Hoddinott - Symphony nr. 6; Lanterne des Morts

Another work that I was reminded of when listening to Petrassi's Secondo Concerto is Alun Hoddinott's Sixth Symphony (1984). I got to know this via a Chandos CD I added to my collection maybe 15 years ago. I relistened to this moody 20 minute-work but have to conclude that it inhabits a quite different musical universe. There is something of a neo-classical restraint and mellifluousness in the symphony, but overall it's a more romantic conception, richly harmonised in a very attractive clair-obscur. Although it features some exciting fast music, it basically comes across as a single arched adagio. It's a lovely composition which bears repeated listening, particularly on these kinds of gloomy winter days as we are currently experiencing. The disc features a number of other works, notably the symphonic poem Lanterne des Morts, op. 105, nr. 2. This is a stunningly atmospheric work that takes its cue from a monolithic stone tower in the French town of Sarlat (in the Dordogne). 'Lanterns of the dead' can be found in several places in the South-West of France. Although as a rule they are located in the immediate vicinity of a cemetery, no satisfactory explanation has been found as to their functioning. Legend has it that the souls of the deceased transmigrated out of these towers as pigeons. That is the image that Hoddinott has been able to musically evoke in a quite marvellous way. Qua atmosphere the work connects seamlessly to the symphony. The scoring is ravishing, with muted trumpets, darkly intoning trombones, glockenspiel and wind machine adding to the brooding atmosphere. There is a daring but quite successful quotation from the Romanza in Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony transporting us to the latter's luminous mysticism.

Hoddinott was a prolific composer who left a significant oeuvre, including 10 symphonies, 5 operas, more than 10 concertos and 10 piano sonatas. Most of it has not been recorded. Pity Chandos or Naxos have not yet picked up the gauntlet. Lyrita has a few recordings in their catalogue that are likely worthwhile to collect. To be continued.

Petrassi - Secondo Concerto; Honegger - Symphony nr. 4

I've been listening patiently to Petrassi's Secondo Concerto per Orchestra, a composition from 1951. The music is not that difficult but it does show a certain measure of abstraction and hence it takes a while to get a feel for the overall structure. The idiom clearly connects to the Primo Concerto, although the stance is somewhat less heroic. The work is also more transparently scored, and sounds more genuinely as a concerto for orchestra. Once you get into the music it is very atmospheric and Petrassi conjures some wonderful textures from the orchestra. The work it reminded me most strongly of is Honegger's Fourth Symphony, 'Deliciae Basilienses' (1946). Incidentally, both the Petrassi Concerto and the Honegger symphony were commissioned by Paul Sacher. This is a name that continues to pop up once one starts to dig into the neo-classical modernists' repertoire from 1930s to 1950s. The Honegger symphony is in a still more relaxed and narrative vein than the Concerto. But the airiness of the textures and the general harmonic feel do overlap a lot. It was a pleasure to relisten to the Honegger symphony in a truly excellent version by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta led by Tamas Vasary (another pianist-turned-conductor; recording is still available in the Chandos catalogue). Vasary's choice of tempo is just right and he coaxes beautiful playing from his wind soloists and trumpets, suffusing the work with a melancholy light and a bittersweet tone that is quite unique.

Lutoslawski - Concerto for Orchestra

I hadn't listened to the Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra for ages. Truth be told, for me Lutoslawski's music starts to be really interesting only from the late 1960s onwards when his mature style flowered into arresting compositions such as Livre pour Orchestre, the Cello Concerto, Les Espaces du Sommeil and Mi-Parti.

On the one hand the Concerto is an approachable symphonic spectacular; the music is pleasingly angular, athletic and colourful. So it's certainly not a burden to listen to. On the other hand I find it lacking in a coherent overall structure. Particularly the finale fails to convince on this account. And that's a pity as it is longer than the first two movements combined.

