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View Full Version : Obscure - but worthwhile! Let's explore.



jandl100
05-07-2011, 21:53
I'm always eager to expand my musical horizons - and perhaps to help others do the same.

There is just so much music out there, it's totally impossible to have heard it all.
So why not share our successful explorations and recommend some obscure but worthwhile classical music. :)

I'll start with the music of Leonard Salzedo.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Salzedo-Chamber-Works-Archaeus-Quartet/dp/B00005RT5M/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1309901541&sr=1-3
Who? :scratch: - a Brit 1921-2000, that's who!

This CD is of 2 string quartets and a sonata for violin & viola.

20thC - but quite tonal and accessible - well, not very non-tonal anyway! It's often rhythmic and gently propulsive. Quite a serious style, the opening of the 2nd string quartet reminds me strongly of the Shostakovich quartets. The violin & viola sonata, a very unusual combo, sets the instruments off well against each other, and is quite bracing in the outer movements. The slow movements of all the works are introverted and unsentimental, and often quite beautiful.

It's a Dutton CD engineered by Tony Faulkner, so needless to say the sonics are very good.

:thumbsup:

MartinT
06-07-2011, 07:18
Poulenc - Stabat Mater, Baudo, Lyon, Harmonia Mundi [CD]

I think this would rate as reasonably obscure. I love and treasure this recording. Poulenc's Stabat Mater is very 20th century but not at all atonal, indeed it's quite beautifully written. This late work (1950) takes a few listens to get into his sound world (fans of the Organ Concerto may not recognise much except some stylistic cues), and features some up to date instruments, but once you are there you begin to appreciate all the subtleties of the writing. Very episodic in nature, each section has its own message.

The singing of Michele Lagrange is captivating and perfect for the music.

http://www.papageno.fr/media/poch_g/poch_4902.jpg

jandl100
06-07-2011, 08:19
Poulenc Stabat Mater - Yes!
Curiously, I was listening to that day before yesterday. That recording was on DVD-video - Cambridge UK forces led by Christopher Robinson. Beautiful music in a lovely visual setting.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Poulenc-Stabat-Mater-Judith-Howarth/dp/B000063VD9/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309938719&sr=1-1

I've also got the Naxos recording, and that's darn good as well. And cheap - that helps! Yup, a work that is well worth exploring. :thumbsup:

jandl100
07-07-2011, 07:04
Do you fancy some peace & serenity? - created by recordings of true transparency, delicacy & filigre beauty.

Then why not try a disc of solo lute sonatas by the 18th Century composer Silvius Weiss?

A wonderful series is ongoing on the budget label Naxos. I have volumes 1 to 11 so far. :mental: :)

Why not dip your toe in the water with this one ...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Weiss-Sonatas-Vol-2-Silvius-Leopold/dp/B00000I7RB/ref=sr_1_5?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1310021874&sr=1-5
Less than a £fiver delivered, from Amazon Market Place. :thumbsup:

jandl100
08-07-2011, 09:38
Gloria Coates.
An American-born woman composer - now living and working in Germany. She was just too weird to get far in the ol' conservative USofA. :eyebrows:

A unique sound world, ime. And you can't say that about too many 'classical' composers.
No - it's not bing-bang-ting-wallop avantgarde stuff. There's real structure and purpose to her music, but it's kind of weird tonally and there are some sounds I ain't never heard before from an orchestra!
Difficult to describe really - there aren't any relevant comaprisons that spring to mind. As I say, a unique sound world in many ways.

I've shared her music with quite a few folks, and pretty much all of them have immediately placed her on their Want Lists - even (especially?) the non-classically oriented folks.

Happily, Naxos have taken up her cause - so CDs can be had cheaply. The first label to take her seriously was CPO - so much kudos to them as well. :thumbsup:

Try these for starters ..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coates-String-Quartet-Sonata-Violin/dp/B003VC51W6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1310117467&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gloria-Coates-Symphony-Cantata-Transitions/dp/B000Y1BQT4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1310117467&sr=1-3

This might help - a user review on Amazon for the 1st disc above says it better than I can ....

The prolific composer Gloria Coates' 9th quartet is haunting and brilliant. So rich and vivid texturally, it cannot merely be characterised by a repertoire of techniques or influences, and analysed accordingly; crucially, her style is deeply individual and intuitive as well. This composition seems to flow analogously to a densely absorbing painting, and flood the psyche in a rich palette of colours and tones: gliassandos and micro-tonalities are introduced via a mirror canon and the powerful glissando canon in the middle of the piece is deeply evocative and powerful. ....

Great stuff!

griffo104
11-07-2011, 13:47
Dante and Beatrice by Sir Granville Bantock.

A wonderful, colourful tone poem.

BTH K10A
23-07-2011, 19:18
An unusual recommendation but, if you ever come across "Pieces od Eight" buy it.

It contains an eclectic mix of classical music but is very enjoyable and certainly well recorded using tape at 30ips and pressed by Nimbus.

