|
time_is_now
|
 |
« Reply #1140 on: 17:59:30, 31-08-2007 » |
|
What I had in mind was something I seem to remember once reading somewhere (how's that for scholarly rigour) along the lines of when Boulez took over the NY Phil and began to influence its programming, audience figures immediately fell but after a little while rose again to their previous level. I've read that somewhere too - I think it might have been cited by Charles Rosen in a NYRB article. Ian might know. I don't suppose anyone is actually compelled to attend the annual Marteau concert, unless the American justice system has taken a turn I didn't know about. Those Graindelavoix recordings, incidentally, got some of the worst reviews I've ever seen for a generally respected label (Glossa). The name of the ensemble, in case anyone's interested and hasn't noticed already (certainly I've not seen it mentioned anywhere in print), is the title of an essay by Roland Barthes on why he prefers Charles Panzéra to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Fischer-Dieskau is certainly an irreproachable artist ... and yet nothing seduces, nothing persuades us to enjoyment; this is an excessively expressive art conveyed by a voice without 'grain'. |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 18:01:57, 31-08-2007 by time_is_now »
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1141 on: 18:11:54, 31-08-2007 » |
|
Yes... that's in Mythologies isn't it? I was always rather put off Barthes by his opinion of Fischer-Dieskau.
I can imagine those recordings getting a panning, but I find the one of Binchois mostly rather beautiful. What I don't like much in performances of music of that period is the "choral tradition" kind of approach. There's no way of knowing whether the sonic ideal of early polyphony was a homogeneously-blended ensemble, and I imagine that as one goes back further in time it was increasingly less so (not to mention the vast differences between different places).
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 18:18:25, 31-08-2007 by richard barrett »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
TimR-J
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1142 on: 18:16:23, 31-08-2007 » |
|
Ockeghem - Requiem (Ensemble Organum, Peres)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: that's one of my favourite CDs of all time. The only thing I don't like about it is the way the "missing" bits of Ockeghem are filled out by some fairly run-of-the-mill music by (the otherwise unknown to me) Antonius Divitis. Another Ockeghem mass would have been a far better idea. I suspect I know your answer, Richard, but is this markedly better than the Clerks' Group recording on ASV/Gaudeamus, which I have but have never really got into? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1143 on: 18:24:25, 31-08-2007 » |
|
It most certainly is, Tim. They might as well be different pieces. Ensemble Organum use only male voices (and no falsettists), with a much darker sound-quality than that favoured by Edward Wickham; their version is a sixth lower and a great deal slower and more mournful.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
TimR-J
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1144 on: 18:29:06, 31-08-2007 » |
|
Sold!
Edit: giving the Wickham recording a spin now, and I think my problem was that they try to make it sound like some jolly Josquin, which it doesn't really want to do...
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 18:36:53, 31-08-2007 by TimR-J »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1145 on: 19:00:59, 31-08-2007 » |
|
The nearest approximation to this style that I've encountered recently and in comparable repertoire is this:  Well worth getting! Think I'll give it a spin now ... Thanks for that. I have Guerber's recording of Dufay's Missa Se la face ay pale which I like a lot, though it doesn't really have a post-Pérčs kind of sound. I also find the recordings of the Ensemble Gilles Binchois very convincing in the earliest polyphony, although they cultivate a much "smoother" sound. My first experience of hearing Notre Dame music, and I expect this goes for many others of my generation and older, was in the first disc of David Munrow's "Music of the Gothic Era", which at the time I found spellbinding, never having heard anything remotely like it before; if I heard it now I suspect it might sound a bit twee (handbells!). |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
George Garnett
|
|
« Reply #1146 on: 20:03:39, 31-08-2007 » |
|
My first experience of hearing Notre Dame music, and I expect this goes for many others of my generation and older,... I can vouch that it does for at least one of the "and older" category... ...was in the first disc of David Munrow's "Music of the Gothic Era", which at the time I found spellbinding, never having heard anything remotely like it before; if I heard it now I suspect it might sound a bit twee (handbells!).