I followed the music with Charles Bodman Rae's analysis (in The Music of Lutoslawski, Faber and Faber, 1994) in hand. The finale starts with a Passacaglia, the theme of which is 8 bars long and is repeated 18 times as it passes from the basses to the highest registers of the orchestra. In counterpoint with the Passacaglia there is a sequence of 13 episodes - mostly also 8 bars long - with contrasting material. For the most part they do not overlap with the beginning or end of the Passacaglia theme (an early example of what Lutoslawski later would call his 'chain' technique). These episodes are not variations as there is not really a relationship between them. After the Passacaglia follows a bristling Toccata, driven forward by very energetic brass. This gives way to a chorale, first in the woodwinds, then in the brass. Afterwards, the Toccata picks up again leading to a final section in which the chorale reappears fortissimo in the brass. A fast coda ends the work. One problem seems to be that there is  an abundance of thematic material in this 15 minute movement. Furthermore, the different sections - Passacaglia, Toccata, Chorale - seem to be disconnected; they come across as a sequence of brilliant but unconnected vignettes. Interestingly Bodman Rae also observes that in the Concerto only 76 of the work's 956 bars are not in some kind of triple meter. I think one can sense this rhythmic monotony over such a long musical structure. Paradoxically it may add to the sense of disjointedness.

I listened to different recordings, the most successful of which was taped by Christoph von Dohnanyi with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1989 (Decca, no longer available). It's a very taut and objective reading, the dryness of which is reinforced by a bone hard, close-miked recording from the Masonic Auditorium. Nevertheless, it's not unpleasant to listen to. The tight control suits this brilliant, sprawling music very well. The reading by Yan Pascal Tortelier with the BBC Philarmonic initially convinces, not in the least because of the attractive, meaty Chandos recording. The Intrada and the scherzo-like second movement come off really well. But sadly Tortelier is not able to keep the finale as convincingly together as Dohnanyi. I also listened to Lutoslawski's own recording, made in the late 1970s with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra (Katowicze). It's a fine recording that is in itself not particularly illuminating, however. His orchestra also lacks the sparkle of their Cleveland counterparts.

The Decca recording is coupled with Bartok's Concerto (which I still have to listen to) and the question poses itself as to how the two compositions might be related. There seems to be little agreement on this issue. Paula Kennedy writes in the liner notes for the Dohnanyi recording: "However, the main influence on the work is indubitably that of Bartok. This can be heard both in the clarity and directness of the musical language, and also in such structural details as the arch form of the first movement and the chorale of the last movement (in its manner of presentation, this chorale bears a striking resemblance to the one which occurs in the second movementof Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra). The economy with which musical ideas are developed also owes much to the example fo Bartok." On the other hand, Simon Ravens in the notes accompanying the Chandos disc finds the similarities more cosmetic than real. (However, he makes the rather surprising assertion that whilst Bartok generally tried to be faithful to the character of his folk material, Lutoslawski used folk themes as merely raw material to build a large musical form. I think this is disputable). Bodman Rae essentially agrees with the observation that there is no dominant and direct influence of Bartok in Lutoslawski's Concerto: " ... if one were to draw a meaningful parallel with Bartok, it should be with Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, rather than his own Concerto for Orchestra." Pity he doesn't elaborate this connection. Personally I would also side with the latter viewpoint. Apart from the orchestral brilliance and some anecdotal correspondences (I think most chorales resemble one another) the two compositions seem to inhabit rather different spheres of the musical continuum.

Comment: Kennicott on active listening

In the February 2010 issue of Gramophone magazine there was an unusually perspicacious column by Philipp Kennicott, culture critic for the Washington Post, in which he captured very well what 'active listening' would ideally be about:

I'm interested in a listening device that actually helps one listen. We've had a century of remarkable progress in machines that reproduce music but most of those machines explicitly aimed to mimic the concert experience. I'm interested in machines that would enhance or develop the concert experience into something entirely different. First order of business: I want a device that can scroll the musical score as the music is playing but not require that I sit at a computer screen. I want to see the music passing by no matter where I'm listening — lying down, sitting on a train, jogging. This may mean projecting it onto a screen, or some kind of invisible screen, or maybe even using holographic technology. Now, if I'm feeling lazy, or lend my new device to someone who isn't proficient at score reading, I want the option for the score to standardise.

