Classical music bargains

[jazzbo]

I shouldn't have, but I squeezed in before the end.

Now that's a great set, even if not every recording (esp. in Mozart, Bach) is tip-top... Damn near worth it for the Nielsen and American recordings alone... But there are near endless discoveries to be made in this set, Bernstein's own music included...

Which only heightens the Perahia Conundrum... cf. he will likely die, 40+ years a star, not having recorded anything more recent than that one Bartok recital?!

What a waste of talent, resources, opportunity.

If someone wants to counter with say Artur Rubinstein they're wrong because tho' he didn't do tons of contemporary works, here's a list of LIVING COMPOSERS he did record--

* Szymanowksi

* Stravinsky

* Prokofiev

* Poulenc

* Villa-Lobos

* Rachmaninov

* Falla

* Ravel

* Faure

If we add the list of composers living while Artur was also alive but not yet recording, we can add

* Albeniz, Granados, Scriabin, Debussy

# of living composers Murray Perahia has recorded: ZERO

# of composers once alive at same time as Murray that he's recorded: ZERO

Uh... Murray?

Yada yada yada. Doesn't make a difference to me, I like Perahia and you don't, so we two dudes on the internet have differing opinions. Big whoop.

[ejp626]

Why does a performer have to do works by living performers? That seems like a very odd criteria for judging the quality of a performer. It's great if they do, but it doesn't make them a better performer... just one who plays contemporary music.

Fair question. Lack of interest in life? In others? In musical possibility? In the things that any educated person knows about music? Like if you never read a book by a person who had been alive during your lifetime and didn't think anyone else should either? Could be anything, I don't know.

A possibly unfair idea that most contemporary classical music is pretty lousy. Or not wanting composers to hang around and bug you for not doing it exactly the way they have it in their heads. Or finding out that you recorded some sonata that has to be scrapped because three notes of the melody came from some other living composer who plans to sue -- or that the composer was a child molester. There are a lot of reasons to favour dead composers.

[Д.Д.]

I shouldn't have, but I squeezed in before the end.

Now that's a great set, even if not every recording (esp. in Mozart, Bach) is tip-top... Damn near worth it for the Nielsen and American recordings alone... But there are near endless discoveries to be made in this set, Bernstein's own music included...

Which only heightens the Perahia Conundrum... cf. he will likely die, 40+ years a star, not having recorded anything more recent than that one Bartok recital?!

What a waste of talent, resources, opportunity.

If someone wants to counter with say Artur Rubinstein they're wrong because tho' he didn't do tons of contemporary works, here's a list of LIVING COMPOSERS he did record--

* Szymanowksi

* Stravinsky

* Prokofiev

* Poulenc

* Villa-Lobos

* Rachmaninov

* Falla

* Ravel

* Faure

If we add the list of composers living while Artur was also alive but not yet recording, we can add

* Albeniz, Granados, Scriabin, Debussy

# of living composers Murray Perahia has recorded: ZERO

# of composers once alive at same time as Murray that he's recorded: ZERO

Uh... Murray?

This Nielsen concerto is very nice, thanks for posting it. Gotta explore more Nielsen.

Regarding Perahia not playing / recording any contemporary stuff - this might be also due to respective earning opportunities. And he most likely simply does not like - and does not know - the stuff. Although who knows, perhaps deep in the night, when nobody is around, he quickly runs to his white grand piano and plays a few passages of Brian Ferneyhough, wistfully stays silently for a few moments with tears in his eyes and then goes back to bed.

[king ubu]

Haven't listened to it for a while, but this one's pretty nice (and OOP by now, it seems):

[MomsMobley]

Perahia is frequently insipid & has devoted a career of vast privilege to but occasionally diverting dead horse non-invention.

Artur Schnabel didn't record contemporary music, true, but he composed it and, in his amazing Mozart cadenzas, performed it.

"Pathetic," on further thought, is an understatement. There's a HUGE plurality of very good to great to genius classical piano music written in the last 70 years and Murray peforms, records, promotes NONE of it? Fucking none?

Yet he's fucking pianist who will, however, waste his time & everyone's butchering Bach, Handel, Scarlatti on a piano. If he played harpsichord and virginal, would he likewise ignore Martinu and Roberto Gerhard? (Analogy not exact, none are.)

OK, Anthony Braxton isn't under-recorded (to say the least) but why not Murray performing Beethoven + Braxton, that would be the "safe," establishment (AB highly lauded, puts dots on paper) choice.

