Analyzing Debussy and Haydn, SLSO Playing Ravel and Berlioz.

While I’m taking a break from analyzing Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, thought I’d make a quick post. It’s nice to get out of the A/V room in the library for a few minutes to see the light of day (though I was hoping to experience it more literally- I’m sick of this weather). It’s also good (though minimally) to get away from the lush C#13 chords and the planing. Sometimes listening to other students bang around and make noise in the computer lab really hits the spot. I feel like there’s only so much beauty that my ears can take before I have to get away from the score and let it sink in for a while.

I’ve been spending most of my time sitting around in the library, analyzing Debussy and Haydn, which are, surprisingly, quite complementary when studied in close proximity to each other. Yesterday was  Prélude and Symphony No. 94, “Surprise”. Today, it’s Prélude again, and Symphony No. 104, “London”. Tonight, I begin looking at Nocturnes (no pun intended). I suppose it’s safe to say that this is probably the best semester of my life. In the past few weeks, I’ve generally been happier, more productive, more positive, and more focused than at any other point in my pursuit of music.

A quick concert update before I get back to work. Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing the SLSO play Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major and Symphonie fantastique. Both pieces were great, especially the Ravel. It’s such a fun, jazzy work- I always wholly enjoy myself when I’m listening to it. The second movement is just amazing, and it was played beautifully by the soloist, Ingrid Fliter. Symphonie fantastique was pretty good, though I was a bit disappointed with the first three movements, the third especially, which was downright boring. The final two movements, however, were marvelous. I feel like when the SLSO unleashes the brass and winds on a powerhouse such as Symphonie fantastique, they really do some damage. I’ve rarely been more excited, expecially in the final seconds of the piece. Overall, the concert was definitely worth it.

Tomorrow, I’ll be going to see the SLSO do Pines of Rome and Mozart Piano Concerto No. 18. There are two more works on the program, a Berlioz overture and something else. I need to get back to work, so unfortunately  I’m not going to be able to look at the program for the sole purpose of re-posting it on this blog.

Cheers.

2000-2009 Musical Retrospective.

The end of the year is rapidly approaching and winter break has given me some time to reflect on music I listened to in both 2009 and the past decade. I’m very fond of end-of-the-year lists, so I’ll discuss a few of the musical highlights of the past year. This section of the post will deal primarily with pop music, as I didn’t hear many classical premieres (though I’ve been dying to hear John Adams’ City Noir and Steve Reich’s Double Quartet).

2009

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – Phoenix

This album is incredible. It’s one of the most fun, high-energy pop albums I’ve ever heard. Every song is dynamic, singable, and exciting. I picked this one up right at the beginning of the summer, and I’ve listened to it almost every day since. It sounds crisp and clear on nearly every medium I’ve tried, ranging from my car to Sennheiser headphones to an iMac- there’s pretty much no way that this album couldn’t sound amazing. If I had to choose one album as my favorite from 2009, it would be Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

Bitte Orca – Dirty Projectors

Unlike the Phoenix album, Bitte Orca was a grower for me. It’s one of those albums where you get what you put into it, and over the past year I’ve learned to give it my all, which has been quite rewarding. It’s pretty experimental, but entirely entertaining and, at some times, jaw-dropping. The idea that a human being could write an album like this is completely amazing to me. I’d put this in a very very close second for my favorite album of 2009.

Veckatimest – Grizzly Bear

I’ve written about this album in this blog before, so I’ll try not to dwell. Veckatimest is one of the most solid pop endeavors I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing (and seeing live). These guys are incredible musicians, and I imagine that whatever lies ahead for them will be equally excellent.

Popular Songs – Yo La Tengo

This is arguably the second strongest Yo La Tengo album of the past decade, which is saying a lot. I was a bit nervous after their last two albums, but Popular Songs is wonderful blend of all of their styles. Anyone would be hard-pressed to find a band that can do so many different things on a single album. This is not a perfect album, but it’s very very good.

There are many other great albums from the past year that are worth mentioning, and there are many other great websites that will mention them. If I didn’t limit this list, I’d end up sitting here and name-dropping for another hour. Instead, here are my favorite albums from the past decade.

2000-2009

Funeral – The Arcade Fire

This is one of the only rock n’ roll albums that I NEVER get sick of listening to. Five years after it came out, and after hundreds of listens, Funeral still remains a relevant and significant part of my life. For honest, moving, and intelligent rock, this is the go-to album of the decade for me.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot – Wilco

The best album by the best American band of the past 15 years. This is the quintessential transition album- Wilco began leaving their alt-country roots behind in Summerteeth, but Yankee Hotel Foxtrot really gave them their final push into the ‘experimental/indie/rock/whatever’ sound that they had been searching for. This deep, sprawling rock album is pretty much as good as it gets. R.I.P. Jay Bennett, whose influence on this, and earlier Wilco albums, was hugely significant.

Takk… – Sigur Ros

This album is unbelievable from start to finish. One of the most outstanding sonic experiences of my life.

Illinois – Sufjan Stevens

Illinois is the most complete, thoroughly composed, emotionally satisfying album in quite a while. It’s very clear how much time and heart Sufjan Stevens put into this album. There’s really nothing I can even say about this that would do justice to how great it is.

Kid A – Radiohead

I wasn’t ready to hear this when it came out in 2000 (I was 14 years old), but in 2004, when I realized how incredible it was, I listened to it on repeat for 9 months. There’s a good chance that this will be the Symphonie Fantastique of this century.

I suppose, because this is an art music blog, I’ll list some of the great older recordings that I’ve been enjoying this past year. During the semester, this is the stuff that I was listening to the most:

-Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson – Ben Webster & Oscar Peterson
-Somethin’ Else – Cannonball Adderley
-The Shape of Jazz To Come – Ornette Coleman
-Moanin’ – Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers

-Beethoven: Piano Concertos – Maurizio Pollini, Claudio Abbado & Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
-Brahms: The Piano Quartets – Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, Jaime Laredo & Isaac Stern
-Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians – Steve Reich Ensemble
-Rachmaninov: 24 Preludes – Vladimir Ashkenazy
-Mahler: Symphony No. 1 - Pierre Boulez & Chicago Symphony Orchestra
-Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra & Music For Strings, Percussion & Celesta – Fritz Reiner & Chicago Symphony Orchestra
-Ligeti: Works for Piano – Pierre-Laurent Aimard
-Luciano Berio: Formazioni/Folk Songs/Sinfonia – Riccardo Chailly & Royal Concertgeouw Orchestra
-Bach: French Suites – Glenn Gould
-Ives: Sonata No. 2 “Concord, Mass.” – Marc-Andre Hamelin

I’m excited to see what 2010 will bring. Between studying more classical music in grad school and the constant output of great rock albums, there will certainly be no shortage of good music to listen to. Cheers, and happy New Year.

Papers, Adams, Piazzolla Video.

I’m in a pretty exciting way lately- pretty much all I do is drink coffee and do research. Between my Brahms thesis paper, my Concord Sonata term paper, and my 20th century essays, I’ve been completely overwhelmed. I’m really happy that I’m in a field where I enjoy putting in the hours to get the work done.

Unfortunately, the more writing I do for school, the less writing I do on the internet. I have been slacking on both of my blogs lately. Surprisingly, though, I have had some time to watch movies. I saw Up In The Air with George Clooney, which I liked a lot. I also saw The Road, which was not as good as the book. Other than that, I’ve been staying in a lot and getting work done.

I’ve been listening to Short Ride in a Fast Machine. I really think John Adams is one of the most fascinating composers of the past 25 years, and definitely one of the best. Nixon in China is probably my favorite opera (don’t tell Kelly). I read his autobiography last year, Hallelujah Junction, and it’s a pretty interesting book. I recommend it to anyone interested in his life or work. In the future, I’d like to write a paper about one of his pieces. In my mind, I get his history mixed up somewhat with Charles Ives, because both of them have such strong ties to New England.

I gotta go work on my papers and study, but enjoy this video that I’ve been watching. It’s pretty incredible.

Triumphant Return.