We're not through yet. Given the advances in video game technology, perhaps we should have another option that represents music in sculptural form. The listener will pick the basic shapes — Euclidean solids, cloud forms, fractal patterns, Henry Moore statues — and the computer will use them to represent the basic elements of music. This should be sophisticated enough that I can turn it on, project it onto a table top and leave it playing alongside the music, like kinetic sculpture.
And while we're at it, I may desire to hear certain inner lines more clearly than the musicians are projecting them. It would be nice if, when I reached out and touched them (either in the score or in their sculptural analogue) they would become more prominent. Thus I could listen to the performance much more interactively, more like a conductor than a mere audience-member.

It should also be wired into a huge musical encyclopedia and database, complete with a catalogue of thematic material that allows the listener to stop the music and say, hey, isn't that like a theme I know from Mahler? I want the answer to that question, and I want it now. Of course, we're going to want some default switches on this device, so that it's absolutely clear when the listener is interfering with the "truth" of the recording. And as with all new gizmos, the more options the better, so if I want to use the machine like an ordinary DVD player, I can turn off the "extras" and simply watch the musicians perform.

I'm not holding my breath. The technology is probably the least of the problems. The main issue is that this fantasy listening device fills a need that not many people recognise: to listen more actively. Listening generally falls into the category of entertainment, and technology often assumes that what people want (in addition to listening) is distraction. Most of the half-hearted attempts to create classical music video tend towards this direction — visual fantasies that seem almost apologetic about the music they supposedly serve.

My device would be completely different, using the emergent gaming technology and video wizardry entirely in service of the score, the performance and the listener's curiosity about the construction of the music itself. Which is why I'm not expecting to see it on the market any time soon. But if it arrives, and prices come down to reasonable levels, I'll put it straight on my wish-list.

Petrassi - Primo Concerto

A couple of years ago my friend HK demoed a snippet from one of Goffredo Petrassi's Concerti per Orchestra. It took a long while to follow up on his suggestion but now I'm happy to have the full set of 8 Concerti on a double CD issued by the Stradivarius label. The Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra is conducted by the redoubtable Arturo Tamayo - for whom I have great respect since his traversal of Xenakis' complete symphonic oeuvre on the Timpani label.

Petrassi's Primo Concerto makes for a very promising start. It's a very muscular three movement work - Allegro, Adagio, Tempo di Marcia - lasting just over 23 minutes. Rhythmically and harmonically it has Hindemith written all over it, but then it's a more sanguine and athletic version of the original. Not surprisingly, one is also reminded of the Walton of the First Symphony, as well as of the 'angry' Vaughan Williams of the Fourth and Sixth symphonies. So, it's the kind of taut, epic and rather abstract symphonic music that goes down extremely well with me.

Again, it's rather amazing how this body of work is able to lead such a peripheral existence. Likely, Petrassi has a big reputation in Italy but beyond its borders he must be very little known. His discography is very spotty, with some of his alleged masterpieces - Coro di Morti, Noche Oscura, the operas - unavailable. Chailly, for example, recorded the complete Varese and the Hindemith Kammermusiken, so why didn't he go on and recorded the Petrassi Concerti? Anyway, let's see where this leads us. The Secondo Concerto follows 17 years after the first so we may be in for a very different experience.

Bartok - Piano Concerto nr. 3

On Monday I listened a couple of times to Bartok's final piano concerto (and basically his final composition, if we discount the controversial Viola Concerto) in the Kocsis/Fischer recording. Today I auditioned the Schiff/Fischer version. Both are great renditions, Schiff projecting the score in a slightly more 'feminine' way and with more depth of feeling, which is likely more in keeping with the spirit of the work (as Bartok wrote it for his wife Ditta).  It's a delightful score, easy on the palate, almost Mozartian in its sunny disposition and exquisite sense of proportion.

Lutoslawski - Chain 1-3

The recent acquisition of a CD issued by Naxos with Lutoslawski's last recorded concert - October 24, 1993, barely three months before he died of cancer in February 1994 - was a good opportunity to relisten to some of his late masterpieces. I selected the three works that go under the name of Chain:

• number 1 dating from 1983 and written for a mixed chamber ensemble of 14 instrumentalists, 
• number 2 dating from 1985, a 'dialogue for violin and orchestra' (dedicated to A.-S. Mutter), 
• number 3, from 1986, for full orchestra.

