Study Music - November 20

I once heard a radio presenter say she suspected Dmitri Shostakovich always had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when composing. I was gobsmacked. I can think of no other composer capable of presenting such unrelenting pain, anger and suffering than Shostakovich. That can make him hard to listen to at times, I don't listen to his string quartets regularly, but it also makes for some amazing music.

His second piano trio is one of my favourite pieces. It delivers pain absolutely, there is great sorrow in it, especially in the haunting violin refrain in the opening and closing movements, but it is always moving. Some of the string quartets become whirlpools of sadness that drag you into the dark, this piano trio gives you no time for such morbidity. It is more like a cold river, pulling you on, sometimes slower sometimes faster, even bouncing you over rapids, but always forwards. It is not a happy river, but it is beautiful.

I discovered it years ago on an old Naxos album, but I was very excited today when I found it's included in the Seraphim Trio's monumental new release Trio Through Time on the ABC Classic label. Their playing is superb, lending just the right amount of energy to each phase of the river with the crystal clarity of clear, flowing water - hats off to the sound engineer as well. I look forward to listening to more of this extensive recording.

Study Music 9 October

Apologies for not posting for a couple of months, I'm sure you've all missed me :)

Today I decided I wanted to listen to Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite. I didn't realise how many recordings there are of it but I went for the one I know and own the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's 1999 album under the baton of William Stromberg. This album also includes the Mississippi and Niagra Falls suites.

Grofe's suites are a collection of orchestral pictures or musical postcards from each place. The music is highly evocative and uses unusual instrumentation to capture the listener's imagination. There are butterflies dancing to the rising sun in the first movement of the Grand Canyon suite. The third movement is my favourite, On the Trail, and you can clearly hear and see the donkey clomping along, taking its own sweet time and generally enjoying life.

Perhaps the most dramatic image is, understandably, The Power of Niagra, which brings that suite and this album to a close. The music is powerful and loud, featuring almost discordant alarm sirens. The beauty of nature brings a force to bear we must be wary of or we'll be swept away.

I followed this with Grofe's Piano Concerto, which I'd never heard before, performed by Jesus Maria Sanroma and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Grofe himself. In parts it is a typical early 20th century Romantic piano concerto with the sweeping sweetness of Rachmaninoff's second, but against that it has the competing melodies Grofe employs. I found these distracting and I'm a bit over the polished grandeur of late Romantic concertos, so while I found it nice, it's not a piece I'll be returning to.

Study Music April 11, 2019

Today I'm trying a new composer, for me, Sir Hamilton Harty, an Irish composer from the early 20th century. The album opens with his tone poem 'With the Wild Geese' which has you soaring, diving and swimming with occasional fights against the elements. It turns out, the work is prefaced by two poems by Emily Lawless, one about an Irish regiment fighting the French in the 18th century and one about the ghosts of fallen soldiers, so the moods evoked by my images of geese over bonnie Ireland were not what Harty was going for. Either way, the music is beautiful.

The short fantasy 'In Ireland' comes next and is a happy ditty that also soars, with far fewer dives.

The main piece on the album is Harty's 'Irish Symphony' and it certainly lives up to the name. Its four distinct movements take us once again soaring and diving, but in a pleasurable flight over Ireland, both its geography and its iconography. The beauty of land, the dances of its people, the richness of its culture. Its all there in what is a remarkable and delightful symphony.

Following this discovery I turned to one of my favourite composers, the tragically undervalued Ippolitov-Ivanov, and his first symphony. I hadn't heard his symphony before so it was exciting to find it. It is brilliant, especially the sorrowful third movement and the cathartic joy of the fourth, but it feels a bit more formal than his other works. It's as if here he forced himself to conform to more classical notions and lost some of the ethereal beauty and evocative phrases I love in his shorter works. Not entirely, the very structure is a break from the "classical" symphony, and it is a beautiful work, just not as good, in my mind, as his sketches and fragments.

The recording, a 2015 album by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hoey Choo, follows the symphony with one such set of shorter pieces, the Turkish Fragments. There are four fragments: A Caravan; At Rest; The Night; and At the Festival, and each is highly evocative. I prefer an older recording by the USSR Symphony Orchestra which captured the mood that much more - you can hear the winds around the caravan - but this was still a good piece of work. The album closes out with Turkish March, which usually follows the fragments. Ippolitov-Ivanov wrote some good marches, so if you like marches look them up. There's also the Jubilee March and the Georgian March which is the last piece in the second set of Caucasian Sketches.

Dusting off some French Piano Trios

Tonight I decided to listen to an album that's been sitting on the virtual shelf collecting e-dust for a while now, the Joachim Trio's first collection of French piano trios for Naxos.

It opens with Debussy's Trio No 1 in A, which is classic Debussy, the fluidity and gentle beauty of the music is utterly captivating. The way he can carry the soul off on a journey, like a leaf floating down a river, here it eddies, here it ebbs, swirls and stills, but always moving and always enchanting. The short scherzo in the second movement is a favourite bit for me, a rollicking interruption to the sumptuousness of the first movement before a return to the slower gloss of the third. And the finale is something of them both, it has pace and grandeur, but still with the Debussy sheen.

Ravel's drama comes next, opening with the supposed 'Modere' which I take it means moderately. The first few bars are apt to that description and juxtapose intriguingly with the high finish of Debussy, but then we're launched into a hectic patter of piano with no hint of moderation. Only then, being Ravel, we are plunged back into a slow and evocative passage with the violin riding above the sombre cello and the piano adding high and low lights to fully round out what, on its own, would have to be described as a swoon. But then comes the 'Pantoum Assez vif', a high-paced rhythmic jolt reminiscent of the Assez vif movement in his String Quartet which is simply stunning.

Again there's a mood change as the third movement dives into the depths, slow and dark, as fluid as Debussy but with water more icy and the colour of Amber. From this depth we rise high as the violin turns bird and takes wing, with the cello a playful bear cub chasing it. At least, that's where my mind went listening to it this time. And it ends on an equal high to Debussy's trio.

The album finishes with Florent Schmitt's Tres lent, a short but poignant piece that shares the fluidity of the first two but lies very much in the sadder, slower end with no showy flights to lift us back to the joys of Debussy or Ravel's finale.

While all three composers share the fluidity and somewhat sumptuous feel to the music, they all have distinctive moods behind their works. What makes this recording so compelling is the way the Joachim Trio capture those moods. There's no mistaking which composer you're listening to at any point in time. They really know their stuff.

Joy of Russian Piano II - A Modernist and a Classicist

Continuing from yesterday, today I listened to two 'Russian' (more accurately Soviet) composers who I haven't heard much of before. The first one, Galina Ustvolskaya, I'd never heard of before, but she was under 'Related Artists' on Spotify's page for Shostakovich, of whom she was a student and who defended her music when it was attacked for its modernism (see Spotify's page About Galina Ustvolskaya). I listened to her 12 Preludes but I must admit they didn't capture me entirely, although at times they were quite moving. I can understand why she was attacked for 'modernism', but I don't think that's a bad thing, you just have to be in the mood for the discord.

Going back, I found Reinhold Gliere, who's name I knew but nothing else. There's a collection of his piano music performed by Anthony Goldstone and you can hear it on Spotify here. Gliere's music is much less 'modern' and is really quite charming. It's well worth listening to, even if few of the pieces stand out. I added the first of his 25 Preludes and the second of the 3 Mazurkas to my new Dancing Piano playlist, (which will continue to grow), but the rest blend into a delightful background piano set. There is more emotion in the 12 Esquisses, particularly the Agitato, but again there's nothing that really grabbed me.

As the music continued beyond that album however I accidentally discovered his 8 Pieces, Op 39, for violin and cello. These are beautiful short pieces in a number of styles. The cello provides a deep base over which the violin skates and twirls. The Gavotte in particular took me off to that lovely space where there is only music and the light of your own stilled thoughts. If you take nothing else from this blog, follow this link to the album. It also has pieces for cello and for two cellos. The Ballad, Opus 4, is like a mini cello sonata and quite beautiful, while the 10 Duos (for two cellos) range from sweeping slow movements to rapid pieces. The slow movements are the best in my opinion, particularly the Andante, as they have more emotion than the others. Finally, the 12 Pieces, for Cello and Piano, are sumptuous works that highlight the emotional power of the two instruments together, a wonderful collection.

