aworks :: "new" american classical music

aworks hot tracks :: what i'm really listening to /by decade/

2000s

• Quiet Music from Three Etudes for Piano. Nico Muhly
• Local Variations. Bill Sethares
• Virginia Trance. Henry Flynt
• A Portrait. Henry Flynt
• Dreams Away. Henry Flynt
• Wear Your Seatbelt. Cliff Martinez -Solaris soundtrack 
• These Are My Twisted Words. Radiohead - unknown recording
• Pauvre Type. Amadou & Mariam - Sou Ni Tile
• The Sad Branch (Bonus Reissue Song). Black Moth Super Rainbow

1990s

• Rez. Underworld - Underworld 1992-2002 
• Study No.51 ("3750"). Conlon Nancarrow - Lost Works, Last Works
• EK For JC. Jin Hi Kim - The Wire Tapper 07
• Seventy-Four For Orchestra. John Cage - American Composers Orchestra

1980s

• String Quartet No. 2, "Company": I. Philip Glass - Carducci String Quartet
• String Quartet No. 2, "Company": III. Philip Glass - Carducci String Quartet
  
• String Quartet No. 2, "Company": IV. Philip Glass - Carducci String Quartet
• String Quartet No. 2, "Company": IV. Philip Glass - Kronos Quartet 
• String Quartet No. 4, "Buczak": I. Philip Glass - Carducci String Quartet
• This Is Not America. David Bowie, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays - Ahn Quartet
• Ryoanji: for double bass and tape. John Cage - Stephano Sconadibbio

1970s

• Black Market. Weather Report 
• Modern Love Waltz. Philip Glass - Margaret Leng Tan 
• Mysterious Traveller. Weather Report
• From a Room on the Plazza. Alvin Curran
• Downtown. Steve Drew - Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Co.
• Jungle Book. Weather Report - Mysterious Traveller
• Einstein on the Beach: Knee 4. Philip Glass

1960s

• Very Special. Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Max Roach - Money Jungle 
• Bolivar Blues. Thelonious Monk - Monk's Dream
• Spoonful. Willie Dixon - Howlin' Wolf
• Contrary Motion. Philip Glass
• Two Pages. Philip Glass
• Music in Fifths. Philip Glass 
• Music in Similar Motion. Philip Glass
• As You Said. Cream - Wheels of Fire

1950s

• Atlantis. Bernard Herrmann. Journey to the Center of the Earth soundtrack
• Study for Player Piano No. 15. Conlon Nancarrow - Arditti Quartet
• Misterioso (alt tk). Thelonious Monk - The Complete Blue Note Recordings

1940s

• A Room. John Cage - Philipp Vandre
• A Room. John Cage - Bruce Brubaker
• A Room. John Cage - Anthony De Mare
• A Room. John Cage - Markus Hinterhauser
• Double Music. John Cage & Lou Harrison - The Ethos Percussion Group
• The Unavailable Memory of. John Cage - Philipp Vandre
• Dream. John Cage - Margaret Leng Tan

1920s

• Two Little Flowers. Charles Ives - Helen Boatwright, John Kirkpatrick

1780s

• Cello Concerto #2 In D, H 7B/2 - 1. Allegro Moderato. Franz Haydn - Yo-Yo Ma
• Cello Concerto #2 In D, H 7B/2 - 2. Adagio. Franz Haydn - Yo-Yo Ma

By decade of composition, more or less...Margaret Leng Tan plays toy piano in addition to the grown-up instrument...Not sure what happened to the second movement of the Glass quartet...Did I mention I haven't found a good alternative to lala for making generally available playlists?

California Dreamin' (1965). John and Michelle Phillips /worth at least 20 cents/

lala has good support for the cover versions "use case."

For example, of the tracks of California Dreamin' by Nancy Sinatra, George Benson, the Carpenters, the Four Tops, Queen Latifah (!), Lionel Hampton, and the Beach Boys (!), after extensive (and free) listening, I could imagine under the right circumstances listening again to the Hampton and Four Tops versions. Specially, I could imagine enough that I was willing to spend .20 to create a streamable playlist:

California Dreamin'

wikipedia: According to John Phillips in a Bravo documentary, and Michelle Phillips in an NPR piece, the song was written in 1963 while they were living in New York. He dreamed about the song and woke her up to help him write. At the time, the Phillipses were members of the folk group The New Journeymen which evolved into The Mamas & the Papas.

aworks project :: lala snooping

 

RVW via Wikipedia

I'm always interested in what people actually listen to (versus what they talk about). I'm also interested in finding new classical music (of course). So my new mini-project, facilitated by the improved lala, is to snoop on some of the 80 or so lala listeners who have listened to more classical music on the service than I have. The method is simple; I click on the user, I click on their classical "Top Genre" listens, and then on the play button to stream what they have already listened to, starting from those tracks most frequently heard. I won't name the listeners -- they deserve some privacy -- but I will try to comment on what I hear, assuming in some cases I can tolerate the music long enough to think about it...

Listener A: The first track is a choral arrangement of Pachebel's Canon. Ok, quickly skipping ahead, there is a string quartet arrangement of the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. It's surprising how popular string arrangements of this sort are on lala. In fact, if you look at my most listened to track, it's the Vitamin String Quartet playing Filter's Hey Man, Nice Shot. I would have never paid for a full CD of this kind of fare but at ten cents, why not?

B: First up from the listener, A Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughn Williams. I had an infatuation with his music a decade ago so this is ok. There's also something called In the Fen Country, but since the composer's name is not listed on the track, I can only assume RVW again. Next, the interesting new vocal recording of Terry Riley's In C, by Paul Hillier. On the album page, the composer's name is obvious this time but it takes good eyesight to actually see the artist's. I'm adding Listener B to my "following" list.

C: The next listener's most popular genres are classical, hip-hop and R&B. (For the record, mine have been tallied as classical, jazz, and alternative). The top classical plays are traditional -- Stokowsky and Beethoven conducting Bach, Carmen etc. It's hard not to like the Bach.

D: All vocal music by Gabriel Faure. Next.

E: The most popular artists are Yann Tiersen, Max Richter, and Beyoncé. I've run across several other Richter listeners here. And the most played are nine Richter tracks plus Beethoven. This is a follow.

F: This listener's list is all Bach. Bach is good but so is variety.

G: This listener's popular genres are classical, soundtrack, and metal. The only classical album appears to be Les Miserables. I was hoping the metal might lead to Glenn Branca or something. Except for Riley and Richter, composers I already knew, this project is failing on the contemporary front. It's easy to forget how niche my interests can be, the Vitamin String Quartet not withstanding.

H: This person listens to electronic, praise and worship, and classical. For the latter, this translates into Chopin, Liszt and Bach. I can respect that.

I: On this list are Alan Jackson, Beethoven, and Chopin. One of those three doesn't really belong in the set but again, I'm sure there is a reason.

Ok, time to wind down this project as I've heard enough Bach and Beethoven for one day.

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Update: Actually, listening to more Bach today is surprisingly satisfying.