My Essential Classical Albums.

[AnotherSpin]

12 hours ago, Musicophile said:

Interesting. The preludes were my first encounter with Shostakovich ever, took me decades before I went much further in his repertoire, and recently start to like it more and more. 

[...]

 

To refresh my memories of 24 preludes after your comments yesterday, I was listening recordings of Nikolaeva for Hyperion late at night. No doubt you know it was originally written for Nikolaeva, dedicated to her and she practically 'owned' it. Long time ago I had her early recordings for Melodiya and I believe my bad feelings about the cycle was based on those. The sound quality was just terrible and readings oscillated between bleak and dull. Nikolaeva's later version for Hyperion is much easier, imo.

 

I am listening Jarrett's ECM recording now. It is nice. Resembles in parts some of his own solo concerts too. Would you agree?

 

It is difficult to compare 24 preludes with other Shostakovich works. I believe they were a kind of meditations on Bach's WTC, which was extremely rarely if ever performed in USSR to that moment, and was effectively unknown. Preludes were written "into the table" and had nothing of propaganda weight as his symphonies.

 

 

 

[Bob Stern]

Ashkenazy is another touchstone in the Shostakovich op 87 preludes & fugues.  Ashkenazy is more varied and dramatic.  Jarrett often is playful, which is an unusual perspective.

 

(I mention the opus number because Shostakovich also wrote a set of 24 preludes, opus 34, without fugues.)

[sphinxsix]

@AnotherSpin Thanks for your response. I'm so intrigued by the fact that you started your music education with classical because I can't really imagine what the evolution of my musical taste might have looked like if I had experienced similar situation in my childhood (I liked popular music as a child, then became interested in rock, jazz and finally classical). Maybe I wouldn't have become interested in rock or jazz at all cause I would have find these genres too simple, not sophisticated (musically) enough.. Or maybe I simply wouldn't have been able to understand classical music and to find any pleasure in listening to it  (it's not the easiest genre after all) and would've started to hate music in general.. And maybe I would've been able to enjoy rock, jazz and other genres after having discovered them and would have simply added them to my music menu. I can't really know..

How was it in your case if I may ask? And BTW are there many people here who started their music adventure with classical? Are you guys able to enjoy e.g. Hendirix, Led Zeppelin or Ravi Shankar every now and then? What's your perception of music like that?

(I'm sorry for the late response but I've had quite little spare time recently, for the same reason Handel sonatas have to wait)

 

 

 

[Musicophile]

55 minutes ago, sphinxsix said:

@AnotherSpin Thanks for your response. I'm so intrigued by the fact that you started your music education with classical because I can't really imagine what the evolution of my musical taste might have looked like if I had experienced similar situation in my childhood (I liked popular music as a child, then became interested in rock, jazz and finally classical). Maybe I wouldn't have become interested in rock or jazz at all cause I would have find these genres too simple, not sophisticated (musically) enough.. Or maybe I simply wouldn't have been able to understand classical music and to find any pleasure in listening to it  (it's not the easiest genre after all) and would've started to hate music in general.. And maybe I would've been able to enjoy rock, jazz and other genres after having discovered them and would have simply added them to my music menu. I can't really know..

How was it in your case if I may ask? And BTW are there many people here who started their music adventure with classical? Are you guys able to enjoy e.g. Hendirix, Led Zeppelin or Ravi Shankar every now and then? What's your perception of music like that?

(I'm sorry for the late response but I've had quite little spare time recently, for the same reason Handel sonatas have to wait)

 

 

 

I grew up in Western Europe so we obviously had more choice on the radio. But to be fair, while the tuner of my parents hifi had 8 buttons to store different stations, the only button that was ever used was the on and off switch.

 

Whenever on, there was just one station, the local public classical radio. It was basically always on when we were home. And at the time, the program was really quite decent. 

