Prokofiev - Piano Sonata nr. 7

Let's continue with the Prokofiev War Sonatas. First the legendary Pollini, on vinyl. I must admit not being a particular fan of this pianist. I mean, I don't dislike Pollini, but neither do I have a special relationship with him. I've never come across a recording which really bowled me over, as artists such as, for example, Kissin, Gilels or Benedetti Michelangeli have been able to. Maybe, as with singers, I just don't have the aural sensitivity to distinguish the very good from the stratospherically grand. So probably it's a heresy, but honestly I couldn't find much to like in this recording of the Seventh. It's fast, it's bone hard and left me completely cold. The dry LP sound just makes matters worse.

Over to the version I am most familiar with and which I really like: Yefim ('Fima') Bronfman's debut recital with the Seventh and Eighth sonatas, taped in 1990 for CBS. It's marginally slower without however losing its edge. The piano sound has more body and grain, which makes it just a much more cogent affair. The first movement is at times percussive and harsh, but its corners are rounded by its quizzicalness. The second movement starts dreamily but morphs into a solemn and mournful tocsin. Then the final, raucous toccata. Bronfman's reading strikes me as a layered, ambiguous but monumental statement, totally in the spirit of the times in which it was written. His reading of the Eighth Sonata is very successful too and really won me for this work. Arguably it's the greatest sonata of the trilogy.

Dutilleux - Piano Sonata/Keuris - Piano Sonata/Bartok - 4 Dirges/Franck: Prelude, Chorale and Fugue

Tonight a mixed piano recital with strong French connotations. The Dutilleux Sonate to start with. Dating from 1947, it's effectively his opus 1, written for and premiered by his spouse Geneviève Joy. It's modernistic, but accessible, with jazzy overtones (particularly in the first movement) and intimations of early Messiaen (in the impressionistic Lied). The final movement is a fine chorale and variations. Brian Ganz, who in 1991 won a third prize at the Elisabeth Competition, plays well enough but he his not helped by the Accord engineers who produced a very annoyingly boxy and lifeless sound for this recital. (At barely 40 minutes for the Sonata, the Preludes and the Resonances it's also a frightfully short disc).

The Keuris Sonata is a short piece (8') composed in 1970. I really can't find a sonata structure back in this jumble of disjointed and improvisatory themes and rhythms. Harmonically, though, it sits quite comfortably next to the Dutilleux. The reading by René Eckhardt (who is with Asko/Schönberg) manages to keep the attention throughout. An excellent recording it is too.

The Bartok Dirges (op 9a, from 1910) are curious pieces. Apparently based on Romanian mourning songs, they seem to have a lot of Debussy too. Alexei Lubimov plays one of the four pieces on his ECM recital "Der Bote". A beautifully evocative reading. I also listened to György Sandor's 1963 recording on the Vox label as part of a super-budget 5CD set. The transfers have not been terribly successful, with significant distortion and a rather boomy bass. But Sandor's conviction and artistry shines through, nevertheless.

Then onwards to Franck's Prelude, Chorale and Fugue (1884), a marvelous piece from the late romantic piano repertoire. I have a Nimbus recording of the late Cherkassky (recorded in 1987) in my collection. The purist single microphone recording technique makes for quite a shock after all the close miked stuff. It's very resonant and one has to concentrate to picture the piano in a large room to make the sound palatable. There seems also to be a muddying of the sound picture in the lower-mid frequencies. That being said, I love this reading of a grand piece which must have fitted the abilities of the ageing virtuoso hand in glove. I also listened to the chorale and fugue as played by Kissin who convincingly spans a broad canvas of almost imperial grandeur and devotional lyricism.

Prokofiev - Piano Sonata nr. 6

Spurred by the percussive firestorm unleashed by Helffer in his Bartok recital, I turned for a moment to one of my favourite sonatas, the Prokofiev Sixth. It's interesting to turn to this music after a rather prolonged diet of Bartok. Whilst the Prokofiev in its vehemence and occasional dissonance is not exactly easy listening, it struck me as quite digestible fare. I had a similar, stronger feeling when, a few years ago, I switched from Bach's keyboard works to Shostakovich symphonies. Suddenly these sounded like child's play!

It's obvious that Bartok put higher demands on the listener than Prokofiev. Bartok's music is so dense and absolute that it requires full attention to grasp it. And one cannot. Which is why it takes me so long to explore this body of work. And why I have the impression of a deepening mystery the more I listen. It's almost paradoxical how Bartok's folk-based inspiration meshes with an aura of almost jewel-like precision and absoluteness. Whilst Prokofiev's indulgence with an abstract form such as the sonata merely seems to disguise a musical temperament that is quintessentially dramatic and most convincingly flowered in film music, ballets and operas.