The Naxos recording is a re-issue of a disc that has been in (limited) circulation for a while. It was taped in Toronto during a concert with the New Music Concerts Ensemble and independently issued. Now Naxos seems to have purchased the rights.

Without wanting to connect everything that I listen to Bartok, one can easily intuit a kinship between the work of these two composers. Both reflect an artistic integrity that led them to develop a highly sophisticated musical language, innovative and uncompromisingly modernist but without pandering to the tastes of the contemporaneous avant-garde. Both have something of a musical watchmaker, setting great store by harnessing the visceral energy of their musical ideas with a formal equilibrium and almost neoclassical poise of their compositions. Without being able to substantiate it, I also seem to feel an harmonic likeness between the two, perhaps reflected in their focus on integrating diatonicism and and chromaticism in a single framework and their pechant for darker colours and night musics.

Anyway, the Chains are masterpieces of the late Lutoslawski. Despite their sequential numbering they do not form a cycle. The formal principle that ties them together is that of partially overlapping sections, differentiated by harmony, melodic line and texture (there is a good deal more to be said about this). My favourite is Chain 3 which despite its limited duration (a good 10 minutes) has an impressively epic sweep and monumentality. (Sibelius' Tapiola is the archetype of these kinds of works with an apparently very high specific gravity). There is a fantastic recording of Chain 3 on another CD which has been branded as Lutoslawski's final concert on the obscure label KOS Records Warsaw. It dates from a Warsaw Autumn festival concert late September 1993.

For Chain 2 we are still best served by Lutoslawski's DGG recording with the work's dedicatee as a soloist (despite a rather fat recorded sound from Walthamstow Town Hall). But Mutter's playing has tremendous fire and the BBC Symphony Orchestra is in great form. A good second is Isabelle van Keulen's rendering with the Philarmonia under Heinrich Schiff (Koch-Schwann, coupled with the Schnittke Viola Concerto). The recording on the present Naxos disc is, I am sorry to say, not up to the same standard. The soloist is not in the same league and the performance lacks forward momentum.

Chain 1 has been recorded less often than either of the other works. It's the more uncompromisingly avant garde of the three, and leans qua spirit most towards the mildly surrealist atmosphere that characterizes some of Lutoslawski's other late works (notably Chantefleurs et Chantefables).
My favourite recording is one with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra under Daniel Harding, issued in 1996 on the Virgin label and long since disappeared from the catalogue. Another very lively performance has been recorded by the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, led by the composer. Again, the Naxos recording is not a worthy competitor I find.

There's a charming documentary on Lutoslawski - made on the occasion of this visit to the School of Music at UCL in 1985 - here, here, here and here.

Bartok - Piano Concerto nr. 1

When one would have asked me at the outset of my Bartok traversal what works where most familiar to me, I would certainly have included the piano concertos. I was not a little surprised then to draw a blank on the First Concerto when I started to listen to these works a few days ago. Unlike the Second and Third Concertos, it sounded utterly new. And what a discovery this was! I had been wanting to listen to something punchy and energetic when zooming in on the concertos and what I got was an orchestral spectacular with the percussive energy of a Blitzkrieg bombing run. I listened five or six times in a row to this spectacular but complex work. Even with Janos Karpati's excellent essay (in the Bartok Companion) on the first two concertos in hand, it is difficult to figure out what is really going on in this music. That's simply because Bartok works with rhythm rather than melody as a foundational principle. And whatever there is in terms of melody appears in ultra-reduced thematic cells that morph and evaporate before you can aurally grasp them. The harmony too is exceptionally tightfisted. Only towards the end of the finale there is a brief flourish that brandishes something that could be considered as pathos. The real enigma is the slow movement which is hard to get a handle on. It grasps ahead at the terseness of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, but there is also something of the Mandarin there with that insistent, march-like, and very long (58 bars) ostinato on the piano, supporting a sequence of langorous and orientalising woodwind figurations.

