Classical Convert

Virst Impressions Of Vasks

Vasks is the way forward! That was the advice from my friendly readers (hi there, you) after a post last week about baby-steps into Penderecki’s music, and my quest to find a new composer that I heart as much as Shosty. Heeding this advice like the heedonist I am, off we skipped to eMusic to download this sucker — which contains the fewest tracks of any CD I own. The three tracks are:

1. Violin Concerto, “Distant Light”
2. Music Dolorosa
3. Viatore

I can see why you guys recommend Vasks for me. There is a lot of slow swelling, interspersed with funky interludes of fidgety strings. I like the latter bits best, but that’s not exactly surprising… when getting familiar with a new piece it’s always the least classical-musically bits that stand out the most.

I kind of wish that there was another heftier piece on the CD, along with the violin concerto. The shorter ones sound neat, but maybe a bit cheap…. well that’s my initial intuition anyway. It doesn’t seem like there is too much large scale structure to piece together, like it’s more cinematic than symphony. That doesn’t mean they short pieces are bad, just that they might not have so much staying power. That may be a totally wrong judgment call. Incidentally, I already woke up with the refrain from Viatore in my head.

The meatier piece — the violin concerto — will take extra-long to get into, as it’s another one of these monolithic one movement deals. The intro is pretty interesting, it’s like a violin pretending to be a tape-reel booting up. I haven’t identified enough landmarks to even begin to start understanding it yet, so no smashingly insightful and hilarious commentary yet.

Tags: classical music, peteris vasks

Not cAMP Enough

Our sexy new espresso machine has horns and a halo. Such sweet, caffeinated nectar it emits! It sits proudly in our little lab kitchen area, next to the collection of mismatched mugs and the dorm fridge on cinder blocks. One button accomplishes all. Beans to brew. It grinds, tamps, steams and makes you completely caffeine dependent in one all too easy step. Eyes not open for the nine a.m. meeting? Push the button. Reluctant to get back to work after lunch? Push the button. It’s five o’clock and but you need to hang around lab in case the supervisor pops by at 6? Push the button and play Flash games for an hour.

Unfortunately it lives in lab. That’s why at 8pm on a stay-at-home (or at least, away-from-work) Sunday I realize that the advancing headache is probably down to a lack of caffeine — this being the first day in about two months in which I haven’t had at least two cups of delicious, dangerous coffee. Well, that just got remedied via my flatmate’s drip coffee machine. I think the headache is fading already.

Now the question is, do I try and ween myself this week, or cave to the perky deliciousness?

Sadly, I think we all know what the answer is going to be.

Tags: caffeine, coffee

Did everyone watch the debate last night?

(via Politico)

Tags: batman, politics

Bevel My Edges Baby

Audiophiles, do you find the musical fidelity of your CDs lacking? Does your soul yearn for the pure analog joy of the wax cylinder? Perhaps the problem is that your CDs are not circular enough. But take courage! For a shade under a G you can amend this horrible affliction, and start enjoying life again.

Yep. Eine Deutsche company called Audio Desk is selling these sweet babies for the not-a-rip-off-at-all sum of $899. The device uses a sharpened tungsten carbide blade — no wait, burin; blades are for cheapskates — to bevel nothing less than a perfect 36 degree angle onto the edge of your discs. This minimizes light scatter which of course results in “pronounced improvements in focus, transient attack, detail and transparency”.

Personally, my focus is pretty tight, but I always suspected my transient attack was awry. Well, not any more, at a price like that I can afford one for every one of my mansions.

Tags: cd improver, rip-off, technology

Playing Penderecki

I am on a grand quest to find a composer that I like as much as Shostakovich. The latest attempt is Penderecki.

So far my experience of his music has been his 5th and 1st symphonies on this Naxos CD. Well, that’s not entirely true. Before properly exploring a composer you almost always have prior exposure, from films, adverts, or other sources. In this case my prior exposure is from Kubrick’s 1980 film of The Shining: one of my favorite movies, and one of my favorite books. The soundtrack for the entire movie is genius (the use of Bartók, for example, is one of the best bits), and one of the standout moments in the scoring is the use of Penderecki’s Utrenja, which is one of the eeriest pieces of music I know:

Aside from The Shining, my Penderecki experience is limited to being aware of the fairly famous piece Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, which I understand is about ten minutes of screaming strings.

So, not too much to go on. A whisper-chanted slab of fear, and a wailing microtonal monument. Neither of these sound musically similar to Shostakovich. The morose attitude, however, does.

In fact, what prompted me to spend some of my hard-earned eMusic credits was Youtube sampling of some of his other pieces. Particularly, the viola concerto, which reminds me of the Shostakovich viola sonata, but perhaps that is instrumental bias. It was enough to prompt a download, though.

Today, while enjoying the October sunshine and the primary-colored scenery, I listened to the 40 minute 5th symphony. I think it has potential. It yearns, and it has interesting percussion — both of which have historically been promising indicators for me. Also, I didn’t immediately decide it was great, which when it occurs can actually be a bad sign. On the other hand, the first symphony is almost certainly going to be consigned to the curiosities bin. It is intense, and stereotypically avant garde. I don’t think there is enough of the traditional Romantic flavor in it to carry my attention.

One of the difficulties I can forsee with trying to get into the 5th is that it is in one movement. That makes it impossible to do my standard technique of repeatedly playing the movement which grabs me the most, and gradually expanding outward. 40 minutes is a big chunk of time, and despite idyllizing (yeah, y not o) the idea of devoting a comfy chair, a mug of tea and a few hours to concentrating on my music, most of the time my listening is done while walking to and from work. That doesn’t work so well with a forty minute movement.

I cannot quite escape my low-attention-span, gen-Y nature.

Tags: penderecki, the shining, utrenja