# maybe it's not quite classical but you recommend it



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I recently realized that I'm probably missing out on some really fascinating music because our discussions are are usually explicitly or implicitly limited by assumptions about genre. This thread is for people to recommend music that they love that might be classical or might not be - the things that might not get posted on either the main forums or the "non-classical" sub-forum. 

Just to set a good example, I'll start, though as I know very little about music I'm primarily here for recommendations. 

One that comes to mind is Astor Piazzolla. Unclassifiable music, tango in origin to be sure, with a definite affinity for classical - he wrote a ballet, and a work for bandoneon and string quartet, for example - but and also, many people feel, for jazz. Whatever you call it, the album Tango Zero Hour is not to be missed, no matter what, regardless of absolutely any incidents or exigencies or contingencies whatsoever. Maria de Buenos Aires, The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night, and Five Tango Sensations (written for the Kronos Quartet) are also excellent works. IMO, avoid the disks by Ma and Dutoit, and the Naxos disk titled Sinfonia Buenos Aires. "Sid James" once suggested that Piazzolla's works don't work well with orchestra, and I suspect he's right. 

Along a similar line, perhaps some people would be interested in Claude Bolling's suites. 

Soundtracks are another likely avenue for these discussions. For example, I am impressed by Tan Dun's soundtrack for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and Newman's score for "American Beauty" (though IMO both these examples run into problems stretching relatively few musical ideas into CDs of marketable length). I've enjoyed the Salonen disk of Herrmann's soundtrack music, and look forward to receiving recommendations of similar projects. 

I'm not sure what exactly makes Now Ensemble's music questionable, but I'd bet that it is in some people's opinions. I've heard "Awake," and I intend to hear more. 

Some of Kronos Quartet's experimentation includes tricks with recording studios, which surely disqualifies it as "classical" for many people. However, "Uniko" is beautiful and undeniable. Further out, at least as fascinating, but with regrettable lyrics, is Yadegari's "Green Memories." (I believe the original poetry is a beautiful lament, but applying it to literal ecological problems destroys the poignancy of the metaphor.) 

I'm also suspecting that the world of "early music" and has some more pleasant surprises for me. Something like the "Musique de la Grèce Antique" disk probably exists beyond classification. Hope there's more where that comes from. Rather more classical but still near the margin are things like Sequentia's "Edda" or "Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper." Marie Keyrouz' work might belong in here, and by far my favorite of her recordings is the one called "Chant Byzantin." 

It seems like some folk traditions are increasingly being associated with classical music, from "czárdás" to gamelan, all of the "fusion" projects in places like Central Asia and Appalachia by performers like Kronos Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, and Joshua Bell. One name you might not have heard already is Savina Yannatou, who does some really wild and unforgettable stuff, such as on the disk "Terra Nostra." 

And of course, speaking of fusion, there is the great ECM classic, "Officium," with Jan Garbarek's improvisations over the Hilliard Ensemble's performances of Medieval and Renaissance chant. Not everyone's cup of tea, but something to experience at least once.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot musical theater, which started me on this line! Thinking of the likes of "Pirates of the Penzance." I'm sure it's beneath many people here - but it's the kind of thing I'd like to know about, and I'm certainly not above it myself!


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I'm a huge fan of the classic Universal horror soundtracks. Hans Salter and others made fascinating pastiches of everything from Wagner to Stravinsky. Miaskovsky's symphonies fit in this range too. I bet a lot of the film score gus in the 40s and 50s studied his stuff. Marco Polo and several other labels specialize in this soundtrack recreation stuff. I haven't been disappointed with one of the rerecords yet.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer wrote a full blown piano concerto that they played on tour. The rock concert venues and the necessity of amplifying the orchestra make for a nasty sound quality, but I hope this excerpt (I think it's either the 1st movement or a montage of the movements) gives an idea of what he achieved. It sounds great on the album and remains one of my favorite piano concertos, though I recognize it could have developed more thematically. This would have been ca. 1977.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

And there is Claude Bolling who made a career out of vacillating between jazz and classical with interesting if sometimes cheesy results.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

science said:


> Soundtracks are another likely avenue for these discussions. For example, I am impressed by Tan Dun's soundtrack for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and Newman's score for "American Beauty" (though IMO both these examples run into problems stretching relatively few musical ideas into CDs of marketable length). I've enjoyed the Salonen disk of Herrmann's soundtrack music, and look forward to receiving recommendations of similar projects.


Soundtrack albums and films scores are my _niche_ interest, science, so I'll be posting several entries in this thread to traverse areas off beaten paths.
Don't worry; there'll be no John Williams nor _STAR WARS_ recommendations from me! 

