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What next?
James Strzelec wrote:
> Another question: what do subscribers of this list go to when they're
> done (temporarily, of course) tapping Gould's mine? What music follows
> easily after Gould, if you know what I mean?
Hmm. I suppose I tend to look for something that (to me) has a similar
introspection, a similar level of focused contemplation:
* Bach solo cello suites, Schiff
* Purcell, Fantazias for viol consort -- playing now.
A recent discovery, for me, played by the reknowned early
music group, Fretwork (Virgin/Veritas). No one quite knows
why Purcell, during the space of a few days in the
Summer of 1680, probably while holidaying at Windsor
Castle, chose to work frantically on a sequence of "fantazias"
for viols. The viol consort -- a form of music making
esentially from the first half of the 17th century,
music for domestic performance by amateur upper-class
players -- was pretty well extinct by 1660, twenty years
before Purcell sat down to write these pieces (at the age
of 22, note). But what is generally acknowledged is that
in doing so he produced probably the most serene and
searching chamber music of the period -- much as Bach
did about 100 years later when he composed solo suites
for the cello. Try this after GG's Byrd/Gibbons!
* Haydn or Mozart string quartets.
* Handel, especially in period instrument performances
by Trevor Pinnock & the English Concert. Concert Grossi,
Op. 6; or the dramatic music ALCESTE (very beautiful).
* Bach Complete Violin sonatas
Violin/Grumiaux
Jaccottet/harpsichord
* I have also become extremely fond of the Vivaldi
cello concertos. There are marvellous, amazingly
cheap, new recordings on Naxos (4 vols), City of
London Sinfonia/Nicholas Kraemer
But my musical taste isn't always this elevated :)
Best, Alun
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ALUN SEVERN * snailmail: 1 Chestnut Rd Oldbury
West Midlands B68 0AX
England
* voice: 0121 422 9509
* email: alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk
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Well, I have my beautiful de Kooning
to aspire to. I think it has an orange
bed in it, more than the ear can hold.
- Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency
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