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42 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

That's very lovely. Possibly a bit sweet for me? I like a bit more dissonance in my choral pieces. I like a lot of Eric Whitacre's stuff. This knocks my socks off:

 

Ravel is the composer most able to make me burst into tears for no reason I can fathom. Bitter, melancholy joy.

Do you know his piano trio in A minor? The opening is so tender, it's like cradling a new born baby in your arms.

 

Love lots of Voces8 stuff. And that link is haunting. Their cover of Radiohead's Pyramid Song and Britten's Hymn to the Virgin are other favourites. The latter maybe a bit more edgy and more your taste (agree Beatus Vir is sweet).

For proper dissonance have you listened to any Harrison Birtwhistle?

(Listening to A minor Ravel now)

Edited by sonyc

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17 hours ago, sonyc said:

Love lots of Voces8 stuff. And that link is haunting. Their cover of Radiohead's Pyramid Song and Britten's Hymn to the Virgin are other favourites. The latter maybe a bit more edgy and more your taste (agree Beatus Vir is sweet).

For proper dissonance have you listened to any Harrison Birtwhistle?

(Listening to A minor Ravel now)

I'll try those, thanks. Birtwhistle, Maxwell-Davis, Boulez, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg ... they're all capable of some breathtakingly music, but for me a lot of their stuff  tips over into self -parody. Things like Verklarte Nacht are gorgeous though.

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Cheers. Will listen to that later tonight (gateway had made an appearance for me for the last 12 hours or so).

Your suggestions Ron O have been really good and it's given me an idea to take this thread a bit further.

I might post 4 or 5 daily pieces (from YouTube) of all kinds of music (as eclectic as possible) and maybe someone will like 1 (or 2 of them?) ... a chance anyway to discover new stuff to explore. Might be a bit self-indulgent but if others feel like doing the same we could build quite a 'library' of music ideas that can sustain us and expand our minds over the next 3 months?.... because it is looking like lockdown will be continued for that period reading today's news.

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2 hours ago, sonyc said:

Cheers. Will listen to that later tonight (gateway had made an appearance for me for the last 12 hours or so).

Your suggestions Ron O have been really good and it's given me an idea to take this thread a bit further.

I might post 4 or 5 daily pieces (from YouTube) of all kinds of music (as eclectic as possible) and maybe someone will like 1 (or 2 of them?) ... a chance anyway to discover new stuff to explore. Might be a bit self-indulgent but if others feel like doing the same we could build quite a 'library' of music ideas that can sustain us and expand our minds over the next 3 months?.... because it is looking like lockdown will be continued for that period reading today's news.

Something we have done on another forum for a few years (and I suspect we borrowed the idea from elsewhere, so it may not be a new idea to people here) is to make a mix of music, strip the data off it, and share it with someone else 

They then review the music "blind", unless they recognize any of it

Someone volunteers to run the operation, everyone sends their mix to the organizer, who distributes them around. No one knows who has compiled the mix they are listening to, unless they can guess. Great way to find new music  but I'm not so sure it would work as well here, tastes in music might be too  disparate 

I'm currently running one on The Fall Online Forum 

EDIT - Once someone has published their review, the compiler reveals the song and artist, and any other information they might think the listener is interested in. 

The reviewer usually states their favourite song, and a "best of" is compiled 

Edited by How I Wrote Elastic Man
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8 hours ago, sonyc said:

Cheers. Will listen to that later tonight (gateway had made an appearance for me for the last 12 hours or so).

Your suggestions Ron O have been really good and it's given me an idea to take this thread a bit further.

I might post 4 or 5 daily pieces (from YouTube) of all kinds of music (as eclectic as possible) and maybe someone will like 1 (or 2 of them?) ... a chance anyway to discover new stuff to explore. Might be a bit self-indulgent but if others feel like doing the same we could build quite a 'library' of music ideas that can sustain us and expand our minds over the next 3 months?.... because it is looking like lockdown will be continued for that period reading today's news.

Excellent idea sonyc. I love discovering music of all kinds. I find it almost impossible to predict beforehand what I will or won't like; I detest Country & Western music for example, but then Dolly Parton's Jolene really moves me. I think nearly anything honest, where the artist is trying to communicate something they genuinely feel (apart, perhaps, from self pity!) will appeal to me. There are bits of music in almost every genre which I like - & others I can't stand.

