by Erich Kleiber conducting the Berlin State Opera Orchestra with none other than a recording of “The Moldau” from 1928. Cool!
As I was playing this and the rest of the disc – an early recording of Dvorak’s New World Symphony - I must have fallen asleep and was roused by the final movement. I don’t do that often when it comes to listening to any music, but it isn’t a reaction to classical music necessarily. I have fallen asleep listening to Hawkwind too – go figure! It’s the exception for sure.
The Vinyl Thing:
Shostakovich – Quintet for Piano & Strings. Here’s a good example of what I was saying before – add one extra instrument to a string quartet and I’m IN! The quintet format works well for this piece. Lots of variety – shade and light – here. Although there is a Stravinsky section of this LP, the majority of the listening time is taken up by the Shostakovich piece. As it happens, the pressing quality of the disc is better than average when it comes to the Capitol records imprint “Angel”. So many other quality recordings can be found on Angel / Capitol – yet it takes trial and error to find these. As for Shostakovich, he tends to be in the category of composers I feel the need to set time aside for periodically. I’ve been in possession of a couple of well-regarded symphony cycles on CD for awhile now, yet I haven’t made it through all of those pieces. And there’s so much more beyond the symphonies! Even though he is held up as the pre-eminent example of an artist tortured by crappy totalitarian government, he simultaneously represents the resiliency of the human spirit under such barbaric conditions. He managed to transform the reality of his (quite tortured) life into enduring and uplifting art. And beyond all that it’s just good music! So I can’t help getting all excited when I see the odd Shostakovich record out in the wild – especially one with offbeat compositions like this. Usually turns into one of those “can’t press the money into the seller’s hands fast enough” moments. At least for me.
Speaking of Bartok – earlier in the summer I chanced on a nice Westminster LP of piano works performed by Edith Farnadi. I mainly was attracted to the LP cover because it was so cool, but I was blown away by the music too!
Farnadi seemed to approach the music with a sense of authority I wasn’t used to hearing. Other Bartok piano records sounded kind of tentative by comparison. So I kept my eyes peeled for more from her and I didn’t have to wait too long……….
Late in the summer I hit on a pretty good vinyl cache of early 50s LPs at a thrift store I’ve been cruising for the past few years. It was one of those moments where – there was so MUCH available I couldn’t think straight. There was no way I could bring it all home – so I went for the most unique-looking records with stuff that might appeal to me. In the record cover department, it is hard to beat the early 50s sleeve designs. Just look at these great album covers:
Musically speaking, there were a lot of piano-based records. Fine by me – and as it turns out a number of LPs by Edith Farnadi. Wow! Of course all of those were part of the “to go” order. And some others I hadn’t seen or heard of before – like this Remington LP:
Aside from the low-budget nature of the release and slightly primitive recording – the performances on this record knocked my socks off. This is the kind of experience that keeps me snapping up the odd Remington LP – as long as it isn’t trashed. And there are some worth money though I have no idea really which ones those are. Someday I might have all that sorted out, but I’m mainly trying to hear more of the music.
As much as I’ve had my imagination stimulated by Sir Edward Elgar over the past few years, I’d have to say I prefer the music of another English composer Vaughan Williams a bit more. I have a handful of LPs of his music and a few new ones have come in the door lately, such as these:
My ears tell me Williams’ approach is a bit more adventurous than Elgar’s. One of these days I ought to undertake a bit more study of his output. The most I know is – I have yet to dislike any of Williams music upon first listen. And before I’m done with English composers, I have to mention two new-to-me LPs of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” I’ve listened to lately:
The Stokowski reading is enjoyable enough – and the record itself is in beautiful shape! The Boult reading with the BBC Symphony is a whole other matter!
