This week I look back at my favourite classical music recordings issued between 2000-2009.   Though I have listened to hundreds of recordings, it goes without saying that there is a lot of music, much of it no doubt excellent, that I have not heard.

I have decided to structure this post according to genre.  For each genre I have selected two outstanding recordings, with a third “runner-up” sometimes slipped in.  The exception to this rule is the choral music category; my initial short list had about twenty-five recordings on it, and it was too cruel to cut that down to just two, or even three.  I compensate for this surplus by omitting an opera category altogether.

I have also included links to more thorough reviews and to streaming samples of the music when it was possible to do so.

Without further ado:

Choral

I have chosen six discs of choral music, plus a few runners-up.   They are arranged in rough chronological order.

Paolo da Firenze: Narcisso Speculando (Mala Punica, Pedro Memelsdorff) [2002; Harmonia Mundi]: This is music of the medieval avant-garde. Paolo da Firenze, who died in 1425, belonged to the ars subtilior school of late medieval composition.  The music is incredibly intricate, and must be exceptionally difficult to sing, but it is also marvelous to hear — in that respect, the medieval avant-garde consistently bested the modern.  The ensemble Mala Punica specializes in this music, and their awe-inspiring performances must be heard to be believed.  This is one of the most ear-opening recordings I’ve ever heard.  (Reviews: ClassicsToday)

I don’t know why this video is nine minutes long; the piece ends at 3:43.

Richafort: Requiem (Huelgas Ensemble, Paul van Nevel) [2000; Harmonia Mundi]: For sheer ravishing beauty, this is my choral music pick of the decade.  Richafort (c.1480-c.1550) is a mostly forgotten composer, but on the evidence here that forgetfulness is unjust.  His Requiem, which may have been written to commemorate the death of Josquin Desprez, is a thing of glories, with wave after wave of beautiful music spilling over the listener.  Just when you think it can’t possibly get any lovelier, it does.  The disc is filled out by a selection of motets, including a gorgeous Salve regina for five voices, and even a drinking song (rendered, it must be said, a little stiffly).  The singing of the Huelgas Ensemble, which is always excellent, is here focused and luminous to an uncommon degree.  (Reviews: ClassicsToday)

Here is the Introit of the Requiem:

In Paradisum (Hilliard Ensemble) [2000; ECM New Series]: The Hilliard Ensemble sing the Gregorian setting of the Requiem Mass and interpose motets by two of the grand masters of Renaissance polyphony: Victoria and Palestrina.  As is fitting, the music is dark-toned and somber.  The singing is as good as singing gets in this vale of tears: concentrated, responsive, inward-looking, and incredibly beautiful.  The richness of the sound is astonishing.  Part of the credit obviously goes to the four voices of the Hilliard Ensemble, and part to ECM’s superb engineers, but thanks must also be rendered to the walls and vaults of St. Gerold monastery in Austria, where the recording was made. (Reviews: ClassicsToday)

Bach: Missae Breves (Pygmalion) [2008; Alpha]: Before hearing this recording I had not known of the group Pygmalion, and I expect they are new to most listeners too.  I still don’t know anything about them — except that they sing Bach to perfection.  This disc includes two of Bach’s short Masses, BWV 234 and 235.  (A Missa Brevis includes only the Kyrie and Gloria.) This music has never sounded better.  The voices are confident, clear, and precise, with none of the raggedness or wooliness that sometimes plagues choirs who try to sing Bach.  The instrumental accompaniment is lively and vivid.  This is simply terrific music-making. (Reviews: AllMusic) (Listen to samples)

Bach: St. John Passion (Philippe Herreweghe, Collegium Vocale Gent, soloists) [2001; Harmonia Mundi]: Bach’s St. John Passion is not as well-known as his St. Matthew Passion, and with some justification, for it is not as ambitious as its more famous companion.  Its comparative modesty in scale makes it a tighter and more dramatic account of the Passion story, and I find that attractive.  This performance from Bach-specialist Herreweghe, with a starry cast of soloists and his usual crack choir Collegium Vocale Gent, is uniformly excellent.  This music was a great discovery for me this decade.  (Reviews: ClassicsToday) (Listen to samples)

Here is the final section of the work, Christe, du Lamm Gottes (an adaptation of the Agnus Dei):

Grechaninov: Passion Week (Charles Bruffy, Phoenix Bach Choir, Kansas City Chorale) [2007; Chandos]: The prospect of hearing Russian sacred music sung by a choir from the American Midwest does not immediately inspire confidence, but this disc upset my expectations.  The music, written in 1911, is inspired by the Holy Week services of the Orthodox Church.  The texts are in Old Slavonic, and the music communes with the long history of Russian Orthodox music.  It bears an obvious similarity to Rachmaninov’s Vespers, and, to my surprise, it does not suffer greatly in the comparison.  It is extremely well sung — all praise to the basses! — and the recording, though perhaps a bit boxy, still allows us to hear the music clearly.  I was very pleasantly surprised by this recording. (Reviews: AllMusic) (Listen to samples)

Here is the section of the work titled “The Wise Thief”.  (Sorry about the flowers.)

Runners-up:

