orchestra21

If you haven’t already grabbed Big Beautiful Dark and Scary from Bang on a Can’s 25th anniversary website not to worry – it is still available for free download. Absolutely worth it for the fun listening, if not to add to the wonderful commentary stream occasioned by the album’s offering. So far the highlight for me is new work from Dirty Projectors music director [and fellow Yale grad] David Longstreth – three tight, beat-driven tunes including this head nodder, Instructional Video.

Doug Stewart says:

This is what your iTunes equalizer should be set to. Whether you’re using your poor laptop speakers, the default Apple earbuds, or fine pieces of engineering from a company that gives a damn, this removes the ‘flatness’ of a dead EQ and makes whatever you’re listening to sound more like itself.

Agreed! I keep the preamp slightly lower and may eventually tweak a few of the settings but am generally impressed. If only it were possible [ahem, Apple] to run custom EQs natively on iPhone/iPad without having to preset all of one’s iTunes tracks.

[Found via scatterbrainedboy]

Bach - Cantata BWV 174 - 1. Sinfonia
John Eliot Gardiner & the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra
Bach Cantatas Vol. 26

Recognize this?

The musical material is of course the opening movement of Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto, re-scored in wildly imaginative fashion for a large ensemble of solo and ripieno strings, horns, oboes and bassoon. Bach frequently borrowed from himself – especially when pulling together music for weekly church services – but this so-called ‘parody’ movement may be his most elaborate and fanciful. An amazing listen.

The original version of Brandenburg 3 is on tap this weekend at the WCFSO, along with a raft of other festive pieces by Bach and his contemporaries.

Chinoiseries Pt 2, out today from French beatmaker Onra, is the follow-up to his original 2007 experiment in sampling vintage Chinese and Vietnamese records. Texture and sonic depth are hallmarks of Onra’s work, and this time around he employs them expertly to create a vivid sense of space and dialogue between musical materials. Recommended.

Mozart – Fragment of a concerto for basset horn in G, K621b
Gilles Thomé and Ensemble 415
Une soirée chez les Jacquin

This one’s for the clarinet heads, many of whom have probably seen the facsimile of Mozart’s G major concerto fragment for basset horn [subsequently recast in A major as the clarinet concerto]. But I’m guessing I am not the only one hearing the fragment for the first time, presented here on a very interesting recording of Mozart works connected to the Jacquin family.

For those of you unfamiliar with the composer’s interest in the clarinet it was the playing of Anton Stadler – and his experimentation with the physical form of the then youthful instrument – that drew forth a raft of sublime wind music from Mozart for a whole range of different clarinets and basset horns, several of which are featured on this record.

Peter Lieberson – ’Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres’ [‘My love, if I die and you don’t’]
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson & the Boston Symphony
Neruda Songs

A luminous song of farewell from and now for composer Peter Lieberson. The performance is by his late wife, whom he survived by five years until his own death from cancer today. Alex Ross has a beautiful remembrance of Lieberson at The Rest Is Noise.

Beethoven – Symphony no. 5, Allegro con brio
Jos van Immerseel & Anima Eterna
Beethoven Symphonies & Overtures

Conductors often go with Carlos Kleiber’s epic performance of the Fifth as their preferred interpretation of Beethoven’s classic, but lately I’ve been immersed in Jos van Immerseel’s old/new school take with lean and mean historical ensemble Anima Eterna. Sounds fresh, which is exactly what we hope to convey this weekend at the WCFSO.

Got a favorite version of Beethoven 5? Submit it, or share a link in the comments or via my ask page.