This record looked to be clean enough, but upon first listening it was clear the signal was cut quite low to the disc since the groove noise tended to drown out the music! So, I sent it through the wood-glue cleaning method in hopes of improvement. Amazingly, much of the noise got sucked away with the glue-peel, yet the murk of the recording remained. Hmmm. Why on earth would a prominent company bother to release such a sketchy sounding product in the first place? Turns out this recording was made by the BBC Symphony during the latter days of WWII in a makeshift shed (out of bomb range). However crude the sound, the performance has stood the test of time with various reissues having seen the light of day. Historic recordings like this blow my mind. What is especially odd is the connection between the “Nipper” logo – “His Master’s Voice” – and the RCA pressing in the US (pictured here).
Technically, this logo has its roots in Britain where it was mainly used for classical albums produced by EMI. In the US, the logo has long been associated with the RCA record label. The whole confusing history is explained clearly enough in this wiki entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Master%27s_Voice To round off this segment, here is some nice footage of the inaugural opening of Abbey Road Studios (then called HMV Studio) in 1931 featuring none other than Sir Edward Elgar conducting his most famous composition. Notice the prominent display of the Nipper logo on the wall:
The Unapologetic Truth:
The simple fact of what motivates my continued toe-dipping into the classical realm goes something like this: Sometimes classical music is better than silence – sometimes not! Nearly a decade ago I started noticing how comfortable I was getting spending long stretches of my downtime not listening to any of the music I normally would listen to – the great rock, jazz, blues and folk stuff. And, quite literally, I decided to at least take up some of the silence with some OTHER kind of music that I’d never spent much time with before. Since classical was one of the genres I’d not quite gotten a better grasp of, I just dove in. So, the majority of my listening has been perhaps more informal than what most serious listeners would advocate. Yet, it is all in the name of exposure – hearing the darned stuff first! As the past few years have flown by – my dedicated listening time has been impacted by family stuff – mostly good, but certainly time-consuming. I figure it this way – I may not always be sitting attentively in front of the stereo speakers with a notebook in hand to jot down the minute details of every platter I spin, but I am at least playing the records and giving the music a good hearing. I also reckon, this is good groundwork to do in preparation of a (possible) retirement downtime exit-strategy. I am figuring there will not be much room for being bored if I can latch onto the classical thing a bit more because – I will never live long enough to attain fluency in any one direction of this music. And who cares if I don’t? I’m enjoying myself thoroughly – I’m not hurting anybody and the whole exercise is relatively sane in the grand scheme of things. There are far more destructive ways of spending my time for sure. And as I keep advancing in years the notion of living how I want to live –as best possible – is a recurring theme. My desires are relatively small. My enjoyment from listening to this music and having the chance to write about it is a pretty low-budget way to spend my time. To the point where I would openly advocate similar adventures for the like-minded. In an era of intense interactions and blowhard rhetoric – the world of classical music is like a beautiful refuge of sanity amidst the garbage. Of course I consider myself lucky enough to have these moments in the first place. Yet, I also see it as a healthy alternative to the current habit of mind – reacting to every hideous stimulus laid out like one more current-events version of a coke-line for the bad-news addict. Better to sharpen that BS detector from a safe distance – instead of getting sucked up into the malevolent maelstrom of crapola. Music by itself cannot make the world a better place, but it sure can remind us all of what good to stand up for and what bad to take courage against. As I was finalizing this latest entry, I listened to Mahler's Second Symphony - the Resurrection Symphony - for the first time in a LONG time - on HEADPHONES!! Quite amazing music indeed!
For this inspiration – handed down from mind to ear, generation to generation - I am thankful. Along with your continued interest in my philosophical adventures here. As always – thanks for stopping by and keep those records spinning in the proper direction.
Greetings
for 2017! What? The year's more than halfway over you say? Indeed it
is. Wherefore has the author been? Doing my best to duck the muck,
dear readers. If you don't know what I'm talking about good for you!
I won't bother trying to explain if someone doesn't know what I'm
talking about. Life. That's what. Full of questions, questions,
questions. And answers! Everybody's got answers - especially for
questions that you'd think we'd have the answers to already, but no.
