A rather surreal vocal work from Saariaho ( sung by Valérie Gabail ).

I have no idea what this is about, and honestly, I'm not sure I want to - it's beautiful enough as abstract art.

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My presentation this term is going to be on Magnus Lindberg's clarinet concerto, so I'm exploring the Finnish modernist scene in general ( Read more... )

You know, on watching this, I do realize exactly what it sounds like to someone not into modernist classical music, and that in itself is an odd feeling. One one hand, you have more or less cacophony ( with unfortunate lyrics ), on the other, a colorful dream world foray. Either way, it's hard to imagine this was written back in 1948...

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It's a shame that such a nice instrument has nearly zero repertoire.

Listening to it now, it's really coming home to me just how much I love Messiaen's L'ascension. I don't know why, but of all the music I own, I find myself drawn to it the most; it heals me, somehow. Though there are larger and more dramatic pieces out there, even some by the same composer, I have yet to find anything that really touches my ( Read more... )

I remember discussing tonality a long time ago with someone who argued that there could be no such thing as atonality as long as our ears heard pitch relations between notes. Certainly, tonality in the western sense of chord progressions can be abandoned, but as tonality is as much a way of hearing as it is a way of writing, ears used to hearing ( Read more... )