[I've made several threads within the Movies & TV sub-forum here @ TC, but they met with scant participation]

My initital post here will focus on French soundtracks. French composers like Georges Delerue, Maurice Jarre & Michel Legrand are the most well-known because they each worked on Hollywood films at various times within their careers.
The selections below will omit these three guys and spotlight, instead, on music from French productions:


LA SIRENE DU MISSISSIPPI (1969) by Antoine Duhamel










Most films directed by Francois Truffaut have been scored by Delerue and this formed the basis on one of the highest profile director/composer collaborations in cinema's history. Nonetheless, there have been a number of Truffaut films not scored by Delerue and THE MISSISSIPPI MERMAID is my favorite by Antoine Duhamel (who scored at least 3 films for Truffaut).

Bandes Originales des Films de Claude Chabrol; Musique de Pierre Jansen.










Another director/composer collaboration is Claude Chabrol with Pierre Jansen. Over a 22-year period, Jansen scored 27 films by Chabrol and this film-making team is my personal favorite. Highlights on this CD compilation are 1) the all-string suite on JUSTE AVANT LA NUIT (1971), 2) the all percussion & keyboard score for LE BOUCHER (1969) & my favorite from this album 3) LA DECADE PRODIGIEUSE (1971), which was conceived by Jansen as a _Symphonie Concertante pour orgue, piano & orchestre_.

LA GUERRE DU FEU (1981) by Philippe Sarde










My favorite score by Philippe Sarde is this QUEST FOR FIRE made by Jean-Jacques Annaud. I don't think there's been a film scored for any instrumental forces larger than this one. The music is not what one might expect from Sarde, sounding for all the world like late-'70s Penderecki (which was intentional, no doubt). Performed by 1) the London Symphony Orchestra, 2) the London Philharmonic Orchestra, 3) the Ambrosian Singers & 4) Les Percussions de Strasbourg! Take that!

DANTON (1983) by Jean Prodromidès










Polish director Andrzej Wajda was so impressed with _Livres des Katuns_ by Jean Prodromidès, that he commissioned Prodromidès to score his upcoming film DANTON. One of the most austere atonal film scores in all of French cinema, DANTON is the final film score to date by Jean Prodromidès and it also serves as his _magnum opus_. Performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

PRESIDENT (2006) by Frederic Talgorn










Talgorn's music for PRESIDENT is basically tonal and minimalistic, but I think it's the finest French soundtrack thus far in the 21st century which I've heard.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Science, since you mentioned Piazzolla, you might enjoy Finnish accordion virtuoso Maria Kalaniemi. She's a great musician, and the melodies are simply gorgeous.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Prodromides said:


> [I've made several threads within the Movies & TV sub-forum here @ TC, but they met with scant participation]


I didn't even know there was such a forum. I'll go exploring.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Great thread. *Piazzolla* was an amazing composer and musician. He's really one of those who put classical techniques from old to new together with elements of jazz and rock, and of all things, reinvigorated and modernised the tango, a type of music that came about in the brothels of Buenos Aires in the 1900's decade. An amazing innovator in many ways, and a guy whose music is liked even by people who think they hate classical. Hah!

In any case, along the lines of classical blending or crossing over into other genres, my pick is *Tim Minchin*. An Aussie who was trained in piano and acting, he combined these with many elements (from classical to rock to techno to jazz to everything) with his irreverent and quite political/controversial type of humour. At the bottom of this post is a mini review I did on his album done live in the UK with the 'Heritage Orchestra' of Manchester. Its just got these cross references to everything from Modern atonal to Romantic concertos, to swing jazz, to Latin rhythms and all that other stuff. Just amazing, but don't expect an easy ride in terms of the lyrics, some quite 'colourful' language here. & he takes many stabs at pretension which I like and is firmly tongue in cheek, lampooning everything from political correctness to various ideological positions and their proselytizers (nothing is sacred, not the Pope of course - an easy target - but neither is Che Guevara and the Dalai Lama).










His videos on his page here: http://www.timminchin.com/media/


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

> Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer wrote a full blown piano concerto that they played on tour. The rock concert venues and the necessity of amplifying the orchestra make for a nasty sound quality, but I hope this excerpt (I think it's either the 1st movement or a montage of the movements) gives an idea of what he achieved. It sounds great on the album and remains one of my favorite piano concertos, though I recognize it could have developed more thematically. This would have been ca. 1977.


That's the last movement 

I find this piece absolutely beautiful, as well as a fascinating musical construction. Falling somewhere between Brittens 'Young Person's Guide', Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells pt 1 ending and a chamber curio, it is the closing credits sequence to the movie 'Moonrise Kingdom' and the music is by Alexandre Desplat.