You know what I mean. How can I put this in musical terms? Willhelm
Furtwangler and Tuli Kupferberg. Those two have been arguing back and
forth in my head for a few years at least. If you don't recognize
those names, that's okay - we have google now. It's more about what
those two represent. The ideas about the function of art and music.
One will say - music is the force that can transform and beautify the
world. This is not a new idea, certainly. The other will say - music
is the force for change. Art for art's sake / art for good's sake.
What is art? What is good? Oh, questions, questions. Didn't the
Greeks psych this out a long time ago? Somewhere along the path of my
extended liberal arts education the John Keats poem "Ode On A
Grecian Urn" passed along my consciousness and lodged itself in
the grey matter between my ears as a red flag of relevance, hence its
inclusion here:
The
best part is the punchline couplet at the end. Truth. Beauty. Yeah,
yeah. 1819, right? Only a few years before Beethoven's 9th was
composed and performed for the first time. "Ode to Joy" and
all that. Furtwangler, etc......Long before 1848 and Marx. Or
Shostakovich and 1917. And its now a long time after all that. Does
anybody even speak of post-war anything anymore? We must be
post-post-war now at least. Post Cold War. Still, the function of art
continues to be called on the carpet. It all depends on where you
are, as usual.
Where
I happen to be is actually close enough to a number of different
quality orchestras, yet it's been a long time since I went to see
that Varese show at Lincoln Center conducted by Alan Gilbert. How out
of the loop have I been? I didn't even know about Gilbert's leaving
the NY Philharmonic until a few weeks ago. I enjoyed the performance
I heard though some were claiming his career never quite took off in
New York as had been anticipated. This kind of critique reminds me of
baseball players. Are conductors supposed to hit "home runs"
too? What could that mean? So there you have it - what do I know? No
accounting for taste at this blog.............speaking of
which...........
Lately
I've found myself returning to more 20th century music. I think this
is partly due to a general desire to launch myself from the planet
Earth as quickly as possible. If only transcendentally. Anything
modern is fair game. Varese, of course. Elliott Carter like this:
Some
fun electronic music:
And
this diabolical thing I keep returning to:
And I
already have a pantload MORE of this kind of abrasive wallop that I
haven't even gotten to yet.
Yet
for some reason when I'm down at Princeton Record Exchange (only
seems about twice a year now) I find myself buying a lot of modern
Czech music albums. I've found myself enjoying composers from that
region for quite some time (Bartok, etc...) though there's been a
curious pattern whenever I'm trolling for albums. My brain does
something like this:
"Hmmm......import
pressing.......Vaclav Somethingoranother with lots of punctuation
thingies... 1970-what? Okay......Supraphon... $1.99? SOLD!"
Here are a few examples
from recent purchases.
I don't know what it is
about where I shop or what it says about the music - it's ubiquity, cheapness, whatever......but I really get the impression
that old 20th century Czechoslovakia (and the neighboring countries)
put modern music production in the upper priority bin of the national
agenda! To imagine this being a matter of POLICY is not out of the
question. Yet, for me it is more of a question at the moment. No
matter, really. There's a lot of great music to be found from this
era / region that I'm still plonking through. The variety of sounds
and commitment to unique music provides an enjoyable contrast to the
other strains of music from the time period - the 12 tone German
school, the American electronic school, etc.......
And before we leave the
Germans entirely........here's a recent Stockhausen acquisition:
Now, I'm somewhat aware of
the fact that this is one of the more ubiquitous slices of
Stockhausen to be found. Not surprisingly since it was put out on
Chrysalis Records in 1975. Right alongside of Jethro Tull and Robin
Trower! I have also gleaned enough info about Stockhausen to know
these pieces are only two parts of a larger series of works that
would take several albums to fill up the whole cycle of. In fact, I
have long ago made peace with the idea that - no matter how brilliant
and fascinating his work may be, I am NOT going to attempt to digest
the whole Stockhausen kaboodle because.......I'll never live that
long! All of this rationale (isn't it fun how my mind works??) leads
to the more sane conclusion to sample some pieces as time allows.
