MomsMobley

I'd have to double check but I think Takacs-- though still fine-- is one of those groups which have cycled though all-- no check that, all but the cellist... like when I saw the "Tokyo String Quartet" in the late '90s and well, at least they were Japanese!

Definitely LK. The Hogwood Beethoven sounds nice and is mostly quiet good but... not quite good enough compared to best HIP or modern/HIP hybirds like Emmanuel Krivine. The Mozart & Vivaldi, most of the Handel & Bach etc... is "interesting" for the time but I don't think there's any question 1) Hogwood got better and 2) the whole movement got A LOT better. It's a fair argument too who was "better," Hogwood or Neville Marriner, say, with ASMF but unless your English and have a lot invested in a vinyl classical collection, it's a fool's game to sort it out when dozens upon dozens of fantastic French/Italian/German groups have revivified SOUND and performance practice so brilliantly. (Plus some of Hogwood's singers in Handel, Haydn are tough to take; he's FAR from alone in that-- it ruined a generation of UK and US sourced baroque recordings but...) some lesser known top notch Hogwood is his Gade series on Chandos btw; not saying everyone "needs" the music but if interests lead one to the period/place... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkDxfLH84mY

+ the earlier http://www.amazon.com/Martinu-cuisine-Christmas-Sinfonietta-ricercari/dp/B00000E4XT some of CH's baroque & classical period performances could be slightly bland in the Limey tradition but he could 'goose' it up when called for, inspired also. His William Byrd "My Ladye Nevelle's Books" is still valuable also. The Mozart PC series with Robert Levin is especially fine, hard to believe-- pace another thread-- people still tolerate say the ultra-bland conducting of Murray Perahaia & numerous others compared to later Hogood (he actually got better, or at least more lively, as a conductor) and best German/French +++ "alte" masters. I generally value CH most in lesser known middle-period Haydn symphonies but I wouldn't have walked outta this early--

Those of ya'll who enjoy Perahia Mozart should hear the Andras Schiff integrale conducted by Sandor Vegh; not that Schiff is all that much woolier (alas) but Vegh conducting the Salzburg Mozarteum DESTROYS Murray & the ECO in every conceivable way. An even greater step for those accustomed to the generalized blandness (and that's absolutely what it is) of Perahia/ECO can he heard in the recordings-- not complete-- of Andreas Staier with the Concerto Koln. Given Mozart's genius as orchestral composer etc, nobody should settle for the ubiquitous less. (Again, I'm not hugely suggesting Schiff over Perahia in this repertoire-- both musicians made MUCH better recordings of other repertoire later-- but Vegh >>>>>>>.) re: violin concertos... Nielsen, Sibelius, Berg, Szymanowski, Reger, Petterson, Hindemith, Korngold, Penderecki, Prokofiev, DSCH, Elgar, Walton, Delius, Rautavaara, Frank Martin, Bartok, Delius, Martinu...

Kofksy is a middlebrow jackass; just because he was a so-called "Marxist" middlebrow changes this naught, as his non-jass works demonstrate. He may or may not be an "interesting" foil-- fuck, he might as well be useful for something but ofay was in way over his head in every possible way. Jones was an intermittently great poet/prose writer, "interesting" polemicist & more than half a horse's ass as "critic." If we just called him an "experiencer"-- though not Anthony Braxton's ideal "friendly experiencer"!-- everyone would have been much better off. Indeed, thought of Anthony is perhaps instructive for this whole discussion, as HIS capacious aesthetic is far closer to demonstrable & reasonable intuitied historical truths than the bulk of most books. Not that AB is the world or The Word but... Also, tho' I love Tapscott, his relative lack of discography in addition to geography is partly to blame. Hell, tho' he's white, look at the relative lack of acclaim/interest Vinny Golia gets... I can understand, sorta, if you're a woodwinds hater but otherwise... Re: Peacock or Grimes, are you familiar w/ the great Steve Brown? (It's doesn't matter if it's unlikely Peacock or Grimes did; indeed, if Peacock knew anything about Bill Challis he couldn't suffer Jarrett's 'standards' crap regardless of the $$$.) And as for "energy music," it's pretty hard to take the category as such seriously EXCEPT as part continuum & judged according to those standards. Remind why I should give a f about Paul Motian again? (Would be very interesting to talk to Cecil about dance, however, esp. re: Balanchine and Michael Kidd.)