 

Therefore, I basically grew up listening to nothing but classical for my first years. Obviously, during adolescence at some point you want to try out other stuff. But I basically got bored by whatever pop music the commercial radio stations were playing relatively quickly, which meant that starting with the age of 16 I started my own classical music collection, soon after that also buying my first own hifi (Musical Fidelity and Mission Cyrus, luckily a decent start). 

 

This was probably helped by the fact that I started learning the piano at the age of nine. 

 

My evolution in taste started with the big romantics, Brahms and Bruckner, I moved backwards in time towards Beethoven and Mozart over the years, and only later discovered my passion for baroque, especially Bach, who today is my supreme ruler musically. 

 

I discovered Jazz on my own more or less by chance at my local record store around 17 or 18 (in the form of Keith Jarrett and Oscar Peterson, my first two jazz albums) and today this is pretty much the only other genre I seriously listen to.

 

I simply cannot stand any type of 3 chord music. It bores me to death and really physically annoys me (these days some “songs” get away with only two chords. This is Guantanamo torture to me, and should be illegal and banned, best example for me and some will probably not like me for that comment is “Born in the USA“.  The same freaking  two chords repeated over and over again. Drives me nuts!)

 

 

The only “pop” music that I still go back to on a regular basis is the early prog rock especially from Genesis in the Peter Gabriel phase. They have a harmonic complexity and creativity that is truly astonishing. 

[AnotherSpin]

8 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

[...]

How was it in your case if I may ask? And BTW are there many people here who started their music adventure with classical? Are you guys able to enjoy e.g. Hendirix, Led Zeppelin or Ravi Shankar every now and then? What's your perception of music like that?

[...]

 

 

I was grown up with constant classical music background but it doesn't mean I loved classical. It was just a part of aural ambience which imprinted in my mind with deep a strong layers of habit. Rock and jazz was something very different. It became a symbol of everything what was behind a strong and high wall. Something which was half-prohibited and barely accessible what made it only sweeter and desired more and more...)) Beatles were first, then Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin. It was not music, notes and chords. It was new world discovery, one would feel what Columbus or Vasco da Gama felt (I've been crazy about geography all my life). Then came ELP, Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Zappa, Jethro Tull. It was even more, Christmas every day. And, my new gods were playing parts of classical music, like Pictures at an Exhibition, or Rite of Spring, or Air in their pieces!! It was enough to start checking this music in its original form. When Jazz came to me it brought even more unbelievable sounds and ideas. Then opera, Mahler, Bruckner... Then Jarrett, Braxton and Art Ensemble of Chicago... Then Dylan... Then Bach, Mozart and Schubert... Composers, performers, genres or styles were growing in me simultaneously, feeding and nourishing each other.

[AnotherSpin]

7 hours ago, Musicophile said:

[...]

My evolution in taste started with the big romantics, Brahms and Bruckner, I moved backwards in time towards Beethoven and Mozart over the years, and only later discovered my passion for baroque, especially Bach, who today is my supreme ruler musically. 

[...]

 

It is interesting. Bruckner was "closed" for me for a long time even after I was already deep into almost everything what is in my very short listening list now. Brahms, or Richard Strauss, or Mahler, for example (I pick those not very far in time and place). Then one day it's just happened. Something switched on in me, and...YES! I do not know, what is the reason, why Bruckner was difficult to accept initially. The only guess, he first came to me either in very old archival recordings with archaic SQ, or in current performances which were not okay then and now, such as Rozhdestvensky cycle.

[Musicophile]

1 hour ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

It is interesting. Bruckner was "closed" for me for a long time even after I was already deep into almost everything what is in my very short listening list now. Brahms, or Richard Strauss, or Mahler, for example (I pick those not very far in time and place). Then one day it's just happened. Something switched on in me, and...YES! I do not know, what is the reason, why Bruckner was difficult to accept initially. The only guess, he first came to me either in very old archival recordings with archaic SQ, or in current performances which were not okay then and now, such as Rozhdestvensky cycle.

For me it was Strauss. To this day, I never really got him. Just not my cup of tea. Maybe I should revisit at some point based on all the recommendations above.  