In terms of performances I listened time and again to the Kocsis/Fischer reading on Philips, which seemed just about perfect in all respects. The phenomenal rhythmic drive is matched by the precision of the performance and the transparancy of the recording. The Anda/Fricsay is very good too - with Anda even more ferociously brutal than Kocsis - but I do miss the many orchestral felicities that are so obvious in the Philips recording. The version with Schiff and Fischer's BFO presents us with a more refined and lyrical choice, but I rather stay with the percussive primitivism of the Kocsis (or the Anda). Schiff's approach works much better in the Third Concerto to which I will return in the next couple of days.

Wagner: Tannhaüser Ouvertüre/Tristan Liebestod

My listening diet has dried up to a trickle stream. Which does not mean that my musical life is uneventful. Last week, on Thursday, on an impulse I played two short pieces in sequence: the 4th dance from Bartok's Wooden Prince and Wagner's Tannhäuser Overture and Bacchanale music. There is indeed a certain resemblance between them in the combination of that typically yearning Wagnerian chromaticism and a rather frenzied, eroticised dance-like episode. I find that 15 minute section from the Bartok ballet an impressive piece in itself. A pity, maybe, that Bartok never turned it into an autonomous, rounded composition. I am quite sure it would have secured a reputation similar to, say, Bax's Tintagel, Strauss' Tod und Verklärung or Rachmaninov's Island of the Dead, to name just a few examples of tone poems where this late romantic opulence flares up in impressive clair-obscure.

The Wagner disc I selected is a late Karajan recording, dating from 1984. It's a favourite of mine. This is what the Gramophone Classical Music Guide (2009) writes about it: "When, in modern times, have you heard from Berlin (or anywhere else) such long-drawn, ripe, intense, characterful, perfectly formed and supremely controlled Wagner playing? Not from some other sources with the Tannhäuser Overture, whose Pilgrims are less solemn and whose revellers produce less of Karajan's joyous éclat. Moving on a few minutes, and the passage where Karajan's Venus succeeds in quelling the riot finds him effecting a spellbinding sudden diminuendo (from 4'41", track 2), leaving us with the enchanted eddying of the orchestra. It must surely qualify as one of Karajan's 'greatest moments', if the seemingly unstoppable tidal wave that preceded it hadn't already done so." And so on.

This is indeed a great recording and it led me to dig into Youtube to unearth that documentary that I saw on television more than 20 years ago. I didn't recall a lot about it, only that the ageing Karajan rehearsed the Tannhäuser Overture and that at a certain point he lets the trombones play the main theme by themselves to conclude that "this was how he had heard it in his dreams." (or an exclamation to that effect). It was not so difficult indeed to rediscover the "Karajan in Salzburg" film (taped in 1987, never released in Europe on DVD) with its many moving and interesting sequences, amongst them the Tannhaüser rehearsal (here and here), the Liebestod rehearsal with Jessye Norman,  and the final Liebestod concert. Particularly against the background of that fateful and drily uttered "Fini" at the beginning of the sequence, the concert is a very poignant testimony to the unconditional love for the music that impregnated likely every fiber of Karajan's being. That combined with his masterful professionalism and his unconditional quest for perfection is something that continues to inspire me.

Friday evening I fell ill and Saturday and best part of Sunday I spent in a slumber, with fever peaking up to 39°. I know from experience that in cases of illness, music can have a healing impact. (I still remember listening to a Mahler 6 (Maazel version) 25 years ago when I was struck with a mysterious illness I had caught in Switzerland. There was at that time no better tonic for me than that music). But now I hardly listened. I just put on a single disc, sotto voce - the Fabula Suite Lugano from Christian Wallumrod and his ensemble (ECM). The wrong choice, however, as this is a musica povera of the most uncompromising sort, unlikely to infuse anyone with a boost of energy. But meanwhile the music was going on relentlessly in my mind. Predictably I fell back on the Mehldau/Tokyo disc I had listened to earlier in the week. But also Gershwin's An American in Paris popped up, surprisingly. And the Tannhäuser, of course. On Sunday I was a little better, and I tried to listen to the second half of the Karajan disc: the Meistersinger Act III prelude (this only is worth a lot) and the Prelude and Liebestod. However, my mind was too unfocused: I could hear the sounds but could not follow the music. No way I could grasp the larger structures but the gorgeous orchestral sound in itself made a deep impact.

