Emeritus
Reviews 130 Approval 95%
Soundoffs 206 News Articles 6 Band Edits + Tags 943 Album Edits 1,487
Album Ratings 3610 Objectivity 90%
Last Active 01-08-23 8:51 am Joined 02-13-12
Review Comments 5,984
| Classical in 2017
First time I've made a proper list detailing my classical picks so here's a nice round 20 albums I've sampled, one bad, one meh, most good/great, some incredible. Enjoy. | 20 | | Ives Ensemble Laurence Crane: 6 Trios, 2 Solos and 1 Quintet
Post-Minimalism - I expected waaaaaay more from Ives given what I've heard of their Feldman renditions, but I was bored from about 15 minutes in right 'til the end here. Maybe it was Crane's vision or something but the pieces just plod along while the musicians do absolutely nothing interesting timbre-wise.
https://open.spotify.com/album/6ydqkI3Icev8OTC19vNLNg | 19 | | Max Richter Three Worlds: Music from Woolf Works
"Modern Classical" - I went in expecting sappy melodrama but not in such a cliche, meandering way. Still nice to listen to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hIO4UbC0Pc | 18 | | Hesperion XXI / La Capella Reial de Catalunya Henricus Isaac: Nell tempo di Lorenzo ...
Renaissance Music - I'm a sucker ye ol' time-y Renaissance stuff so I enjoyed this purely for the aesthetics, even if it veered into almost-Christmas carol territory at times.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5qtOnJ0wiBG5XOEcf5L0vu | 17 | | Emerson String Quartet Music of Britten and Purcel
Chamber Music - The tense, uniform performances and track arrangement help these otherwise contrasting pieces feel like a cohesive body of work, even if the compositions themselves aren't exactly my cup of tea.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3oxo5no0pBfQD8sE8JjuiZ | 16 | | Keiko Murakami Atem Lied: Works for Bass Flute
Modern Classical - Really interesting pieces that are focused more on exploration of texture than any kind of narrative arc, at least from what I can tell.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3FoPrOBekmajV0kujCz6E4 | 15 | | Rafal Blechacz Johann Sebastian Bach
Baroque Music - Title is pretty self-explanatory - a collection of Bach's keyboard works. performance is vibrant, sound is crisp; worth hearing for anyone who's a fan of all things Bach.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3ePUhPKvz8B0SzCvqSAFwV | 14 | | Juliet Fraser Morton Feldman: Three Voices
Modern Classical - I can imagine this annoying quite a few people while entrancing others. At times repetitive and sonically bare-bones, but somehow quite hypnotic.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4YKwvRdy37QEHiPjn6ncbS | 13 | | Konus Quartett / Apartment House Chiyoko Szlavnics: During a Lifetime
Modern Classical - First piece is a drone-y amalgamation of sine waves that feel surprisingly organic and are actually super pleasant to listen to. Second almost feels like the lines from the first transposed for strings while the third melds the two together along with a cache of wind and brass instruments.
No spotify link, rip | 12 | | Quatuor Voce Lettres intimes: Bartok / Schulhoff / Janacek
Modern Classical - Worth hearing for the Bartok renditions alone, even if they aren't really a patch on those by Takacs, but very little is. I wasn't familiar with the other two composers but I'm quite glad I persisted.
https://open.spotify.com/album/40l9KoUVLGV6zvT7IC5v0B | 11 | | JACK Quartet Marc Sabat: Harmony
Modern Classical - A bunch of microtonal fidgeting that isn't consumed by austerity like so much music of this ilk. Lives up to its title by exploring unconventional harmonic relationships and actually attempting to build on them in an affecting way.