Or if not AB, why not George Walker? Largely ignored save the stalwart Albany label. Can't begin to imagine why George Walker would be underknown but wait three seconds & I'm sure someone might whisper that he's "difficult." (Code for ???)

I'm not bothering to look it up but maybe Murray has been commissioning new work & for whatever reasons, just doesn't perform/record it? OK, that's something... if true. (Which I doubt but I could be wrong.)

The intro is (way) too long but this wonderful Charles Rosen lecture starts at 11:30--

If Murray can find so little in contemporary life to engage him, what makes anyone think his engagement with the past is any more inspired or empathetic?

Edited November 4, 2014 by MomsMobley

[JSngry]

I like that George Walker clip a lot, and I like what I buy on Albany.

[jazzbo]

Moms/Brian, Rather than scroll through more of your disdain and insults for Perahia (who cares really) I put you on ignore.

Edited November 4, 2014 by jazzbo

[Daniel A]

Why does a performer have to do works by living performers? That seems like a very odd criteria for judging the quality of a performer. It's great if they do, but it doesn't make them a better performer... just one who plays contemporary music.

Fair question. Lack of interest in life? In others? In musical possibility? In the things that any educated person knows about music? Like if you never read a book by a person who had been alive during your lifetime and didn't think anyone else should either? Could be anything, I don't know. Those are possible answers (and I can think of others that are not as condescending) to the question why a performer doesn't do works by living composers, not the question why he/she does have to do them. Edited November 4, 2014 by Daniel A

[MomsMobley]

I like that George Walker clip a lot, and I like what I buy on Albany.

Albany is really a heroic operation, I honestly don't know who their audience is except maybe that % of faculty/students at American music schools (both conservatory & within large college/university) who are compelled by passion & curriculum maintain interest. (When travelling & in college towns, I've found it very pleasurably to attend all sorts of recitals; what some lack in final polish/virtuosity they nearly always make up for in programming & the sense of living vital musics, past & present.)

Albany covers a lot of ground, of course & one can't not like rags & enjoy this but I love their William Bolcom complete rags set--

Compare to Bolcom's etudes btw, recorded by Marc-Andre Hamelin & released on New World--

Seems like those New World folk know something about piano music? (Joke question obviously, I'm just hoping there's x # of Cecil lovers turned onto Bolcom & vice-versa.)

[David Ayers]

Albany's promotion of George Lloyd has led me to disregard them. I've heard Lloyd only on recordings and don't rate him. It feels like there's a reason no-one ever mentions most of the composers promoted by that label. Of course there could be much there that would interest me, but Lloyd stands over the whole operation like a head on a spike.

[JSngry]

I discovered Albany the old-fashioned way - heard something on the radio (well, ok, a podcast) that I liked, looked at the playlist, ordered the side, Bim bam boom.

This happens regularly, and I start noticing that a certain percentage of these things are on Albany, So ho-HO says I, and now, when making a BRO order, if I got room for one more, I'll do a search by Albany and pick one at random, just to see what comes in.

Very little of it has been GREAT MUSIC or some such, but next to none of it has sucked, and as Clemmamommamobleysays, it's all darn interesting in the sense of being alive and in the process of still finding something. It's like having neioghbors that are not famous or anything, hell, they're just everyday people, but they're everyday people who keep it interesting, don't just sit in the house and watch TV all day, they actually come out and talk to you, and the conversation is not trite or boring. I like neighbors like that, although, sure, not every second of every day.

[David Ayers]

Fair enough. Totally get it.

[MomsMobley]

Albany's promotion of George Lloyd has led me to disregard them. I've heard Lloyd only on recordings and don't rate him. It feels like there's a reason no-one ever mentions most of the composers promoted by that label. Of course there could be much there that would interest me, but Lloyd stands over the whole operation like a head on a spike.

I'm not esp. engaged by Lloyd either but it's not like he's a fraud; file in line with Havergal Brian, even William Mathias or Robert Simpson-- the list goes on. (I am, however, something of a Baxian.) And the reason you don't hear of most composers on Albany is because many are American, though hardly to exclusion.

David Hurwitz is cranky on x # of subjects but he knows orchestral music & rates Lloyd highly--

http://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-12975/

The Roy Harris symphonies, on the American side, are especially interesting (circling back to Bernstein who was great champion of the 3rd)--

I might prefer Walter Piston or Paul Creston or especially Lou Harrison overall but doesn't mean Harris (or Virgil Thomson) isn't worth knowing.