It's always important to realise music is such a personal thing. Many years ago I came to understand that there isn't any right or wrong in music, it's almost as if we hear different things. I can't stand 99% of opera ( or jazz) come to that, & I know that a similar proportion of people I like & respect won't share my near obsession with P J Harvey (up to LES anyway!). So as long as we can agree not to offend or be offended it seems like a good idea to me!

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Thanks Ron and Hairy (on my list later this evening).

I agree Ron that this is difficult / problematic because music is indeed so personal. You can rarely listen at home and expect others to want to listen too so it must be via headphones.

I reckon I'm guilty of a certain conceit too in thinking my tastes ought to be what everyone should like. 

That said, with the qualification that any shared stuff is an honest and open offer, with the central idea of a diverse menu ...then who knows, out of four music pieces shared we might  really like one and can then explore a new artist. Now, whilst I think my interests are eclectic, I'm aware that in my shares there will be broad groupings and styles ...an example being I'm also just not an opera fan, nor country and western. Yet I will listen to anything peoole offer just to try and be as open-minded as possible.

If we were to get even three or four posters sharing then even in a week (@ say 4 links per daily post max e.g. via YouTube to allow listeners to look at other tracks by the same performers on a common accessible platform) then that would equate to around 100 pieces every week.

I will post  later in the day and my 'mixtape' will be drawn as broadly as possible. Really happy to listen to others' offerings, likewise any brief pointers about their choices (I think for me this gives me a context too which adds to my interest). Ron, your sentences after your suggested content provide a good example. Even a date is interesting (e.g. "you'd never guess this is from 1978").

@Elastic Man, I will be giving your idea a look too (may have missed the first deadline).

 

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4 very different pieces attached starting with German pianist Hauschka, then more upbeat former Liverpool-based "It's Immaterial" with a less known track, then Bristol's Spindle Ensemble and rounding off with some contemplative Estonian music (Maarja Nuut). 4 more tomorrow. 🙂.

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Sodding gateway!! 

Anyway, brilliant stuff Sony. I actually detected a theme running through these pieces? Something to do with the tempi? The way they all flowed organically? Very soothing & gentle - healing type music you might call it. Calming stuff for these worrying times.

I really don't know where to start (Britten's Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra is playing now -should I start with that?).

I've come up with 4 pieces that develop; classical pieces always do, of course, but pop music ... not so much.

Anyway, the first is one of the few pieces of disco music I've ever really liked. Starting with a harp made my ears **** up, & by the finish it was quite something else. It's a bit of fun & nostalgia for my long, long lost youth.

The second is just rapturous. It starts like a train journey through the English countryside, becomes a paean to all of humanity& ends in a state of ecstasy that can leave me in tears .

The third is sooo quiet. Starts off with Noggin The Nog reimagined by Stravinsky, then paints pictures hovering on the edge of consciousness before fading from view altogether.

The last is just bonkers. Starts off like the worst Country & Western song evvver, then disappears into a Persian market & ends up as a song of longing. The image of Mr. Ferry growing potatoes by the score never fails to amuse me either. Anyway

 

BTW I've got that LP cover opened out & framed. On my wall. My bedroom wall.

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Thanks Ron. I enjoyed all of those. Disco is a left field choice but I found myself liking a Donna Summer live performance of Hot Stuff on Twitter recently....you often find a great bass line on disco songs.

Tippett is now on my playlist. Shifting, complex and imaginative composing. Not heard that before. (I've included a Ruth Gipps concerto in my list today that might have a similar vibe, such is the emotional piano and composition. Amazing that she seems never to have hit the public consciousness with only rare plays on R3 for example).

And I made a quiet "Ah" noise to myself in hearing Mark Hollis's voice (RIP), which never disappoints. He always seems to be trying to attain something.

Early Roxy Music is a sound choice too, fun, inventive but so often Ferry manages to produce a kind of underlying sadness through his voice. Yet, like Mark Hollis, the effect is ennobling somehow.

And I was taken back to my NME reading days with your "Noggin the Nog re-imagined by Stravinsky" as something Nick Kent would have written. 

