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

2nd one during my workout..

Tony2011 posted:

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1972 - Original vinyl. This is a great album but it would be even better to have it on CD to skip certain tracks when that screaming Kow comes along. Experimental my ar5e!

Reminds me I've got to pull out my own original vinyl. Yoko's tracks are pure distraction, but Lennon would not have done the album without her "contributions". His 'lost weekend' sans Yoko resulted in much improved albums. Then came reconciliation and "Double Fantasy" - I always wished they'd have put John's tracks on side one and Yoko's on side two (or better yet, left side two blank)

Paul McCartney. Memory Almost Full. On CD from 2007. Musically a nice album. Some tracks poppy, some raucous rock, one or two syrupy. Heavy on production towards a modern sound and I find the loudness mastering somewhat an affront to the traditional McCartney SQ. Reaching out to a contemporary audience I suppose.

Clive Gregson and Christine Collister - Love is a strange hotel

A gentle start.

C.

Just listened to Octane of Spock's Beard - still a great album.....

George Fredrik Fiske posted:

For Bach BWV  535, this needs no gloss at all. Just listen to Helmut Walcha playing it [in his mono recording], and you will realise that no gloss is needed. Marie Claire Alain made an equally wonderful recording on Erato ...

Why do people insist on Bach diluted and re-arranged?

ATB from George

Dear George:

For you starting at around the 46' mark (BWV 535)

I have these recordings and many more.  In my home though, when I want to experience this music first hand it is this option on the piano for me.  Each person can choose for themselves.

George, I hope I did not give the impression that a piano transcription is replacing the organ work.  It is not and you are correct in that these are two very different interpretations but what is the same is the music.  Most keyboard players over the past two and a half centuries do not have access to a pipe organ.  That people today are enjoying this music in their homes is only thanks to the piano and passionate men and women who have this same need for this music in their hearts and transcribed it for us, spreading the joy.

Given the choice of listening to someone else only playing the organ on a recording or having this plus being able to experience this music first hand, for me, there simply is no question that the former choice, while still the minimum, is not enough if one has choice and more options.  For me music has to be broader and has much more meaning than just confining it to just one option.  The recording industry has in a way ruined it for everyone turning it into something like a jukebox.  Put a nickel in and hear it exactly the same as last time with all its manufactured perfection.  This is not real but today many people who have never played an instrument will not accept a wrong note or anything other than the original.

What this transcription (and every transcription) does for me is make this piece real and also it says what many people may think and feel but may not believe is possible to speak of (due to the mob like pressure to remove options from the earth).  In counter to your question, I could equally ask why do people refuse to just focus on the music?

When your body feels the slow rise and decent (multiple struggles) and then finally a victorious and glorious rise from the ashes of this Prelude and played at a speed that adds weight and a religious fervour suitable for this music.  What of the meaning of music?  I never hear you speak of this or of the power of music and how it impacts you emotionally?  There is not harmony and counterpoint and every other aspect of music just for the sake of these things on there own.  This music has tremendous symbolism and meaning.  If you were to play this music you may start to understand this?

This selection is a wonderful example of music that should never be just confined to a concert stage or a few select churches with a proper pipe organ.  When this music enters your heart and soul you will have to experience this music alone in the quiet of the night in your home on a piano.  It is haunting and surreal.  George, I honestly wish that somehow you could experience this first hand yourself.  It is impossible to try and explain this through words (at least I do not have the skill to do this effectively).  How does one explain the goosebumps and the pure elation?  I only share this as I wish the same experience for all and especially for you.  

Best Regards,

Doug

Streaming | WAV | Download from Bandcamp

(2013)

Have been playing this one rather a lot since downloading it about a week ago. Psychedelic, 60's/70's hippie rock and folk. As someone commented this is the style of music being played by many West Coast  Californian radio stations around 1968.

https://thedandelion.bandcamp....ase-of-the-dandelion

Dear Doug,

Thanks for your reply. Of course you have gone to the main issue with you first line:

"George, I hope I did not give the impression that a piano transcription is replacing the organ work."

I have a few piano transcriptions of great Bach Organ works and also piano performances of music written for harpsichord, but only from two pianists - Artur Schnabel and Edwin Fischer. Inevitably I have the same music performed on the types of instruments Bach had available ... One of my favourites is the Saint Anne Prelude and Fugue in E flat, BWV 552, as arranged for piano by Busoni, played by Fischer for HMV records in the 1930s. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4bySd3SUEs

I certainly would consider myself the poorer for denying myself such recordings.

________________________

On the issue of my never describing my response to great music [and to some extent also of great rather than merely good performances of it] , you are also completely correct. I never do. I cannot. The degree that this music draws me into a different and better state emotionally is beyond my abilities to describe is exactly why I occasionally post here something I have just listened to, which has struck me as absolutely worthy of others’ attention, with the perhaps faint hope it may connect with others as it has connected with me. Equally I occasionally mention a specific performance that is just as remarkable in my experience. But I do not try to explain it or attempt to review it. 

Also I am someone who has played double bass quite well in professional circles as well as amateur on the double bass, and will freely say that I made a very poor piano player as a youngster! I found it very frustrating that I could almost never get my fingers to do what I could hear in my head whilst trying to play the piano! On the double bass it was completely different. I had mastery of the instrument, in spite of the fact that it is as hard to play well as any of the violin family instruments.

So I understand the particular experience of playing for oneself quite as much as playing for others, or even a large audience. As my bass playing came to an end due to a repetitive strain injury in my left hand [due the weight of the strings and consequent great demands from pressing down firmly on the finger board], I realised that playing brought me less pleasure than listening to someone else doing it better than I could! I retired from playing and teaching with huge relief! 

But I have these experiences. I know that if music were taken from my life there would be no other reason to get up and go to work in the morning. But so long as I can enjoy a concert, or being with a friend playing music, or listening to recordings or the radio, then I have a balm that salves my soul, and that is about as much as I can say about what music means to me.

I don’t think it is mystical, but I am profoundly grateful for it, and of course I know what the hairs standing on end is like!

Anyway, best wishes from George

Quite enjoyable...

Streaming | 24/44.1 WAV | Download from Bandcamp

(2015)

Another one that I have been playing rather alot. Putting to music the rather terrifying mystery of how and why in 1959 in the Dyatlov Pass  in the Urals 9 experienced Russian ski-hikers bodies were found brutally ripped and battered many hundreds of metres from their tent (shredded from the inside) after had they fled (radially) from the scene. 

Haunting and atmospheric black metal.

https://blood-music.bandcamp.com/album/sorni-nai

Lyrical and rythmic jazz in one.....

Better then the one before in my ears...

Ending the event with a classic...

Finally bought this after many plays on Tidal.  I think I prefer this to its earlier "companion" "Sea Change".  CD rip.

Two great albums, on vinyl...

The Beatles. Abbey Road (1969). On Apple label Capitol vinyl I bought with great anticipation in 1975. My most played LP over the years. Still has a very vibrant and immediate sound.

On vinyl.  First spin in a few years. 

Paul McCartney. Flaming Pie. On CD from 1997. Another of what I consider Macca's top solo albums. Collaboration with George Martin produced some very Beatle-esque orchestral arrangements. Jeff Lynne and Steve Miller contribute. Even Ringo provides a little help from a friend. A very accomplished, free-spirited sounding album - McCartney's first release after working on The Beatles Anthology - perhaps some creative inspiration gained from that project.

Nice start for breakfast...

Outtakes from Sticky Fingers sessions from which this is one.

Another big +1 for this with thanks for pointing it out.

A ton of talent,  these guys are going to be biggish...?