I’ve been so unbelievably busy this semester; I can’t believe I haven’t updated this in months. I’m finally done with the grad applications, so maybe I’ll have more time for blogging.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of research for my thesis paper, which deals with Brahms’ piano music. Haven’t been to many concerts, but I did see Leonard Cohen, who put on one of the most unbelievable 3-hour shows I’ve ever seen. Next weekend, I’ll be seeing the SLSO play Brahms 2 and the Barber Violin Concerto, which should be fantastic.

Right now, I’m watching Fellini’s ‘And The Ship Sailed On.’ It’s a pretty remarkable film, so I’m going to get back to it. I’ll be back on here soon.

The Beatles.

This post is mostly about pop music, but I will say that I’m thinking about a Brahms piano music comparison for my thesis.

The following is a post I did for another blog I write for (Webster University Music Department blog). I thought it was interesting enough that I would put it on my own page.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the remastered Beatles albums that are due out next week and I’ve been debating for quite a while now about whether or not to listen to them. I mean, from a musicological perspective, I want to listen to the songs in their original form so that I can understand more about the instruments and mastering processes of the day. The Beatles recorded the albums using the technology they had available at the time, and to change any of the variables that make those albums what they are might compromise the historical value of the music itself.

To me, it’s the same as going to see a performance of a Strauss tone poem or a Beethoven symphony, in that they wrote for the instruments that they had available at the time. A section of a Strauss piece as played on the instruments that existed 100 years ago would sound vastly different from the same section being played on million dollar, world-class quality instruments made recently. For this reason, I enjoy John Eliot Gardiner’s performances because he usually uses period instruments in order to capture the original feeling of the piece.

I understand the general argument for listening to these new albums: that they SOUND BETTER. Well, sound is a qualitative thing- perhaps the albums sound exactly how they band wants them to. In assuming that we are ‘making it better’ by changing it, it not only causes people to associate the original albums with imperfection, but it causes us to therefore assume that we can improve an artist’s music by applying current technology to it.

So, the question persists: Should we listen to the new Beatles albums?

A few relatively short ideas I had today.

1. Mahler is unbelievable.

2. I don’t understand why stores like Target and Amazon charge so much for CDs. If the record industry is failing, charging MORE for their products definitely isn’t the way to go. If the Radiohead CD that I want costs the same amount of money as 100 blank CDs AND a burrito from Chipotle, you can be assured that I’ll be comfortable with the burrito and a burned copy of the album (which I downloaded years ago). Fortunately, many classical CDs are pretty reasonable. If you don’t care about having the best recording available, you can pretty much get almost any non-opera work you want for less than $12, which I think is great.

3. Today I read one of the best sentences of my life, but also heard the worst lyrics of my life.

Best sentence: “Beethoven’s last quartets are esoteric creations, sung by the creator himself, just as God might meditate in his heart, finding no partner of equal rank.” -Music in the Romantic Era (p. 38) by Alfred Einstein.

Worst lyric: “I said shush girl/Shut your lips/Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips” -some terrible band I heard at the gym.

Like I said, it was a day of highs and lows.

4. I need to do my Thesis homework and read a chapter in the 20th Century book. I feel like most of my posts are going to end this way for a while.

Ravel, Bartok.

Well, I guess it’s time for a new post. School started yesterday. I’ve certainly been listening to and reading a lot.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Ravel’s solo piano, especially ‘Miroirs’. Pretty amazing stuff. ‘La vallée des cloches’ is one of my favorite pieces. The clocks/bells imageries in that piece are very cool, I’d like to see the score. I also listened to both operas, ‘L’heure Espagnol’ and ‘L’enfant et les soreileges’, both of which were great. Both operas had wonderful librettos, and his usage of different styles within each are very neat. I’m thinking about writing a paper on ‘L’enfant’ for my 20th Century class about the different styles he uses for each piece of furniture/animal/object in the opera.

I just listened to Bartok’s ‘Concerto for Orchestra’ with the full score. It’s such an incredible piece, each time I hear it, it blows my mind. Not as good as ‘Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta’ though. I should have more to say- I’ve been thinking about making this post for the past few days. Now that my mind is working at full speed, I’ll have more to write about in the next few days.