Hell, where do you start in curating music. It's not like any one piece on its own is better than another? I would include my all time favourite Serenade by Stenhammar but at nearly 40 minutes that feels too long here but something you could look at (if you didn't know it already). Like your Tippett train journey, Serenade makes me feel as if I'm a bird flying through a dense Swedish forest and encountering glades and wells of light and colour as the canopy thins.

 

My chosen four though include said Gipps at number 2 (at c.24 minutes which is long for a clip but ...). Louise Attaque starts it off with a philosophical lyric line suitable for today's narrative. It's quiet metronomic beat and Moorish flourishes provide a lightness and optimism. The French language here adds to it. Fittingly, third is Piano Trio and provides the beautiful ruminative piece and I end with Oliver Nelson which is just jazz at its most velvety. It could fit into anyone's life and has a quality about it that makes you wonder if you've heard it before (even though it's from the mid 60s I believe). I reckon that's a  sign of a decent track.

 

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Cheers sonyc. Gipps is a composer I've made a note of to listen to. Very impressed by her. Obviously influenced by VW et al but found her own distinctive voice, & it's one I like. Higdon I'd never heard of before; that was beautiful & I shall look for more. Again, I can hear echoes (Ravel for me) but that's inevitable - nothing comes of nothing.

Stenhammar I don't think I've heard of, but sounds interesting. I'll look him up.

I liked the Oliver Nelson piece. Mmmm ...nice  🙂 I don't mind a bit of jazz when it's laid back like that, it's when it's pure showing off : " listen to how many notes i can squeeze into this bar! Aren't I clever?" type stuff turns me off. it's about communicating something, not demonstrating your amazing musicianship. Anyway that's how it works for me.

I think above all I want music to move me. This often means I like music I don't, er, 'like'. The main thing is the composer or musician has to mean it. Richard Thompson certainly seems to feel he's been on the wrong end of a romantic relationship in the first one. Bitter or what. Love it.

Shostakovitch is right up there for me. If ever I felt another brain speaking to my brain it's in his music. Have I told my you machine code theory of music? I've put this one in because it demonstrates his range of emotional language in a fairly short piece. So much humour, tenderness, love, & sheer madness. I've seen the pianist live as well - the piano seemed to grow out of his head via his fingers. Utterly ****ing unbelievable.

I've always loved VW's oboe concerto, then one day a thought occurred to me that made me cry like a baby. It's the relationship between the oboe & orchestra. I'm tearing up as i think of it.

Finally a bit of punk. I love the violence. It's the violence of youthful energy - it's not evil, it's exuberant, just wants to thrash around." Energy is Eternal Delight" wrote Blake; "Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy"

 

Edited by ron obvious
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Ron, that's some curation, sitting VW next to The Damned like some malevolent wedding meal planner ...."see how you two get on".

VW is my favourite piece, the oboe is lovely and the English countryside is a great video backdrop. Not listened to much Richard Thompson and enjoyed his guitar work, like the best solo pieces it serves to amplify his words. Shostakovich is just mad! Again, very interesting but needs more listens so I can pick up on the subleties. Sometimes a piece needs repeated listens which is counter-intuitive of course (because we like to respond immediately ...like / dislike). Thank you. More music to explore. 

Your oboe piece has made me change my selection today (like a poker game, to raise you one). This one is light and starts off the four. I've followed with an Andy Partridge song but by Fassine. Love these lyrics and whilst the original XTC track is arguably better with the guitar solo I wanted to offer a cover version. Walter Leigh's work is unusual featuring  a harpsichord! (Must admit not my favourite instrument) but this is lovely and grows on you the longer you listen with repeated themes. Like VW and Gipps I reckon Leigh is of the late Romantic classical movement. It sweeps along. It makes me happy. And I end with an oddity by Anthony More (a very curious songwriter). First heard this in about 1981 when I was in a band and the bass player used to play this through his loud music system in his van driving to gigs. It has a musical kind of chorus (kind of mockney accents!). Hope you enjoy.

Maybe other posters might add their selections as the days go on? 

 

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Walter Leigh! My God!

I fell in love with that piece years ago. It was when the net was really slow. I read about him & discovered he'd been killed (friendly fire?) at Tobruk.

