Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

The exploration of this fascinating piece continues. This time I looked at a performance of the Berliner Philarmoniker conducted by Pierre Boulez via their Digital Concert Hall. For just under 10 euro one has 24 hour access to the DCH's archive of about 75 concerts and a live concert if there is one in your time slot. It's similar, of course, to watching a music DVD. The difference is that the content is streamed over the internet. Everything is taped in so-called High Definition. Of course, it can never be a substitute for a live experience, but I can imagine that in a carbon constrained world we will have to make do with these surrogate experiences more often. Also, I must admit that I almost stopped going to live concerts. Partly it's an issue of time. But it has become much more stressful too with the busy traffic into Brussels at all times of the day. We used to leave the house at 7 pm and drive leisurely to the Bozar, but that is not possible anymore. An earlier start also means that you have the tail of the evening peak hour which makes it even more risky. Therefore I welcome opportunities such as these to partake at least partially in the live atmosphere.There are additional advantages such as access to program notes and interviews with the artists.

The Boulez performance is a very good one. In fact, it may be the best I have heard so far, with the exception, perhaps, of the Reiner. It's a big, muscled rendering, of course, with a string section that must be at least double of what Paul Sacher had at the premiere with his Basel Chamber Orchestra. Boulez conducts stoically, almost with a priestly kind of dignity, with minimal movements but to great dramatic effect. Despite the size of the ensemble, there was an overarching sense of clarity, with the big lines weaving themselves effortlessly through the whole structure. The pacing was excellent too with appropriate gravitas in the slow movements and a punchy kind of urgency in the Allegros. I will certainly return to this performance.

The program notes were also very informative. I particularly liked the succinct but very clear description of the piece's overall architecture:

It consists of four movements that seem to be sprinting through the history of musical forms. The study trip begins with a chromatic fugue, whose even-numbered entries open out in rising fifths from the initial A, while the odd-numbered entries descend by fifths, a pattern then reverse with the theme inverted (and from the entrance of the celesta, mirrored) until the music concludes in unison on the concluding A. Taking a step forward, historically speaking (from Baroque to Classical), the second movement represents a sonata form. Next comes an adagio in Bartok's favoured, strictly symmetrical arch form, and finally, a Rondo-like finale which fuses the elements already introduced in a new language, with a contribution from Bartok's folk music research.

Bartok - Dance Suite

Onward to Bartok's Dance Suite (1923), one of his most engaging and accessible works. This collection of orchestral pseudo-folk dances is a longtime favourite of mine. I used to listen to Solti's recording with the Chicago SO (my father has it in his collection) but I have a copy on CD of his earlier recording (1965) with the London Symphony Orchestra. It's a beautifully crafted, superbly paced performance and also the recording is in a class of its own: dynamic, spacious, richly detailed and with a very attractive and subtle graininess that suits the music very well. I would almost say it sounds 'analog'. CDs don't come any better than this. Decca engineer on duty was the resourceful Kenneth Wilkinson. It was he who in the 1950s developed the Decca tree spaced microphone array for stereophonic recordings. Wilkinson also discovered Walthamstow City Hall as a recording venue. But the Dance Suite was taped at his favourite location, Kingsway Hall. I have never realised that one of the best recording locations in the world does not exist anymore. It has been demolished to make space for a hotel. There's a very informative and sympathetic account of Wilkinson's way of working on Wikipedia.

I also listened to Fricsay's mono 1953 recording with the RIAS Berlin orchestra. It's no match for the Solti, partly on account of the sound quality, of course. Furthermore, the Suite shares an LP side with the last movement of the Second Violin Concerto. The grooves are so narrowly spaced that the needle jumps out at very loud passages. Qua interpretation I think Fricsay only has the edge in the Molto Tranquillo. Very strange is his lumbering tempo in the ensuing Comodo. On the whole I vastly prefer the Solti which is a classic.

Finally I put on the piano version of the suite, played by Zoltan Kocsis. Whatever the qualities of the piano playing, it's very difficult to listen to it without hearing the colourful orchestral version in parallel.