• La Bele Marie (Anonymous 4) [2002; Harmonia Mundi]: This is a collection of Marian songs from thirteenth-century France.  Some are in Latin, some in French.  As befits their subject, they are bright, lovely, and mostly joyful.  The four women of Anonymous 4 sing with their customary blend and luminosity.  A very heart-warming record.  (Reviews: ClassicsToday ) (Listen to samples)
• A Scottish Lady Mass (Red Byrd) [2005; Hyperion]: This disc contains thirteenth-century music from St. Andrews, Scotland.  It includes polyphonic music (for two parts) that is not known elsewhere, and there are some real curiosities, including troped versions of the Kyrie and Gloria, as well as some unique sequences.  The record’s cover, which shows an old church at night across a foggy moor, perfectly captures the feel of this music.  The voices of Red Byrd are manly and resonant, creating a warm sonic blanket to wrap oneself in. This is my kind of singing. (Reviews: ClassicsToday) (Listen to samples) (Listen to a troped Kyrie: Rex, virginum amator)
• Dufay: Quadrivium (Cantica Symphonia) [2005; Glossa]: Guillaume Dufay is my favourite medieval composer, and this collection of sacred motets serves his music very well.  Cantica Symphonia make the interesting decision to bring instruments, as well as voices, into the music, and although this necessarily involves some improvisation and guess-work, it sounds great.  The singing — just one voice to a part — is confident and idiomatic, and the music is dazzling.  (Reviews: AllMusic) (Listen to samples) (Listen to Anima mea liquefacta est)
• Heavenly Harmonies (Stile Antico) [2008; Harmonia Mundi]: This disc is a superb collection of Elizabethan sacred music by William Byrd and Thomas Tallis, illustrating the parting of the ways between Catholic music (intricate polyphony, in Latin) and Protestant music (simple and strophic, in English).  As I have said before, the singing of Stile Antico is amazingly good.  (my Music Note) (Reviews: ClassicsToday, AllMusic) (Listen to samples)
• Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius (Sir Mark Elder, Hallé Orchestra and Chorus, soloists) [2008; Hallé]: Elgar’s setting of John Henry Cardinal Newman’s poem about death and the afterlife has not really attracted me in the past.  I had heard a few recordings, but I found them stodgy and sluggish.  When this disc from the Hallé Orchestra began earning accolades in the British press, I thought it might be another case of patriotic fervour overwhelming sound judgment, but I decided to give it a try anyway.  I am glad that I did.  The sound is much clearer, with far better articulation from the choir than on previous recordings, and the soloists are tremendous.  There’s a real sense of occasion too.  (Reviews: AllMusic)   Here is the section “Praise to the Holiest”:

Solo Voice

Victoria: Et Iesum (Carlos Mena, Juan Carlos Rivera) [2004; Harmonia Mundi]: We naturally associate Victoria with the high Renaissance style of polyphony, of which he was a master.  Himself a priest, his music was intended to serve the sacred liturgy.  Yet, as this intriguing recording informs us, some of his music was adapted for performance on a more modest and intimate scale.  In such cases, one of the polyphonic vocal lines was given to a solo voice, and the other musical lines were put into the instrumental accompaniment.  The result is something like a madrigal or song, but with a sacred text.  The comparative simplicity of the music allows us to relish the beauty of the exposed vocal melody without interference.  Carlos Mena, my favourite counter-tenor (and yours?), has marvelous breath-control in the sometimes very long vocal lines, and his voice has a creamy richness that is very satisfying.  Counter-tenor singing has come a long way in the last few generations of singers, and Mena has it all.  He is tastefully accompanied by Juan Carlos Rivera on the lute and vihuela.  This is a very special recording. (Reviews: ClassicsToday, AllMusic)

Here is Carlos Mena singing Victoria’s adaptation of Salve regina.  If you enjoy this, consider clicking through to YouTube; the same person who posted this song has also posted several other tracks from this disc.

Strauss: Lieder (Soile Isokoski, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Marek Janowski) [2002; Ondine]: Finnish soprano Soile Isokoski turns in an unforgettable performance of Strauss’ great Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs).  She has a full-bodied, very expressive voice, and it suits these opulent late flowerings of Strauss’ muse perfectly.  Competition in this repertoire is stiff, but Isokoski has displaced Elisabeth Schwarzkopf as my favourite.  The disc is filled out by a selection of Strauss’ other songs.  They are not among Strauss’ greatest inspirations, but they are still beautifully sung. (Reviews: ClassicsToday) (Listen to samples)

In this live performance (not taken from the recording), Isokoski sings “Fruhling”, the first of the Four Last Songs:

Solo Instrument

Messiaen: Complete Organ Works (Olivier Latry) [2002; DG]: As I think I have said before, to a first approximation there has been only one composer for the organ, and that was J.S. Bach.  But if we broaden our vision just a little, Olivier Messiaen comes into view.  His music is nothing like Bach’s, of course, but in its own way it is perfect music for the instrument: immense, deep, ecstatic, glorious, and overwhelming.  It is a major body of work.  Olivier Latry plays the mighty organ of Notre Dame de Paris, where he is house organist, and the DG engineers have caught the sonics in spectacular fashion.  This set is a cornerstone for my collection of twentieth-century music. (Reviews: ClassicsToday)

Bach: Goldberg Variations (Murray Perahia) [2000; Sony]: Starting in the 1990s Murray Perahia began at last to record the music of Bach.  He started with the English Suites, and has since moved through the keyboard concertos, the Partitas, and, in 2000, he made this excellent recording of the Goldberg Variations.  It is a superb, finely calibrated performance that positively dances, and it has become my favourite recording of this inexhaustible music.  (Reviews: ClassicsToday)

Here is Perahia playing the opening Aria and the first three variations:

Chamber

Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets (Emerson String Quartet) [2000; DG]: One of the two or three greatest concert-going experiences of my life was hearing the Emerson String Quartet play Shostakovich’s devastating final quartet, No.15.  It left me reeling and exhausted, but deeply grateful.  Afterward I bought this complete cycle of Shostakovich’s quartets, on five well-filled CDs.  It is an incredibly rich collection.  Some consider his string quartets to be his greatest music, and I am among them.  I have since heard a few other cycles of these quartets, including the famous recordings by the Borodin Quartet.  I love them too, but they do not include the last two quartets, and the Emersons have the edge on precision and sound quality.  This is another cornerstone of my music collection. (Reviews: AllMusic)

Here is a short video I have posted before of the Emersons playing the third movement of String Quartet No.3.  Not one of my very favourite movements, but the only one I can find on YouTube:

Weinberg: Cello Sonatas (Alexander Chaushian, Yevgeny Sudbin) [2007; BIS]: Mieczysław Weinberg is not a well-known composer.  I had never heard of him until I heard this recording, and, now that I have heard this recording, I cannot understand why he is unknown.  His music is fantastic.  Weinberg (also sometimes called Vainberg, or Vaynberg) was born in Poland in 1919 and lived most of his life under the Soviets.  He was a close friend of Shostakovich — the two would play their new compositions to one another.  His music is in many ways quite similar to Shostakovich’s, and that is a very, very good thing!  It is tough and lyrical, full of interesting ideas and genuine feeling, and it sounds urgent and important.  These cello sonatas — two for cello and piano and one for solo cello — are almost unbelievably beautiful.  When I first heard this record I was struck speechless by it, and I hung on every note until it was over.  I have since heard several other recordings of Weinberg’s music, and I have not been disappointed.  He is a major discovery for me. (Reviews: AllMusic)  (Listen to samples)

Here is the first movement of his Cello Sonata No.2, Op.63.  I hope somebody likes this as much as I do.