 

And while I do have quite a bit of Mahler, I don’t listen to him very often. 

[AnotherSpin]

3 hours ago, Musicophile said:

For me it was Strauss. To this day, I never really got him. Just not my cup of tea. Maybe I should revisit at some point based on all the recommendations above.  

 

And while I do have quite a bit of Mahler, I don’t listen to him very often. 

 

I was impressed with R.Strauss more than really liked his music before I started listening Rosenkavalier and Vier letzte Lieder. These two pieces are touching something inside me as nothing else. His other operas are in the top of my list as well.

 

My best days with Mahler are probably behind, and my apprehension of his music changed, but I still keep him not far away...)

 

[semente]

I too have trouble enjoying Mahler.

I love Bruckner but I need to be in the mood for it.

[sphinxsix]

On 10/16/2018 at 1:41 AM, Musicophile said:

Musical Fidelity and Mission Cyrus, luckily a decent start

Not bad (and much better than my first separates)! I will not mention my very first gear - a radio cassette player, they are called boomboxes now but it didn't (re)produce much 'boom' - its speaker was a purist, one way, probably 3 or 4 inches design

On 10/16/2018 at 1:41 AM, Musicophile said:

My evolution in taste started with the big romantics, Brahms and Bruckner, I moved backwards in time towards Beethoven and Mozart over the years, and only later discovered my passion for baroque, especially Bach, who today is my supreme ruler musically.  

Backwards in time.. that's interesting. Some search for simplicity, source, missing links.. or something else?

On 10/16/2018 at 1:41 AM, Musicophile said:

I discovered Jazz on my own more or less by chance at my local record store around 17 or 18 (in the form of Keith Jarrett and Oscar Peterson, my first two jazz albums)

My first encounter with Miles' 'Bitches Brew' at 15 or 16 didn't make me a jazz fan (objectively not the best album to start your jazz adventure with). Needed a couple more years.

 

On 10/16/2018 at 1:41 AM, Musicophile said:

This is Guantanamo torture to me, and should be illegal and banned

The reason I got interested in jazz was I got  bored with verse-chorus-verse..-guitar solo-verse.. scheme (as you probably know I like some '3 chords music', OTOH I can't understand people who listen only to the music of their youth or what's IMO even worse to one genre only). When it happened I started listening to all the music from my collection that went beyond this scheme (eg Zappa guitar solos albums) and then one day I heard Charlie Parker in my friend's car. That can be compared to a first little stone that starts an avalanche, and to Argerich playing Rach '3' years later as far as my interest in classical music is regarded (I did listen to some classical pieces before that but my interest in the genre almost exploded after hearing this recording). I started to order sometimes dozens of jazz/jazz-rock albums in a month.

On 10/16/2018 at 1:41 AM, Musicophile said:

The only “pop” music that I still go back to on a regular basis is the early prog rock especially from Genesis in the Peter Gabriel phase.

So one could say that even rock you listen to is called 'symphonic'

 

On 10/16/2018 at 9:28 AM, AnotherSpin said:

Beatles were first

The same here. My first 'serious' music fascination-obsession since I was around 9 I think.

On 10/16/2018 at 9:28 AM, AnotherSpin said:

then Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin.

I remember the first time I heard 'Child in Time' on the radio. I was just floored. I ditched a couple of days later to copy their album from a friend of a friend of mine. He didn't come I still think LZ was the best rock band from the early 70s.

On 10/16/2018 at 9:28 AM, AnotherSpin said:

Then came ELP, Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Zappa, Jethro Tull.

Of course. I was a huge Pink Floyd fan! I was sure back then that better music has not been and will never be created on planet Earth  BTW I remember exactly the moment I discovered that you may not like some music while hearing it for the first time but you may need a second or third listening session to appreciate it. Happened when I was 12 - this was Yes album. Things got complicated

On 10/16/2018 at 9:28 AM, AnotherSpin said:

Composers, performers, genres or styles were growing in me simultaneously, feeding and nourishing each other.