Bartok - Music for S, P and C/Mahler - Adagio, Symphony nr. 10

Listened to Ferenc Fricsay's reading of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, on LP (dating from 1954). Although there is much to admire, it will likely not become my favourite recording. It is mono, which is a distinct disadvantage in a piece where the string orchestra is divided into two antiphonal groups. The orchestra is set in a rather hollow acoustic, which drowns a lot of the percussion details. The timps sound unattractively muffled. But I found much to enjoy in the string playing, despite the RIAS Berlin orchestra likely not having been a top ensemble. But maybe it's just that, and the fact that in those times Bartok's music will not have been as thoroughly absorbed in players' collective memories as it is today, which put players on edge in this recording.

Anyway I picked something up from this recording that didn't strike me from listening to any of the other versions. Suddenly, towards the end of the first movement, when the fugue subject plays softly over its inversion, the oscillating strings reminded me of Mahler's Tenth Symphony. More particularly, the hesitant passage in the strings right before the climatic dissonant chord in the Adagio's coda came to mind. So, I put on Ormandy's early recording of the Deryck Cooke performing version (taped in November 1967 at the occasion of the US premiere). It is a splendid reading with the Philadelphians in Olympian form. And indeed, from the very beginning the stark chromaticism of the movement's first theme, presented by the violas, sotto voce, reveals the kinship with Bartok's piece. Another thing that strikes in both compositions is the constantly changing meter.  Furthermore, there may be an harmonic relationship as well. The opening Andante of Bartok's Music is anchored in the tonic of A, on which the movement begins and ends. This tonality is also pivotal in the Adagio. Jörg Rothmann writes in the Cambridge Companion to Mahler (p. 154) about the climatic passage at the end of the symphony's first movement: "It is also interesting that the starting point from which all the tension of the ensuing sonority grows is an unaccompanied A, two above the middle C, in the first violins. The chord is built up in four stages with triads below and above, first forte, then fortissimo. The initial pitch, A, is then continued alone in the trumpets after the nine-note chord. The final condensed combination of the unaccompanied A and the abrupt tutti repetition of the nine-note chord suggests that the choice of this pitch, held for then bars in all, is to be understood symbolically as the initial, and only 'playable', letter of the name 'Alma'."  Of course, I may be completely mistaken in looking for these correspondences and they are likely completely anecdotal, but it keeps one involved anyway.

Bartok - Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta

The renewed engagement with the music of Bartok continues to inspire. Today I listened a couple of times to one of his acknowledged masterpieces. First there was a 1968 LP recording by Pierre Boulez with the BBC Symphony Orchestra on CBS. It's a characteristically objective and restrained reading and I wished the Allegro movements would have had a little more fire. The vinyl was also not in top shape. Very worthwhile, however, are the cover notes by Boulez himself. His discussion of the Music and of Bartok's significance in our recent musical history is illuminating.

Then came what is considered a reference recording, with the Chicago SO under Fritz Reiner. Indeed a splendid Mercury Living Stereo recording which strikes just the right balance between at times frosty introspection and fiery engagement.

Karajan's 1970 recording struck me as less successful. I only listened to the finale but the orchestra seemed to be out of its comfort zone. Karajan presses on relentlessly in this Allegro Molto and seems to forget to let the music breath. The recording in the Grünewaldkirche in Berlin (produced by Walter Legge) is a pretty muddy affair too.

Adam Fischer with the Hungarian State SO taped Bartok's orchestral output in the Haydn-room of the Esterhazy palace. The recording sounds impossibly cavernous. Really unpalatable. Fischer's reading is very loosely woven too. I didn't listen it to the end.

I vividly remember hearing a live performance of this piece by Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra at the Concertgebouw in Brugge. I think it is worthwhile to seek out the recording he made two decades ago on the Philips label (out of the catalogue, it seems).

The listening was greatly aided by Boulez' analysis as well as by a short, rather technical but informative essay by Malcolm Gillies in The Bartok Companion (Faber & Faber, 1993). One cannot be but impressed by the lucidity but also the naturalness of the conception, by the diversity of 'issues' and tensions that Bartok is able to bring together in a coherent musical structure and the economy of means with which he resolves these problems.