Runner-up: Pärt: Alina [2000; ECM New Series]: ECM Records are known for their innovative and unusual programming, but, even so, it took a certain audacity to put this disc out.  It includes just two compositions: Für Alina for piano and Spiegel im Spiegel for piano and violin (or cello), together amounting to about 20 minutes of music.  Both pieces are devotedly minimalist, with very sparsely notated scores and absence of dramatic effects.  An uncharitable listener might say that “nothing happens” in either of them.  ECM, in their wisdom, interleaved on the disc two versions of the first piece with three versions of the second!  And, strangely enough, it works.  The record, by the very simplicity of the music, asks the listener to really pay attention to each note.  Close listening becomes a kind of meditative experience.  It’s a rather special disc. (Reviews: ClassicsToday)

Gus van Sant’s 2002 film Gerry used Speigel im Spiegel during the opening scene.  This five-minute clip includes roughly half of the piece.  The visual is perfect for this music.  (Incidentally, in the early days of our courtship I took my wife to see Gerry.  I am lucky that she was willing to see me again.)

Concerto and Orchestral

Schoenberg & Sibelius: Violin Concertos (Hilary Hahn, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen)  [2008; DG]: I confess with some shame that I had ignored Hilary Hahn’s recordings in the past.  I assumed that her success had more to do with her youthful attractiveness than the quality of her playing.  (Yes, sex sells even in the beleaguered marketing departments of classical music labels.)  After hearing this recording I am happy to say that this assumption was totally false: her playing stands firmly on its own merits.  She has chosen to couple the violin concerti of Sibelius and Schoenberg, which is a bit like having a meal of truffles and tacks.  To her great credit, she actually manages to find music in Schoenberg’s concerto.  She gives shape to the almost unremittingly angular musical line, and her tone is steely and firm, as though she’s taken this anarchic music in hand and shown it who is master. She makes as good a case for it as is likely to be made.  But it is in the Sibelius concerto that she really shines.  I’ve heard three or four other recordings of this wonderful concerto, but none has gripped me as hers has.  Her playing is precise, with no wavering or wooliness in her violin’s tone, and she really gets inside the music, allowing it to speak for itself.  (Reviews: ClassicsToday, AllMusic)

Here she is playing the final movement of the Sibelius concerto:

Messiaen: Des Canyons aux Étoiles… (Myung-Whun Chung, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, soloists) [2003; DG]: This massive orchestral composition was written to celebrate the bicentenary of the United States, and it was inspired by Messiaen’s visit to Utah’s Bryce Canyon.  It celebrates in sound the canyon’s rocks, cliffs, and — of course, since this is Messiaen — its birds.   Scored for a large orchestra with piano, horn, xylorimba, and glockenspiel soloists, it is a colourful and essentially joyful composition, both weird and wonderful, and animated by Messiaen’s Catholic nature-mysticism.  The recording is sonically spectacular.  (Reviews: ClassicsToday)

Symphonic

The length of these symphonies prevents my linking to whole movements.  I hope the samples will give some idea of what is in store.

Bruckner: Symphony No.9 (Günter Wand, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR) [2006; Profil]: This is a live recording made in 1979, but this 2006 disc was (I believe) its first commercial appearance, so it qualifies for inclusion on this list.  Günter Wand apparently said of this performance that it was “one of the most memorable of [his] life”, and I believe it.  It is tremendously beautiful music that seeks, as Bruckner said, to make the transcendent perceptible, and Wand leads his orchestra about as far in that direction as it is possible to go.  When called for, they play with thunderous power, and at other times with the most delicate sensitivity.  The sound is excellent.  (Reviews:  AllMusic) (Listen to samples)

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.2 “London” (Richard Hickox, London Symphony Orchestra) [2001; Chandos]: This splendid recording of the “London” symphony was named Record of the Year by Gramophone Magazine in 2001, and it was a richly deserved accolade.  It is a wonderful symphony, and it has never sounded better.  The music glows on this recording.  It is a great interpretation too, with drama and presence.  (Listen to samples)

***

I have not seen any “Best of Decade” lists from major critics, but a number of “Best of 2009″ lists have appeared:

• Alex Ross at The New Yorker
• ClassicsToday critics’ picks
• MusicWeb International critics’ picks
• Amazon critics’ picks

1822 – Composer Cesar-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was born.
1908 – Composer Olivier Messiaen was born.
1965 – The Grateful Dead played their first concert. The show took place at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, CA.
1968 – John Lennon made his first solo TV appearance.
1976 – “Wings over America,” by Paul McCartney’s was released.
1988 – Bill Harris of the Clovers died of cancer at the age of 63
1992 – The musical “My Favorite Year” opened.

Program:

Zachary Cooper: Caterpillar Secrets (premiere)
Peter Hamlin: Visions of Ice (premiere)
Olivier Messiaen: Le rouge-gorge (The Robin) from Petites esquisses d’oiseaux
Olivier Messiaen: Par Lui tout a été fait (By Him everything was made) from Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus
Chan Ka Nin: I Think That I Shall Never See….

The Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble describes their fall program – Kissed by the Wild – as “music inspired by the natural world”. That idea is embodied in both the concept and form of the music itself. It’s also carried out in the woody, expansive resonances of the cello and piano, and the myriad of chirping, warbling, voicings coaxed from the clarinet and flute of the VCME’s talented performers.

I sat next to a man named Jim at last night’s concert. With an apologetic half-shrug he bashfully described himself as ‘old fashioned’ when we talked at intermission, after I asked what he had thought of the first half: Cooper’s colorful Caterpillar Secrets, and Hamlin’s starkly contrasting Visions of Ice. I was thinking maybe Mozart or Bach, but it turns out that Jim’s tastes run more toward Leadbelly and traditional folk roots. “But,” he added, “I really liked this.” So did I.