That being said, the three War Sonatas are a splendid body of work and I marvel at the amazing bout of inspiration that brought him to write these sonatas all at the same time in these stormy days of 1939. The reference to war, however, is not totally justified as Russia at that point was still not in conflict. But it was a tumultuous period, for sure, with Stalin's iron brooms causing untold suffering. Meyerhold was arrested in the very days when Prokofiev was working on the sonatas, and was shot a few months later, in 1940. However, as with Shostakovich it is impossible to tell to what extent the sonatas reflect Prokofiev's despair with the dramatic situation in Soviet society in those days.

The Sixth Sonata doesn't strike me as a particularly tragic work. The two middle movements - Allegretto and Tempo di valzer lentissimo - remind me of Lt. Kije and Romeo & Juliette, respectively. The first movement is, admittedly, martial, but the finale is mischievous rather than rebellious. At least that's how it strikes me when listening to two of the versions in my collection. The Pogorelich is a justly famous recording, and I have always loved it for its panther-like leanness, its brittleness and uncompromising clarity. But the early digital sound is dated and a little monochrome on the ears. Maybe the remastered version in the The Originals is better. Another great interpretation comes on the debut-disc of the Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski (taped in 2001). It's very different from the Pogorelich. Maybe because Trpceski included it in a recital with other ballet scores - a transcription of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker and Stravinsky's Petrouchka - the Sixth sounds here a good deal lusher and more colourful. The impression is reinforced by the wonderful, rich sound of his instrument recorded in Potton Hall (which we have come to appreciate from the Belcea Quartet's recordings). But the reading is about more than only colour. Trpceski certainly has the measure of the larger structure.

The Sixth also featured on another debut recording, from the late 1960s, by the Brazilian pianist Roberto Szidon. (What happened to him? Judging from a few thumbnail pictures floating around on the web, he has put on a lot of weight). I only listened to the finale, which sounded Richter-like in its clenched-teeth concentration. But the record is in dire need of a KM treatment, so I'll revisit when I have it back from cleaning.

What is missing of course is a genuine Richter Sixth. There are some amazing tapes on the internet, but I wouldn't know where to find them in the record catalogues. Maybe JD will be able to help out here?

Bartok - Piano Works

I returned to the Bartok recital by Claude Helffer. My first impression was confirmed. It's a fabulous recording, and likely the most compelling survey of key Bartok piano works I've come across. Helffer certainly trumps Perahia who seems to play all the notes but stays aloof to the spirit of these magnificently earthy works. The glassy digital sound doesn't help either. Kocsis puts some amazing pyrotechnics on display, and he is well recorded by the Philips crew, but his youthful exuberance leads him to gloss over some of the darker shadings. Helffer plays with a lot of panache too. There is tremendous energy and fire in the music's percussive outbursts. But everything remains impeccably controlled and clearly contoured. His colouristic palette is richer than either of his colleagues, particularly towards the more somber end of the spectrum. The piano sounds more grainy and less generic than in Kocsis' recordings.

The recital is superbly paced, chronologically sequenced and contains key milestones in Bartok's pianistic output. At 49' duration it is great pity it was not possible to add the early Bagatelles or at least the Three Studies from 1918. Anyway, it starts out with the set of Popular Romanian Dances (1915) fresh as dew. The short Suite (1916) gives already an inkling of the darker powers that will be unleashed later in the program. Helffer makes a tremendous case for the Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs from 1920. This is the time of the Mandarin, and you can hear it. I must say this is a collection that up to now I had overlooked but after hearing it from Helffer's hands I dug into the Bartok Companion to which Paul Wilson contributes an interesting essay on the pivotal role of these short pieces in the process of Bartok's compositional maturation. Out of doors strikes with full force in a savage, lugubrious reading. The Sonata (1926) is if anything even more impressive in the percussive wildness of the allegros. In the eery, rythmically and harmonically unsettling middle movement one can hear indeed how this was distilled from the even more experimental Sostenuto rubato (dedicated to the memory of Debussy) from the Improvisations.