As the information downloaded, a picture of him slowly appeared at the top. I can't seem to find it now. he was looking straight at camera with this gently amused, quizzical expression on his face. For no reason I can explain i burst into tears - something I'm prone to doing around music (amongst many other things - not The Antiques Roadshow though, unlike Mr. Balls). It was the way his face slowly revealed I think plus the beauty of his music - light, in the best possible way; understated, unpretentious, gracious, fundamentally kind.

The Marcello piece was inevitably gorgeous. I believe in democracy absolutely & totally, but the baroque idea of musical heaven is hard to refute & I doubt we'll ever produce something quite with so unified a vision again.

But then ... we'd never get pieces like your second & fourth, which expressed a different emotional palate, a part of being human which the first simply couldn't do, despite it's loveliness. I've never heard those artists before & will certainly give them a go.

I'm going to take a trip down memory lane later & post some of my first music I remember, going back to when I was about 5. I still love them today, so hopefully they won't be too embarrassing!

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Sod it, might as well do it now.

First is definitely the first. Listen with mother (Home Service I think, c.1955). Living in London. I remember looking up through a tall window, past the house next door, into a deep blue sky ...

Second very soon after. Billy Bunter on the telly (8" screen) performed live, so as they changed sets they'd focus on a school chair with a blackboard propped on it saying "Back Soon" while they bashed about in the background. And played the first minute or two of this music. Exciting!

Third a few tears later I think. No idea where I heard it. Love the slightly offbeat triumphalism of it; reminds me a bit of Dukas' fanfare from La Peri in that respect.

Last I heard when I was about 10 or 11. Frightened the living cr&p out of me. Emotionally steamrollered me. The Planets is still the most amazing suite ever written

BTW, re Shostakovich piano concerto, did you manage to listen to the 2nd movement? It's as beautiful as the first & last movements are bonkers!

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Great. That's my night time listening sorted Ron.

Chuffed you liked Walter Leigh! That piece grows on you as it develops and the harpsichord rarely intrudes too much. Those strings when they emerge though, very moving.

And yes, I listened to each of the Shostakovich movements...so different / diverse. Yet, I want to absorb them more. Like reading something twice, you pick up something new.

It's good to have more evolved music alongside stuff that's more immediate. I'm less keen on Fassine's other work but felt they did an interesting cover (chosen because they were huge fans). And there is very little Anthony More music about. My choice was very left field. 

Until tomorrow.

Edited by sonyc

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2 minutes ago, Herman said:

Loud, joyous, sweet and long.

 

Welcome Herman!

More for this evening.🙂

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@Ron...I remember that first piece really well too. Didn't know it was Fauré. Takes me back. And those opening bars of Things to Come really make you feel something is about to arrive! It is reminiscent somehow but buried in my sub-consciousness. Didn't watch Billy Bunter so the Glazunov piece is more alien. It feels 1930s or 1940s in places and one part feels almost Christmassy ... Googling it and it was as written in 1897! So it is well ahead of its time. My wife loves Holst's planets. Mars takes no prisoners.

 

@Herman. Cheers for sharing. I wondered where that first video was going and then I was right. Interesting piece of music especially after that quite alarming intro which cast an air of menace about.

The last piece sounded in parts like Steve Reich if you've come across any of his stuff, especially his more percussive repertoire? I need to listen again as the dog interrupted me!

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The last piece is written by Terry Riley, a contemporary of Reich's.It's a piece that is never the same as you can interpret it any way so long as you follow a couple of rules.I love the "minimalist" composers after hearing a few pieces by Philip Glass, which then lead onto Reich, Riley, Adams etc. (I saw Glass do a piece. 4 hours long😲).

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1 hour ago, Herman said:

The last piece is written by Terry Riley, a contemporary of Reich's.It's a piece that is never the same as you can interpret it any way so long as you follow a couple of rules.I love the "minimalist" composers after hearing a few pieces by Philip Glass, which then lead onto Reich, Riley, Adams etc. (I saw Glass do a piece. 4 hours long😲).

Have to say i prefer A Rainbow In Curved Air. I'm sure it was used in Hitchhiker's, but I can't find it. If it wasn't it should've been!

I'll just put these out there:

 

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https://m.soundcloud.com/mangalyan-records/wiegala-1942-ilse-herlinger-weber-by-d-riba

4 pieces here. And perhaps today's selections in part echo my response to the world at the minute....About the human condition. It's been a more difficult four to think about.