Crumb - Makrokosmos III and IV

From Bartok's Mikrokosmos to George Crumb's Makrokosmos is another intriguing step. I got to know Crumb via his orchestral masterpiece A Haunted Landscape many years ago. I have also a few Naxos CDs with chamber works, the Kronos Quartet's recording of Black Angels, and his complete output for piano. The latter is an intriguing release on 3 CDs issued by an obscure label (Audiophile) and played by an equally elusive Slovenian pianist Bojan Gorisek. The recording and artistic merits of the set are, however, first rate. And this is no mean feat given the extraordinary demands imposed on the artist who has to master the inside of the piano as well as the keyboard.

Crumb's music is difficult to categorise.  I don't quite know anything like it. Maybe a composer like Alexander Knaifel explores similar soundscapes? Thematic development, melody, rhythm and tempo play subordinate roles in this kind of music. It's all about exploring the most exotic sonorous textures and harmonic spaces. Despite these limitations Crumb is able to sustain an interesting (at times outrageous) musical process over longer stretches of time. Despite its often ritualistic character there's nothing particularly new agey or minimalist about it. I find the music refreshingly vigorous and, despite the exoticism, unostentatious. Crumb himself points to Bartok, Debussy, Mahler and Ives as his most influential predecessors. There's a rather funny interview with the remarkably youthful composer here.

Makrokosmos III (Music for a Summer Evening) is, in fact, a chamber work for two pianos and added percussion. Makrokosmos IV (Celestial Mechanics - Cosmic Dances for amplified piano four hands). It is, however, a stretch to link these works back to Bartok's didactic catalogue of piano works.

Mongolian folk songs

This morning as I was running through the sunlit forest I momentarily hit a pocket of warm air and with it came a smell that I associated immediately with the sunburnt steppes of Mongolia. Before my mind's eye emerged the view I saw from the air 7 or 8 years back when I flew over this vast emptiness for the first time (altogether I visited the country four times). Then the unruly shantytowns of Ulaanbataar, the dust clouds trailing the vehicles as they make their way through this endlessness.

I remembered having a photo book that came with a CD containing impromptu recordings of Mongolian folk songs. So tonight I listened to this modest audio testimony of simple folk singing their music. I tried to imagine how Bartok spent a large part of his life collecting, transcribing and analysing this sort of material and distilling from it the building blocks for a highly refined musical language that fused the East and the West.

Bartok - Piano Music

The last couple of days I spent with piano music by Bela Bartok. In a way it seems natural to transition from Kodaly to Bartok who were major, contemporaneous figures in Hungarian musical life, and beyond. Both spent a considerable share of their time on ethnomusicological pursuits. Personally they were close too, Kodaly being the only one whose advice Bartok regularly took in compositional matters. Nevertheless, despite this close association I find their music to inhabit quite different worlds with Bartok offering formally, harmonically and texturally an altogether tougher, colder and more sophisticated musical universe which consequently asks for a greater commitment from the listener.

I have surprisingly little piano music of Bartok in my collection. There is a recently acquired Philips LP with the young Stephen Bishop (in 1969) playing Book VI from Mikrokosmos, the suite Out of Doors and the miniature Sonatine. And then I have one CD with Volume I from the complete traversal by Zoltan Kocsis. This contains the 14 Bagatelles, a collection of Hungarian and Romanian dances, two Elegies and also the Sonatina.

Interestingly this small collection draws from different periods in Bartok's creative life, giving a good idea of his stylistic evolution. The 14 Bagatelles, Op. 6 come first. They were composed in 1908 as a first attempt to integrate his encounter with Eastern European folk music and with the work of Debussy. I find it a very rewarding work - substantial, varied, harmonically adventurous and offering that peculiar mixture of folksiness and abstraction which to my mind seems to have largely eluded Kodaly (making an exception, perhaps, for his solo cello sonata).