No spotify link, rip | 10 | | Musica Secreta / Celestial Sirens Lucrezia Borgia's Daughter
Renaissance Music - Enchanting vocal arrangements backed by strings and an organ. From what I gather, nobody is entirely sure who composed these pieces, perhaps due to the perception of aspirant women at the time they were published, but I'm glad they were.
https://open.spotify.com/album/09cGO09uvbIuQVvdmnKalG | 9 | | Orchestre des Champs-Elysees / Collegium Vocale Gent Symphony No. 4; Alt-Rhapsodie; Schicksalslied
Romanticism - The spotless recording of Brahms' 4th is the main attraction here, shirking the bombast I tend to associate with the romantic era. The other two pieces aren't half bad either.
https://open.spotify.com/album/4iCEjeweubiX3SMOT9JBAf | 8 | | Brecon Baroque Grandissima Gravita
Baroque Music - Tartini's 5th violin sonata is captivating and at times heart breaking, and violinist Rachel Podger is a master of imbuing every note with palpable emotion. The album's a little front heavy due to Tartini's work being the strongest by quite a margin, but absolutely worth listening to multiple times.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0AD7puopUQojZIAfTN5xTL | 7 | | London Philharmonic Orchestra Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto; Lalo: Symphony
Romanticism - Due to Lalo's influence on Tchaikovsky being quite apparent, the transition from the one composer's work to the other goes over very well, stylistically. Wasn't expecting to love this but alas.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5c6IB7EZsy8aQbTQsquDBj | 6 | | Rossella Spinosa Scelsi: Opere per pianoforte
Modern Classical - Much as I love Scelsi I always seemed to neglect his piano works. Staggers about for a couple minutes but the second that low-F dropped I was hooked from start to finish.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5FUlHs4uXbMuioCOBOL8N0 | 5 | | Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra Tüür: Peregrinus ecstaticus; Noēsis; Le poids ...
Modern Classical - Stylistically outlandish but still full of substance. Not entirely sure how to describe it beyond that.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3NwSFWcU9qRDtpL2DWu58k | 4 | | Jean Rondeau Dynastie: Bach Concertos
Baroque Music - Very ornate sound, which may turn some people off but as I'm a sucker for big, spacious soundscapes this is right up my alley. It's difficult to go wrong with any Bach, really, and it's quite interesting to hear his style being emulated and altered to fit with early Classical-period trends by his youngest son.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0nctM62YjYfdEG6dIdIHFm | 3 | | Silesian String Quartet Weinberg: String Quartet No. 7 + Piano Quintet
Modern Classical - The Silesian Quartet seem to have a penchant for batshit insane, so it's refreshing to hear them render these compositions with tact and restraint. The interplay between the quartet and Piotr Salajczyk's piano playing is surprisingly delicate and they seem to have a great chemistry, knowing when and where best to allow one another to take center stage, so to speak.
https://open.spotify.com/album/5RryRJUW496bPPQBmwTm89 | 2 | | Stile Antico Giaches de Wert: Divine Theatre
Renaissance Music / Choral - Considering how much I love this I have very little, if anything to say about it. Probably the most cathartic thing I've heard from this year.
https://open.spotify.com/album/7sTnOYl0nFTSwZsK2ZKvJ5 | 1 | | Arditti Quartet / Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France Pascal Dusapin: Quatuor VI; Quatuor VII
Modern Classical - The first movement was so intensely disorienting I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it through an entire album of it. Mercifully, the intensity is dialed back for the vast majority of the album's remainder, but the maniacal vibe is still omnipresent from start to finish. No need to tell you the performances are out of this world as everything Arditti touches turns to gold. Possible AOTY.
