Well, hell, you could not have written a post more tailored to me, since all I do is write papers and talk about music. I am sending you a paper I wrote on Wagner and masochism; please forgive the wonky formatting, as I wrote it on spec for Cambridge Opera Journal, and they have all kinds of bizarre house style requirements. I hope it is not too music nerd for your project.
Now, as to recommendations: I am going a little bit on faith, since I don't have a very clear sense of what you like in general (if you tell me a little bit about what you like in general, I'll be able to recommend a lot more stuff), but this is wild speculation re: stuff I think you'd like--it's stuff I like, anyway.
1) Do you like minimalism much? Because the classic thing to recommend is Glass's "Einstein On the Beach", and if you don't know that, you should absolutely check it out. Here's a link to the last.fm of the first Knee Play, which is the first thing you hear when you go into the space. It's really beautiful and weird and I love it a lot. Steve Reich's "Come Out" is really phenomenal, as well, as is "Drumming" (I mean, it's hard to limit this stuff, but these are pieces that are both representative and fun to listen to.)
2) George Crumb, who not enough people know and everyone should. The first thing you listen to should be "Ancient Voices of Children", which is this amazing song cycle for soprano and boy soprano on Lorca poems, and it vacillates wildly between being kind of avant-garde and crazy to kind of quasi-medieval to kind of folky to really spare and haunting. And the instrumentation is just crazy. After that, you should hear "Black Angels", which is for electric string quartet and was written during the Vietnam buildup.
3) Louis Andriessen, who is this amazing Dutch composer, wrote a gigantic, 3-disc symphonic/theatrical piece called "De Materie", which is kind of a monetary/time investment, but if you get it, I can almost guarantee that you will dig it; it is ass-kickingly good, and very heavily rock-influenced in all kinds of weird ways. Plus, it contains a strange text interlude about Mondrian.
4) There is very little I wouldn't recommend by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, but specifically, there is a lot that is really awesome written by their three main composers, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe and David Lang. They are all pretty different composers, but one cool piece that they collaborated on is this piece called "Lost Objects", which is sort of a staged oratorio.
5) Here are two strange quasi-jazz things you might like: one is Uri Caine's (who is awesome in general) album "Urlicht (Primal Light)" which is this crazy jazz/klezmer reimagining of Mahler, and I know that sounds kind of kindergarteny in the description, but it is totally fascinating, and it works out really, really well (it sheds a lot of light on the Mahler, too.) The other is this French jazz group called Le Sacre du Tympan, and I will tell you nothing about them except to say that they have a track on one album called "A L'Ouest [A Brief History of the Crazy, Crazy, Cowboy]", which features a 3 minute insane glockenspiel solo.
6)...and this is a very specific recommendation that you will have to trust me on, but if you like early music at all, you must get Marcel Peres and the Ensemble Organum's recording of Machaut's "Messe de Notre Dame", and it's gotta be that specific recording, and you won't understand until you hear it, but they sound like a bunch of drunk, angry monks, but I mean that in the best way possible, and it is maybe the best recording I own, of anything.
Sorry that got very long. But I can do this forever; you just have to tell me more of what you like.
Kelsey - You are awesome and these recommendations are amazing! And yeah it's true about this post: you write papers about music, for god's sake! Anyway please don't feel sorry about the length of the comment - I really appreciate it and would like for you to go on for pages about this stuff.
Anyway as for what I like - your list actually really fits in with much of what I've been listening to these days. I really like Philip Glass and Steve Reich (they're the only ones on your list that I'm familiar with) and I've been listening to interesting (I think) 20th-century type stuff like Morton Feldman, Olivier Messiaen and Anton Webern. I really want to know more about this kind of thing. I've also been listening to old Folkways type stuff like Elizabeth Cotten, Roscoe Holcomb and Andrew Rowan Summers. But again, I want to know more. I've been starting to listen to old gospel recordings which I love but know basically nothing about. And I love klezmer, especially when it's really melancholy-sounding - there's this group I really like called Davka who are sort of an artsy contemporary klezmer band. And you know what else I really like? I'll tell you - long, artsy, crazy disco songs. Those rule... Oh and as for early music - I know next to nothing about it but I've been listening to an album of Perotin compositions; that's one of the things that made me want to search a bit more, actually - I was like "aw man, people have been making awesome music for 800 years and most of what I listen to comes from the last 30."