Out of Doors stems from the 'piano year' 1926 and shows Bartok at his most expressionistic. The two outer movements - With Drums and Pipes and The Chase - are violently percussive, stunning compositions. There is also a very typical, haunting night music which evokes roughly contemporaneous avant garde experiments of Henry Cowell. I listened to Cowell's Aeolian Harp and Bartok's Night Music in immediate succession and with different technical means they indeed invoke similar sound worlds.

The later books of Mikrokosmos date from the 1930s and offer a purer, more technical and abstract fusion of Eastern and Western elements (Bach's counterpoint, Beethoven's progressive form and Debussy's harmony).

Both recordings offer very satisfying listening experiences, although I must say the Kocsis is in a class of its own, both as an interpretation as a recording. The latter is exceptionally rich and lifelike (taped in the Friedrich Ebert Hall in Hamburg by Kees de Visser). Kocsis' interpretations seems to have something inevitable striking the right balance between a fiery, masculine kind of virtuosity, and a cool detachment. Meanwhile I ordered the 8-CD bargain box with Kocsis' Bartok recordings.

Kodaly - Solo Cello Sonata

I remembered buying a CD last year with a mixed program of solo cello works, played by Tatiana Vassilieva (Accord 476 7191). One of them is the Kodaly Sonata, op. 8. A good opportunity to listen to it in the wake of my survey of orchestral works as I didn't know the music nor had ever really heard about the soloist.

I knew its reputation as an ineluctable monument in the solo cello literature but never really sat down to listen to it.  I'm happy to acknowledge that the sonata is an impressive work. It's likely the best thing I have heard by Kodaly up to this point. Although it's a relatively early work, dating from 1915,  what strikes is the towering maturity and confidence that speaks from it. It's a long work, over half an hour long, that meshes audacious bravura and dazzling virtuosity with a sober, cohesive musical argument. It has a certain abstract quality in its limited tonal and textural bandwith, the terseness of the musical material and the long, pondering improvisatory stretches. But this is nicely counterbalanced by a mellifluous harmonic language, stretches of infectuous declamatory or peasant rhythms and stunning instrumental pyrotechnics.

Vassilieva plays it very convincingly, it seems to me, with a solid grasp of the musical structure. She modulates confidently between the different emotional registers, never putting herself too much in the spotlight.  I don't find the recording ideal (Temple du Bon Secours, Paris) as it puts the soloist in a somewhat too resonant acoustic.

I know Janos Starker has been a widely admired champion of the piece and I will certainly seek out a recording of his (there are three), either on vinyl or CD. There is a Youtube video of Vassilieva's performance of the piece, but I must say that, impressive as the video is, she sounds more restrained and convincing on CD. Also worthwhile is a video of Starker's rendering of the third movement at the occasion of a Tokyo concert

Kodaly - Peacock Variations

I had precious little time to listen to music the last couple of days. What time I had I spent on Kodaly, a composer who leads a rather peripheral existence in my collection. However, recently two very nice LPs were added, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Istvan Kertesz in well-known key works of Kodaly's output: the Hary Janos suite, the Dances from Galanta, the Peacock Variations and Psalmus Hungaricus. These are all splendidly idiomatic performances, superbly engineered to the very high Decca standards of the time. The Janos/Galanta date from 1964 (SXL 6163), the other two works from 1971 (SXL 6497). Kertesz died in a swimming accident in 1973. On Wikipedia there is a note referring to precisely these recordings:

With his renditions of Kodály's big orchestral works, and given his precise yet passionate conducting style, Kertész was particularly well-suited to get the full orchestral swoop and swoon endemic to Psalmus Hungaricus and the Peacock Variations. The sonority Kertész managed to elicit from the LSO was expertly executed. Little wonder that Barry Tuckwell, the principal hornist of the LSO spoke of the élan and enthusiasm Kertész could coax out of the orchestra, many of whom Tuckwell regarded as "old codgers not bloody likely to dance to any youngster's tune".

Another interesting factoid is that in 1972 the musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra voted 93 to 2 to request to the Board to favor Kertesz as a replacement for George Szell. The Board declined, however. So much for Szell's unassailable reputation!