Keep exploring!

The Joy of Russian Piano Music - At least sometimes

I'm kicking off my classical music listening this year with some Russian piano music from last century. I started with Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas 2 and 9 performed by Ilya Yakushev in a new recording only released this year. You can find it on Spotify here.

They had what I consider Prokofiev's typical joy, with the appropriate jarring qualities for such a figure. Both sonatas were full of life and rollicked along under Yakushev's expert fingers. Prokofiev may knock you from your comfortable listening position to sit up and take notice, but he certainly never bores you.

Following that I went for some Shostakovich and found Volume 2 of the complete music for piano duo or duet. First up on the album the piano duet version of his Piano Concerto No 2. This was an upbeat piece for Shostakovich, also full of life and not without its listening challenges, but it is much smoother than Prokofiev's works. The second piece is an arrangement of Shostakovich's Symphony No 15 for piano duet. It's as monumental as that suggests, with intricate sections of what must be highly fiddly finger work and grand moments of high playing. And of course some of Shostakovich's humour comes through as the opening movement has the galop from Rossini's William Tell Overture as a recurrent theme. The second movement throws a much darker mood out, reminding us of the difficulties both these composers faced in their lives. The pianists on the recording are Min Kyong Kim and Hyung Jin Moon, and they are faultless in both the virtuosity and the emotion of the works. You can find that one on Spotify here.

After my long absence I hope to present little blogs like this more often this year, but there are no promises. Either way, remember to keep exploring the wonderful world of music as much as possible.

New Year, New Listening Project

I'm back. Thankfully the music never left.

I'm doing a new listening project and thought I'd write about it here. It's called Pieces I Must Heat at Least Once a Year. Describes itself really.

The first piece I listened to for it was Elgar's Cello Concerto because I heard a little bit of it on the radio and just wanted to listen to it in full. It's a piece I discovered on a whim. I was looking at a sales page on the ABC Shop online and there it was on an album by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. I knew I liked cello concertos and I didn't have much Elgar at the time so I thought, 'why not?'

The disc arrived, I ripped it (I wasn't listening to many CDs at the time) and put it on my mp3 player to listen to at work. So I was sitting at my desk, earphones in, and I hit play. Those first notes knocked me off my perch, then there was that falling phrase ... I was hooked.

The rest of the concerto, to me, is a journey away from and returning to that opening section. I couldn't say much about it to be honest. It's good, very good in fact, but that opening ... blows me away every time.

I think I bought the album the same year as the Classic 100 Music of the 20th Century on ABC Classic FM, so naturally I voted for the concerto among other things. At the time I thought I'd be helping push it up the rankings a bit - my ignorance apparently. It was a clear winner of the whole countdown and hardly in need of my help. I shouldn't have been surprised, it is a remarkable piece of work and that opening phrase does speak loudly of some of the pathos and melancholy of last century.

If you've not heard it, here is what many consider the best rendition of it (first movement anyway) by Jacqueline du Pre. It's amazing just to watch her.

Janacek's Birthday

To celebrate Janacek's birthday I thought I'd find some nice YouTube clips of his music. Starting with what is arguably his most famous work his Sinfonietta. This is a powerful version by the Wiener Philharmonika conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras. The opening of this work is such a stirring piece, but with that edge that something is different. Then it launches into a dance of instruments before a gentle clarinet leads us to a meadow, then back to the dance and on the piece goes, it really is an amazing work.

The orchestral suite from his opera The Cunning Little Vixen is a new discovery for me, thank you internet. Strong opening with strings and brass, moving into a beautiful softer passage - Leos was clearly one for shifts in mood. And the flutes and violins moving against the deeper percussive sounds are stunning. Why have I not heard this before? Rustic in feel but with drama and beauty mixed. The ending is strong percussively but strangely stark compared to the rest of the work.

I'll provide some quick links to two of my other favourites of his - the Lachian Dances, which are a collection of dances he wrote towards the end of his life looking back at the countryside the modern world had changed forever; and his Taras Bulba Rhapsody, written in response to the novel of the same name by Gogol.

There's a lot more great music Janacek wrote I'm sure. Keep exploring people!