That's true CT though it's been so long since I looked at Val Wilmer, I don't recall to what extent she qualified her group portrait. (Would she even have known who Horace Tapscott is? That Sonny Criss album kills but...) Granted, the same-- or at least similar-- things have happened in classical historiography, especially the inane vilification of Schoenberg, though that at least admits-- & even promotes-- a counter narrative and-- let's face it-- the level of general discourse of significantly higher (though not without its knowledgeable cranks, cf. Richard Taruskin). Debussy and Schoenberg and Bartok, not either/or, etc. This is one reason I've felt uncomfortable with the "fire music" schtick, not always to objection but it's hard to argue in its favor other than as the title of one specific Shepp album. Matthew Shipp was on WKCR last week with Mitch Goldberg and the subject of the show was the Giuffre-Bley-Swallow trio, Matthew being a huge Bley admirer and always ready to zing Keith Jarrett also. Look ma, no drummer! Not a huge Smiley Winters fan but she definiitely had her moments, "Odds Against Tomorrow," natch, &

just need to sit in to note that even as 'provocation,' that's an astonishingly inane statement by Iverson (big surprise). 'American Quartet' is dogshit, not even Dewey can redeem that crap, its "influence" wholly baneful & looky looky (here comes cookie), there's Motian-ex Bill Frisell doing the omniverse's worst imaginable "Americana" Beatles covers! what a legacy. tho' I think this is a worthwhile discussion, the idea of "a" narrative is inane-- was, is, always will be. There was, in fact, no such thing & to whatever wht extent one has been propagated by simps on both sides of the aisle is a reflection of their own ignorance, unwillingness to do the historical research.

HH is def. the real deal. I might prefer something other than Beethoven myself (great but oft heard) but... Hahn's CDs of Schoenberg & Sibelius vc and the Ives vn sonatas are both superb and less than expected...

Austin Mitchell obituary, slight delay; he was 95-- http://www.phillytrib.com/obituaries/austin-mitchell-jr-,-musician,-95.html album is a mutha (to say the least)-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9bZJ8f2Xp0

Assuming everyone here can-- sonics aside-- identify the Hot Five/Seven from the All-Stars and Bird Dial versus Verve etc... Can ya'll tell the differences between Mahler 2, 3, 6? Bartok String Quartet 2 and 5? "Macbeth" v. "Rigoletto" v. "Falstaff"? The three Brahms string quartets versus Zemlinsky's four? This isn't to imply criticism of anyone just learning those works, period, but the idea that these giant boxes are a way to achieve greater understanding of music and cultural history is, for the most part, wishful thinking. I hope, at least, people are supplementing these sets with any # of books about classical music generally, composers and eras specifically etc. EVERYONE reading this thread should own no fewer than THREE Nicolas Slonimsky books. Otherwise, less is more and the ONLY complete Haydn box kinda worth buying is Hogwood's, which is least flawed thoough for smaller subset, Frans Bruggen is tops, weird its not more regularly available.

she's not in the studio yet but should be in shortly for the musician show... the great Ahmed Abdullah laid the knowledge down a couple weeks ago, wish ya'll heard it. 6-9 pm eastern just noticed the wrong category mea culpa

and to clarify, sgcim, that quote is nothing. what Arnold Schoenberg is Sebesky/Rochberg talking about, tonal chromatic, 'atonal', twelve-tone? (His variations, deviations from same?) There's nothing in the least bit 'wrong' with ANY of Schoenberg's modes of expression btw; how yokels listen and how some epigones might have composed is another story... ... And I'll take any Webern, Berg, Skalkottas, Robert Gerhard, Egon Wellesz (George Gershwin) over the whole of Rochberg &/or Sebesky.

Ah! Problem with Gardiner is tempo, timbre, sometimes vocalists. I'd take raw Harnoncourt I (Teldec) or the video over JEG in Monteverdi; in fact, the only Gardiner that still ranks is some of his Purcell (on Erato) & the odd modern bit here/there like his Schumann (oddly enough) & Grainger. gotta 'see through' the production to an extent here but--

Hah... I actually thought you were being sarcastic with *great*. While I love much of the repertoire, I'd say there's only five-- ten absolutely tops, in a pinch-- of those discs I'd recommend seperately (Goebel/MAK Telemann (& maybe Heinechen), Minkowski Handel). McCreesh, Gardiner, Pinnock have almost uniformly been outclassed though some Pinnock recordings were OK at the time.

