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Post by Kapitan on Dec 30, 2022 22:03:20 GMT
I've got a possibly strange habit of putting on (usually instrumental) music of the relative time and place of novels I'm reading. Obviously this isn't great for purposes of paying attention to the music, but it does seem to help set moods.
Today, as I finished Willa Cather's Pulitzer-winning WWI novel "One of Ours," I put on a heretofore unknown (to me...) symphony by a heretofore unknown (to me...) composer: E.J. Moeran's Symphony in G Minor. Written between the world wars (1937 premiere), his biographer called it his "war requiem." This recording is the first, conducted by Leslie Heward and the Halle Orchestra in 1942.
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Post by jk on Dec 30, 2022 22:37:14 GMT
Today, as I finished Willa Cather's Pulitzer-winning WWI novel "One of Ours," I put on a heretofore unknown (to me...) symphony by a heretofore unknown (to me...) composer: E.J. Moeran's Symphony in G Minor. Written between the world wars (1937 premiere), his biographer called it his "war requiem." You've hit upon a gem there, Cap'n. The version I known and love is this one conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. I once read a fantastic analysis of Moeran's Symphony. To cut a very long story short, the heroic themes and optimistic mood heard at the start slowly turn sour, particularly in the last movement. The slow movement has indeed been described as a requiem, where the cheerful folk tune heard in the first movement is literally buried deep in the orchestral texture. In WWI, Moeran had received a wound in the head, although accounts differ as to its treatment and its impact. Whatever the case, it surely coloured his outlook on post-war life and clearly resonates in this work. voegelinview.com/the-music-of-e-j-moeran/
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 30, 2022 23:42:10 GMT
Today, as I finished Willa Cather's Pulitzer-winning WWI novel "One of Ours," I put on a heretofore unknown (to me...) symphony by a heretofore unknown (to me...) composer: E.J. Moeran's Symphony in G Minor. Written between the world wars (1937 premiere), his biographer called it his "war requiem." You've hit upon a gem there, Cap'n. The version I known and love is this one conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. I once read a fantastic analysis of Moeran's Symphony. To cut a very long story short, the heroic themes and optimistic mood heard at the start slowly turn sour, particularly in the last movement. The slow movement has indeed been described as a requiem, where the cheerful folk tune heard in the first movement is literally buried deep in the orchestral texture. In WWI, Moeran had received a wound in the head, although accounts differ as to its treatment and its impact. Whatever the case, it surely coloured his outlook on post-war life and clearly resonates in this work. voegelinview.com/the-music-of-e-j-moeran/ Yes, I did a little reading on him as the symphony caught my attention. Between that and of course the WWI novel I had been reading in the first place, a person can't help but ruminate a bit on the tragedy that is war--a tragedy we still encounter some 100-plus years after that "war to end all wars."
EDIT - I realize of course how obvious that last sentence is, "the tragedy of war." It's hardly my discovery! But it does strike me as one of those things everyone knows but somehow avoids thinking about much at all. (Everyone except people in them, I suppose.)
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 6, 2023 21:58:09 GMT
In keeping with my aforementioned habit of listening to certain types of music while I read, I'm accompanying Hans Fallada's 1933 novel "Little Man, What Now?" with Paul Hindemith's piano sonatas. They are wonderful!
I also did some quick wiki-reading on Hindemith and discovered he taught one of my favorite jazz composers, Andrew Hill.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 7, 2023 20:57:41 GMT
Having begun a novel set in New England, I decided to look into some composers associated with that area, and came across the Second New England School (about whom I'd never heard), of the late 19th and early 20th century. (Admittedly this isn't a perfect fit with the novel, which takes place in modern New Hampshire, but it's close enough for my purposes.) I found this recording, and have to say I enjoyed the music quite a bit. I wouldn't say any of this music struck me as truly top notch stuff, but it was quite good, certainly enjoyable. Plus frankly I learned something about American music listening to it: that's one major and perhaps surprising hole in my music education. We studied almost exclusively European composers, even into the 20th century's talents, with only occasional forays into Americans' work (e.g., Ives, Copland), jazz notwithstanding.