Vinyl would be the preferred way to do this, yet a lot of Stockhausen
vinyl is scarce and expensive. Not the above LP, however!
Ah, but what's the music
like? Now I realize what I'm about to describe here makes me sound
way more intuitive than I actually am, so just to qualify for a
second - when I get ideas like this I put it down to "random
luck". Contemplating the pretty enormous output of Stockhausen I
couldn't help wondering "Did this guy really write everything out
in notation? Or even SOME kind of notated organization?" Well,
the answer for the Ceylon / Bird of Passage album is apparently "no"!
The musicians here were given a loose set of instructions based on
some philosophical ideas. Then the "score" calls for
improvisation. Now, of course this saves the composer a lot of time,
though I will still err on the side of Stockhausen's desire to
innovate rather than shirk tedious composer duties of notation. So,
what the music sounds like is improvised group interaction.
This of course is
innovative in the 20th century mold of modern music. Yet, the
sticking point for not a few listeners is the lack of repeated ideas
or linearly constructed ideas such as melodies. One could certainly
pick out melodic moments amidst the proceedings. Perhaps music like
this calls for a different way to listen. I found myself appreciating
textures most of all here. The combinations of instruments were
unusual enough to capture my attention and especially how they were
used. Can semi-improvised collective musical interaction be
considered "composed"? Why not? If Stockhausen was the
catalyst for the project - he is still the "sound organizer".
Isn't that what a composer ultimately is? Speaking of
which...........
The recent passage of
Pierre Henry caught my attention since his name was somewhat
familiar, yet I couldn't place it. Aha! Yes - I'd picked up an album
he was involved with awhile ago - and perhaps this was his most
well-known collaboration. Unfortunately for his collaborators, the LP
did more damage to their career than good, alas...........
Most rock fans know this
as Spooky Tooth's 3rd LP release - CEREMONY. The collaboration was
not intended to represent the band's "direction" -
especially as it happened right after their successful 2nd LP "Spooky
Two". Rock fans know and love "Spooky Two" well. It
shows the group at its peak with great songs and production by the
talented Jimmy Miller (Traffic, Rolling Stones - classic rock LPs
were produced by this guy). This was NOT the case with CEREMONY. The
collaboration was more like Spooky Tooth recorded at a live show - a
bit in the distance - with Pierre Henry's electronic sounds up to the
fore. And the "songs" were based on the Christian Liturgy
(perhaps a somewhat popular theme of the time, but not really
commercially viable to a rock band's career). This was not a
commercial Jimmy Miller production and, as correctly surmised by
singer Gary Wright, the decisison of the record company to release it
as a Spooky Tooth record killed the band's career / momentum . There
could be a whole series of lessons to be learned from this fateful
story. However, it is a bit sad that Pierre Henry winds up in an
indefensible position. He did not seek a career in rock music. The
collaboration is interesting and totally in line with the aesthetic
of his art - musique concrète. To
save time, I will refer the reader to this article for a fine
explanation of this genre:
And
to give Pierre Henry a bit more of a fair shake, here is a
fascinating glimpse into his life and work:
What I got most out of
watching this film was the idea of how to adjust to listening in new
ways. Rock fans had certain expectations from Spooky Tooth's music.
They were not prepared to have to adjust their listening to be able
to appreciate the collaboration between the rock band they loved and
this relatively unknown composer, brilliant as he was. Using this
famous pop music debacle as a litmus test of sorts - consider that
CEREMONY was released in 1969. The 20th century only had another 30
years left to go and yet the experimental nature of the music was
perhaps too much for even the average rock fan to take in. It was bad
for business, certainly. Was it bad art? What was the point behind
it? That, dear listeners, is what is left for future generations to
decide. Until next time - hopefully not too long - happy listening!
