Conversational Reading

Ceres by Mark-Anthony Turnage

Friday Classical Music: Ceres by Mark-Anthony Turnage

This is perhaps the only piece of music inspired by the horrific destruction of humanity by an enormous piece of rock. I saw this performed live last weekend, along with two related pieces he composer wrote later, and so I quote from the program notes for that performance:

I was inspired to write Ceres after reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. Ceres was one of the first asteroids to be discovered. I took the idea of asteroids being rocky objects, all of which are capable of colliding with the earth and all of which are moving at slightly different courses through the sky at different rates. There are possibly two thousand asteroids big enough to imperil civilized existence. Even a small asteroid the size of a house could destroy a city (paraphrased from pages 241-43 of Bill Bryson’s book).

The idea of the piece is that different blocks of material (the first two a tune with florid clarinet accompaniment and then a syncopated trombone idea) gradually collide into a dense climactic section, then split apart. I was very attracted to the doomsday aspect of asteroids and the idea that the earth could be destroyed by one any day. Maybe this was affected by my strict religious upbringing that in the book of Revelation warned of Armageddon and the destruction of an evil world.

There is no recording of Ceres as I heard last weekend, that is, as part of the complete set of three. Ceres can be purchased as part of a disk headlined by Holst's The Planets. This disk includes an additional composition for Pluto (unknown during Holst's time, and, ironically, now no longer a planet) and others for different astrological phenomena.

Friday Classical Music: Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, the "Eroica"

Here ya go--the first movement of the symphony that got the Romantic age of music started.

Friday Classical Music: Shostakovich's 13th String Quartet

Ahh, one of Shostakovich's late quartets. If you like it, you like it, if you don't, it goes on for another 18 minutes.

Toward the end of this excerpt you can hear the start of the so-called jazz portion of this quartet. (It lasts about 3 minutes, and it does sound somewhat like jazz.)

Friday Classical Music: Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen died a couple months ago. If you're not acquainted with the extreme oddity that was this man, then have a look at the above video. He revolutionized compositional music, he thought he was from the star Sirius, and The Beatles liked him so much that they put him on the cover of their album. His music is definitely an acquired taste, but if you're inclined to the strange . . .

Friday Classical Music: Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians

I'm a little late to this story, but this is the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, a group of undergrate musicians, doing a great performance Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, of one of recent classical music's most difficult pieces. This group's performance has won wide priase (including ending up on Alex Ross's year-end list of favorite 2007 recordings).

For a little background read this in the NYT.

Friday Classical Music: Magma by Erik-Sven Tuur

I wanted to put up Magma, the fourth symphony by the Estonian composer Erik-Sven Tuur, but I can't find a performance in the public domain, so I'll give you this piece of his. Tuur's music is a bit different, but give it a chance. He's one of m favorite composers at the moment.

Friday Classical Music: Stravinsky's Violin Concerto

This simply sounds like joyful music to me.

Friday Classical Music: En Saga by Jean Sibelius

I don't know where "part 1" is, but this is "part2," about the last half of a 20-minute piece. This is only Sibelius's 9th work (out of about 115), but it's quite good. Enjoy, and if you like it, the rest of it can be heard, along with a number of other fine works by Sibelius, on this disc.

(I notice, btw, that Amazon is now offering MP3 downloads. In the case of the above-linked disc, this won't help you much. There's not too much point in putchasing movements 1 and 3 of a 3-movement piece.)

Friday Classical Music: Berg's Violin Concerto

Did anything better come out of the Second Vienna School than Berg's Violin Concerto? This is part 1, and part 2 of the same performance is also available on YouTube. Fantastic stuff.

Friday Classical Music: Emerson Quartet -- Shostakovich, String Quartet 3, Mvmt 3

Shostakovich's Third String Quartet has always been one of my favorites of his, and this is a stirring passage from the third movement. It's being played here by the Emerson String Quartet, which is a wonderful ensemble. If you're into Shostakovich, string quartets, or just plain good music, I highly recommend listening to Emerson's recording of all 15 of Shostakovich's quartets. These are very good recordings, and it's criminal that they'll only set you back $24.