The Hary Janos and Galanta pieces I knew rather well from Fricsay's highly prized recording. New to me were, however, the Peacock Variations. An intriguing piece that came relatively late in Kodaly's output (1939). It was commissioned by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw to celebrate its 50th birthday.

If I had to guess in a blind audition whose composition it was, I would have come up with perhaps a rather surprising suggestion: Ralph Vaughan Williams. Indeed, the Variations' harmonic language harks back quite precisely to the impressionistic opulence of relatively early RVW symphonic scores such as the London and Pastoral Symphony (1913 and 1921, respectively). Also the instrumentation reminds me time and again of the British composer.

But maybe this isn't so surprising if one is reminded of the fact that both of them spent a short while in Paris to study with the French masters. Kodaly studied with Widor in 1906-1907 and VW arrived barely a year later to study three months with Ravel. I believe indeed that this is the connecting element. Whilst Kodaly may not have studied with Ravel directly, he must have thoroughly absorbed his idiom. Even only the introduction to the Peacock Variations conjures up the world of Ma Mère L'Oye in an exemplary way. Another interesting tidbit is that at one point (1911) Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales were premiered anonymously. When the audience was allowed to guess who was the composer it appears that also Kodaly's name was mentioned. So perhaps it should not surprise us. On the other hand, as far as I know in 1911 Kodaly was still to compose all his major works so one wonders where his reputation was based on at that early stage.

Beethoven, 32 variations in C minor

Today I listened a couple of times to Beethoven's set of 32 Variations in C minor, WoO 80, a composition of 1806 (from the time of Symphony nr. 4). First Gilels on LP (1968, part of the Szell concerto set), then, twice, Buchbinder on CD. It helps to have a little guide on hand to follow the proceedings. 

The Gilels reading I found unsubtle and uneven.The transitions between the fast, loud variations and the more subdued ones are often ragged, giving the whole thing an air of vulgarity. Buchbinder presents a much more groomed and compelling whole. The CD recording (a Teldec budget re-issue mixing a Haydn sonata with some Beethoven trifles) is very clear and suitably weighty too.

I have very few recordings of Buchbinder in my collection. Whilst he has an impressive discography and works intensively with the most prestigious orchestras, he does not seem to enjoy a genuine star status. Nevertheless, the concert I heard him give many years ago in the Vienna Konzerthaus, playing the three last Beethoven sonatas in a row - without a pause - is no doubt one of the most compelling musical experiences I have ever had: an hour-long exalted communion with 2000 other kindred souls.

Beethoven Frühe Meisterwerke

I'm lingering a little longer on early Beethoven. The temptation is there, of course, to dive again into the vast universe of his symphonies, sonatas and quartets. But I won't do that, for now. There is a lot more to discover in the stack of LPs - now counting more than 200 units - that has gone through Johan's KM cleaning treatment.

Yesterday and today I listened to a Decca LP issued at the occasion Beethoven's bicentennial anniversary in 1970 (SX 21187-M). It brings together a mixed collection of early 'masterpieces', and that includes his first piano sonata (op. 2 nr. 1), his first symphony (op. 21),  the song 'Adelaide' and a movement from the Septet, op. 20. Two pleasant discoveries here. Monteux offers a buoyant and muscular reading of the First with the Vienna Philarmonic. Whilst the recording goes back to 1961, it sounds thoroughly modern with its lithe, fiery tempos and its overall clarity of line. I only wish the vinyl was in better shape. Definitely worthwhile to look for a replacement copy. There is a nice and informative tribute to Monteux here.

The other surprise was the sonata, played by Wilhelm Backhaus. I've always been intrigued by the Backhaus' Beethoven ever since a friend in his Zürich apartment put on a CD with one his piano concerto recordings (that's about 15 years ago). But I never came round to digging deeper into it. Despite a rather inflexible reading, the sonata pulled me in. There is something really authoritative in the playing. It simply commands attention. Backhaus may be grumpy and introvert but he is not aloof. There is also genuine warmth and openness. It's this curious mixture which makes for compelling listening. Meanwhile I ordered the complete LP set of Beethoven sonatas on eBay.