Bartok - String Quartet nr. 3

I've been listening another few times to Bartok's Third Quartet. I must have heard it at least 30 times since I started to dig seriously into the quartets. It's a wonderful piece. Amazingly dense and varied, and explosive in its energy, like a musical cluster bomb. And given the variety of moods and its position as a stylistic hinge between the earlier, more romantic work and the dark expressionism of the mid-twenties, it is a good reference to gauge how ensembles tackle these quartets.

I have now two additional complete sets of the quartets in my collection: a re-issue on the Newton label of the recordings with the Hagen Quartet on DGG (1995, 1998). And the celebrated Takacs Quartet on Decca. They both make for quite compelling listening. It seems to me now that quartets position themselves along two key variables vis-à-vis this body of work: either they opt for a neo-classical vs a folk-dominated approach, and they adopt an international style vs a more Hungarian sounding idiom. The two dimensions seem to correlate, and they effectively might, but at this point I'm not so sure so I keep them separate.

Clearly, the Takacs occupy one end of the spectrum. Their approach is very visceral, agressive even, stressing the gypsy-elements in the music, at the expense at times of clarity of line. The Hagens are at the other end with their very finely etched, cosmopolitan, even intellectualised sound. The Belcea are somewhere in between. I think they provide a very modern reading, not at all rustic, but it's very dynamic and does not shirk from the music's folksy roots. The Keller Quartet has a strong Hungarian pedigree but they adopt a more restrained, neo-classical approach. I still wonder whether it works. The Vegh, finally,  are admirably earthbound: the epitome of Hungarianness. But stylistically they hover somewhere between a strong folk-dominated approach and a more balanced classical approach. I can't say much about the Juilliard, as their 1981 digital recording which I have been listening to is hardly their best effort. But I believe they side more with the Hagen Quartet.

I'm not sure whether the above makes at all sense, but it helps me to navigate this fascinating terrain. There is still a long way to go before I will have surveyed all six quartets.

Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra/Brahms - Symphony nr. 4

I was terribly lucky to end up at the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern just when the Lucerne Easter Festival was in full swing. The building itself is a monumental, pharaonic contraption by Jean Nouvel which I didn't like at all. But there is an awful lot of good music on offer. I was thrilled to see that just that afternoon Bernard Haitink was concluding a 3-day masterclass with a bunch of young conductors. So I bought a 30 Sfr ticket and sat in for the final 2-hour session. The orchestra was the resident Lucerne Festival Strings and guests, working through Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Brahms' Fourth Symphony.

It was a sensation to sit on the first row, just a couple of meters from Haitink and the conducting rostrum. It is difficult for me to judge to what extent these kinds of coaching sessions reflect the genuine work of a conductor. Or what stage of the work it represents. From what I experienced there it is a surprisingly mundane business. First and foremost it is about keeping the orchestra together. That's partly a technical business ("do I beat this in two or in four?") and partly a communicative challenge. The latter has less to do with words then with an authoritative and clear body language and stick technique. One of the aspiring conductors held his left hand continuously limp which led Haitink to remark that he created a distance between himself and the orchestra, as a result of which the musicians played too cautiously. Others failed even to give a clear downbeat. The kind of downbeat - energetic or soft - communicated to the orchestra how they should attack the music. All of this seemed to be fairly elementary stuff to me, which didn't even start to come near something we could call a genuine interpretation of the piece. I've heard before that orchestras bristle at conductors who lecture too much, but in this session the communicative bandwith between orchestra and conductor was truly minimal. None of the participants to the masterclass explained their intentions. They just started to beat and numbly tried to incorporate Haitink's suggestions. Only once Haitink himself extemporised a little about the biographical circumstances in which Bartok wrote the Concerto in order to frame the bittersweet character of its Intermezzo interrotto.

So I wonder now whether it is possible to really come to the kind of otherworldly interpretation that Ivan Fischer and his BFO have recorded of this piece. There every detail seems to have thought through, and polished, without forgetting about the macro-structure. Or was this just a process of establishing a connection between conductor and orchestra and putting in place a foundation of what might later flower into something truly creative?

Truth be told, the level of the participating young conductors significantly differed. Two of the four would, I think, never make it into a genuine conductor. The two others seemed to have much more experience and flair in dealing with the orchestra (one of them, the American Joe Tafton, is pictured above).

All in all it was a very enjoyable and unique experience which gave me plenty of food for thought.