All this amounts to precious little music, however. The combination of greater listening discipline and lack of time has reduced my exposure to music significantly. So one gets used to silence as well. I can sit for hours in silence without needing music. Likely the pendulum will swing the other way again quite soon. But for the time being, it's a good experience.

Der Bote - A Lubimov recital

Listened twice this week to this wonderful recital recorded by Alexei Lubimov. Why don't we have more of these intelligent and adventurous compilations, rather than perennial rehashes of the core repertoire? I'm transcribing Lubimov's own liner notes here:

Melancholy - that is the title one might give to this programme. Nostalgic pictures, some will suggest, and others: quiet meditation. Music written for oneself, one might also think; like a diary not meant for publication, in which you note down only what is most personal, what is memorable for no one but you and yet says a great deal.
Whatever else these collected pieces may be given, one or two words are not enough to show why these unpretentious masterpieces from three centuries so smoothly gather into a single strand that unravels a bundle of associations and memories so dear to their performer. Within these composers' works each piece holds a fairly modest place: in most cases it is but a marginal note in a long novel. However, linked together here by their unassuming, meditative poetry and the deeper inner impulse of their creators, who are not inhibited by any commission or external circumstance, they convey a particular significance to me - and to my listeners too, I hope - with its own logic and atmosphere. Thus what we have here is the story of a sort of journey, each stage of which is meant not so much to reveal the composer's soul as to bring us gradually closer to that essential source from which all these musical compositions draw their kinship and to which they owe their inner unity.
Then it no longer seems strange that Silvestrov's Messenger (Der Bote) should sound as if it had come straight out of the 18th century and C.P.E. Bach's Fantasia should appear nearly the most modern piece in the programme (Cage's In a Landscape); that the gentle wistfulness of Glinka's Parting (La Séparation) and the almost Brahms-like bitterness of Chopin's Prelude Op. 45 should have as their perfect counterparts the aloofness and chaste restraint of the elegies by Liszt, Bartok and Debussy; that Mansurian's Nostalgia and Silvestrov's Elegy should point regretfully to the fact that even the radical changes that followed Webern have vanished in a nostalgic past; and that the most avant-garde composer of the 20th century - John Cage - should present us with a most delicate and poetic flower, a genuine East Indian lotus flower floating away on a sea of oblivion ... Oblivion? - There is no such thing as oblivion, Silvestrov says with his Messenger; it is enough to fling open a window, to strike a match, to look at a cloud, to hear a triad, for memories - not only ours but also those, unknown to us, of all these messengers - to start working a miracle.

Brad Mehldau - Live in Tokyo

I've been listening on and off to this treasured recording for almost a week. Likely it's one of my desert island discs. Having listened to it by now maybe hundreds of times, the music has seeped into my bones.  I remember very well how I stumbled into it whilst on holiday in Italy, five or six years ago. That whole week in the Marche got drenched in the tremendous artistry, energy and concentration of this formidable piano solo live concert. It may not be the most subtle piano playing around (in the sense that Shostakovich is likely not the most subtle symphonist around) but there is a no-holds-barred, joyful reverence for the sheer beauty of music that touches the heart. Nietzsche might have liked this kind of 'mediterranean' inspiration. It is the perfect blend of improvisational dash, wistful lyricism and hymnic exuberance that gets me enthralled every time again. I just love those rapturous, meditative, chiming chordal waves, those daring modulations in harmonic hyperspace, those complex contrapuntal textures (often including three separate lines) and also those fragile, sparse right hand musings. I have two versions of this recital: one featuring a selection only issued as a single CD, and another one (Japanese import) with the complete recital on a double CD. I almost always prefer the single CD version as the pacing and sequencing of the tracks is just perfect, starting from the disciplined but intriguing impro on Nick Drake's Things Behind The Sun, momentary settling down in Gershwin's Someone To Watch Over Me, onwards to the ever more dense and dazzling textures of Porter's From This Moment On and the riotious energy of Monk's Dream to culminate in the jaw-dropping, 20 minute long meditation on Radiohead's Paranoid Android. Then there is a lull, with Gershwin's sweet How Long Has This Been Going On?, only to launch into Drake's River Man as a rousing, exalted finale. What adds to the excitement too is the generous acoustics of Sumida Triphony Hall - with audience's intrusions adding to the atmosphere - that have been wonderfully captured, allegedly by a simple set of overhead microphones. It's a shame that Nonesuch seems to prefer a much drier and less involving sound for its other Mehldau recordings. For me, this is the provisional high point in Mehldau's output. I am curious to hear his next solo installment, but having heard his rather unfocused live concert earlier this year (in Hasselt) I am not hopeful it will upstage the Tokyo disc. Doesn't really matter. This one has brought me already so much pleasure, and will continue to do so for a long time.