It contains pieces such as:

Arnold, Grand Grand Overture. - An unusual piece originally written for one of the Hoffnung music festivals that includes along with a large orchestra, organ, gongs, five foot bass drum (way before Reference Recordings), pistol shots, three vacuum cleaners, and a floor polisher. I don't know if I should have mentioned the polisher as Marco might get over excited. :lolsign:

Berlioz, Raloczy March

Widor Toccata fro Sym No 5

Dingle, Turkish Delight

Albonini, Obeo Concerto

Excerpts from Tchaikovsky Sym No 6

Dingle, Three Chinese Sketches

Sullivan, Excerpts from HMS Pinafore

Practical HI-Fi and & Audio did a great write up on it in Feb 78, I'm sure you must all remember it....:lol:

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f120/emttsd15/IMG_1019.jpg

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f120/emttsd15/IMG_1020.jpg

Barry
27-07-2011, 18:08
Karl Amadeus Hartmann – Symphonies 1 – 8

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519Kccj3YlL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

3 CD set, 1999, EMI Classics 5 56911 2


Totally new to me: I picked this set up in a charity shop a few months ago.

Karl Amadeus Hartmann (1905 – 1963) spent his entire life in his native Munich. Taken from the sleeve notes:

“The roots of Hartmann’s symphonic œuvre can be found in his reaction to the events of 1933. As a means of formulating resistance to Nazi barbarism, he turned to orchestral music, with its wealth of expressive resources and its possibility of affecting a wide audience. He considered composition as a “counter-action” (as he once said).

Hartmann’s symphonies take up the legacy of Gustav Mahler and its reception through Alban Berg and Anton Weber (with whom Hartmann studies in 1941/42).

The numbered symphonies however are the result of a complex process during which the composer revised works that he had originally written between 1933 and 1945.”

Taken from Wikipedia:
As a composer, Hartmann attempted a difficult synthesis of many different idioms, including musical Expressionism and jazz stylization, into organic symphonic forms in the tradition of Bruckner and Mahler. His early works contain music that is both satirical and politically engaged. But he admired the polyphonic mastery of J.S. Bach, the profound expressive irony of Mahler, the neoclassicism of Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith. He, also in the 1930s, developed close ties with Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály in Hungary, and this is reflected in his own music to some extent. In the 1940s, he began to take an interest in Schoenbergian Twelve-tone technique; though he studied with Webern his own idiom was closer to Alban Berg. In the 1950s, started to explore the metrical techniques pioneered by Boris Blacher and Elliott Carter. He especially makes use of the forms of three-part Adagio slow movements, Fugue, Variations and Toccata.

The symphonies are not atonal, despite Hartmann having studied with two of the principle members of the Second Viennese School. Hartmann’s first symphony; “Essay for a Requiem” is based on the words by Walt Whitman and is the only choral symphony out of the eight he wrote. It’s not easy to describe Hartmann’s writing but there are clear hints of Shostakovich and Stravinsky.

By no means a ‘must have’ set of symphonies; Hartmann, who at one time was hailed as Germany’s greatest symphonist of the 20th century, is now almost forgotten.





The Popular Couperin

http://i780.photobucket.com/albums/yy88/barrydhunt/009-2.jpg

Robert Wooley, harpsichord

1979, Meridian E77012


To compensate for the limited dynamic range of the harpsichord, composers would write pieces with a wide variation in tempo - allowing the performers a chance to display their virtuosity. Often this can make the harpsichord sound either boring or a bit like a sewing machine rattling away.

Couperin seems to largely avoid these pit-falls and this record is an excellent example of the œuvre. It certainly provides a good test for transients and attack, and is well worth tracking down.




The Dawn of Romance – Songs and music of the troubadours of Provence

http://i780.photobucket.com/albums/yy88/barrydhunt/010-5.jpg

Martin Best – voice, lute and psaltery; Catherine Denley, Cherith Millburn-Freyer and Jean Temperley – altos

1978, EMI CSD 3785


Troubadours were Medieval touring folk singers. Little is known about either the lives of the troubadours or of their performances, however they would ingeniously reconcile songs about earthly human relationships with the Church’s attitude to these matters.

All the songs, of course, are sung in the French of that time (1086 – 1250). But don’t worry, the lyrics are both published and translated in the album insert. Sung with gusto this record makes for an interesting listen. Not often you hear shawms, nakers, rebec or a psaltery!




Koto and Flute – The Music of Kinichi Nakanoshima

http://i780.photobucket.com/albums/yy88/barrydhunt/011-2.jpg

1968, Liberty LBL 83082


Featuring the sound of koto, shamisen, flute and shakuhachi

Kinichi Nakanoshime is a composer of Sankyoku: a form of Japanese chamber music played on the koto (13 string plucked instrument), shamisen (3 string instrument played with a plectrum), and shakuhachi (traditional bamboo flute)., often with a vocal accompaniment.

Very soothing and atmospheric, this is not ‘cross-over’, nor ‘fusion’, but very much in the idiom of traditional Japanese classical music.

jandl100
02-08-2011, 07:28
I have the Hartmann symphony set, too.
Yup, I'd agree that it is worth the effort to get into this music. Not easy at first, for me, though. Good stuff once I persevered a bit.

Couperin harpsichord, yep. :thumbsup:. Also well worth searching out the Handel harpsichord suites on Naxos with Alan Cuckston. Lovely playing of some great music over 2 separate CDs.
Oooo look, nice and cheap http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handel-Harpsichord-Suites-Georg-Friederich/dp/B0000274BM/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1312269994&sr=1-1
Go on - you know you want to! ;)