Beethoven PC 1 ctd: Argerich/Sinopoli

I used to like this CD recording, but now that I hear it in such a distinguished sequence, it fell a little flat. That has less to do with Argerich, who on the whole offers a persuasive performance of great polish and depth of feeling. Her playing is characteristically lush and luminous, albeit sometimes a little rushed. The orchestra is the same as the one which served Klemperer so well 17 years earlier. But here we are sorely missing this 'second simplicity' so characteristic for that performance under the ageing conductor and which Clifford Curzon described as that 'second naiveté you arrive at after having gone through all the difficulties, having come through all the tests, and out the other side." Sinopoli directs a rather pedestrian performance which has the additional disadvantage of a very resonant recording in Walthamstow Town Hall. Hence the balance between piano and orchestra sounds unnatural and the music is drowned in a cloying sfumato which particularly in the slow movement tilts into the sentimental. The rapport between soloist and conductor is not ideal either. Particularly in the fast movements, Argerich seems to be wanting to push on whilst Sinopoli doesn't budge and continues to cruise along.  As the performance moved on, I felt myself getting impatient and finally I was rather happy it was over.

Oh, yes, I also listened to another Gilels performance, this time with the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR under Kurt Masur. A live performance of 1976. This was part of a Brilliant CD box with recordings from historic Russian archives. Something to quickly forget. A boomy and noisy recording, Gilels pounding the piano as if he was playing the Liszt sonata and Masur offering a shoddy and unidiomatic accompaniment. The finale sounds preposterously rushed (even it's only a minute faster than the Klemperer/Barenboim).

What I, up to this point, have retained from this traversal of First Pianoconcertos is Szell's tremendously accomplished accompaniment with the Cleveland Orchestra (the complete opposite of Sinopoli in fact), also Karajan's fiery and opulent but oh so vivacious Berliners, Kempff's Olympian command of the score and the touching synergy between a great, old musician and a young prodigy in the Klemperer/Barenboim performance.

Beethoven PC1 continued: Barenboim/Klemperer

So since my traversal of these different versions of the First Beethoven Pianoconcerto, the music has resonated continuously in my mind (when I see people walking with headphones on the street I wonder as I am ALWAYS hearing music in my head; no need for an iPod).  Fortunately I remembered having another full set on vinyl, also from the mid-1960s: the Barenboim/Klemperer with the Philarmonia Orchestra (also from 1968). Barenboim  in his mid-twenties - similar to Eschenbach - was accompanied by the octogenarian Otto Klemperer. And what a splendid collaboration it is! The Philarmonia play divinely under the late Klemperer: measured but responsive, supremely assured and with a full-blooded, burnished tone. The young Barenboim certainly seems to have the full measure of the score. He plays with remarkable authority and poise for his age (in contrast with Eschenbach whose reading struck me as highly contrived). The recording is perfect, weighty but airy, with exemplary balance and giving a just the right sense of the Abbey Road studio acoustics (I also listened to the finale on the CD and it sounds distinctly less spacious than the LP. The piano sounds harder and more glassy too). The box includes a booklet with very informative and readable notes by William Mann and a delightful commentary by the producer Suvi Raj Grubb. Characteristically, the latter has been truncated for inclusion in the CD booklet. For example, this passage - in which SRG describes the bustle just before a recording session begins - has disappeared:

To an outside observer, chaos appears to reign supreme in the last minutes before the start of a recording session. There seems to be a great deal of casual to-ing and fro-ing by the studio staff. The electrical engineers, trailing yards of cable, change amplifiers, plug in microphones and test them, calling out from the studio 'one, two, three, four - this is the left - LEFT - hand, channel.' The second engineer, usually a junior, slaps tapes on to the machines, happily whistling the latest pop tune the while. Meanwhile, the balance engineer, the king-pin of the engineering staff, gets the feel of his microphones by waggling the controls on his panels - one moment you hear the horns in unnaturally brilliant close-up, practising scales, and the next you hear a violinist telling her neighbour: 'In our house we like it with onions'. And high above all the other sounds, of the orchestra arriving, chairs being moved and instruments being tuned, the whine of frequencies with which engineers test their equipment adds a penetrating counterpoint. Everything gradually becomes increasingly frenzied, and just as the outside observer might well begin to wonder how any organized work could possibly start a few seconds later, all activity tails off. Now the only sound coming over the microphones is that most exhilirating of all music sounds - that of an orchestra tuning up ..."