PS. The first concert at the SLSO this year is Mahler 5, and I already got a ticket!

Books, Dr. Atomic Symphony, Berio, Grizzly Bear.

I haven’t had much time to blog lately- I’ve been working and studying a lot. Plus hanging out with friends and all that. Summer is not a good time to expect me to be on the computer for extended periods of time.

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately. I’m reading Brahms’ biography still, as well as a few books about medieval music, and Einstein’s book about the Romantic era. Michael is leaving in a week and gave me a pretty nice stack of books to add to my library. I’m starting to have a pretty respectable shelf of music books and scores. But I remember something Dr. Carter told me a while back- we were talking about musicology and he turned around and waved his hand at his enormous book collection and said something to the effect of “Do you see all these books? I’ve read all of these. And if you want to do musicology, you’re going to have to read more than that.” Suffice it to say, I have a lot of work to do.

I just picked up the official St. Louis Symphony Orchestra recording of John Adams’ Dr. Atomic Symphony. It sounds pretty great, I’m looking forward to spending some time with it. This is very exciting for me, because not only is John Adams one of my favorite working composers, but I was actually AT the premiere of this symphony, the same weekend that they recorded it. Very cool.

I recently heard Berio’s ‘Sinfonia’ for the first time. I think it’s a very cool piece, I’m going to try to do my 20th Century paper on it next semester. The third movement is based on the scherzo from Mahler’s Resurrection, which I wrote a paper on last semester. Apparently there is a score at Wash U with many of the musical quotations already marked, so I’m going to go check that out. It’s not cheating if it’s available to the public!

I’ve been listening to Grizzly Bear a lot. When their new album, ‘Veckatimest’, came out in May, I gave it a few listens and then shelved it. I just didn’t see what was so good about it. I liked their previous album a lot, but I just didn’t get the new one at all. Over the next few months, I came across a few die-hard fans, and each time I was convinced to give it another listen. Last week, I was talking to my friend Lou and he suggested that I give the album final shot, so I spent a lot of time with it over the next few days. Finally, late the other night, I had a breakthrough. I was listening to the album with headphones in my room, and when the harmonies in the chorus of “While You Wait For The Others” hit me, I finally knew what I had been missing. At least, ‘Veckatimest’ was more than the original “pensive Beach Boys in space” diagnosis that I had given it in May. Through repeated listenings over the past few days, I’ve come to realize that this album is actually pretty amazing. And even though it requires an incredible amount of patience to get the full effect, the full effect is completely worth the time that I put into it. Here’s a link to a live version of the previously mentioned song.

This post is already really long, so I’ll write another one about Pitchfork Music Festival soon.

A Post from the MetroLink

Thanks to the iPhone, I’m making this post while riding the St. Louis MetroLink. I’ve been reading Jan Swafford’s Brahms biography, it’s fantastic. Also read a great article in the New Yorker about the Marlboro festival. Man, it would be really awesome to get to visit it one day. I didn’t know that two of my favorite pianists were the current directors- Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida. I listened to her recording of Mozart Piano Sonata No. 2 in F Major today. Awesome piece of music. I played through the adagio of it today and it’s as satisfying to play as it is to listen to… Maybe even moreso.

Listened to Brahms’ C Major Piano Sonata yesterday, it was great. What a strong choice for Op. 1. When asked why he chose it instead of the Eb Scherzo, Brahms said that he wanted to appeal to peoples’ heads and not their heels. l listened to the Eb Scherzo, which was good but not as texturally satisfying as his later piano work.

I’m gonna get into Liszt soon.

Well, that’s about all I can write while on a train.

A few thoughts.

I’ll work on a better post soon, but I wanted to say a few things.

1) I just listened to Richard Goode’s recording of the Adagio from Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto. I don’t like it. I think I wrote about his performance of this a while back, but I just heard the album and I have the same problems with it. Rudolph Serkin still does it best.

2) I’ve been listening to Shostakovich’s string quartets. His 8th is really good- it will be the subject of my next post on here.

3) I have a lot of work to do. 

4) I wish I could be at the Mahler festival in New York.