1. Julia Holter from her latest album "Aviary". A theme of all the screeching and wailing in the world, the deterioration in standard of public discourse, trust in authority ...the lyrics are amazing

2. Wiegala...I've used the instrumental version. Ilse Weber as a prisoner of war camp detainee would write poems and songs and the authorities allowed her sing to the children as they walked into the gas chambers. It brings tears to my eyes every time

3. The National...Lemonworld quietly explains pain and sourness. The voice just sets such a tone that fascinates me

4. Tarleh....a song for lifting up the spirits and feels like it is sung as if from on top of the mountain of the world. I needed a song to finish this selection like this. I want to play this very loud once this pandemic ends and I get p****d

 

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A quick note on Oliver Nelson. I have heard of his bandmates , they are regulars on most jazz albums of that era but it's strange I'd never heard of him. It's one to get for my collection. 👍

Edited by Herman

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10 hours ago, ron obvious said:

Have to say i prefer A Rainbow In Curved Air. I'm sure it was used in Hitchhiker's, but I can't find it. If it wasn't it should've been!

I'll just put these out there:

 

Powerful selections Ron.

PJ Harvey in particular...uses every ounce of that voice, the loss, bitterness.

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2 minutes ago, Herman said:

A quick note on Oliver Nelson. I have heard of his bandages, they are regulars on most jazz albums of that era but it's strange I'd never heard of him. It's one to get for my collection. 👍

The Blues and the Absolute Truth is the CD album I have  Herman (just looked and it was 1961). Probably can download all of it from music apps freely.

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1 minute ago, sonyc said:

Powerful selections Ron.

PJ Harvey in particular...uses every ounce of that voice, the loss, bitterness.

It's a rage against all nature, sonyc. Just in the last notes you hear the ghost of the love she's lost to bitter hatred.

I find her remarkable. She can express a bigger range of emotion in a couple of notes than others express in an entire career. 

Any classically trained singer will have a 'better' voice, but that's not the point. It's about expressing something true about being human, something real, & that's what (for me) she is capable of like no other.

This is the most powerful song about domestic violence, & it doesn't need to say it:

 

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38 minutes ago, ron obvious said:

It's a rage against all nature, sonyc. Just in the last notes you hear the ghost of the love she's lost to bitter hatred.

I find her remarkable. She can express a bigger range of emotion in a couple of notes than others express in an entire career. 

Any classically trained singer will have a 'better' voice, but that's not the point. It's about expressing something true about being human, something real, & that's what (for me) she is capable of like no other.

This is the most powerful song about domestic violence, & it doesn't need to say it:

 

PJ Harvey: where to start with her back catalogue

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/apr/02/pj-harvey-where-to-start-with-her-back-catalogue?

I have the Guardian app (sorry if that offends!) on my phone and was scanning news and look at this Ron!

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Many thanks Sonyc, but TBH I think I've researched everything I can find on PJ since I first saw her on BBC4 performing live in 2004.

There's a pretty good bio of her called Siren Rising (you can preview it). Her early life was ... well, just plain weird. And ultra normal at the same time. Which makes it even weirder. She's had all sorts of stuff written about her, e.g.

http://online.fliphtml5.com/rwzh/zdrr/#p=14

Which I imagine would have made her giggle a bit.

I haven't followed her since LES, where she seems to have gone off into a detached, intellectual manner which doesn't sit well with me. I like her visceral stuff (& the tender & ironic pieces which complement it). It's what she's all about for me:

 

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It's synchronicity I reckon ...to be discussing her work and then a national paper summary of her work. Well, it is for me. Love things like that. Often I like to read readers' comments too (at bottom of that link) because they provide the view of the man/woman on the street.

It has had me thinking of Scott Walker somehow too (not that there is a direct correlation).

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4 for this evening. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue-ish.

 

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The Chambers Brothers! Well done Herman. I almost thought I had imagined them!

'And my soul has been psychedelicised ...'

Pop tonight. let's start with some slush

No.1  one aroused my first romantic yearnings. Used as theme for The Scarf, by Francis Durbridge Present, 1959; image of a chiffon scarf gently blown along by the wind.

No. 2 simply the most romantic track evverrr

No.3 my fave track by the lovely Joan

No.4 such a haunting voice. Very quiet. No vibrato.

(sigh)

 

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