 

 

[semente]

My cousin's husband is some 10 years older than me. He is is still very much into rock and some pop (not commercial or mainstream stuff) and is constantly on the lookout for new bands.

He sometimes sends me his discoveries but I have slowly lost interest; still enjoy some of the bands that I was listening my late teens and twenties, things like Radiohead, early REM, Tom Waits, Nick Drake, Tindersticks, late Beatles, David Bowie...

 

But now that the boys have grown double digits I have been introducing them to some of the other bands of the old days like The Police, Supertramp, The Smiths, The Cure, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, The Pogues, Suzanne Vega, Bob Dylan, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, Simon & Garfunkel... I usually play these in the car.

[semente]

The eldest's taste is unfortunately very much influenced of his friends who listen to awful rubbish teenage pop... I bought him a nice set of closed-back headphones. ?

[AnotherSpin]

8 hours ago, semente said:

The eldest's taste is unfortunately very much influenced of his friends who listen to awful rubbish teenage pop... I bought him a nice set of closed-back headphones. ?

 

Influence is a great thing in developing musical tastes. I was heavily influenced by certain things. Such as music parts in films I liked. Or well written reviews. Or, I was very happy, several friends much older than me were kind enough to share their tastes, opinions, and priceless jams of personal collections with me. And I was much surprised when some of them told me many years after I influenced their tastes somehow back then.

[sphinxsix]

I think I like Handel sonatas performed by Richard Egarr/The Academy of Ancient Music (I prefer the solo ones) even more than the ones by Attilio Cremonesi/Arcadia. The technical 'lightness' of the performances and communication between the musicians are IMO superb, they also seem to be well recorded. I like Jarrett's keyboard suites too. Being so different from eg Perahia's performances they probably contain this 'Jarrett factor' I've been fond of (and I'm quite used to) for years. I just realized I actually have never been tempted to name it (the factor) precisely - surely timing nuances being not the least important ingredient of it.

Thanks again, guys!

[sphinxsix]

I've just found this thread:

Have any other Messiaen's "Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps" recordings worth considering been released since 2013, guys? What are your favorite performances of this composition A.D. 2018?

[AnotherSpin]

5 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

I've just found this thread:

Have any other Messiaen's "Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps" recordings worth considering been released since 2013, guys? What are your favorite performances of this composition A.D. 2018?

 

First heard (or read, to be more precise) about Messiaen and his music 40 or more years ago. Did many attempts to listen his pieces, including concerts, organ, large scale and solo. Quatour among them. Bought several LPs back then. No, I can not get the joke, it is behind my ability to catch. I loved strange composers and I am still listening some, like Morton Feldman, for example. May I suggest his Piano and String Quartet? I prefer one from Ives Ensemble over wide-known recording from Kronos Quartet.

[Musicophile]

12 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

I've just found this thread:

Have any other Messiaen's "Quatuor Pour La Fin Du Temps" recordings worth considering been released since 2013, guys? What are your favorite performances of this composition A.D. 2018?

This one got good reviews, and I like the artists, all of them are fantastic individually. Haven’t checked it out yet:  

 

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8366493--messiaen-quatuor-pour-la-fin-du-temps

[sphinxsix]

12 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

May I suggest his Piano and String Quartet? I prefer one from Ives Ensemble over wide-known recording from Kronos Quartet.

 

6 hours ago, Musicophile said:

This one got good reviews, and I like the artists, all of them are fantastic individually. Haven’t checked it out yet:  

Thanks guys, I will definitely check out the albums recommended by you. Yesterday I listened to the fragments of two performances of 'Quatuor' and I preferred the one by Gil Shaham, Paul Meyer, Jiang Wang and Myung-Whun Chung. However I think I'd like this composition to sound a little rawer, less smooth and that's probably the only thing I can say about my expectations (based purely on my intuition - I have in fact zero experience with music like that). BTW I really liked a lot the 5th part (I would say quite conventional one) I posted on the 'Song of the Day' thread.