So, I don't know, I feel like lately I've been drawn to music with a somewhat religious or spiritual cast to it, and I think that's because I just like stuff that's honest and emotional and takes itself seriously. I like sad music and have a hard time with things that are too upbeat or chipper; I like there to be some tinge of melancholy (but that's true for a lot of people, I think). Oh and I'm a total sucker for strings.
So, there you have it. Recommend as much as you want! For real.
This is so exciting, especially because it sounds like we have really similar taste in music, and all of my friends around here are either listening to the same stuff as me already or sick of me giving them CDs. So, based on this, here are a couple more things I bet you'd like:
1) If you don't know it already, the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music is a really great collection of old folk and gospel and blues with some really stellar performances on it.
2) It's so cool that you like Perotin! Do you have the Hilliard Ensemble's Perotin recording that's just called PEROTIN and has the super-minimal cover? If not, it rules, and it's worth getting your hands on. The Hillard Ensemble, in general, is great; they have this really clean, open aesthetic that I really like--in particular, they have a Dowland song recording that is all the religious melancholia you could possibly want.
3) Arvo Part. Do you know him already? He's an Estonian minimalist composer; based on what you said you liked, he is going to knock your socks off. Look at "Tabula Rasa" first, I would think. Seriously, maybe put him first on the list if you don't know him. I bet you will loooooove him.
4) This is just a hunch, but you might really like the consort sets for viols by William Lawes--he's a 17th century composer who wrote some very fucking intense music for strings, and those gamba consort sets, especially the 5th and 6th, will blow your mind.
Oh, I have only this very lame dilettante's knowledge of klezmer, so I have no real recommendations, but I really like Davka too! And you should definitely check out that Uri Caine I mentioned above.
hey - i have the anthology of folk music courtesy my dad, who's a musician and has lots of great music. the perotin thing i have is that hilliard ensemble album and i like it a lot. and i do love arvo part (and yeah he's totally up my alley); he's a bit over the top at times but i like that - i vastly prefer a bit of melodrama to aloofness and detachment. any more? seriously, i want to milk you for all your knowledge here.
i got your paper; haven't read it yet but i will soon. all the stuff you're recommending sounds so great...
Now, as to recommendations: I am going a little bit on faith, since I don't have a very clear sense of what you like in general (if you tell me a little bit about what you like in general, I'll be able to recommend a lot more stuff), but this is wild speculation re: stuff I think you'd like--it's stuff I like, anyway.
1) Do you like minimalism much? Because the classic thing to recommend is Glass's "Einstein On the Beach", and if you don't know that, you should absolutely check it out. Here's a link to the last.fm of the first Knee Play, which is the first thing you hear when you go into the space. It's really beautiful and weird and I love it a lot. Steve Reich's "Come Out" is really phenomenal, as well, as is "Drumming" (I mean, it's hard to limit this stuff, but these are pieces that are both representative and fun to listen to.)
2) George Crumb, who not enough people know and everyone should. The first thing you listen to should be "Ancient Voices of Children", which is this amazing song cycle for soprano and boy soprano on Lorca poems, and it vacillates wildly between being kind of avant-garde and crazy to kind of quasi-medieval to kind of folky to really spare and haunting. And the instrumentation is just crazy. After that, you should hear "Black Angels", which is for electric string quartet and was written during the Vietnam buildup.
3) Louis Andriessen, who is this amazing Dutch composer, wrote a gigantic, 3-disc symphonic/theatrical piece called "De Materie", which is kind of a monetary/time investment, but if you get it, I can almost guarantee that you will dig it; it is ass-kickingly good, and very heavily rock-influenced in all kinds of weird ways. Plus, it contains a strange text interlude about Mondrian.
