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Posts Tagged ‘music’

ash, sorrow, music: Henryk Gorecki, Symphony 3 “Sorrowful Songs”

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »

It is a commonplace that the exilic prophets who moved captive Judah to imagine a future beyond the certain full stop that was exile in Babylonia saved the life and future of a nation. In the mix, they produced some of humankind’s most stirring poetry.

Redemptive art does not justify tragedy and does not ameliorate its dark realia. Yet it is a measure of the created world and of the human spirit that unspeakable pain somehow creates some of history’s finest words and most gripping sounds.

Enter the twentieth-century Polish composers Henryk Gorecki and his Symphony No. 3 (‘Sorrowful Songs’), performed here in a stunning 1991 recording by the London Sinfonietta under the direction of David Zinman. (more…)

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for collectors in the making: Sufjan Stevens, Illinois

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 27, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Sufjan Stevens and his toss-off-an-album-for-each-of-the-fifty-American-states gambit is like collecting stamps, baseball cards, fountain pens, or—say—old beer bottles. From a distance, you say ‘Oh, yuck!’ if in fact you get close enough to the enterprise to say anything at all.

Then, in an unexpected moment, the sheer methodical, meticulous glory of it dawns on you like an epiphany. After that you pity the people who don’t. (more…)

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break the boxes: The Klezmatics, Rhythm + Jews

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Calling all CD file clerks, including the one this reviewer doubles as when he puts away his cds on their shiny little stands (bought cheap at Target and hastily assembled by the reviewer and file clerk): where the heck do you file music by the oddball, fast-paced, old-new, traditional-iconoclast, Yiddish-English makers of this hilariously titled albums like this one (Rhythm + Jews) and Jews with Horns? (more…)

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jewels and binoculars: Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »

From this considerable distance, ‘masterpiece’ begins to seem an unexaggerated assessment of Dylan’s 1966 double-album, now conveniently remastered and available on CD.

More than a whiff of the child genius is to be discerned in the brilliantly erratic lyrics of these tracks. One wonders how much winking was going on in the shadows as listeners sought profound mysteries in lines that are simply gorgeous for their semi-random articulateness. At this early stage, Dylan played as much, perhaps, with words as with ideas. (more…)

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well placed: Third Day, Offerings II. All I Have to Give

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on December 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »

I suppose the best evidence of how I view this album would be to confess that I’ve sat here through the morning with tears on my cheeks as I absorb the potency of its tribute, truly a well-rendered offering.

Third Day, a band of gravelly-voiced, southern-fried rockers in alignment with their Maker offer up a slough of worship songs possessed of an edgy sweetness. (more…)

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swinging the world: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Raising Sand

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on December 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

Good grief, the monster stole the maiden and there’s no time left in the movie for rescuing maidens!

But listen to the music they make … (more…)

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music for brain surgeons: Ravel: Boléro / Ma Mère L’Oye (complete ballet) / Rapsodie espagnole / Une Barque sur l’océan / Alborada del Gracioso – Berliner Philharmoniker / Pierre Boulez

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , , on December 2, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.

I remember reading years ago of some brain surgeons–maybe they were cardiac surgeons, the important thing is that they knew–who customarily piped Maurice Ravel’s Boléro into the operating room for the calming effect of its rhythmic regularity. (more…)

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soul-stopping: Saving Private Ryan (Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , on November 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »

One wonders what people will say about John Williams in the year 2050. The man just keeps producing scores that, if it were possible, surpass the prior one in elegance, emotional weight, and sheer, gorgeous, spellbinding beauty.

Gushing?

I don’t think so. Listen to this soundtrack before you conclude that this reviewer has gone out-of-his-mind starry. (more…)

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curtain raisers: Schumann Overtures (Naxos)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , , , on November 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The six-note motif that introduces Robert Schumann’s Overture (later Scherzo and Finale), Op. 52 is the calling card of a formidable Romantic composer. In the main, the Schumann pieces included in this anthology of his overtures make due on the promise put down by those first six notes.

The Overture to Genoveva is as evocative as the tale its opera tells. The overtures to ‘Bride of Messina’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘Hermann and Dorothea’, ‘Faust’, and ‘Manfred’ are all beautifully performed on this 1992 Naxos recording by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Wildner.

The market for operatic overtures is not huge. Naxos has done us a service with this serviceable presentation.

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fire and ice: Leos Janacek, String Quartets 1 and 2, Violin Sonata (Prazak Quartet)

Posted in reseña, tagged , , , on November 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »

From the heart of Central Europe in the first quarter of the twentieth century comes this penetrating, challenging, occasionally disturbing, and ever rewarding music for small ensembles. The Prague-born Prazak Quartet is of course equal to the challenge.

Leos Janacek’s music for string quartet show what the genre can be. Easily mistaken for a weak, limpid subset of classical music, music for quartet a la Janacek is as sinewy and energetic as it gets. (more…)

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