What are you listening to and WHY might anyone be interested? (Vol. XI)

Sweet Billy Pilgrim - The Stars Spill Out of Cups EP

http://sweetbillypilgrim.com/s.../stars-spill-ep.html 

Two sonatas (K. 310 & K.533), a March, a Courante, a Gigue and a Rondo.

Joan Armatrading - Joan Armatrading (1976)

Original Vinyl

A self title album with *Blue Notey* cover shot. I suspect earlier pressing than the one below. 

Not surprisingly, it sounds much more dynamic and clear. The tonal colour also not so stripped out either.

Here is an alternate cover from later reissue with more formal dressed up Erroll in a recording studio.

Anesthetize         

Brendel's Philp year Beethoven sonata No.7 is a big snoozer.

He's pontificating and over thinking too much there is no sense of spontaneity and life left in the tunes.

Thank you Kuma, I'm like a student on the desk , here I get homework.

A cassette-only release from 1985. The Sylv with top-notch talent including Fripp, Sakamoto, Czukay, Kenny Wheeler, Jon Hassell, etc.

A good start of the Saturday

The Second Annual Report, by happy pop group Throbbing Gristle. 2014 vinyl version.

Great record! If you like this side of Sylvian's music you imho should listen to Flux + Mutability with Markus Stockhausen son of Karlheinz Stockhausen. Or Blemish, There's A Light That Enters Houses With No Other House In Sight,  When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima or Manafon all featuring Christian Fennesz.

Exploring Tull beyond 'Thick as...'  via Deezer Elite.  

Enjoying this.

G

I have many versions, this is not the best one but it's also not a bad one...

Good call GLM, I have Flux & Mutability on CD, so I am playing it right now...

Sunn 0))) + Scott Walker, Soused. Had it ages but this is my first listen on vinyl. Sounds absolutely incredible, a really good, intimate recording and nice quiet and flat vinyl.

Feat on fine form and a good live recording - FLAC via Deezer Elite.

G

Johann Sebastian Bach:  Claire-Marie Le Guay (Klavier)

Concerto italien BWV 971

Capriccio BWV 992

Sinfonia BWV 797

Partita BWV 825

Invention BWV 785

Chromatische Fantasie & Fuge BWV 903

Bach NOT on the Pianoforte "Harpsichord"

This is a chestnut, which I have never seen dealt with here.  

After listening to Claire-Marie Le Guay here playing Bach one of my first thoughts in assessment on this was that she simply does not add anything of herself to the music.  It is played with great care and love and the overall impression is that the music is very straight and is what it is.  Then after reading the program notes, I was very pleased to read a quote which corresponded to what I heard.  In fact, when the truth is spoken, it is like a breath of fresh air and when genuine people speak the truth you are drawn to them rather than following like sheep the errant shepherd. 

So rather than try to restate the words I want to share about this it is better to quote what can not be said better.

'Like a tree, the music of Bach has its roots in the earth and rises towards the sky.  To play Bach is to withdraw discreetly and let him speak for himself.  This profound, essential journey is sustained by one's wonder at his genius.' 

   Claire-Marie Le Guay

Long before the revival of the harpsichord, musicians performed Bach's keyboard works on the piano as soon as published editions appeared, and indeed even before then, since Mozart and Beethoven played The Well-Tempered Clavier from manuscript copies.  Schumann said he had studied the fugues of that work 'in their subtlest ramifications', and advised prentice keyboard players to practise Bach - on the piano, naturally: 'Let The Well-Tempered Clavier be your daily bread.  Then you will certainly become a proficient musician.'  Frederic Chopin, 'an enthusiastic student of Bach' according to his friend Franz Liszt, confessed:  '[Before a concert] I lock myself away for a fortnight and play Bach.  That is my preparation:  I don't practise my own compositions.'  Nearer our own time, Pau Casals prayed every morning as he played a suite for solo cello and, on the piano, a prelude and fugue by Bach.  And when the French musician Blanche Selva, at the age of twenty, gave the first complete performance of Bach's keyboard works in a series of seventeen concerts, in Paris in 1904, it was, of course, on the piano.

     Gilles Cantagrel

When I listen to music, I must confess I do not tend to listen to be entertained.  Which is why I try not to  assign terms such as boring or exciting to any recordings.  While this happens and I too have to catch myself thinking these things I find that it is better to focus on the music / score and just identify what the interpreter is trying to say.  The reason is is that adjectives such as boring or exciting describe ones feeling (at the time).  Feelings change over time and feelings also take you in the direction of opinion.  Feelings and opinions therefore are not a reliable basis for which to make judgements.  Well, said another way, it is OK but it is only an individual or personal thing and not a fact.  So when popularity seems to be the guide for assessing music then I become suspicious and wary of this kind of view.

Claire-Marie Le Guay here offers a straightforward view of Bach.  Never wavering from a steady course  but more importantly, no titillation.  Fine for me but this then is not the stuff of the masses and won't get the headlines or reach billboard #1.  I personally love the clarity I hear and her ability to lay a bass foundation out.  Just beautiful.  Piano sound is good if not a little forward but generally very realistic.

This music leaves me very satisfied as I head to the piano for some of my own daily bread in the Sinfonia's and Inventions.

A really nice-sounding LP, in mono, and on blue vinyl; just for a change of pace and mood: