Look what I found!
Posted by: Tam on 31 January 2006
A comment Fredrik made on another thread, over in the hi-fi room, got me thinking: what new musical discoveries have I made lately?
Now, before I talk about them, I'd just insert the caveat of exactly what kinds of discovery I'm talking about here. For example, in the last year or so I have come across (lamentably late) both Pet Sounds and Beethoven's Fidelio, both very fine, but they're hardly obscure works and more the sort of thing that I always had in the back of my mind that I ought to hear. No, what I'm after with this thread is the more obscure bits of music that have been discovered.
Now, I like to think that I'm reasonably good at looking out for new music, but as I started to write this thread I can think of relatively few things that fall into the category and some of the things I'm going to talk about probably stretch the caveat I just wrote a little too much. Still......
I'll start with something pretty obscure, so much so that there's probably no point since it cannot be obtained on CD or vinyl and more's the pitty. The opening concert of this year's Aldeburgh festival was the world premier of Richard Ayres new opera The Cricket Recovers, based on a series of children's, I suppose, parables by a Dutch author with music owing more than a little to Janacek (no bad thing). Particularly interesting was the small orchestration, yet made to seem much bigger than the band was (which can't have been many more than ten), almost Miles Davis/Gil Evans like in that respect. As I say, it's a shame it wasn't recorded because it would have been interesting to hear it without seeing and know just how much the excellent production was what made it so successful. The production was so good that it would have been nice to see it on DVD.
Staying in Aldeburgh (one of the good things about which is the quantity of new music it provides), what better person to mention than Thomas Ades, whom I discovered as much as a pianist and conductor as I did a composer, in his role as Artistic Director at the festival. Indeed, his piano playing was sufficiently good it provoked me to pick up a disc entitled Ades: Piano where he plays various bits of Janacek, Kurtag, Castiglioni and others. It also persuaded me to get his Piano Quintet which is good and paired with a rather nice reading of the Trout (that said, Ades is hardly obscure, so I wonder if I've broken my rule already).
I'll certainly be flouting my rule with the next items, but they will nicely round off the Aldeburgh theme of the first two posts and discover some Britten (though he hardly needs discovery!). Still, the works I'm going to mention are among the more obscure in his cannon. First up are the Three Divertimenti for string quartet which I heard for the first time in a lovely Saturday morning concert in Aldeburgh Church. Now, until then, I hadn't known any of Britten's chamber music, but I enjoyed them very much and it prompted me to pick up the Belcea Quartet's fine recording of these and the string quartets.
As I read back, I notice I've found most of these through concerts, I wonder how other people find new music? I also notice that everything I've mentioned is classical, but please don't feel restricted to posting about classical on this thread, anything you found that interested you is welcome.
So, what discoveries have you made recently?
regards, Tam
Now, before I talk about them, I'd just insert the caveat of exactly what kinds of discovery I'm talking about here. For example, in the last year or so I have come across (lamentably late) both Pet Sounds and Beethoven's Fidelio, both very fine, but they're hardly obscure works and more the sort of thing that I always had in the back of my mind that I ought to hear. No, what I'm after with this thread is the more obscure bits of music that have been discovered.
Now, I like to think that I'm reasonably good at looking out for new music, but as I started to write this thread I can think of relatively few things that fall into the category and some of the things I'm going to talk about probably stretch the caveat I just wrote a little too much. Still......
I'll start with something pretty obscure, so much so that there's probably no point since it cannot be obtained on CD or vinyl and more's the pitty. The opening concert of this year's Aldeburgh festival was the world premier of Richard Ayres new opera The Cricket Recovers, based on a series of children's, I suppose, parables by a Dutch author with music owing more than a little to Janacek (no bad thing). Particularly interesting was the small orchestration, yet made to seem much bigger than the band was (which can't have been many more than ten), almost Miles Davis/Gil Evans like in that respect. As I say, it's a shame it wasn't recorded because it would have been interesting to hear it without seeing and know just how much the excellent production was what made it so successful. The production was so good that it would have been nice to see it on DVD.
Staying in Aldeburgh (one of the good things about which is the quantity of new music it provides), what better person to mention than Thomas Ades, whom I discovered as much as a pianist and conductor as I did a composer, in his role as Artistic Director at the festival. Indeed, his piano playing was sufficiently good it provoked me to pick up a disc entitled Ades: Piano where he plays various bits of Janacek, Kurtag, Castiglioni and others. It also persuaded me to get his Piano Quintet which is good and paired with a rather nice reading of the Trout (that said, Ades is hardly obscure, so I wonder if I've broken my rule already).
I'll certainly be flouting my rule with the next items, but they will nicely round off the Aldeburgh theme of the first two posts and discover some Britten (though he hardly needs discovery!). Still, the works I'm going to mention are among the more obscure in his cannon. First up are the Three Divertimenti for string quartet which I heard for the first time in a lovely Saturday morning concert in Aldeburgh Church. Now, until then, I hadn't known any of Britten's chamber music, but I enjoyed them very much and it prompted me to pick up the Belcea Quartet's fine recording of these and the string quartets.
As I read back, I notice I've found most of these through concerts, I wonder how other people find new music? I also notice that everything I've mentioned is classical, but please don't feel restricted to posting about classical on this thread, anything you found that interested you is welcome.
So, what discoveries have you made recently?
regards, Tam