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 23 July

Deciding somewhat at random, I started this week's study music with a set of Orchestral Suites by J.F. Fasch, a German composer from the Baroque period, performed by Capella Savaria under the baton of Pal Nemeth. It's a 1999 recording you can find on Spotify. I can't fault the music, it was pleasant and well played, but it didn't really stand out either. One Air was delightful and there was a fun Gavotte but generally I found it a good album of background music - ideal for studying really.

Following that I had a look at the "Fans also like" page on Fasch's Spotify and selected Alessandro Marcello who I know of because of his famous Oboe Concerto in D minor. The adagio from that is one of the constants on classical music compilations, you may not realise you know it, but you probably do. So I wanted to hear something else of his. Being Spotify, there were limited options, seriously, don't ever think it has everything, but there were several recordings of his 'La Cetra' concertos so I decided to listen to one of them. They're a set of six violin concertos so I chose the recording that added another violin concerto on the end instead of the famous oboe one.

It's an older recording, 1995, with Simon Standage as soloist and director of the Collegium Musicum 90. Again, there was little to distinguish any of the concertos from each other - fair enough in a set - however, the music overall was lively and sparkling. I think Marcello deserves a bit more recognition, but then, so do a lot of people.

So today was a Baroque heading to Classical kind of day, no major stand-outs but plenty of good music.