And Albany has an excellent, extensive Charles Wourinen series on on the other side of the modernist divide.

opposite Lloyd, Albany's Leon Kirchner recordings (+ complete string quartets) are excellent btw--

+ Leo Ornstein, Leo Ornstein, Leo Ornstein!

(on Albany & elsewhere.)

Edited November 4, 2014 by MomsMobley

[Larry Kart]

Moms -- FWIW Murray P. has recorded some Bartok.

http://www.amazon.com/Perahia-Performs-Improvisations-Hungarian-percussion/dp/B000F6YW3A/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415124280&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=periaha+bartok

http://www.amazon.com/Bartók-Sonata-Pianos-Percussion-Variations/dp/B001BG2P5K/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415124280&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=periaha+bartok

[Mark Stryker]

Anyone interested in George Walker should be aware of Ethan Iverson's multipart exploration of Walker's music, including an essay, interview, plus as a coda a series of reviews and related pieces that I've written over the years that touch on Walker. http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-george-walker.html

Last week Iverson also posted an update. http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/2014/10/george-walker-update.html

[JSngry]

Ran Blake, composing for the MIT Wind Ensemble, that ain't gonna be on no jazz label, and so far on just one classical label - Albany.

Is it "great"? Hell if I know (or, at this point, care). I do know that it has Ran Blake characteristics running all through it, and the transmission of those characteristics to wind ensemble gets a little Ives-ian to get into it, and that's a good afternoon's worth of provocatation going forth right there, so once again, thanks Albany!

http://www.albanyrecords.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=AR&Product_Code=TROY1016&Category_Code=a-BS

[David Ayers]

IIRC a couple of valuable LPs of Thomson's settings of Stein and Wuorinen of Ashbery on Albany...

[MomsMobley]

Anyone interested in George Walker should be aware of Ethan Iverson's multipart exploration of Walker's music, including an essay, interview, plus as a coda a series of reviews and related pieces that I've written over the years that touch on Walker. http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-george-walker.html

Last week Iverson also posted an update. http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/2014/10/george-walker-update.html

Thanks, Mark, I had no idea! Ethan has bugged me with some things in the past but much respect for him taking the time with George Walker... I don't agree with the way he framed some questions (if asking about Whitman "Lilacs," why not ask George what he also thinks about its meaning as Lincoln threnody), tho' I can appreciate his perspective on Greek myth... anyway, if Ethan sees this, kudos, and also to you Mark for pendant.

LK, I did note Murray's Bartok as his anomolous-- and admittedly pretty good, but he had Solti there to goose him-- foray into modernity but Sonata for Two Pianos + Percussion was 1937, Murray born a decade later, 1947.

Mo' Albany: it's not "Four Saints In Three Acts" but "Mother Of Us All"-- supplanting the previous recording on New World-- isn't ignorable--

Curious if J.J. Johnson knew Walker's 'bone concerto also; I'd guess yes but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta6Z61-Q1pQ

Edited November 4, 2014 by MomsMobley

[Bigshot]

Why does a performer have to do works by living performers?

Fair question. Lack of interest in life? In others? In musical possibility? In the things that any educated person knows about music?

There are musicians who play nothing but Baroque music. Are they lesser performers too?

It seems to me that the vast range of repertoire in classical music makes the territory big enough that a great artist could narrow it down to just romantic piano music, or modern music, or opera, or early music or even just Bach... and still have enough of a territory to explore to not repeat themselves in a single human lifetime. I don't see lack of living composers in a performer's book as being a negative at all. There are people that specialize in just living composers I'm sure, and I wouldn't criticize them for not playing Mozart.

Yet he's fucking pianist who will, however, waste his time & everyone's butchering Bach, Handel, Scarlatti on a piano.

You suddenly stopped being convincing altogether. In an instant, I switched from thinking about Perahia and his tastes, to thinking about you and yours. It's much better to make convincing arguments with examples like you did in your previous post.

[MomsMobley]

Why does a performer have to do works by living performers?

Fair question. Lack of interest in life? In others? In musical possibility? In the things that any educated person knows about music?

There are musicians who play nothing but Baroque music. Are they lesser performers too?

