I haven't. Does it rock?

I have their disc of Romantic mostly-quintets (Weber quintet, Reicha quintet, Hummel quartet) - it's simultaneously very rewarding and very infuriating. Neidich tongues the semiquaver runs near the end of the Weber which is very impressive but I find it hard to believe it's what Weber had in mind; he also substitutes for the climactic top A in the Weber slow movement a top C, which is again very impressive in itself but since the top C sounds so pinched it's no surprise Weber didn't actually write it. In general I very much admire what Neidich can do but if I were fortunate enough to be able to do it I would do very different things with it. (I hope that doesn't sound too stuck-up...)

I was spinning Liszt's Faust Symphony this morning (Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Ivàn Fischer) which made a nice change from Gesualdo!
Now I'm spinning Rzewski plays Rzewski. Currently on North American Ballads.

Another disc sitting on a shelf in a box round here somewhere!

At the moment I are be mostly listening to Gavin Bryars, Sub Rosa, on LA - there's not much of it, it lasts for about ten minutes, but I think its extremely beautiful. The music seems almost just beyond what is possible, as if it's not quite there. It is imbued (to me) with a feeling that all has been lost, a destination that has been arrived at via some inevitability, but that the sadness of it is consoling and relieving (which is nice). All 'certainties' seem gone, and there just remains a beautiful listlessness and exhaustion which allow you to rest because their presence means there is nothing left to hide from, everything has become transparent. Peas at last.

(Excuse the mawkishness, it's the mawk in me.)


I have a feeling this kind of sound world might in its contemporary setting might be deemed new music for people who don't like new music, perhaps a bit decadent even (Quartet for the End of Time the easy way), I don't know, but it seems slightly baroque, miracle-like, music to attend the canonisation of Satie perhaps, and I liked it very much indeed.

I must admit that I found Jesus' Blood not quite but a bit close for comfort to being cloying. It's power and saving for me lay in the fact that the singer had no idea of the portal through which his message was being heard. I don't think I could stand it being sung 'expressively'. I haven't heard the Tom Waits version.

Wagner, Siegfried
Windgassen, Nilsson, Hotter, Stolze, Neidlinger, Böhme, Höffgen, Sutherland, Vienna Philharmonic, Georg Solti.

God. Siegfried's such a brainless moron. No wonder he destroys the world as everyone knew it.

I'm a massive fan of the piece, but I'd far rather hear Ian Bostridge sing it.

Of course, it was originally written for a female singer. But that was before Britten was colonised by Pears. She got forgotten later, like all of them.

Hm.



The clarinet concerto therefrom.

First movement: great. Lots of nice touches, the interplay between soloist and orchestra works really well, the playing is stunning (I would say enough so to make me wonder what I'm doing footling around on these old clarinets if not for the fact that it can't make me wonder that when I'm perfectly capable of wondering it for myself already). Third movement likewise.

Second movement: just too darn slow, at least for me. Eight minutes long. Same as De Peyer but about a minute longer than Hoeprich on Glossa who's hardly fleet of foot himself. Just gets bogged down as far as I'm concerned.

Damn shame. Still, most of it's great. And if you don't have a bee in your bonnet about it needing to flow you'll probably like the slow movement.