It’s always especially exciting to be in the audience for the premiere of a new piece, much less two, as filled up the entire first half of this concert.  These two new works were complementary yet completely different in character. The sunny lyricality of Cooper’s whimsical Caterpillars was very soon matched by the cool, sharp, whispering soundscape of Hamlin’s Visions (inspired – and accompanied by – his wife Chris Robbins’ detailed closeup photos of eight different ice formations). Like the first frigid breeze that whips the leaves from the branches at the end of an Indian summer afternoon, Visions‘ presence was punctuated by gusts of glissandi from the alto flute and clarinet, alternating and combining with the cello’s plucking and raspy bowing, all accented with Peter Hamlin’s real-time electronic replay.

Visions‘ musical geneology is loosely rooted in the specialized genre of compositions exemplified by landmarks like Alan Hovhaness’ And God Created Great Whales (for orchestra and taped whale song) and Einojuhani Rautavaara’s marvelous Cantus Arcticus (with pre-recorded bird song captured near the Arctic Circle). Both of these pieces were conceived in the early 1970s (1970 and 1972, respectively) – not coincidentally, at the very same time newly awakened eco-awareness marked the downbeat for the environmental movement, the first Earth Day (1970) and the worldwide Earth Art movement.

Where Visions branches off from the genre is in its technique: the electronic overlay is an organic product of real-time creation, not pre-recording. The composer, Peter Hamlin, had a small table set up in front of the stage, facing the performers, just to the left. The table held an assortment of electronic recording and processing equipment, along with a music stand holding his copy of the score. At key dramatic moments in the 8-movement piece, Hamlin layered electronically-enhanced instrumental passages into the mix, recorded just a few bars before and played back right away to add another instrumental texture to the experience. The effect was evocative and surprisingly subtle, giving the pieces a cinematic depth: think of Iceland’s frozen beauty in Cold Fever, or Warner Herzog’s remarkable documentary from last year, Encounters At The End Of The World. In Hamlin’s work, the ensemble itself replaces the birds and whales of the earlier Hovhaness and Rautavaara pieces to represent the ever-changing infused ‘natural’ element.

Hamlin’s Visions of Ice is a celebration of the oncoming season’s austerity. Rather than taking the easy route and merely reflecting its most obvious surface characteristics of darkness and cold, Hamlin’s musical landscape works both on the panoramic and more detailed scale to affirm that wintertime is anything but lifeless. You just have to know how to appreciate its subtleties.

Michael Arnowitt’s solo piano tour-de-force was the highlight of the second half, with compelling and powerful performances (from memory – no easy accomplishment) of two formidable Messian works, and Cha Na Kin’s I Think That I Shall Never See…., inspired by the Joyce Carol Oates poem. Over the years I’ve heard Michael play jazz, Mozart, and a lot of nice but fairly standard concert fare. He always plays well, expressively, and brings a lot of himself to the music. But I’ve never heard him play with the intensity and purpose with which his Messiaen was infused last night. His performance was driven, his interpretation of Messiaen in turns feverish and inspired, and ponderous and introspective. In other words: just as it should be for the emotional complexity and tension of these pieces.

Kissed by the Wild is a program inspired by the natural world, but also seems to emerge from it organically as surely as the first flakes of winter are followed by coiled verdant tendrils growing and waiting to break through the crusted snow of early spring.

The VCME is Steven Klimowski, clarinets; Berta Frank, flutes; Bonnie Thurber Klimowski, cello; Paula Ennis, piano; with special guest pianist Michael Arnowitt for this performance. The second of the two “Kissed by the Wild” performances is happening tonight at the Flynn Space, 8pm.

Der Forscher J.J. Audubon schoss sie zu Hunderten und fixierte sie für seine Zeichenstudien auf Draht, der Bildhauer William Lishman führte sie im Leichtflugzeug von Ontario zu ihren Brutplätzen nach Virginia, und der Komponist Olivier Messiaen durchstreifte ihren Stimmen folgend die Landschaften der Welt: Ungezählt sind die Möglichkeiten, sich dem Wesen der Vögel anzunähern.

Solches hat auch die Autorin Teresa Präauer im Sinn, wenn sie ihren eigenen Federwesen nachstellt, um sie zu belauschen:

Da frägt man, was die Vögel tun,
und hört, was sie berichten.

In straffes Federkleid gemantelt stiert der Brave Höllengreifling, mit weißem Augenlicht in sonst kompaktem Schwarz brütet der Lochschwärzler, und auf sehnigen Beinen wägt der Anfresser seine weiteren Aussichten ab:

Wir haben uns eine Fliege geteilt.

Teresa Präauer versammelt in ihrem Buch bildende Kunst und Literatur: Insgesamt 15 Zeichnungen ingeniöser Vögel stehen 15 poetische Kurztexte gegenüber – dicht und knapp wie ein Haiku bilden diese »Taubenbriefe« die Berichte zu den Beobachtungen der gefiederten Geschöpfe. / Edition Krill

Taubenbriefe von Stummen
an anderer Vögel Küken
von Teresa Präauer

1. Auflage 2009.
15 Text- und 15 Bildkarten (gebunden, einzeln entnehmbar) Format 105 × 148 mm, Umschlag partiell lackiert, Banderole
ISBN 978-395025371-9
Preis: EUR 14,–

Olivier Messiaen

Thème et Variations for Violin and Piano
I. Thème: Modéré
II. Variation No. 1: Modéré
III. Variation No. 2: Un peu moins modéré
IV. Variation No. 3: Modéré, avec éclat
V. Variation No. 4: Vif et passionné
VI. Variation No. 5: Très modéré

Gidon Kremer (Violin); Martha Argerich (Piano)

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Again, apologies for being so long absent on this blog, but everything else is eating up all my time. This seems to be what’s happening to most of the formerly employed journalists I know. We’re all trying to cobble something together from a whole lot of little bits, and too many of these things get too little of our attention.

Mea culpas out of the way, I wanted to say something about Alan Gilbert.

Last night, I tuned in to Gilbert’s debut at the helm of the New York Philharmonic, and I quite enjoyed it. The first half was wonderfully fresh, and the second, while it lacked much of the fire and power of a typical reading of the Symphonie Fantastique, was nevertheless interesting for the sheer polish of the playing. It struck me as an ideal approach for French music; perhaps not for this particular French composer, but ideal nonetheless for a certain kind of writing.

