What Are You Listening To?

I alternate between metal, early classical or anything with Eivør Pálsdóttir, basically.

Here is two very different songs with Eivør singing, different styles, different languages. I like something like her voice singing The last Kingdom (tv-show based on Bernard Cornwells books) when creating art.


 
Stuck for the time being in the limited space of a hotel room I am almost going out of my mind with boredom. The internet service here is crappy and I can't watch streaming videos outside of those small in scale (like YouTube). Reading is a challenge with my wife and brother also in the room. My largest diversion has been music. I am able to stream Spotify. My listening over the last 24 hours... or less... included:

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I first tried to listen to Paul Hindemith in my twenties, but his music didn't appeal to me. In those years I listened to a lot of Mahler, Bartok, and Stockhausen, but I couldn't get into Hindemith. I made another attempt recently and have found that I really like his music very much. Perhaps one's taste indeed changes over time. An example of Hindemith's music I like now is his series of Kammermusik pieces. Here is the Op. 24 No.1.


The breezy opening reminds me of the opening of Respighi's Pini di Roma.

 
I have been listening to a lot of Beatles and Aimee Mann lately, but not any specific albums to post really because we have a HAP (High-end Audio Player) that just plays whatever we want, so I pick out what I feel like listening to here and there. The only time I really listen to whole albums is in my car, or when deciding to sit in my living room and purposely listening. I don't listen to anything while working. Right now, I have the Magnolia soundtrack in my car, which is Aimee Mann. I tend to listen to the same albums over and over for a while. Just the way I am--kinda like a study or something.

Since we saw the Beatles doc, we've been listening to a lot more random Beatles around the house.
 
Nico Muhly is a composer I had never heard of until now. He has an impressive CV:

*A bachelor's degree in English from Columbia and a Masters in Music from Julliard
*Studied composition with John Corigliano and Christopher Rouse
*Worked for Philip Glass as an archivist, and later an editor, conductor, and keyboardist, for eight years
*Worked with a wide range of musicians, composers, musical groups including Björk, Cantus, Philip Glass, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Esa Pekka-Salonen

I think the biggest challenge in approaching his work is the immense scale and variety of the work. Wikipedia lists an "incomplete oeuvre" as including:

16 Choral Compositions
9 works for film
3 operas
3 incidental works
19 orchestral compositions
11 compositions for orchestra and soloist
5 works for pian0
27 works for small ensembles
5 works for percussion
23 works for voice
9 solo LPs
6 solo EPs
20 arrangements and variations

All of this by a composer barely 40 years old. He has worked with pop and rock music and then this recording...

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...is made up of music that would likely not have seemed all that out of place among choral compositions from several hundred years ago.

I also gave this soundtrack a listen...

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It reminds me of the lush Minimalism of Philip Glass' score for The Hours or music by Arvo Pärt.

Where does one begin with Muhly? Both the Howard's End film score and the choral To Stand in this House seem a good starting point.
 
Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, was one of the most outrageously innovative composers of the Renaissance with one of the most outrageous biographies. As a composer, he pushed the limits of tonality to a point not seen again until Wagner and Schoenberg. He is most known... infamous... for his brutal murder of his first wife, Donna Maria.

Suspecting his wife of having an affair, he feigned leaving on an extended trip but returned after dark and had a loyal servant let him back into the estate. Finding Donna Maria and Fabrizio Carafa, third Duke of Andria and seventh Count of Ruovo in flagrante, he brutally murdered both lovers. Gesualdo repeatedly stabbed his wife while screaming out "Is she dead yet?!" until he was covered in blood, while his servants held Fabrizio. He then reportedly forced Fabrizio to dress in Donna Maria clothing and beg for mercy until Gesualdo shot him in the head. Both bodies were dumped on the steps of her parent's estate. As a member of the aristocracy, Gesualdo was above any prosecution, He wasn't above vengeance or a vendetta being carried out by Donna Maria's family.

Gesualdo fled Venosa and eventually settled in Ferrara, the home of the d'Este court where he had arranged for another marriage, this time to Leonora d'Este, the niece of Duke Alfonso II. He composed some of his most creative work in the innovative environment of Ferrara, surrounded by some of the finest musicians in Italy. While in Ferrara, he published his first book of madrigals. He also worked with the concerto delle donne, the three virtuoso female singers who were among the most renowned performers in the country.

After returning to his castle at Gesualdo from Ferrara in 1595, he set up a situation similar to the one that existed in Ferrara, with a group of resident virtuoso musicians who would sing his own compositions.

Late in life he reportedly suffered from depression and was haunted by visions of his murdered wife. Gesualdo had himself beaten daily by his servants in an attempt to assuage his guilt

Gesualdo's late setting of Psalm 51, the Miserere, is distinguished by its insistent and imploring musical repetitions, alternating lines of monophonic chant with pungently chromatic polyphony in a low vocal tessitura.

I can't imagine his music surviving today's "cancel culture".

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Miles Davis

Are there any recordings by Miles David with a trio? The small group he is probably best known for working with is a quintet. Anyway... I'm always up for some Miles Davis. He's probably my favorite Jazz artist with the possible exception of Duke Ellington. No better way to start 2022.:)

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It's almost 1:30 and my wife is still sleeping. Of course, she was up until 2 AM last night and had a good amount of champagne (and alcohol wipes her out the next day). She's also fighting off a nasty cold/upper bronchial infection (possibly COVID 🤒😷... good thing we're all vaccinated). So I'm choosing some mellow jazz choices that she can sleep through. And the weather's perfect for sleeping in: gray and rainy and the pups are snuggled up with her:

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More mellow jazz for a rainy, sleepy afternoon. Paul Desmond is best known for his work as the mellow alto saxophonist who worked with Dave Brubeck... but he recorded more than a few marvelous records of his own.
 
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