Playlist 10/30
Stylistically Unclassifiable Neglected Midcentury Classical Works! Hooray.
Bela Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, mvt. II "Pair Games" (1943)
Arthur Berger: Duo for Cello and Piano (1951)
Frank Martin: Mass for Unaccompanied Double Choir (1922/26)
Bohuslav Martinů: Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani (1938)
Henri Dutilleux: Symphony No. 2 "Le Double" (1959)
Okay, the Bartok is not neglected. But: can you guess the compositional aspect that allowed me to free-associate this program, but that does not justify itself as a programming hook?
The Martinů concerto has been raved about in this space previously. You absolutely must track down the Frank Martin Mass, if you at all enjoy twentieth-century music and choral works; it's astounding. (And the man sat on it for forty years! Forty years before it was performed.) Berger's duo is an abstract little gem of a work; the Dutilleux symphony is brighter and more luscious than the later orchestral work he made his name with, situated between Ravel and the esoteric second half of the century.
Bela Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, mvt. II "Pair Games" (1943)
Arthur Berger: Duo for Cello and Piano (1951)
Frank Martin: Mass for Unaccompanied Double Choir (1922/26)
Bohuslav Martinů: Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani (1938)
Henri Dutilleux: Symphony No. 2 "Le Double" (1959)
Okay, the Bartok is not neglected. But: can you guess the compositional aspect that allowed me to free-associate this program, but that does not justify itself as a programming hook?
The Martinů concerto has been raved about in this space previously. You absolutely must track down the Frank Martin Mass, if you at all enjoy twentieth-century music and choral works; it's astounding. (And the man sat on it for forty years! Forty years before it was performed.) Berger's duo is an abstract little gem of a work; the Dutilleux symphony is brighter and more luscious than the later orchestral work he made his name with, situated between Ravel and the esoteric second half of the century.
2 Comments:
I saw the Martinu Oboe Quartet recently, and I have rapidly developed or possibly rekindled a love.
The piece is just plain weird, boardering on incoherent, which makes it all the more arresting.
I hear everything twice!
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