Radiohead - The Bends/In Rainbows/Amnesiac

I just returned from a wonderful study trip visiting urbanistic and architectural projects in the wealthy heart of Europe. Start of the journey was the Luxemburg Kirchberg plateau, with the new Philharmonie by De Portzamparc and the Musée d'Art Moderne by Pei. Then onwards to Karlsruhe, Zürich, Luzern, Basel, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Nancy to finish at the new, extravagant Centre Pompidou by Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines. All in all a wonderful sequence of public spaces, housing projects, light rail infrastructures, bridges, places of worship and museums, spanning Bauhaus to the present day. The journey was made extra pleasant by a spell of unbelievably balmy weather, a friendly and multicultural group of passionate students and a very smooth ride through serene, spring-blessed landscapes.

Musically I gravitated to a kind of easy listening that felt naturally in tune with the nomadic, ever-shifting perspectives of the journey. Radiohead's The Bends (1995) is a wonderful album, exuding a kind of raw, grungy power at first hearing that gives way to a quite rapturous lyricism after some sustained listening. There is not a weak track in the whole album. But I have a special affection for the title track, Fake Plastic Trees, Nice Dream and Sulk.

I came fairly late to Radiohead, somewhere in the late Nineties, with OK Computer. At that time it was immediately obvious that it was in some way a defining sound - adventurous and clever, but not at all gimmicky  - and ever since they have been for me the yardstick against which I measure anything potentially worthwhile that surfaces in pop music. The Bends I discovered much later, just a few years ago. As often I had convinced myself that anything that came before my entry point in their trajectory was likely not worthwhile. But I'm glad I caught up as this is certainly one of the best things they have done so far. The album in no way shows its age. Later they evolved to a drier, more stylised, techno-inspired sound (which they seem to have extrapolated in their latest King of Limbs, of which I heard only snippets on YouTube). This is also interesting but requires a different frame of mind.

I also spent some time with two other albums. In Rainbows (2007) and Amnesiac (2001). The latter left me oddly unaffected but the predecessor to King of Limbs continues to be a great, intriguing piece.

Bartok - Piano Works

A parting shot before I'm leaving on a 10-day study trip devoted to urbanistic projects in Switzerland and surroundings. I picked up this CD quite unsuspectingly. The name Claude Helffer rang only the dimmest of bells. But given how hard it is to find really satisfactory Bartok piano recordings I thought it was worth taking the chance. Well, after a first, cursory hearing this sounds like a genuine winner. Helffer, a champion of avant garde music, was 60 when he recorded this stellar program with some of Bartok's most intimidating works for the keyboard. He sounds supremely confident in this music. The playing is gutsy and muscular, dark and full of malice. It reminds me of some of Liszt's 'diabolical' pieces. The 1982 recording is splendid, with a full-bodied, earthy but lean piano tone. I look forward to listening more carefully to this recital upon my return. I have the Belcea's quartets on my Sony mp3-player. I suppose that will keep me busy.

Bartok - Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion

I've finally started to approach of what is billed as one of Bartok's most masterful compositions: the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937). It's a work that I do not know well at all. I listened to it a couple of times a long time ago. As it struck me then as intimidatingly sparse and angular, I didn't return to it until now.

I have four recordings in my collection: Perahia/Solti with David Corkhill and Evelyne Glennie; Argerich/Kovacevich with Willy Goudswaard and Michael De Roo; Frid/Ponse with members of the LSO and conducted by Antal Dorati. These three are on CD. Then there is Ranki/Kocsis with Ferenc Petz and Jozsef Marton on an Hungaroton LP.

I have listened to them all, most intensely to the Argerich/Kovacevich. It seems this is the recording that has most to offer. The CD transfer of the analogue recording (1977) is very good and the interpretation has reference qualities. Switching to the Perahia/Solti immediately afterwards is like a cold shower. I've commented on the sterility of the CD transfer in a previous post. It's really lethal, whatever the qualities this quartet of musicians brings to bear. The Mercury Presence recording, part of the Dorati set, is really very good. I need to listen to it more closely. Finally, the Hungaroton recording with Ranki and Kocsis is not to be discounted. It's a very tempestuous reading, which is not surprising given the youthfulness of the interpreters (there's no recording date, but judging from the pictures in the lavishly produced booklet Kocsis can't have been much older than 20). The recording is rather bright, with the pianos a little recessed. But the percussion sounds livelier than on any of the CDs.

I'm going to take my time with this. Interestingly, the music doesn't strike me as harsh or severe. It's eminently approachable. I must have assimilated some of Bartok's idiom in this exploration. But on the other hand, something in this whole endeavour is driving me crazy. Contrary to, say, Mahler or Beethoven with whom you can develop a certain familiarity as a result of a lot of listening, Bartok remains a very elusive composer. It's not only the complexity of the music (of which I only have faint intimations). There is something unfathomable about both the music and the personality behind it. The more I listen, the weirder it gets.