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Post by jk on Jan 9, 2023 12:30:16 GMT
It's that day again... January 9th 1905 is the fateful day in Russian history when soldiers of the Imperial Guard fired upon unarmed demonstrators marching on the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, killing several hundred of them. Shostakovich commemorates it in the second movement of his Eleventh Symphony (1957), although it is more likely a depiction of the then recent crushing of the Hungarian Revolution by Soviet troops. This is the complete symphony performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Shostakovich's favourite conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky. This must be the recording made in 1959, on 2 November it would seem (not 1967, as stated by the uploader). Important note: Play at a reasonable volume -- much of the first movement is very quiet and, more importantly, you may otherwise miss the deathly hush (here at 30:04) in the second movement. I. The Palace Square II. The 9th of January (starts 15:33) III. Eternal Memory (starts 34:01) IV. Tocsin (Alarm) (starts 45:48) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich)
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Post by jk on Jan 28, 2023 9:25:46 GMT
A friend brought up the subject of St Peter yesterday and it reminded me of this: How about this? Here's Joshilyn playing a favourite vocal work of hers, William Byrd's six-part Tu es Petrus, in an arrangement for electric mandolin and archtop guitar with some great visuals to boot. Over to you, JH: The great William Byrd composed this magnificent motet to the text: Tu es Petrus, et super hanc Petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church It is a marvel of polyphonic writing and also creating the sensation of the text within the music. For example, when a voice part sings of the "Rock" it dives low, particularly in the basses, where the rock line is low and drawn out for many bars--quite literally the rock on which the structure of the motet rests. I've sadly lost the marriage of music and text by producing this instrumental version, 2 electric mandolins playing the top two parts and acoustic guitar playing the bottom four. It is otherwise a straightforward note-for-note translation from the score (with one small exception.)
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 14, 2023 23:09:07 GMT
In keeping with my habit of pairings, I had to find an Icelandic composer to listen to as I read Halldor Laxness's novel Independent People. I'd never heard of an Icelandic composer ... but then again, I'd never heard of an Icelandic novelist, either (and was shocked to learn this one was a well-regarded novel and Laxness a Nobel Prize winner for his literature!). I picked Jon Leifs, who is of a similar period to Laxness. (Laxness lived from 1902-1998; Leifs from 1899-1968.) And I chose one of his longer works, Sogusinfonia (Saga Symphony), from the early '40s. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jón_Leifs
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Post by Kapitan on Mar 9, 2023 21:05:05 GMT
A modern novel set in modern America, so I put on some (semi-) modern American music per my habit. For the first time, Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach.
I lasted about 13 minutes before shutting it off. I hate it. My apologies, Mr. Glass. It's not you, it's me. (Well, it's your music and me. And ne'er the twain shall meet anymore. At least not that one.)
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Post by jk on Apr 2, 2023 13:41:27 GMT
The Curlew is a song cycle by Peter Warlock on poems by William Butler Yeats. Written in the early 1920s, it is scored for singer, flute, cor anglais and string quartet. This morning I heard the first of its four songs on BBC classical radio. This is "He Reproves the Curlew": "O, curlew, cry no more in the air, Or only to the waters in the West; Because your crying brings to my mind Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair That was shaken out over my breast: There is enough evil in the crying of wind." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Warlock
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 27, 2023 20:22:37 GMT
Yes, I still maintain my odd habit of trying to match music and literature, so for Irene Nemirovsky's French WWII novel Suite Francaise, I've got a set of symphonic fragments from the opera Orphee, by Jean Roger-Ducasse. I wasn't familiar, but it's very Romantic sounding for a(n admittedly early) 20th century piece.
And with that finished, a (slightly too late, 1949) string quartet from Maurice Delage. It's much more what I think of with the first half of the 20th century.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 28, 2023 19:41:39 GMT
I've been listening to more midcentury French compositions in the past 24 hours than I had in the past 24 years! Mostly introducing myself to new things, though I did take a detour into the more familiar territory of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time earlier. But now I'm hearing this for the first time: Guy Ropartz's Symphony No. 5 in G Major.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 28, 2023 16:01:25 GMT
I'm reading a contemporary American--a Minnesotan, in fact--Peter Geye's Northernmost. But as half the novel is set in Norway in the late 1890s, and the mood and setting (a dissolving marriage in northern Minnesota and in Norway) I decided to take that angle for my paired listening.
So who better than good old Edvard Grieg?
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Post by jk on Nov 1, 2023 10:19:13 GMT
Criminally, I still have to give all your 2023 musical choices a listen, Cap'n -- most remiss of me, I know, and more than a little self-centred. I plan to start another jigsaw puzzle soon and I promise I shall take the opportunity to go through your "classical" posts as I grapple with it. Well, it's that time of year again. This is November Woods, a brooding evocation of autumn by former Master of the King's Music Arnold Bax and my favourite among his orchestral works. Bax was a bit of an outsider in his day; even now, his music is scarcely ever performed and is in dire need of a reassessment. I love the following remark he once made, although I don't believe it was his originally: "Try everything once, except incest and folk dancing." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Bax
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 8, 2023 21:51:52 GMT
Another Halldor Laxness novel (Iceland's Bell), meaning more Icelandic music for me. I've put on the contemporary Olafur Arnalds, and, well (how to put this nicely), I'm not especially impressed. It seems like he takes from minimalism--which I already don't like--and puts it in a contemporary setting.
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