I found it somewhat remarkable that the critical reaction to Gilbert’s debut seems to have been so unfavorable, but to me it looks like everyone was hoping for a comet, a meteor, a blazing presence who would set the world on its ear and inaugurate a new, must-see season for the venerable NY Phil. What they have, just judging by what I saw, is a thoughtful, precise technician who is interested in a smooth, full sound, and has enough courage to start his debut concert with one world premiere by a challenging Finnish modernist and follow it with a song cycle by Messaien, a composer beloved by composers and musicians, but not audiences.

Still, that took guts, and it should be noted that concert programs in the past couple years across the land have started to loosen up and get more daring, and Gilbert brings his attitude of openness to the field at just the right time. I also liked seeing a conductor who has the beat under control and isn’t about to do anything perverse or arbitrary. Lorin Maazel, who is by every account I’ve heard a kind man and a formidable musician, is, it has to be said, a terrible conductor, someone who seems to decide on the spot to throw out the approach he rehearsed and try something else and dare his band to follow him.

I’ll never forget hearing him do very bizarre things with the Mozart Paris Symphony in West Palm Beach a few years back: You could feel the massed tension of the entire orchestra as it tried to figure out what in the heck was going to happen in the next bar. It was a performance that set my teeth on edge.

With Gilbert, however, you got the sense that playing for him was an orchestra happy to be trying new things like the Magnus Lindberg Expo, which is a lousy piece of music, but quite vividly colored and full of good orchestral effects. Yet it was new, and here was a performance by a bunch of great musicians determined to bring it off. I was reminded as I watched that here on stage were people with a tremendous amount of advanced degrees in music, people who in their college years had played pieces like this many times only to have to settle for the canon once they got regular work.  It must have been liberating to tackle a brand-new score, written especially for them by a real composer with real chops.

And the Messaien Poemes pour Mi, too, sung well and passionately by Renee Fleming, particularly Le collier, which to my ears was easily the most accessible of the set. Fleming’s dark voice and palpable engagement with the text made this performance riveting for me, even I don’t find the music all that compelling. It’s decent, perhaps over-indebted to Debussy, but the sheen and luster of the sound that accompanied the singing was exactly what this music calls for.

The Berlioz was less successful because it had so little red blood; each climax and peroration seemed to be over-prepared and over cautious. I’ve never heard an orchestra make quite so much out of that third movement; it seemed to go on and on in a sort of timeless fashion that was in its own way mesmerizing, again because the sound of the orchestra was so glass-like, so unperturbed.

It seems to me that Gilbert likely is naturally an intellectual, and he brought all that to bear on this performance, and probably a little too much of it. But it says great things about him that he began his entire career at the NY Phil with a sweep aside of the current canon, at least in the first half, and that when he did go for an established work in the second half, he chose one that fit admirably with the first two pieces. Brahms, for instance, or Beethoven, would have been all wrong. But choosing Berlioz was the product of deep thinking about the sound world inhabited by the first two pieces, and it was a sharp piece of programming.

On balance, I’m looking forward to more work from Alan Gilbert. His debut might not have been very exciting in sheer bravado and sparkle, but it was tremendously exciting in what it says about the path he is going to set for one of our country’s most important orchestras.  A steady hand on the podium, a deep interest in fresh music, a careful thinker about programming: That’s a pretty good set of qualities to have, and it bodes well for his, and the Phil’s, future music-making.

27ème Jour ~ Matin

Entonnez un cantique, faites résonner le tambourin,
La harpe harmonieuse avec la lyre…

J’ai entendu ta voix comme on entend avec le cœur. Bien tard je t’ai aimée, ô Beauté si ancienne et si nouvelle, bien tard je t’ai aimée ! Mais quoi, tu étais au-dedans de moi, et j’étais en dehors de moi-même ! Et c’est en dehors que je te cherchais… Tu étais avec moi et je n’étais pas avec toi. Elles me retenaient loin de toi,  ces choses, mais n’eussent-elles pas été en toi, elles n’auraient pu être. Tu m’appelais en pleurant et brisais ma surdité. Tu as brillé, tu as resplendis et tu as dissipé mon aveuglement. Tu as répandu ton parfum et mon souffle s’est joint à toi et maintenant mon âme te désire. Je t’ai goûtée, et maintenant j’ai faim et soif de toi. Tu m’as touché et j’ai brûlé pour ta paix.  Ô Amour qui toujours brûles et jamais ne s’éteint, ô charité, mon Dieu embrase-moi… Donne ce que tu commandes, et commande ce que tu veux.

 Chant

INTERCESSION
Benedicite

J’estime en effet que les souffrances du temps présent sont sans proportion avec la gloire qui doit être révélée en nous.

27ème Jour ~Soir

Mon âme se consume,
Elle languit après les parvis de l’Éternel.
Mon coeur et ma chair font monter leurs cris de joie
Vers le Dieu Vivant !

Mon Jésus, mon silence,
Restez en moi.
Mon Jésus, mon royaume de silence,
Parlez en moi.
Mon Jésus, nuit d’arc-en-ciel et de silence,
Priez en moi.
Soleil de sang, d’oiseaux,
Mon arc-en-ciel d’amour,
Désert d’amour.
Chantez, lancez l’auréole d’amour,
Mon Amour,
Mon Dieu.

• Nous le savons bien, la création tout entière crie sa souffrance… Nous aussi, qui possédons les prémices de l’Esprit, nous crions en nous-mêmes notre souffrance, attentant l’adoption, la rédemption de notre corps. Car nous avons été sauvés, mais c’est en espérance… et nous l’attendons avec persévérance.

CONFESSION ~ACTIONS DE GRÂCES
Benedicite

Je suis la Résurrection et la Vie.

Des profondeurs, je crie vers toi, Seigneur,
Écoute mon appel !

Ps 81, 3 ; Auguste d’Hippone, Confessions, X, 27-40 ; Ps 84, 3 ; Olivier Messiaen, Ancienne de la conversation intérieure ; Jn 11, 25a ; Ps 130 [De profundis], Psalmodie J. Gelineau.