[sphinxsix]

8 hours ago, Musicophile said:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8366493--messiaen-quatuor-pour-la-fin-du-temps

I think it's intense. It's also much (ca 10%!) faster played than the version I mentioned. I like it.

 

14 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

First heard (or read, to be more precise) about Messiaen and his music 40 or more years ago. Did many attempts to listen his pieces, including concerts, organ, large scale and solo. Quatour among them. Bought several LPs back then. No, I can not get the joke, it is behind my ability to catch.

I heard it for the first time just a couple of years ago. I wasn't able to digest it either. I'm a little sick now (bronchitis) and from time to time I'm I would say in a slightly decadent mood , maybe it made approaching this piece easier.

[sphinxsix]

I just realized @christopher3393 also used the word 'intense' ("more intense than most") on his 'Quator' thread while writing about the above mentioned recording. So this is not only my impression.

[sphinxsix]

17 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

Piano and String Quartet

Do you mean Piece for String Quartet and Piano?

[sphinxsix]

A digression. May sound a little crazy to some. I've been listening a lot to birds (!) recently - I live in a green area with lots of trees - and I can say a lot about pet.. err bird sounds. E.g. some of them more or less repeat their 'favorite' phrases and some create completely new phrase each time they 'sing'. At some moment I came to the conclusion that in case of some of birds species (I don't know which ones) astonishingly practically every such a phrase is a finished free jazz theme (yes, it's free jazz that came to my mind). I knew Dave Holland Quartet's album 'Conference of the Birds' inspired by birdsong earlier but I admit I fully understood and appreciated it only recently - due to my birds' music 'listening sessions' 

Now back to Messiaen. Wiki:

Quote

Birdsong fascinated Messiaen from an early age, and in this he found encouragement from his teacher Dukas, who reportedly urged his pupils to "listen to the birds". Messiaen included stylised birdsong in some of his early compositions (including L'abîme d'oiseaux from the Quatuor pour la fin du temps), integrating it into his sound-world by techniques like the modes of limited transposition and chord colouration. His evocations of birdsong became increasingly sophisticated, and with Le réveil des oiseaux this process reached maturity, the whole piece being built from birdsong: in effect it is a dawn chorus for orchestra. The same can be said for "Epode", the five-minute sixth movement of Chronochromie, which is scored for eighteen violins, each one playing a different birdsong. Messiaen notated the bird species with the music in the score (examples 1 and 4). The pieces are not simple transcriptions; even the works with purely bird-inspired titles, such as Catalogue d'oiseaux and Fauvette des jardins, are tone poems evoking the landscape, its colours and atmosphere.

I admit I'm intrigued by his birdsong fascination and going to explore the subject when I find some time.

I also think I will start a new thread - it seems there are some 'animal music' lovers here

(I apologize to @christopher3393 for an obvious theft of his thread idea, hope he will forgive me..)

IMO birds deserve it!

 

[AnotherSpin]

12 hours ago, sphinxsix said:

Do you mean Piece for String Quartet and Piano?

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Morton-Feldman-Piano-String-Quartet/dp/B00X4UIV7M/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1541502177&sr=8-11&keywords=feldman+piano+and+string+quartet

 

This is a recording I mentioned before. It is called Piano and String Quartet.

[sphinxsix]

4 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Morton-Feldman-Piano-String-Quartet/dp/B00X4UIV7M/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1541502177&sr=8-11&keywords=feldman+piano+and+string+quartet

 

This is a recording I mentioned before. It is called Piano and String Quartet.

Thanks, I get it now.

[sphinxsix]

@AnotherSpin Frankly - I'm afraid Feldman's Piano & String Quartet develops a little too slow for my taste. Or maybe it's just not a good day for such music. I dare not check out his (6 hours long!) String Quartet II.. Thanks for your recommendation anyway!