4) There is very little I wouldn't recommend by the Bang on a Can All-Stars, but specifically, there is a lot that is really awesome written by their three main composers, Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe and David Lang. They are all pretty different composers, but one cool piece that they collaborated on is this piece called "Lost Objects", which is sort of a staged oratorio.
5) Here are two strange quasi-jazz things you might like: one is Uri Caine's (who is awesome in general) album "Urlicht (Primal Light)" which is this crazy jazz/klezmer reimagining of Mahler, and I know that sounds kind of kindergarteny in the description, but it is totally fascinating, and it works out really, really well (it sheds a lot of light on the Mahler, too.) The other is this French jazz group called Le Sacre du Tympan, and I will tell you nothing about them except to say that they have a track on one album called "A L'Ouest [A Brief History of the Crazy, Crazy, Cowboy]", which features a 3 minute insane glockenspiel solo.
6)...and this is a very specific recommendation that you will have to trust me on, but if you like early music at all, you must get Marcel Peres and the Ensemble Organum's recording of Machaut's "Messe de Notre Dame", and it's gotta be that specific recording, and you won't understand until you hear it, but they sound like a bunch of drunk, angry monks, but I mean that in the best way possible, and it is maybe the best recording I own, of anything.
Sorry that got very long. But I can do this forever; you just have to tell me more of what you like.
Reply
Reply
Anyway as for what I like - your list actually really fits in with much of what I've been listening to these days. I really like Philip Glass and Steve Reich (they're the only ones on your list that I'm familiar with) and I've been listening to interesting (I think) 20th-century type stuff like Morton Feldman, Olivier Messiaen and Anton Webern. I really want to know more about this kind of thing. I've also been listening to old Folkways type stuff like Elizabeth Cotten, Roscoe Holcomb and Andrew Rowan Summers. But again, I want to know more. I've been starting to listen to old gospel recordings which I love but know basically nothing about. And I love klezmer, especially when it's really melancholy-sounding - there's this group I really like called Davka who are sort of an artsy contemporary klezmer band. And you know what else I really like? I'll tell you - long, artsy, crazy disco songs. Those rule... Oh and as for early music - I know next to nothing about it but I've been listening to an album of Perotin compositions; that's one of the things that made me want to search a bit more, actually - I was like "aw man, people have been making awesome music for 800 years and most of what I listen to comes from the last 30."
So, I don't know, I feel like lately I've been drawn to music with a somewhat religious or spiritual cast to it, and I think that's because I just like stuff that's honest and emotional and takes itself seriously. I like sad music and have a hard time with things that are too upbeat or chipper; I like there to be some tinge of melancholy (but that's true for a lot of people, I think). Oh and I'm a total sucker for strings.
So, there you have it. Recommend as much as you want! For real.
Reply
1) If you don't know it already, the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music is a really great collection of old folk and gospel and blues with some really stellar performances on it.
2) It's so cool that you like Perotin! Do you have the Hilliard Ensemble's Perotin recording that's just called PEROTIN and has the super-minimal cover? If not, it rules, and it's worth getting your hands on. The Hillard Ensemble, in general, is great; they have this really clean, open aesthetic that I really like--in particular, they have a Dowland song recording that is all the religious melancholia you could possibly want.
3) Arvo Part. Do you know him already? He's an Estonian minimalist composer; based on what you said you liked, he is going to knock your socks off. Look at "Tabula Rasa" first, I would think. Seriously, maybe put him first on the list if you don't know him. I bet you will loooooove him.
4) This is just a hunch, but you might really like the consort sets for viols by William Lawes--he's a 17th century composer who wrote some very fucking intense music for strings, and those gamba consort sets, especially the 5th and 6th, will blow your mind.
Oh, I have only this very lame dilettante's knowledge of klezmer, so I have no real recommendations, but I really like Davka too! And you should definitely check out that Uri Caine I mentioned above.
Reply
i got your paper; haven't read it yet but i will soon. all the stuff you're recommending sounds so great...
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