Wondrous machine, the Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Sulpice

French organ music is my favorite drug. Give me a recording of music by Vierne, Dupré, Touremire or  Messiaen played on a big Cavaillé-Coll organ and I don’t need dessert.  Probably don’t need dinner either. Messiaen’s organ music seduced me years ago and there’s still nothing in all the world that stirs me as much.  Christmas music? Give me La nativité du seigneur above all else. Need a thrill? Play the Sortie from the Messe de la pentecôte loud, real loud. More than Buxtehude and even more than Bach, Messiaen’s organ music hits me right between the eyes.

The world's greatest scarf and Olivier Messiaen

 

What’s there to listen to after Messiaen? The two French composers who have impressed me most are Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968) and Thierry Escaich (b. 1965).

 

Jeanne Demessieux

Demessieux

A private student of the great Marcel Dupré, Demessieux was an award-winning organist and composer. She was a virtuoso of astounding talent and a prolific recording artist (although you wouldn’t know that by the paltry number of her recordings that are still in print) who was far too young when she died. Her music has an intensity that is matched by its sheer difficulty. This has to be terrifying music to play.  A recording by the organist Maurizio Ciampi on the Stradivarius label has become a great favorite of mine. Ciampi is up to the technical challenges – his  pedal work kills – and makes me want to hear him play more of Demessieux’s music, or anything else for that matter. Speaking of pedal work, apparently Demessieux dazzled North American audiences by her quicksilver pedal-playing in high heels.

 

 

Ciampi champions Demessieux

 

Here’s Demessieux’s Octaves from her Six  Etudes performed by Maxime Patel. The playing isn’t as technically secure as Ciampi’s but its fun to see the pedal work.

 

Thierry Escaich

He gives you so many reasons to like the music of your century!

“Thierry Escaich: one of the composers of today who gives you so many reasons to like the music of your century!”  That’s the greeting from Escaich’s homepage and it’s true, he makes me like music of my century! Escaich’s music is as intense as Messiaen  and Demessieux’s  and, like Messiaen, has  that whiff of the delicious perfume of the ecstatic that I find so compelling. Escaich is also a virtuoso organist; he is the successor to Maurice Duruflé as organist at the church of St. Etienne du Mont in Paris.

I’ve been reveling in Escaich’s recording of his own works on the Calliope label. He plays the Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Etienne du Mont in a program that features some solo works that give Demessieux’s murderous Octaves a run for its money. I also recommend the terrific recording on the Accord label (with Olivier Latry at the organ console) of his Organ Concerto. If you get really hooked, try his oratorio  Le Dernier Èvangile on the Hortus label.

 The master should have the last word though,  here’s Naji Hakim playing Messiaen’s  Dieu parmi nous from La nativité du seigneur.

CMZ

LCCMF Artistic Director Soovin Kim (left) and composer-in-residence David Ludwig

With a monumental work like Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time filling up the whole second half of the program, the question then becomes what to offer on the first half.

Something light and lovely, as a programmatic apéritif?

Or, maybe something with more of a kindred gravitas, to set the tone for the concert and foreshadow the emotional weight of the Quartet. Like starting out a fine meal with the fromage et charcuterie plate, a half carafe of cab, and a solid loaf of thick, crusty bread. Gets you warmed up nicely for that entrée of steak, lobster, bacon-infused rainbow chard and silky butter beans. Know what I mean?

Last night’s second concert with the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival split the difference and offered both approaches.

David Ludwig’s delicately elegiac Flowers in the Desert opened the program in its world premiere performance, with violist Hsin-Hun Huang, clarinetist David Shifrin, and pianist Jeewon Park. The spare spaces of its sonic landscape prompted an audible audience exhale when the last, redemptive, prayer-like note decayed and floated plaintively to meet the the raised ceiling of the Elley-Long Music Center.

Flowers’ feel and gently repeated note patterns reminded me of the understated beauty in Arvo Part’s Spiegel im Spiegel, though Flowers‘ inspiration is rooted in much weightier source material. In May this year, two boys (Antwun Parker, 16 and a younger unidentified teen-aged accomplice) attempted a gunpoint robbery at an Oklahoma City pharmacy. The younger boy got away, while Parker was shot in the head by the pharmacist Jerome Ersland. And then when Parker was down, Erslund shot him another five times in the stomach. Because the autopsy revealed that Parker died from the five stomach wounds, not the original head shot, the pharmacist was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. (More on the story here)

David Ludwig's "Flowers in the Desert"

Whatever your opinion on the facts of the incident, the senselessness, sheer brutality and fundamental human failure evident in every aspect of the situation are inarguable, and provide the potent departure point for Flowers’ fragile emotional center.

From there we moved on to the György Kurtág’s ruminative Hommage to Robert Schumann (which prompted my friend to comment wonderingly, “how do you practice a piece like that?”), and the first half concluded in a brilliant stroke of programming with Schumann’s joyously effusive Liederkreis, Op. 39 song cycle, warmly performed by soprano Hyunnah Yo and pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn.

Solzhenitsyn and Yu in Schumannn's uplifting "Liederkreis"

Twenty minutes intermission was hardly enough time to prepare for the next 45.

Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time has long been one of my chamber music favorites. As a profound expression of  acceptance and deliverance through personal spirituality, I find its reverance of the natural world to be a centering experience that never fails to ‘reset’ my ears and attitude and encourage me to get over (or through) things happening at the time.

Hearing the Quartet performed in a live setting precludes the opportunity for that kind of self-selected (self-inflicted?) ‘occasional’ listening. Regardless of your state of mind, the music happens when it happens because it’s part of the concert you’ve decided to attend. So it was with last night’s encounter with the Quartet, a bit tired at the end of the week, coming down from a long day at work and the previous night’s emotionally draning late-night visit to the local emergency veterinary clinic. And the music was just right. Serene, contemplative, wailing and world weary in David Shifrin’s clarinet solo in the “Abyss of the Birds” 3rd movement, and stringently punctuated with the announcement of the Apocalypse in the 6th movement’s “Dance of the fury”.

I wish I had liked Alisa Weilerstein’s “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus” (5th mvmt cello & piano duet) a bit more, but the phrasing felt choppy and the tempo a bit rushed rather than the expansive legato the music requires to ilustrate the infinite, magnanimous nature of divine love. The continuity of the long, suspended, whispering note that ends the movement was broken repeatedly when the cello’s strings refused to respond to the bowing, concluding the meditation haltingly and oddly countering the movement’s thematic message of the neverending, eternal nature of God’s Word. Weilerstein is a seasoned player for her young age, and her expressive range is already very broad. I’m very much looking forward to hearing how she continues to evolve artistically.

