What Are You Listening To?

[musket]

Genius Within is actually a more informative film about Gould, a documentary. A lot of his eccentricities were pure showmanship, but no question he had serious mental health issues. Losing the painter Cornelia Foss (married to the composer Lukas Foss), the love of his life, had a terrible effect on him.

Glenn Gould and Cornelia Foss

 

[stlukesguild]

 

[stlukesguild]

Dave Brubeck's mellow sax player, Paul Desmond, recorded a number of marvelous LPs on his own...or as the leader of various ensembles.

 

[stlukesguild]

Am I the only one that listens to music here?

My dogs are getting very skittish with all the clowns setting off fireworks. The little one, Raphael, is especially nervous. I don't think the Modernist cello works helped matters any. Lee Konitz seemed to make him a bit calmer... but that selection is still a bit jerky. I guess he won't be sitting with me upstairs in the studio tomorrow while I blast the Rolling Stones or something similar.

Rafie responded best to Paul Desmond... very smooth... no big contrasts in volume. He's crawled under the blankets and gone to sleep to Desmond playing old standards.❤

 

[WFMartin]

At this minute I am listening to a live stream of KBAQ, our classic music radio station. Other times I will call up "accuradio", and select something like Dylan, or Norman Blake, or Iris Dement. I pretty much burnt myself out on hard-drivin' Bluegrass music, when I played banjo with bluegrass bands. I go for the "softer stuff" now, in my old age.

 

[Artyczar]

Am I the only one that listens to music here?

I actually don't listen to much music anymore. I've been traumatized by it! Ha!

While I work, I am in silence. That's just the way I prefer it. Both for writing and painting. I only listen to music really when mjp puts something on. He would like to listen to a lot more music than we do, but I'm probably the one that makes it quiet around here because it distracts me while I'm working.

I listen to it in the car and I don't go out much. I tend to listen to an album over and over until I get sick of it, which is rarely. Right now I have about 15 albums in there and off the top of my head, there are a few PJ Harvey in there, 1 Pretenders, 2 Radiohead, 3 Amie Mann, 4 Elvis Costello, 2 Fiona Apple, 1 Neil Young, 2 Beatles, ...I don't know what else... No classical in there, but lots in the house, and lots of reggae and many other things. We have a HAP machine and a Marantz there's something like 300 albums or more? I'll have to ask mjp because he's the audiophile.

 

[HalifaxCB]

Some Hanns Eisler, starting with his Suite #3, Kuhle Wampe

I was looking for the film, and came across this...

 

[musket]

Same for me, Arty. I just don't listen that much anymore. I'll hop around on YouTube from time to time but that's about all, even though we've got a ton of CDs kicking around. Every so often I'll go on a bender for a particular singer or band but usually for no more than an afternoon or evening. Been listening to Hank Marvin lately... corny tune, and there's always been a little corniness in him in general, but this is Strat clean tone to die for, almost painfully beautiful.

Hank Marvin, Don't Cry for Me Argentina

 

[stlukesguild]

I haven't listened to Hans Eisler for quite some time. I believe that like Korngold he composed for some time for Hollywood... and was sent back to Germany during the McCarthy witchhunts.

I can't imagine not listening to music on an almost daily basis. While teaching, I'll put something on Spotify during lunch and breaks. I almost always have music playing in my studio. I tend to leap all over the place from one style or period to something completely different.

Right now I'm listening to an early recording of John Williams (the Guitarist) placing Fernando Sor:

 

[stlukesguild]

Looks like I might be ending the month of June with even more Bach. After the above John Williams' recording, I searched through Spotify for more works by Bach on guitar... beyond the obvious lute suites. I found discs of the Goldbergs, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Cello Suites, the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin... all performed on guitar. I was about to give the Cello Suites a listen when I saw this disc:

The disc presents recordings of arias from Bach's cantatas sung by the Korean soprano Sumi Jo to a sparse accompaniment of a guitar and violin alone. Bach composed many of his cantatas for the stripped-down ensembles he had at his command at the time... although rarely ever this small... at least not for the entire cantata. It is more than likely that any number of his cantatas were later performed by an ensemble as small as presented on this disc. It is sad that Bach didn't have the large professional ensembles and professional singers available to other Baroque composers such as Handel. On the other hand, it shows just what a driven genius can achieve with even limited means at his disposal.

 

[musket]

I used to know a guy who could play all the Two Part Inventions on solo guitar, in all the original keys (there are cheat versions out there in which the keys have been changed for greater ease of playing). I've never heard of anyone else who could do this. He spent five years transcribing them. Berklee grad, Masters from New England Conservatory. Composition major, not guitar.

 

[brianvds]

When Khachaturian gets it right, he really gets it right:

 

[stlukesguild]

 

[musket]

If forced to choose one of the troika as the greatest thing he ever did, it would have to be Blonde on Blonde.

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?

 

[stlukesguild]

 

[musket]

Y'know... I know he's great and all, but I could never get into him.

 

[stlukesguild]

The fireworks are scaring the dogs big time. They advise music to drown it out. This ought to work:

 

[musket]

I always thought there was something a little silly about The Doors, though I did like them... all Morrison's Lizard King poseur decadence was just too much. If I wanted decadence, I listened to the Velvets. Lou Reed was the real thing. Morrison was just a very handsome drunk.

 

[stlukesguild]

Venus in Furs and Heroin played loudly might be just a bit too much. And is the preference really just a West-Coast/East Coast rivalry?

If I want decadent I'll take the Stones Exile on Main Street.

 

[musket]

The Velvets and the Doors were nothing alike, so not an East/West rivalry.