https://open.spotify.com/album/13agtu4Iibw8M2OhtghJU4 | |
Pon
10.20.17 | I liek chocolate milkk | Dewinged
10.20.17 | Feature this for Odin's sake. | BlushfulHippocrene
10.20.17 | Fantastic list, Jac, been meaning to get into the genre. Some very nice descriptions, can tell you put a lot of work into this. ((: | Flugmorph
10.20.17 | sweet list pone, gonna jam somma this | ScuroFantasma
10.20.17 | great list man, I need to hear more classical | Pon
10.20.17 | thank you frens, gtg and say hi to your mums for me | Papa Universe
10.20.17 | Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer - Bach Trios | reportingbird
10.20.17 | whoa, nice | hal1ax
10.20.17 | u da bestttttt !!1 | Atari
10.20.17 | lovely list Jac. will most definitely be checking some of these | Wildhoney
10.20.17 | Thank you so much for this list. I have a ton of trouble unearthing/keeping up with new classical releases even though I love the genre. Where do you find yours? | Pon
10.20.17 | ty everyone
@wildhoney - having a music streaming service makes everything way easier (soulseeking specific classical interps is a massive pain), and I just follow specific groups and composers on Spotify so I get notifications when something new comes out. Scouring RYM's charts also helps. | hal1ax
10.20.17 | Ugh I still don’t have Spotify. If soulseek doesn’t have most of these I’m just going to pay for it. | Pon
10.20.17 | Join the dark side hal | Frippertronics
10.20.17 | Oh lord birb this looks good | Calc
10.20.17 | fantastic list, just what I'm looking for right now to be honest. | zaruyache
10.21.17 | from 2017 maybe cheq
Jessica Moss - Pools of Light
Steve Gibbs - Adrift
Seabuckthorn - Turns
Penguin Cafe - The Imperfect Sea
Sarah Davachi - All My Circles Run
Daniel Herskedal - The Roc
also good list pos'd | EvoHavok
10.21.17 | Sweet list. Had 2 on my radar for a while. | brainmelter
10.21.17 | wows I need to hear 3 and 1 | hal1ax
10.21.17 | Jac how did you discover these ? I haven’t even heard of several of these composers lol. Some of this stuff seems pretty obscure. | clavier
10.21.17 | great list Jac - I definitely needed a push to listen to more classical | Havey
10.21.17 | @hal l a b e l s you know this | Havey
10.21.17 | just from the cover art here you can see some harmonia mundi, alpha, deutsche grammophon (< three major players!), then you have some ondine, erato, another timbre, aeon, hat hut... a couple of conductor-specific ones (phi = Herreweghe, alia vox = Savall). outhere-music.com is a fantastic distributor which now owns several of these labels, def check in on their site every month or so
also doesn't hurt to be aware of the big publications. for instance, 10 got a lot of attention this year:
theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2017/mar/10/radical-motets-from-16th-century-nunnery-musica-secreta-lucrezia-borgia | hal1ax
10.21.17 | oh sweet thanks lol. and yea i should know better i guess. i'm still not very familiar with classical labels yet tho. i'll do some diggin | Havey
10.21.17 | good list tho, esp. interested in the Weinberg & Scelsi | Winesburgohio
10.21.17 | just heard 20 and i really, really like it, guess we'll have to agree to disagree!!! can't wait to make my way through this my precious guardian angel :* | Havey
10.21.17 | i would recommend Olga Andryushchenko's complete solo piano works of Roslavets for some Russian modernism following the footsteps of Scriabin
and i think some of you might wanna hear the new triadic memories w John Snijders of Ives ensemble, via hat hut: http://hathut.com/hat-now-art-2-205 | hal1ax
10.22.17 | yea i'll definitely check that triadic memories rendition | Pon
10.22.17 | been meaning to peep snijders' triadic memories since wines brought it to my attention, thanks y'all [less-than-three] | dbizzles
10.23.17 | You are a good man for doing this. | Pon
10.23.17 | which ones you gonna czech bizz? | menawati
10.23.17 | wow 10 nice find, 2 is great also | Papa Universe
10.23.17 | I shall repeat myself, because this needs a spin from everyone here:
Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer - Bach Trios | Piglet
02.05.18 | cool list ya goose | zaruyache
02.05.18 | I always need more modern classical. Gonna check. | Flugmorph
02.06.18 | need to check somma dis jacqore |
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