All in all an engaging, exciting evening of visionary programming and music-making in this inaugural season for what we hope will be a long-lived venture, this new Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival. Finally, a special note on the classy Festival program: a nice piece of work. Especially in providing clear translations of the Schumann songs and in the thorough information on each piece. A real pleasure to read.        

The Festival’s final performance takes place tomorrow at 3, with a program of Dvořák (Bagatelles, Op. 47), Schubert (C major String Quintet) and a Trio from Canada’s R. Murray Schafer.

My review of this concert last week is now up at Musical Pointers.

It has become a feature of Radius concerts to programme works of the experimental, mostly American, avant garde alongside their more obliging European counterparts. This practice reached a sort of zenith so far in the evening’s enticing performance of Cage’s Telephones and Birds, which, instead of taped birdsong, used Messiaen’s piano transcriptions, along with the requisite recordings of telephone calls (all made in this case to the Monterey Bay Area ‘Birdbox’ hotline).

As a broad strategy it has its pros and cons. In particular, I have reservations about how the coherence and ‘throughline’ of concert (rather than an assortment of recently rehearsed works) is affected. Another effect – more ambiguous and thus potentially more interesting – is the relative influence of one tradition upon another. In general – and in this performance of Telephones and Birds in particular – I’ve found that the glossier European masters tend to smooth out any experimentalist abrasions.

Read more here.

http://ihatemusic1943.blogspot.com/2009/06/schifrin-77-anos.html

I’ve dropped the ball slightly on this one, so apologies for the late notice, but Radius play tonight at the Wigmore Hall. Their programme celebrates the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the first publication of “On The Origin Of
Species” by taking up the theme of “chance” in music. The group will play pieces by Messiaen, Boulez, Cage and new works by
Paul Newland and Tim Benjamin.

Full Programme
Boulez: Domaines
Cage: Telephones And Birds (Not Birds But Messiaen)
Paul Newland: Monotonous Forest
Messiaen: L’Alouette Lulu and L’Alouette Calandrelle from Catalogue D’Oiseaux
Cage: Radio Music
Tim Benjamin: A Dream Of England

More information: Wigmore Hall; Radius website.

Here is a review of a concert the other week by rock-star Melbourne soprano Jessica Aszodi, with pianist Peter de Jager. Stephanie Blake provided violin back-up for Kate Neal’s work.

The program was as follows:

Kate Neal Hourly scrutinising
Luigi Dallapiccola Quattro liriche di Antonio Machado
Robert Dahm Hölderlinfragmente
György Ligeti Der Sommer
Luciano Berio Selections from Six encores
Olivier Messiaen Chants de terre et de ciel

Obviously, I’m hardly the ‘objective reviewer’, and maybe my brain was too fried from the dazzlingly inept pre-concert interview I’d just given, but this was a really fantastic concert. The highlight for me was the Dallapiccola. This has, as far as I’m aware, been in Aszodi’s repertoire for far longer than the other works, and it really shows. The depth of nuance she brought to these pieces was genuinely remarkable. For the Messiaen, Aszodi succeeding in creating the atmosphere of charged stasis necessary for this music to communicate – something that happens in surprisingly few performances of the work.

Also noteworthy was pianist Peter de Jager’s assured grasp of what was a truly ambitious program: definitely a performer to watch.

By Dr. Karl Paulnack, Director of the Music Division of Boston Conservatory. Reprinted with the author’s permission.

One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, “you’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.

The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-even from the concentration camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”

In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.

And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.

At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.

From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.

Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.

Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.

I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Midwestern town a few years ago.

I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.

Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70’s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.

When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.

What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”

Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.

What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:

“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.

You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”

EYB PROFIL RIWAYAT EYB PERSONIL PROFILE DISKOGRAFI CONTACT VIDEO KLIP EYB FREE DOWNLOAD ALBUM TUKAR LINK ANDA DISINI DUKUNG USAHA GERILYA KREATIF KAMI, DISINI ELEXYOBEN adalah nama proyek musik bergenre electro rock, hasil kolaborasi dua musisi yang juga berprofesi sebagai video klipper. Duet ini telah melahirkan album GENDING BEJAD (2007) dan kini bersiap melahirkan album ANTOLOGI JIWA-JIWA. Dari penjualan album, RBT maupun pertunjukannya, EYB telah …. KLIK SELANJUTNYA

Dari: EriQ Rainbowheart <rainbow_pianist@ yahoo.com>Kepada: komunitasmusikbaru@ yahoogroups. Com Terkirim: Senin, 11 Mei, 2009 07:46:06 Topik: [komunitasmusikbaru ] Salihara: Pertunjukan Musik dan Multimedia EVENT HORIZON.

Pertunjukan Musik dan Multimedia EVENT HORIZON
RABU, MEI 27 , 2009 – KAMIS, MEI 28 , 2009
Oleh: Sincronie, Italia

Sincronie adalah proyek yang dimulai pada tahun 2003 oleh para pemusik yang ingin mengembangkan ide-ide mengenai musik, dan pengalaman estetis secara umum, yang dihadirkan ke hadapan pemirsa sebagai acara tematis dan unik. Pendiri Sincronie adalah sejumlah komponis lintas generasi yang memiliki pandangan sama mengenai musik, seperti George Crumb, Giacinto Scelsi, Olivier Messiaen, dan Terry Riley. Mereka bertemu tiap tahun untuk menciptakan acara kolektif yang berbeda tiap tahunnya, yang menggambarkan pandangan unik mereka tentang musik kontemporer.

Penggalian pengalaman estetis mendalam, riset bahasa yang luas, perluasan kebebasan berpikir yang tak pernah usai, teknologi untuk meningkatkan hubungan antara bahasa artistik dan pemirsa; kesemuanya hanyalah sedikit hal yang mempertemukan para anggota Sincronie untuk berkolaborasi dalam proyek-proyek Sincronie, untuk menghasilkan acara-acara yang konsisten dengan sensibilitas artistik mereka.