Dutilleux- String Quartet 'Ainsi la Nuit'

I have had the debut disc of the Belcea Quartet in my collection since when it first came out ten years ago. It won a Gramophone Award at the time. My infatuation with their fascinating rendering of the Bartok quartets, however, led me to dig it out again. It's a collection that we now see quite often in the catalogue: two French, well-loved early modernist quartets complemented by the more ascerbic Dutilleux. I chose the latter for an audition as I'm generally quite fond of Dutilleux' very lush and colourful orchestral works but I hardly knew his quartet. On paper, being composed of 12 short movements and interludes, it looks episodic. And two auditions lead me to believe it also sounds that way. It's not easy get a grasp on the musical proceedings. Sure, it reminds me to a certain extent of Bartok's Night's Music in Out of Doors, with the incessant buzz and flittering of noctural animal life. And I'm quite sure there are additional correspondences between the two masters, interested as Dutilleux is in reflecting the organismic working of memory in his music. I've read his early Piano Sonata (his op. 1, from1948) bears distinctive Bartokian fingerprints. But apart from the noctural mood the kinship is difficult to trace in this quartet. To be honest, I didn't get a lot out of it, despite the Belcea playing it with conviction enough. The recording has been made in Potton Hall - in Suffolk, close to Aldeburgh - where also the Bartok quartets have been taped. But the older recording suffers from a typical, glassy digital sheen. Fortunately, the Bartoks are much more natural sounding.

Bartok: Piano Works/Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements

I wanted to re-explore some other works by mid-career Bartok. 
This album represents one of the very few forays of Murray Perahia in 20th century repertoire. It could have potentially been a great disc but the spoiler here is the close-miked recording and an inadequate remastering of the original tapes (via Sony's DSD system, whatever that may be).The earliest recordings (the Sonata (1926)) date from 1973, shortly after Perahia's first prize at the Leeds piano competition. They sound dated, boxy and clangy at the same time. It doesn't get better as the program progresses with the simpler Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs (1920). The cheap, metallic sheen over the piano sound distracts and is curiously at odds with the rustic ambience of the music. Is that what keeps me from being convinced by what sounds otherwise as quite exceptional piano playing? Recordingwise the short and pugnacious Suite (1916) fares slightly better. One is reminded immediately of the Wooden Prince's sound world. Out of Doors is spectacular in a way. The Drums and Pipes sound like Blitzkrieg. The Chase is equally brutal. In the Barcarolla and the Night's Music Perahia's control and sense of colour is in evidence. But again, the muffled quality of the sound on the one hand, and the metallic, wobbly harmonics significantly compromise the listening pleasure. The CD is complemented with a Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion where Perahia is joined by Georg Solti on another keyboard. I will keep that for later.

After the Bartok I felt like listening to a good old LP. I reverted to the Stravinsky album I discovered a few months ago: Silvestri conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in the Symphony in Three Movements. What a relief! With the listening seat positioned in an equilateral triangle with the speakers, one has a wonderful sense of space with the orchestra occupying the full width of the room and instrument groups nicely terraced towards the back. And the liveliness and vivacity of the sound! This is so much better than all of this multi-channel and surround bogus. Gosh, what a hoax. A stellar recording and performance this is. Muscular in the opening movement and surprisingly playful and tender in the central, classicist slow movement. The finale mixes a little of both. I used to prefer the Symphony in C over the one in three movements, but I have the impression that this is changing.

Bartok - String Quartet nr. 4

I continued with the Fourth Quartet in the 1981 performance of the Juilliard Quartet, which I didn't like at all. It sounds dry and disjointed. I don't think I'll spend more time with this set as it is so disappointing. Then the 1970s Vegh recording, which is a good deal better. As in the Third, the Vegh strike me as robust, earthy and very authoritative. But I must say I still prefer the pyrotechnics of the Belcea (say "Beltsja"), which really make the most of this quartet. I listened again to their version as well and it is a thrilling performance, savage at times but without roughing the beauty of the melodic lines (when they're there). I already look forward to their take on the late quartets.

Bartok - String Quartet nr. 4

I dived back into Bartok's universe with his Fourth Quartet. After all the easily digestible stuff: what a meaty piece of music this is! It's Bartok at his most uncompromisingly modernist. But just as I love the jagged Third Quartet I find this an unbelievable rich musical adventure.

