Pierre Boulez (1925–2016)

The Sinfonia sets texts of graffiti written during the revolutionary "Paris spring" of 1968. They are sung (really scat-sung) by the Swingle Singers over an arrangement of the third movement of Mahler's Second Symphony, which is overdubbed with fragments of masterpieces of twentieth-century music from Strauss to Boulez. In its many-layered stylistic collage the Sinfonia is a brilliant technical tour de force, a huge Joycean funeral pyre for the stringent aesthetic of modernism, out of which show more rises the eclecticism of the postmodern.

While theorchestra plays a Mahler scherzo, the Swingle Singers speak in several languages, on divergent subjects, at various tempos, in many moods. The overall effect is enormously powerful. The result is not chaos but rather a striking comment on the multiplicity, density, variousness of our world - on the way we must take meaning not from the sense of any one local phrase but from the overall movement of the whole. show less

Another one of those very few Grab-On-The-Way-Out-Of-The-Burning-House albums. This is the recording from the Bayreuth Festival of 1951, the first performance of this work at Wagner's own theatre since the Nazi and war years which had hideously validated most of the mature compser's prophecies about our sinful species. Much has been written about this work, much too much of it arrant nonsense both by its detractors and its apostles. Still, with a half-century-plus of experience of life and show more of this work, I am not reluctant to put my oar in, even though I have written about it at lenghthe in my own HARMONY JUNCTION.
For those who doen't already know, Wagner subtitled this work a "Buehnenfestpiel", meaning two things things simultaneously, one (comparatively modest), a piece for the consecration (i.e. dedication) of a theatre-stage. Recall, as Wagner surely did, that the mature Beethoven had written an overture for the "consecration of the house", the house being, in context, a new theatre in Vienna. So Wagner was not loath to follow on that path, but only a characteristically expanded scale. More to the point, he intended this to be a piece whose very performance would be in itself, aside from any formalities and whoop-de-do, a consectrational act in itself, a sacramental endeavour. A noble, some might claim impossible goal. It is left to each listener-spectator to decide, more correctly, to experience whether this sublimity is in fact achieved. It is not without interest to note that Claude Debussy, who was aestheically, culturally, and spiritually light-years removed from Wagner, gladly called it "one of the loveliest monuments of sound ever raised to the serene glory of music." More recently, Fr Owen Lee has written -- and I paraphrase -- that PARSIFAL is like the Grail which it presents -- and by implication, the love, wholeness, and salvation which it represents: it may be seen by many, understood by some, but understood by who knows how many, or how few.
On the comparatively mundane level, this is a well-miked recording, and the singing is excellent, particularly that of the now-legendary Ludwig Weber as the teacher-knight Gurnemanz. Hans Knappertsbush conducts with a breadth and dignity almost incomprehensible to our world of haste and frenzy. In this re-issue, the music which originally occupied six discs is compressed onto five, with no loss of fidelity, and of-course, no musical cuts Includes German text and serviceable English translation by WIlliam Mann.
Listeners who care may like to know that this performance is a available on a CD set which will be listed here on LT in the fulleness of time. show less

[Repeated from my Review of the 1968 Richmond re-issue, with a few adjustments.
Another one of those very few Grab-On-The-Way-Out-Of-The-Burning-House albums. This is the recording from the Bayreuth Festival of 1951, the first performance of this work at Wagner's own theatre since the Nazi and war years which had hideously validated most of the mature compser's prophecies about our sinful species. Much has been written about this work, much too much of it arrant nonsense both by its show more detractors and its apostles. Still, with a half-century-plus of experience of life and of this work, I am not reluctant to put my oar in, even though I have written about it at lenghthe in my own HARMONY JUNCTION.
For those who doen't already know, Wagner subtitled this work a "Buehnenfestpiel", meaning two things things simultaneously, one (comparatively modest), a piece for the consecration (i.e. dedication) of a theatre-stage. Recall, as Wagner surely did, that the mature Beethoven had written an overture for the "consecration of the house", the house being, in context, a new theatre in Vienna. So Wagner was not loath to follow on that path, but only a characteristically expanded scale. More to the point, he intended this to be a piece whose very performance would be in itself, aside from any formalities and whoop-de-do, a consectrational act in itself, a sacramental endeavour. A noble, some might claim impossible goal. It is left to each listener-spectator to decide, more correctly, to experience whether this sublimity is in fact achieved. It is not without interest to note that Claude Debussy, who was aestheically, culturally, and spiritually light-years removed from Wagner, gladly called it "one of the loveliest monuments of sound ever raised to the serene glory of music." More recently, Fr Owen Lee has written -- and I paraphrase -- that PARSIFAL is like the Grail which it presents -- and by implication, the love, wholeness, and salvation which it represents: it may be seen by many, understood by some, but understood by who knows how many, or how few.
On the comparatively mundane level, this is a well-miked recording, and the singing is excellent, particularly that of the now-legendary Ludwig Weber as the teacher-knight Gurnemanz. Hans Knappertsbush conducts with a breadth and dignity almost incomprehensible to our world of haste and frenzy. No text is supplied, although there is "A Psychological Diagram, for PARSIFAL" by Wieland Wagner, translated by WIlliam Mann show less

Bartok is the only classical composer of this century that I love. The opening movement of the concerto explains why,