Tiap tahunnya, Sincronie berkolaborasi dengan mitra-mitra internasional, sejumlah institusi musik, serta seniman-seniman musik dan visual bertaraf internasional yang terpilih secara ketat.

Dalam pementasan Event Horizon di Teater Salihara, Sincronie akan menampilkan sebuah kelompok musik yang diakui secara internasional ICARUS Ensemble; terdiri dari pemain perkusi tradisi Italia Pino Basile, pianis Andrea Carnevali dan pemain terompet Fabio Caggiula. Mereka akan berkolaborasi dengan pemusik elektronik Massimiliano Viel, dan seniman video Fabio Volpi.

Date and time:
RABU, MEI 27 , 2009 / 20:00 WIB
KAMIS, MEI 28 , 2009 / 20:00 WIB

Ticket Price:
Umum (Rp) 50000
Mahasiswa (tempat terbatas) (Rp) 25000

For further info and Reservation:

http://www.salihara .org/main. php?type= detail&module= event&menu= child&parent_ && item_

INFO LAINNYA SILAHKAN KLIK DISINI

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, and as commemorations take place around the world it’s an important occasion to remember some of the extraordinary musicians of the time period. Those imprisoned in camps, like Olivier Messiaen; those who fled Europe to avoid persecution, like Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (and countless others); and the less fortunate ones who lost their lives, like Pavel Haas, Ervin Schulhoff, and Viktor Ullmann. Everyone is affected somehow by events of this magnitude. Today’s observance is a powerful reminder of that fact.

Today was ironic because it was the date of the publication of the first-ever “Counter Point Journal,” which was created in obvious rebuttal to our formal school newspaper, and this week I designed almost three pages in our Cooper Point Journal.

Today was ironic because I’m writing this paper on faith, and I’m way behind. I figured out that I wanted to work in the idea of music, and that people can ultimately have faith in music. Then, I accidentally uncovered an email that my mom sent me months back that I’d never read, because it was a forward. But it was called “A Contemplation on Music,” and it was a welcome address given to freshmen at the Boston Conservatory by Karl Paulnack, who teaches there. It’s perfect–it has every tidbit I want and need for my paper. But it contains all the sentences I wish I could say. He recommends many classical pieces, one of which I’m listening to right now. It’s called “Quartet For The End Of Time,” by Olivier Messiaen. He was French and lived in the 1940s, when he was captured and sent to a German concentration camp. There, he wrote this piece, that was composed for four musicians– the four he found in the camp, including himself. It’s dark.

Today is ironic because, to couple with finding that paper in my email, I had one of the best classes ever. Our teachers brought in a panel of three other faculty members who could talk to us about faith. They spoke of their experiences and bared some parts of their pasts, which made them very vulnerable. Andrew, one of my seminar leaders, even said that he felt so uncomfortable with it that he wouldn’t have been able to talk like that at the beginning of the year. But now, he said, he trusts us more. I took that very personally, and was thrilled to hear that we were deserving of his stories.

That’s ironic, because I was very excited about my fantastic class time and all I wanted to do was tell my parents. And all I asked was that they be together so they could put me on speakerphone and we could all talk at the same time. But, my mother went to the lake AGAIN (which I don’t fault her for, really) which meant I couldn’t talk to them simultaneously. And I refuse to say everything twice! That always happens, and I hate it. It always sucks the second time and I leave things out and I’m not enthusiastic and it feels like a chore. If I was going to pick one to tell about my class, it would be my dad because he loves hearing that stuff, and he’s intellectual. Mom’s more “spiritual,” I guess (that’s a word that was discussed around faith in our class). But she would absolutely flip out if I only told dad or if I told dad first. And I don’t feel like rewarding their strange behavior that I don’t like with saying things twice or catering to them.

It’s not like they’re “separating,” and they’re certainly not getting a divorce. They’re not like that. And, ha, since my dad’s a divorce attorney, it’s pretty much out of the question. Anyway, nothing like that. But it bothers me that they spend so much time apart. I mean at times, it feels like they might as well be divorced for all the time they see each other. I always talk to each separately, and I always have to text the same things to both. And I KNOW that if I were to talk to someone about this, it would be that stupid talk all children get: “It’s not your fault in any way! Mommy and daddy love you very much, and you’re what holds them together!” 

Because that’s exactly what I’m afraid of! I’m not there anymore! It’s like there’s nothing holding them together! And it’s not all about me, but come on… I am the only only only only only child, in a family of seven including me, and everyone else lives an hour away from my parents. I can’t imagine what they DO when I’m gone. All my parents have is work, and the dogs. Maybe the dogs are what is holding them together.

OH MY GAH I wish I could call Shadow up right now and talk to him about this! Then life would be perfect. Actually, if I had a sibling right about now it would make me SUPER happy. Mom always said that the most solid thing that helped her get through her parents’ divorce was her brother. I don’t have one. What now?

After my class on faith, I just keep thinking there’s something I need to turn to, if only I knew what it was. It’s an awful feeling. I racked my brain trying to think of who to call, and all my options were excellent (Rita, Erin, and Caleb), but all I wanted to do was call my daddy. I talk to my parents about EVERYTHING. Usually, even though I hate it, I make the sacrifice to say everything twice because I just always talk to them. When there’s conflict or stress in my life, I almost always call my parents to unload. So it gets horrendous when I have conflict about them, because I’m not ready to speak directly to them yet (and, well, I CAN’T, because I most certainly don’t want to do THAT twice, so I have to wait for them to be in the same room anyway) and I don’t know what else to do but sit and cry. Which I’ve tried. 

I feel like I need to wean myself from them, but why? I mean, if (other than this hiccup) we have such a great relationship, why let that drop? I know people who go weeks without talking to their parents, and I don’t think I could do that. I think the longest I’ve gone is a week and a half. I feel so immature. And yet, I feel like there’s something else that I could reach out to to help balance things a bit, but I have no idea what it is. I’ll probably have some revelation where I realize it was God I was searching for all along, but I’m not ready for that yet. 

Right now I just want to listen to Beatles and find the comfort I know.

One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music? And yet—from the camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life.

- Karl Paulnack, Boston Conservatory

Thanks to Andy Crouch at Culture Making for the link.