Beethoven's First Piano Concerto

Today I listened to Beethoven's First Piano Concerto in C major, op. 15. Three versions from the mid-1960s, all on vinyl: the Christoph Eschenbach/Karajan/Berliner partnership (1965), the Gilels/Szell recordings with the Cleveland Orchestra from 1968, and the Kempff/Leitner recording from 1962, also with the Berlin Philarmonic.

Beethoven's concertos are not very often on my playlist. I'm not sure why. There is no doubt these are towering masterpieces but somehow I feel this to be a different, a more lyrical Beethoven than the more vigorous and/or abstract composer of the symphonies, sonatas and quartets. 

The Eschenbach disc was a little bit of a disappointment. Despite a Keith Monks treatment the vinyl sounds worn out. I am not very familiar with the art of Christoph Eschenbach. These days he is quite prominent as a conductor (apparently he is moving on from the Philadelphia and the Orchestre de Paris to the Washington-based National Symphony Orchestra) but I have heard very little of his recordings in which he seems to focus on core repertoire (another Pathétique, another Shostakovich Fifth). Also I tend to have a suspicion about pianists-turned-conductors. I wonder whether his restrained, severe demeanour is a pose. As a pianist I only have a dim recollection of having heard some of his Mozart sonatas. Anyway, he seems to have had a particularly harrowing childhood, having lived through the atrocities of the Second World War and being robbed from speech for a year as a result. This appears to be the very first recording by Eschenbach who was 25 at the time. The cover shows a delightful picture of the young pianist and his conductor. The Berliner under Karajan are in a characteristically glorious form, sounding luxuriant and vivacious. This contrasts sharply with Eschenbach's playing which is discreet to the point of being colourless. Tempos are also taken very broadly with a particularly spacious Largo where the attention threatens to wander. The finale is not as sprightly as we might expect. The orchestra is boisterous enough but Eschenbach playing is hesitant and demure. The recorded sound of the piano - slightly hollow and glassy - is not optimal either. The partnership between Karajan and Eschenbach was, as far as I know never extended. Although the cover suggests this might be the start of the cycle, it never materialised. The recording is now out of the catalogue.There is a Gramophone review which is more positive about it than I am.

The Gilel/Szell partnership seems altogether more successful. The recording is very good with a prominent, masculine orchestra and beautifully grainy woodwinds. This Beethoven is a big-boned as you can get, marziale, clipped, and played at a more energetic tempo than the Karajan disc. Amazing how the old Szell (the music was taped two years before his death) could muster this youthfull energy! For Gilels it is not difficult to fit into this mould but his playing also shows a lyricism and vulnerability that is quite surprising. I quite liked this recording and look forward to exploring the other concertos as well. I also wish to explore a little further afield in Szell's discography of which I know very little. His biography is fascinating, stretching over seven decades and bridging two continents.

However, the recording that is likely to give me most pleasure is the classic Kempff/Leitner. This is a set that I have listened to a lot in the early days of my musical explorations. But it has been languishing in a corner of my vinyl collection ever since. The LP still needs to be cleaned so I only focused on the finale. Kempff plays wonderfully assured, witty and elegant. He also plays his own cadenzas which I quite like. Leitner accompanies with a matter of factness which is captivating. Quite a difference with the same orchestra under Karajan only three years later. The symbiosis between pianist and orchestra seems to be even more accomplished than on the Szell/Gilels recording. The sound is truly excellent with a prominent, earthy piano, a beautifully balanced orchestra and good dynamics. To be further explored when these records come back from the Keith Monks treatment.