Never, I'm 1000% for everyone listening to as much classical music as possible, make no mistake. The trouble with these boxes is twofold. First is obvious-- getting far more than one can listen to, absorb, understand, unless you read music and have scores available etc. That's not a HUGE issue-- some brilliant composers have been autodidacts-- but, even as a once heavy "collector", it's preferable to know x # of works very well than to drown, disc-by-disc-by-disc-by-disc by neverending disc in the mass of it all. Second, tho' a # of the boxes from Brilliant are more enterprising, the major label regurgitations are vomiting up A LOT of same old same old same old sams old shit, repeatedly, and again. Martinu, for example, is one of the giants of the 20th century, in all manner of forms including great but little known ballet, choral etc. I used to think he was somewhat undone by his profligacy but I'd strong refute that now. In any case, you could buy two-three-four DOZEN of these boxes and have how much Martinu? Unless BMG snuck some Firkusny in there, the answer is NONE. BIS does some amazing boxes but generally of less outre repertoire tho' the Villa-Lobos set is astounding-- etc etc. typricall less than great graphics but musically this is recommedned over the contents of most other boxes-- http://www.amazon.com/Tallis-Complete-Chapelle-Du-Roi/dp/B005JWXA1K this is worthwhile too, probably moreso than the Erato and big DG sets, though they are larger and have their virtues-- http://www.amazon.fr/Messiaen-Anniversary-14-CDs-Various/dp/B001DCQJUO

Vivarte box = mostly good or better DG baroque box = most mediocre or worse Henze = "interesting," not "great" Boulez = was an excellent conductor for a time, is, finally, neglible as composer. Were one to listen to Schoenberg opus by opus (including dates of non opus works), as one can with the (mostly) Boulez Webern, the fussy (to say the least) weaknesses of Boulez's dots-on-paper are glaring. Phllips Original Jacket = mostly mediocre to be continued...

For the last few years at least Phil Schaap has been soliciting birthday cards for Lionel, extolling his spirit, background etc, noting that's all he wants & giving his home address in N.O. I believe Lionel's eyesight failed or was failing & this year (earlier?) the cards had to be read to Lionel but nonetheless... At least a few hundred arrived this year.

Hugh is fantastic on David Murray "Remembrances" (DIW, 1991). with Dave Burrell, Wilbur Morris, Tani Tabbal. It's interesting to note he studied music at U of Houston as undergrad; he's definitely got the chops and then some. as Chuck noted-- hmmmmmmm... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwRnDf7VQWs

LK, glad you checked it & were impressed. I found my notes from re-watching re: Wexler, Bobby, Zappa. I agree with both you & Allen btw-- he could be callow, 'opportunistic' when young & there were hardbitten Bobby who came around during his imperfect-but-evolving time as Senator. Bobby was never entirely callow, however; he just didn't know but his instincts on race, for example, were good, cf. when he was law student of U of Virginia & refused to abide segregated etc. (I think this involved invitation to Ralph Bunche but may be mistaken.) Remember Bobby sitting with Medgar Evers family at ME's Arlington funeral too. Also, Peter Boyle's scene in "Medium Cool"... whoa. YES on "The Blow Up" (did you know David Hemmings was one of Benjamin Brittens 'boys', cf. "The Turn of the Screw" in his case?) & the next step is "Zabriskie Point"-- a towering & much underrated masterpiece. (There are dozens upon dozens of shots as great as any still photography, painting etc). This is correct (Pink Floyd) ending, MGM added the goofy Roy Orbison title track coda w/o MA's permission because, I believe, they were irked they were doing film and soundtrack album w/ no MGM artists. anyway, here's the "Medium Cool" sequence I referred to earlier, timings from start of DVD. 24:48 to 25:34 = reenactment, from POV kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, of the moments before RFK assassination, with actual audio of conclusion of Bobby’s victory speech in background. 25:35 to 26:02 = montage of Washington D.C. car travel, set to the first verse of the Mothers of Invention “Oh No”* for-- we learn, following six seconds of silence— RFK state funeral. * Oh no I don't believe it You say that you think you know The meaning of love You say love is all we need You say With your love you can change All of the fools All of the hate I think you're probably Out to lunch