# Recent Listening



## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I've been listening to a broad array of music over the last day and an half.










Handel's Esther is an absolutely marvelous oratorio written to be performed under more intimate conditions than many of the composer's oratorios. As a result, Handel employs various chamber-like groupings of instruments in a manner not unlike Bach. The use of the delicate harp in the aria "Praise the Lord with Cheerful Noise" is especially delicious, but the work as a whole is laden with beautiful arias and choruses. The performance by The Sixteen with harry Christophers is brilliant as always.










After having been introduced to Hoffmeister by member HarpsichordConcerto I placed an immediate order for this disc while listening to it twice on Spotify. Sunday I listened again... this time to the actual disc. These clarinet quartets are absolutely delightful... worthy of being placed along-side Mozart. Highly Recommended!










I've always had a special love of the clarinet. The instrument conveys a sensuality reminiscent of chocolate, and considering what many composers have achieved with the instrument (Mozart, Brahms, Weber, Berg, Schumann, Copland, Stammitz, etc...) I am not alone in my love for this instrument. Indeed, while I am not a huge chamber-music buff, I do tend to be on the lookout for chamber works employing the clarinet. This collection of clarinet works by modern composers (Astor Piazolla, John Harbison, Gunter Schuller, Evan Ziporyn, etc...) is a lovely collection of chamber works featuring the clarinet. As in most instances, my response to chamber music is something that slowly evolves... something that demands several hearings. What I have heard surely suggests that the effort will be worth it.










I have been exploring _The Art of the Fugue_ trough several different recordings and in several different incarnations recently. This recording, by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX may just be my favorite. As Bach composed the work without specifying a specific instrumentation or orchestration some critics have suggested the work was never even intended for performance, but solely as abstract theory to be experienced only through the score. Savall fully rejects this notion and elects to employ an instrumentation using viola da gamba and wind instruments in the manner of a number of other contrapuntal compositions of the Baroque, including works by Purcell, Orlando Gibbons, and William Byrd. The resulting work captures a liveliness without losing the sense of the internal structure. Again, Highly Recommended.










I gave this one a spin again. Weigl was a leading figure in the Viennese symphonic tradition following Mahler, Bruckner, etc... While close with Schoenberg, who spoke kindly of him, Weigl continued to explore the symphony within traditional tonality. The "Apocalyptic" Symphony begins with the structure growing slowly out of a cacophonous wall of chaos. The symphony evolves very much within the German symphonic tradition yet brings a unique voice that is very much worth exploration.










This is one of the most impressive discs I have come across recently. I have a number of other recordings of music by Michael Daugherty and greatly enjoyed them all, but put off buying this disc because of doubts about the idea of a symphony in homage to Superman. I should have bought this as soon as I came across it. The work is spectacular. The "symphony" is actually a suite of orchestral movements in homage of Superman and the ambiguities, paradoxes, and energies of this American myth.

The opening movement, entitled "Lex" employs police whistle, suggestive of the usual comic-book police chases involving Superman's arch-rival, Lex Luther. The music is sheer energy suggestive of the chase through the crowded city streets of Metropolis.

"Kryton" employs a dark churning glissandi and firebells creating a tonal painting of the apocalyptic last days of Kryton, the planet of Superman's birth.

"MXYZPTLK" is the mischievous imp from the 5th dimension that wreaks havoc throughout Metropolis. This movement is the scherzo of the work, bright and playful.

"Oh, Lois!" is composed with a tempo marked "faster than a speeding bullet". This rapid movement laden with various percussive elements suggests the rapid motion scenes of chases, screams, crashes, etc... of the comic-book tradition.

"Red Cape tango" the final movement of the symphony, is the most fascinating. Daugherty employs a dark tango to evoke the red-caped superhero's fight to the death with Doomsday as something akin to a death tango in the bullfight ring. The movement employs the melody of the same Dies Irae employed by Berlioz in his _Symphonie Fantastique_. The effect is quite fitting, as the work, according to the music critic of the London Times, is surely a worthy _Symphonie Fantastique_ of our times.

I absolutely loved this piece... yet in all honesty I found the second work, Deus Ex Machina, a three-movement suite for piano and orchestra no less enthralling. Deus Ex Machina or God in the Machine explores the great trains of the past. The first movement... laden with elements of atonality and cubistic fracture... was inspired by the Futurist trilogy, States of Mind by Umberto Boccioni. The second movement, Train of Tears, alludes to the "lonesome train on a lonesome track" with "seven coaches painted black" that carried Lincoln to his home for burial after his assassination. The beautiful comber movement is repeatedly pierced by the sound of the "Taps". The final movement... apocalyptic and elegiac... speaks of the final days of the great steam trains as captured in a series of photographs by O. Winston Link.


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