Sinéad/Sigur Ros

This week was very intense and this Friday evening I felt quite worn out. So I felt like an 'easy listen' (already flouting my own principles!) and took a grab in a box that is drifting around in the living room with a mix of pop CDs and recently acquired classical stuff. My hand fell on Throw Down Your Arms, a double CD of Sinéad O'Connor. It's a CD that dropped in my collection via a CD exchange project that has been running over many years with a friend of ours, Piet Cockx. Each time we meet - and that happens 2-3 times per year - I bring a classical CD for Piet and he gives me something 'popular' in return. I must say that I have made some very pleasant discoveries with this little game: The Blue Nile, Moby, Eels, Elbow, David Sylvian, ... But not everything hits the bull's eye, of course, and this Sinéad CD has seen very little rotation. You have to like Sinéad, her distinctive voice and you have to like reggae to really appreciate her take on these original 70's reggae songs. Honestly, I am not a great fan of reggae. And I don't really know Sinéad. I have only two other songs of her in my collection: the ominous You Made Me the Thief of your Heart, part of the soundtrack of Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father (starring Daniel Day Lewis, Emma Thompson and Pete Postlewaite), and the mesmerising Harbour on Moby's 18.  Both quite beautiful songs, really, but they never were able to invite me to explore further. A subliminal fear of Amazonian, warrior-like women? Who knows? It took me a long time too to make the plunge and dig deeper in P.J. Harvey's output after I discovered her To Give You My Love many years ago.


Throw Down Your Arms is a double CD surveying the same material in an original and in a dub (more personal) version. Tonight I listened to the dub version and I believe it is the first time I have given this CD a spin. Previously I didn't get beyond the 'original' versions ('Original' means that she brings the songs as the original reggae artists did. The disc was recorded in the apparently famous Tuff Gong Studios in Kingston, Jamaica. Many of the musicians involved in the original sessions also contributed to the Sinéad disc.) It was not a totally unpleasurable experience. Rhythmically and texturally I find the disc rather monotonous. The voice, however, is very distinctive and keeps one involved. The songs that popped out for me are Jah Nuh Dead (with an evocative thunderstorm background), Vampire and Prophet Has Arise.

Now, whilst writing this blog post I browsed a little bit in O'Connor's biography and the story that is recounted on Wikipedia is, frankly, astonishing. I also learned a few interesting tidbits about the CD I listened to tonight. Enough to entice me to explore further? I don't know: the teasers on iTunes do not make a big impression. It remains too 'poppy' and in this sense the rather sober Throw ... is a genuine relief. Anyway, enough about this disc.

I also listened to Sigur Ros' Heim (with rather more pleasure than the O'Connor). Incidentally, Sigur Ros was another of Piet's introductions; he gave me (  ) many years ago. This is a disc I've always had a little bit mixed feelings about. It didn't feature on my playlist for a long time. Last summer I picked up a few Sigur Ros discs at a firesale price and took them with me on holiday. Listening to them in the car I grew rather bored. But when I started to audition them in much better circumstances, on the home stereo, the appreciation grew. Particularly Heim touches a nerve. There is something very poignant in the texture and harmony at the beginning of the song Von, for example, that connects to something I heard elsewhere and that is very dear to me. I can't recall what it is, however ... 

Start of a new blog

I am starting this new blog as a musical diary. My intention is simply to keep track of what I listen to in an effort to instill a measure of discipline in my listening habits. In an age of access to abundant musical resources it is easy to fall into the trap of mindless consumption. I do not want that. I want to be an attentive and disciplined listener. The reasons behind this listening attitude will be explained and explored later on in this blog.

The blog is a diary and despite it being openly accessible it is assumed to be largely private. There may be a few friends who are interested in my musical journey but I don't expect them to be numerous. A few of them are non-Dutch speakers, hence the language of choice is English.

In addition to tracking the listening diet, I will likely post other music-related notes and reflections. The point is not to be profound or original. I hope the blog will turn out to be an instrument that helps me to be a better, more attentive and knowledgeable listener.