It seems to me that the vast range of repertoire in classical music makes the territory big enough that a great artist could narrow it down to just romantic piano music, or modern music, or opera, or early music or even just Bach... and still have enough of a territory to explore to not repeat themselves in a single human lifetime. I don't see lack of living composers in a performer's book as being a negative at all. There are people that specialize in just living composers I'm sure, and I wouldn't criticize them for not playing Mozart.

Yet he's fucking pianist who will, however, waste his time & everyone's butchering Bach, Handel, Scarlatti on a piano.

You suddenly stopped being convincing altogether. In an instant, I switched from thinking about Perahia and his tastes, to thinking about you and yours. It's much better to make convincing arguments with examples like you did in your previous post.

A medieval/renaissance/baroque musician could easily spend their career researching, performing, recording works that have rarely or never been heard for 100s of years. Advances-- and that's generally what they are-- in performance practice also make a goodly % of re-recordings viable.

Q: has Perahia shown ANY-- the least-- intrepidness in his choice of repertoire? Does he sprinkle in some Dussek, say, or C.P.E. Bach or even-- & we'll get to piano v. harpsichord again in a bit-- Soler or Frescobaldi or Couperin or John Bull or Chambonnieres or Bohm etc etc?

Q: has Perahia had the benefit of major label promotion, $$$, agents etc etc for 40+ years thus making such inquisitiveness risk free?

Q: while baroque repertoire on piano is a viable alternative-- Marcelle Meyer, Glenn Gould, Samuel Feinberg (listen both to his Bach WTC ** and ** his series of modernist piano sonatas)-- if that's your only cornball go at re-imagining the music of past & present times...

That's pretty weak sauce & no amount of 'elegant prestidigitation' can compensate for the loss of overtones, registration effects, ** TUNING ** !! (Hugely important issue to discuss elsewhere).

Edited November 4, 2014 by MomsMobley

[king ubu]

what's a "back WTC"?

[Larry Kart]

Moms -- If you and I don't much care for the way Perahia plays the standard rep (the other day I picked up his Kreisleriana for 50 cents and found it worth about that, though so far I like his Schumann First Sonata on the same disc) why would we want him to be more intrepid in his choice of repertoire? He's going to give us some kick-ass Dussek or C.P.E. Bach or Soler or Leon Kirchner or Robert Helps or whomever? It's not impossible, but don't think so. His whole training and orientation are otherwise. Lack of adventurousness is not his problem; blandness is IMO.

[Bigshot]

A medieval/renaissance/baroque musician could easily spend their career researching, performing, recording works that have rarely or never been heard for 100s of years. Advances-- and that's generally what they are-- in performance practice also make a goodly % of re-recordings viable.

Now you aren't arguing against Perahia, you are arguing against recording core repertoire at all. For me, I can hear differences in individual performers' performance approaches, even if I have heard the piece played in the same general style before. Horowitz, Gould, Rubinstein, and yes even Perahia can all play the same piece and I will get something a bit different out of each one. When I listen to classical music, I am listening for the differences that make a performance unique, not looking for some absolute correct approach that makes any further recordings superfluous.

There are aspects of Perahia's playing of Mozart that I find quite unique. It has a languid, fluid beauty that I admire. Maybe you want it to be masculine and angular and powerful. Well, I might too. But that doesn't mean I don't like Perahia's approach too.

I don't see core repertoire as a static thing at all. In the hands of a gifted interpreter, the performer himself can be almost as important to the work as the composer. I'm not looking for accurate and proper performances. I want unique ones that are consistent to their own aesthetic, not my expectations.

[Van Basten II]

By the way guys, this is the thread for posting deals , not in depth comments .... nothing prevents you from following this discussion in an other thread.

[Stefan Wood]

I agree. I like how conductors or musicians play around with the music. I don't have problems with Perahia overall. Just listened to the 2 disc set from the box of Schubert, which sounded really fine. If I was so dogmatic about classical I would miss out on a lot of some good music -- Scherchen can drive the purists crazy with his zany takes, but there's heart and passion to it. Perahia is a different flavor, but I never found him to be boring.

Getting back to the theme of this thread:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/%20B00FP45TT8/?tag=goodmusicguideco

The Tchaikovsky Box on Brilliant.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/Complete-Works-B-Britten/dp/B00CJCHJ1U

The Complete Britten on Decca.

And, Gould on TV:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005D4Y4H8/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005D4Y4H8&linkCode=as2&tag=bonsplanscl06-20&linkId=AUYYL47QWDBOS4P5

Edited November 5, 2014 by Stefan Wood