What next?

[Alun Severn <alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk>]

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


---------------------------------------------------------------
ALUN SEVERN     * snailmail:             1 Chestnut Rd  Oldbury
                                         West Midlands  B68 0AX
                                                        England
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                * 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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