Paolo Fresu 5ET - Incantamento

I'm getting behind with documenting my listening trajectory. During my stay in Stockholm I listened to just two discs on my Sony mp3 player. Easy listening fare, to chill a little bit after the rather strenuous thinking at the architecture school during the day. Incantamento is one disc in a series of five that Paolo Fresu and his quintet have been recording since 2005 for Blue Note, at the occasion of their 20-year existence (without changing their lineup!). Each of the titles is dedicated to original compositions of one the band members. In Incantamento saxophone player Tino Tracanna had a free hand. It's a beautifully crafted, suave recording featuring strong, but rather diffident compositions and superbly polished playing. Fresu himself is curiously reticent on this recording. It's all very enjoyable but maybe a little too polished for its own good. Most of these recording have already disappeared from the catalogue, I notice, but there is now a 2-disc collection that features the highlights from Fresu's Blue Note years (he is with ECM now).

The other audition was a rather less pleasurable experience. Jan Garbarek's In Praise of Dreams, an ECM production, brings together a star cast with Kim Kaskashian on viola and Manu Katché on drums. But musically it's a disappointing affair. Whilst the Fresu disc may not be very demanding either, there is the feeling of genuine musical invention. Here Garbarek leans a little too much to mindless new age schlock for comfort. I found this really getting on my nerves.

Berg - Wozzeck

On Tuesday I attended a sparsely attended performance of Berg's Wozzeck at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. It's a production that has been running for years. Naxos recorded it, with another cast and conductor, in 2001. Now it was Andreas Stoehr in the pit. Gabriel Suovanen sang the title role and Sara Olsson was Marie. Despite the rather dated concept, I found it a satisfying performance with strong voices and a refined orchestral contribution. Stoehr, a baroque specialist, projected the score in a very lyrical and transparant way. One hardly noticed that the music is atonal and supposed to be difficult. I didn't get that last ounce of atmosphere out of this performance, however. Maybe it was the rather empty hall, the severe ambiente of the Stockholm opera building or simply the fact of being preoccupied after a long day of work. I'm planning to return to Berg and the Second Viennese School once I am through with Bartok.

Ralph Towner & Paolo Fresu - Chiaroscuro

I (we) had 48 hours of almost non-stop engagements: 4 appointments on Friday, then friends based in Jerusalem visiting us on Friday evening and Saturday, other friends on Saturday evening. This morning I started with a sloshy run through the forest (met two deer!), then breakfast, doing the dishes and then I settled down for a while with a wary eye on the melting snow that fell from an ash-grey sky. Time to gather around a musical fireplace - listening couch snugly lined up in an equilateral triangle with the speakers - with a marvelously intimate and moody ECM disc.  

Chiaroscuro features Ralph Towner on guitars (classic, 12 string and baritone) and Paolo Fresu on trumpet and fluegelhorn in a series of mostly Towner's compositions. Fresu caught my ear several years ago on Ornella Vanoni's Sheherazade with his sensational, super-cultivated solos. Since I have collected several of his Blue Note recordings with his own quintet. It's great to see him join the ECM roster. Together with Enrico Rava and Tomasz Stanko they now have a superb lineup of brass players. It was Kris Duerinckx who introduced me to Ralph Towner via his 1978 album Batik (he wanted to draw my attention to JackDeJohnette's remarkable contribution to it). Since I added his Anthem to my collection but there is a whole series of ECM discs I have yet to discover.