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## Aecio (Jul 27, 2012)

Very interesting thread by Science, which raises indirectly two questions :

- What is classical music ?

- What is its future ?

My personal opinion (and before everybody insults me I insist it is only my personal opinion) is that I don´t care about the genre definition. What I ask is to get an emotion, to react with my ears or my musical guts and for me it ends with Bartok. I more or less like everybody Bartok composed. There are more modern composers like Ligeti, Feldman, or even Glass where I like 3 or 4 of their compositions and positively dislike the rest.
Going out of the classical genre there are people like Brahem, Diabate or Sissoko on Mali music, or Piazzola (yes !) that starting from local traditions are producing very interesting music (even if at its worse this fusion music can be terribly uneven, even kitsch...).
I feel more and more than in this globalisation age that we are living the musicians from the emerging countries will find a way of merging their roots with western classical traditions and bypass western dead alleys like Boulez... I´m hopeful for classical music, I feel that from the million chinese kids currently learning violin or piano we will have 2 or 3 genius that give us some wonderful music, even if I suppose it won´t be called and genre defined as "classical music".


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

But I think we still use genre labels as a matter of convenience. Already today people call a movie soundtrack with syrupy synth pads and echoing reverb piano "classical." We may disagree with that, but they are referring to the instrumental timbres. By the same principle, any music that incorporates growling electric guitars will probably be referred to as rock and any music that uses wub-wub-wub eletronic sounds will be referred to as any of the ten thousand subgenres I will never keep track of, etc. I like the idea of genre ambiguity, but I also think using the genre names is part of the human condition. It is a genre-alization to help us communicate.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Piazzolla was also a virtuoso bandoneonist (the instrument used in Tango music, please, not be confused with the accordion). I think he was trying, in a very conscious way, to mix techniques from Jazz and Classical music, but in the framework of Tango. As he was such a virtuoso, I think one of the best ways to understand his music is to watch his original recordings (with him) and his arrangements.
This is typical Piazzolla, for example:






From one point of view, you have a traditional Tango orchestra: bandoneon, piano, violin, double bass.
On the other hand, you have also the addendum of a jazz electric guitar.
Musically, they start with a Tango-sounding melody but played in a magnificent, four voice, fugue!.
Then you have a mixture of Tango-sounding rhythms and melodies with Jazz harmonies, and so on.

On the other hand, this is pure Jazz:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Weston said:


> But I think we still use genre labels as a matter of convenience. Already today people call a movie soundtrack with syrupy synth pads and echoing reverb piano "classical." We may disagree with that, but they are referring to the instrumental timbres. By the same principle, any music that incorporates growling electric guitars will probably be referred to as rock and any music that uses wub-wub-wub eletronic sounds will be referred to as any of the ten thousand subgenres I will never keep track of, etc. I like the idea of genre ambiguity, but I also think using the genre names is part of the human condition. It is a genre-alization to help us communicate.


Genres change with time, too. I suspect that our culture is currently in the process of re-classifying our music, which is one of the reasons we find the classifications multiplying so rapidly, and so troublesome. I further suspect that "art music" is a classification we're going to use more frequently in the future.


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## Bone (Jan 19, 2013)

Piazzolla probably disliked a label that implied a singular interpretation. M.A. Turnage and Frank Zappa surely bent genres and I highly recommend their music (especially Zappa's album "The Yellow Shark," featuring a chamber ensemble playing his arrangements and Synclavier transcriptions).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Joe Jackson-Symphony no. 1, some really interesting stuff, fast mvt. here:





And his classic 80s new wave/jazz fusion stuff is truly incredible.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> Edit: Sorry, I forgot musical theater, which started me on this line! Thinking of the likes of "Pirates of the Penzance." I'm sure it's beneath many people here - but it's the kind of thing I'd like to know about, and I'm certainly not above it myself!


G&S is classical by virtue of it being from the 19th century and orchestral. Sullivan easily had the technique to be a very serious composer, but not necessarily the will. They thought he was going to be "the Greatest since Purcell." In a way, he was.

Musical theater, that should open up Bernstein's oevre a little more. Maybe some others are into Sondheim.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Film Score Monthly (FSM) for more than a dozen years has done invaluable work in hunting down original sound elements vaulted away inside major Hollywood studios, licensing them during the tapes' restoration processes, and making them available as limited edition CD albums.

You can visit FSM's website for lots of more information: http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/daily/index.cfm

I wish to emphasize 5 titles from their catalogue (of 250 CDs) which may have greater degrees of significance to collectors of classical music who might be unaware these albums exist.