This is likely the Bartok I love most. The lush and opulent romanticism of his early work and the poised neo-classicism of his final years is attractive enough. But the work of the mid-to-late 1920s - (the Sonata, Out of Doors, First and Second Piano Concertos, Third and Fourth Quartets, and I'd also like to include the slightly earlier Dance Suite) stands apart in its volcanic energy, textural sophistication, architectural originality and emotional complexity.

The Fourth Quartet packs quite a punch in its 21 minutes. Striking is, of course, the rigorously symmetrical groundplan, radiating out from another of Bartok's eerie night musics. The central Non troppo lento strongly reminds us of the ghostly slow movement in Out of Doors, which in itself is a locus classicus of musical modernism. There is nothing straightforward in this quartet but the outer movements come across as particularly challenging. There is no way I can start to make sense of Eliott Antokoletz's detailed discussion of the Fourth Quartet in the Bartok Companion (he wrote his PhD thesis on this very work back in 1975) but what I seem to understand is that in this composition Bartok has been able to creatively merge elements of conventional tonality and meta-tonality, of chromaticism and diatonicism, of folk music and art music, of organic development and classical balanced forms. It's a significant departure from the thematic-motivic construction of traditional sonata form,but not as disruptive as the wholesale move to serialism. It's a creative and idiosyncratic fusion that only Bartok has been able to achieve.

I have been listening to two versions of the Fourth Quartet: first the Kellers which confirmed the impression I had from listening to the Third Quartet, namely a rewarding reading but at times strangely vaccilating or hesitant, and captured in a lacklustre recording. The Belcea Quartet offers tremendous excitement. Again, as in the Third, it's an stupefyingly virtuosic and kinetic rendering, with a palpable sense of playing at the knife's edge. But unlike the Emersons, for example, I find the result never harsh or overblown and always musical (I don't have the recording with the Zehetmair on ECM but judging from what I hear on Youtube it sounds like a brutal performance, and over the top). And the Belcea's EMI recording is truly first class. I'd like to listen to a few other versions - Vegh II and Juiliard II - before I move on.

Britten - Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Peter Grimes

Whilst at my parents' place last week, I listened to a few things that my father wanted to demo me. I am afraid that we are on very different wavelengths when it comes to appreciating the technical quality of sound recordings. For me the reference in audio is a really good LP. Whatever the technical measurements may say, there is nothing that beats this in terms of listening involvement and naturalness. My father has always been interested in the latest trends (and fads) and has jumped firmly on the bandwagon of SACD, Blu Ray Audio, DTS, and whatever other formats are cropping up as specifically targeted to the audiophile listener. I remain firmly unconvinced. Whilst at times embedded in a pleasing aural perspective, the music comes across anemic, synthetic and utterly devoid of life. Even dynamics sound compressed. So there was little to enjoy in this version of Britten's atmospheric interludes from his Peter Grimes. I look forward now to reconnecting with my exploration of Bartok.

Elbow - Build a Rocket Boys!/Jonsi - Go/Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway

As I am moving in another register, here is a roundup of some of the pop music I have been listening to the last two weeks. Highlight was certainly the new Elbow album which I enjoyed very much. Stylistically, it's totally in the mould of previous albums but it comes with a distinctive, subdued atmosphere. There are few uptempo tracks and the rather frequent use of a backing choir gives the album an aura of mournful solidarity. Guy Garvey's grainy voice lends the music a beguiling earthbound quality. Beautiful lyrics too, that actually mean something. And what I like a lot is that these guys take their time. The opening track - The Birds - takes a full eight minutes to unfold. There's a touching reprise of this song in a simple arrangement with the voice of a senescent piano tuner (John Moseley) against the background of a humming choir. I guess this is the kind of album that takes time to mature. So it promises a lot of easy going listening pleasure.

Two other discs: Jonsi is Sigur Ros' frontman. A couple of weeks ago I listened to his ambient project Riceboy Sleeps, co-authored with his partner Alex Summer. Now Go (2010) is a solo endeavour. Not a bad album at all. Featherlight as pop comes, but with that distinctive, poetic Sigur Rosian flavour which I continue to enjoy. And admittedly the guy has a distinctive voice ...

Less enjoyable, in a way, was Sun Kil Moon's Ghosts (2003). No doubt it is a boon for amateurs of the Neil Young-like folk rock genre, but that's simply not my thing. So despite the intriguing, nasal soliloquys delivered by Mark Koselek on various boxers it failed to captivate me (the band itself was named after a Korean lightweight).