Already the cover of this CD transports me back to that morning roughly 20 years ago when we were making our way to the Geisspfadpass on the Swiss-Italian border. We set off from Alpe Devero and headed to the northeast hitting the shores of the Lago di Devero by mid-morning. The sun reflected in dramatic chiaroscuro on the lake's surface. A timeless spectacle. It must have been a moment close to perfection as I can recall it so very vividly.

The music on this recording is wonderfully euphonious. Only a hint of improvisation. A tastefully placed dissonant here and there. But otherwise it's just an opportunity to indulge in a series of richly harmonised, almost romantic vignettes. The atmosphere is wistful and mysterious, darkly shaded by the lush timbre of the bariton guitar and the mellow fluegelhorn. Despite the music's accessibility, there is nothing 'easy' or new agey about it. This is superbly tasteful musicianship displayed in an unlikely but remarkable symbiosis of two very different voices. On the B&W 804s it just sounds gorgeous. You can hear the music between the notes. The disc's centerpiece is a track called 'Sacred Place'. The deep sensitivity and reverence that speaks from the music belies the rather grandiose kitschiness of the title. The chokingly beautiful theme is first elaborated by Towner solo in a very classic, restrained way. But every notes plumbs great melancholy depths. Later on there is shorter reprise in which the guitar is joined by Fresu's supremely polished and reflective fluegelhorn. It's just the kind of thing I needed today with that melting snow falling out of an ash-grey sky.

Bartok - The Miraculous Mandarin

The last couple of weeks I have had precious little time to listen to music. I have traveled abroad, mostly on short trips, leaving the Sony player at home.  And work days have been quite long with hardly any opportunity to switch off. So by last Sunday I started to feel quite starved of auditory input.

Meanwhile, I have been conducting this little experiment of keeping a listening diary for a while and my assessment of the experience is very positive. There is something paradoxical about the wish to spend more time documenting listening experiences when professional and other obligations leave so little time for relaxation. But maybe unconsciously it is exactly the lack of time and concomitant pressures that lead me to do this. When the going gets tough I need to replenish myself. Music in its most basic impact is energy. And through this diary I have clearly experienced how rewarding and nourishing it is to attend in a more disciplined way to the listening experience. Also I have the feeling now that I'm really 'in' the music of Bartok. It's not an issue of just 'liking' it anymore. Reading up on the music and life of Bartok has been very stimulating too. I'm certainly happy to have the Cambridge Companion at my disposal which is the most complete and thorough study available.

The only piece I have been able to really listen to is The Miraculous Mandarin. No, not true! Before I left on my trip to France, almost two weeks ago, I had sampled a movement from the Concerto for Orchestra, the 'Giuco delle coppie', by Fischer's Budapest Festival Orchestra. Right in the middle of that movement, after first round of five sections devoted to pairs of instruments (bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, muted trumpets) there is a wonderful chorale-like passage in the brass (tuba and trombone), childlike in its pentatonic naiveté. (From a 1959 Reclams Konzertführer I picked up in a second-hand bookshop: "Urplötzlich dann - über synkopischen Rhythmen des Schlagzeugs - in majestätisch harmonisiertem Blechsatz ein profunder Choral, ernst, klar, brucknerisch.") The BFO musicians play this most deeply-felt and beautifully. I have not been able to get that passage out of my head for almost a week.

The Mandarin, then. I am not finished with it yet. I listened to three different versions: the Fischer/BFO (Philips, 1997; for which they got a Gramophone Award), the Abbado/LSO (DGG, 1982) and the Dorati/BBC SO (Mercury Living Presence, 1964). All of them are most excellent. It would be hard to choose amongst them. Abbado offers the most brutal view (in a cold, biting sound), Fischer the most symphonic (in a transparant but pleasingly grainy sound) and Dorati the most graphically descriptive (in a very meaty analog recording). No doubt the pantomime is a tremendous piece of symphonic writing. But it is a work that is maybe easier to admire than to truly love. It has a unique form and aural signature. Even in Bartok's oeuvre I feel it stands apart. It offers an odd mixture of the urbane, the cartoonish, the primitive and the romantic. A hybrid of Tom and Jerry and Tristan, as it were. When I listen to it, I am thinking of Berg and Gershwin at the same time. To be continued.