ABOVE AND BEYOND (1952) by Hugo Friedhofer










This is a monaural recording, but it's my favorite film score by Friedhofer (from whom I have many favorites).
Of particular interest here is that a 22-year-old Andre Previn was the score's conductor!

THE SILVER CHALICE (1954) by Franz Waxman










At its outset, this movie was regarded poorly in just about every department. This did not deter Waxman, who did his customary good work with, and even some research for, this film score. So enamored were musicologists by Waxman's music, that the Library of Congress asked Waxman to retain his musical sketches for their archives.

THE COBWEB (1955) by Leonard Rosenman










Although 12-tone rows had been used fleetingly a couple of times in Hollywood soundstages, it wasn't until 1955 that dodecaphonic techniques were utilized as the basis for an entire film score. Rosenman was a pupil of Roger Sessions and fresh from New York. M-G-M's music department head - Johnny Green - stepped up to the podium to conduct the score, which survives in early stereo.

THE WRONG MAN (1956) by Bernard Herrmann










The collaboration between director Alfred Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann is one of the most (if not THE most) renown. Yet, the original sound recordings from those films on which Herrmann scored for Hitch have not been altogether available on soundtrack albums. Re-recordings exist, of course, but FSM offers us the actual studio recordings for THE WRONG MAN.

GREEN MANSIONS (1959) by Bronislau Kaper










This was the picture for which Heitor Villa-Lobos was asked to provide original music. Villa-Lobos obliged, but only on his own terms. He completed the score without watching the film and knew nothing about synchronizing music with onscreen content or the studio's click-track device, etc. The result was M-G-M's reliance on their staff composer Kaper to adapt the themes written by Villa-Lobos into a suitable soundtrack, which is preserved here in excellent stereo sound.


Kaper, of necessity, had to write some of his own music to bridge one scene from another. Before his death in 1959, Villa-Lobos re-worked his initial material and refashioned his music into what is now known as _Forest Of The Amazon_ - a piece with which I expect TC members should be already familiar with.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

Alex North is my favorite American composer who wrote music for films.

I can praise most of North's soundtracks given the opportunity, but I'll limit the suggestions to those produced by one label in particular - _Varese Sarabande_ - who has advocated a number of North's scores.

http://www.varesesarabande.com/servlet/StoreFront


THE THIRTEENTH LETTER & VIVA ZAPATA!










PONY SOLDIER (1952)










WONDERFUL COUNTY / THE KING AND FOUR QUEENS










THE MISFITS (1961)










CLEOPATRA (1963)










THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY (1965)










One could randomly pick a title from the above and the selection yields music which should reward the listener upon multiple revisits.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

The only other country, outside of the U.S., that produces the quantity of soundtrack albums approaching the level of America is Italy.

Since around 1962, Italy has had their own soundtrack industry producing 12" vinyl LPs, 45 r.p.m. EPs, and CDs throughout the decades. During the past 10 years, there's been increased interest in specialty labels releasing restored master tapes of never-before-available or expanded programs of recording sessions done in Italy, mostly by Italian composers for non-English cinema.

There's too many labels & albums to address in a thread such as this, but I'll focus on a half-dozen obscure soundtrack treasures from a label entitled Digitmovies (who specialize in _niche_ genres): http://www.digitmovies.com/digitsoundtracks/products/


TERRORE NELLA SPAZIO (1965) by Gino Marinuzzi, Jr.









(aka PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES)

LA NOTTE DEI DIAVOLI (1972) by Giorgio Gaslini










LA TARANTOLA DAL VENTRO NERO (1971) by Ennio Morricone









(_giallo_!)

I TREVOLTI DELLA PAURA (1963) by Roberto Nicolosi









(this is Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH)

LA CRIPTA E L'INCUBO (1964) by Carlo Savina










IL MONACO (1972) by Piero Piccioni









(remade in 2011 as LE MOINE by director Dominik Moll)


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## davinci (Oct 11, 2012)

Weston said:


> Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer wrote a full blown piano concerto that they played on tour. The rock concert venues and the necessity of amplifying the orchestra make for a nasty sound quality, but I hope this excerpt (I think it's either the 1st movement or a montage of the movements) gives an idea of what he achieved. It sounds great on the album and remains one of my favorite piano concertos, though I recognize it could have developed more thematically. This would have been ca. 1977.
> 
> I saw the ELP tour in 1977 with 60-70 piece orchestra and it was truly amazing. I believe the piano concerto was included in the show, although it was not introduced as such. The addition of the orchestra to these virtuosi musicians really was a joy to see and hear. Thanks for the post.


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