The Music Challenge

One of my challenges was to bring myself up to date in musical knowledge and taste. So I bought "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross. This is a history of twentieth century music - classical of course, and I've been educating myself. Of course, it's now 2012, so I'm already behind.


Well, I didn't have to be convinced about Shostakovich. I've loved his music for many years. It seems pretty mainstream, anyway.    I also discovered Philip Glass and Tavener a few years ago, and all three are well represented in my CD collection.


So how have I done with bringing myself up to date?
Well, Schoenberg is a struggle. I went to hear the Berg violin concerto and it sounded to me like someone torturing a violin. So I may never "get" atonality and twelve tone writing. I shall try again with Schoenberg, I think, but I give up with Berg. 


Messaien also defeats me. I was fascinated with the story of Quartet for the End of Time (it was composed after the fall of France in a prisoner of war camp for the musicians and instruments available, a clarinet, violin, cello and piano.) Ross says the other prisoners listened, enthralled, which seems unlikely to me, and describes two of the movements as "excruciatingly beautiful". Hmm. Now I feel really inadequate. 


But I enjoyed Steve Reich. I could understand the structure. I probably won't buy a CD, but I would go to a concert with his music, even though my husband is inclined to say "Have they stopped yet?", which probably implies that he wouldn't go. 


Takemitsu is wonderfully atmospheric and the influence of Debussy is very clear.  I'm not sure whether it's correct to say I liked "Spirit Garden" or "A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden", but they affected me like their names - strange, absorbing, but unclear and mysterious.  Again, I won't purchase, but would go to a concert.  I would say Takemitsu's music would be wonderful for films, but worried that that would be taken as an insult. He has written a lot of film music, though, for Japanese classics like "Ran".


Now, Britten. I do like his orchestral music, and went to a string quartet concert where his second quartet was played, and thought it was very moving. I think I have problems with Peter Pears' voice. I got into opera more than forty years ago, when we were first married and I was young enough to be a "young friend of Covent Garden", which got us discounted tickets. They were still expensive, but you have to remember this was BC - before children. Anyway, the first serious tenors I heard were Jon Vickers and Placido Domingo, and compared with them, Pears sounds weak and effete. So I have been to the library and picked up a recording of Peter Grimes with Antony Rolfe Johnson in the title role and we'll see how I get on with that.


OK, now the good news - Arvo Part is just wonderful! The issue here is to stop buying CDs. If you don't know his work, listen to "Speigel im Speigel" for violin and piano. (You've probably heard it without realising.) Better, listen to "Tabula Rasa". I was given for Christmas a recording of the fourth symphony, which is wonderful, but it means that there are three more symphonies out there that I don't know. Isn't that super? Lots more pleasure discovering them.


Now I should have some music clips on this, but of course copyright is the problem. So, if you are interested try:
http://www.therestisnoise.com

and you can listen to clips of some of the music I'm going on about.


And I must put in a plug for Nottingham's splendid Central Library, which may be one of the ugliest buildings you are likely to come across, but has everything I've ever asked for. They'd had the Messaien for five years and it had only been out once before, but there it was, just for me. Fantastic.


Coming soon: getting up to date with "popular" music.