It is spinning at this very moment. Leonin, Organum Viderunt Omnes (with bells) followed by Perotin, ditto (but without). Well, rather fruitier and juicier than it would be done now probably. (Help! I'm turning into Jilly Goolden). Mmm, mmm, <slurp, swill>, I'm getting a bit of Anglican hoot in the nose now which may not be to all tastes. Hmm, a pleasant foretaste of Hilliard Ensemble coming through as well <slurp, gargle>. And is that loganberry? No, possibly not. Rather wonderful really  . 'Of its time and place' (1975, Godalming, south facing slope) but it stands up pretty well in its own way I reckon. |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 20:18:05, 31-08-2007 by George Garnett »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1147 on: 20:10:16, 31-08-2007 » |
|
Anglican hoot in the nose Bowman. James Bowman. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1149 on: 20:29:10, 31-08-2007 » |
|
George, is that a double CD containing the entire three LPs' worth?
Some years ago I bought the CD release of Munrow's "The Art of the Netherlands" which I took back after finding that the third LP had been transferred to CD in mono!!! (If anyone here has a copy of it they might like to check for themselves - this would have been late 1990s and maybe the fault has been corrected if it's been rerereleased since then.)
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
George Garnett
|
|
« Reply #1150 on: 21:02:29, 31-08-2007 » |
|
George, is that a double CD containing the entire three LPs' worth?
The one I have got (Archiv 415 292-2) is a single CD which is just a selection, 19 items, from the original 3 LP set. I can't find an actual issue date on it anywhere but I've had it for quite some time. The cover picture I put up however (because it was the only one I could find) comes from a more recent issue (Archiv 471731) which is a two CD set and looks as if it probably contains the lot (it has 45 items) although I don't have the original LPs any more to check that against. Hmmm. Right, just off to check 'The Art of the Netherlands'. [Yes, same result as opilec (below). The last three tracks are in mono and, no, I had never noticed it before either.  ] |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 00:44:10, 01-09-2007 by George Garnett »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1151 on: 22:17:02, 31-08-2007 » |
|
[sounds to me like it's just the last three tracks that are in mono. Hadn't noticed this before! Less than I remembered but still pretty shabby. Of course it's just possible that the LPs were also like this... anyone still have a copy? There's a whole CD of Tinctoris by the Clerks' Group  which has the whole of that same Missa sine nomine. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #1152 on: 22:30:26, 31-08-2007 » |
|
Yes... that's in Mythologies isn't it? I was always rather put off Barthes by his opinion of Fischer-Dieskau.
I don't think it's anywhere near as early as Mythologies, actually. I know what you mean about being put off, but I came to Barthes long before I came to his opinion of DFD, and so I just regard it as one of his eccentricities (there are many of them, but they're worth putting up with for the occasional really special insight or turn of phrase/presentational trick). Of course, there are many different Barthes (Bartheses?), some of them really quite wishy-washy and some of them methodical to the point of being boring. I think my favourite Barthes is the one who manages to be methodical without being boring at all, i.e. to be methodical and at the same time incredibly original, two good examples being Mythologies (especially the astonishing 'theoretical' essay that concludes the book) and S/Z. Try S/Z some time. I'm not sure there's anything else quite like it in the world. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #1153 on: 22:44:31, 31-08-2007 » |
|
Yes... that's in Mythologies isn't it? I was always rather put off Barthes by his opinion of Fischer-Dieskau.
I don't think it's anywhere near as early as Mythologies, actually. No, it's significantly later - printed in Image-Music-Text and in The Grain of the Voice. I believe there is an essay by Barthes on Bussotti, which has never been translated - anyone know that? I have heard that nowadays some advertising executives have Mythologies on their shelves, and advertising in general has found ways of appropriating the ideas in the book  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
Chafing Dish
Guest
|
|
« Reply #1154 on: 23:16:32, 31-08-2007 » |
|
NS Court Music for King Matthias sung and played by Camerata Hungarica. Lovely shawms, crumornes, and chalumeaux, et al, as well as curtal (bassoon's alcoholic uncle). But no taragot. And that even though the director's name is László!  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
