2023: a year in music
This year has been exceptionally rich in music that stunned and delighted me - both completely new discoveries and rediscoveries. I’m listing them in chronological order as I came across them.
Paul Wiancko - Benkei’s Standing Death, Cello Quartet ‘When the Night’ and Vox Petra for 2 violas and 2 cellos (available here). The first piece expanded my idea of what string instruments are capable of in principle. Very evocative music, bold and inventive. Wiancko is now the cellist of the Kronos Quartet, and most of his music features the beloved cello.
Tan Dun - Soundtrack for the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Eric Whitacre - Cloudburst, Lux aurumque, Sleep. Cloudburst is a piece that had a singularly overpowering effect on me. On a first listen, it brought me to tears. On a second and third listen, it had me sobbing. It is a uniquely psychoactive piece of music for me.
Bach - Erbarme Dich from St. Matthew’s Passion, sung by countertenor Tim Mead.
Pérotin - Beata viscera (by Tonus Peregrinus). High medieval music is something else. Pérotin belongs to the Notre Dame school of polyphony, a group of composers who worked at or near the cathedral in ~1160-1250 and who created the ars antiqua style. This recording is fittingly made in that cathedral, with a stunning reverb.
Pergolesi - Stabat Mater (Lucy Crowe & Tim Mead, La Nuova Musica, 2017). A beloved piece I remember from the few choir lessons I attended as a kid (& then merrily skipped altogether) is the 1st duo from this cycle - ‘Stabat mater dolorosa’. The entire cycle is heartachingly beautiful.
Shostakovich - Cello Sonata op. 40.
George Crumb - Vox balaenae (‘Voice of the Whale’), for electric flute, electric cello and amplified piano, first performed in 1971. Performers are required to wear black half-masks and the concert hall is lit in blue light as if submerged in the ocean.
Erik Friedlander - Illuminations for solo cello. I first heard this piece at an outdoor groupmuse in Brooklyn but the background noises didn’t let me fully appreciate it. But the recording merits multiple re-listens.
Béla Fleck (banjo) /Zakir Hussain (tabla) /Edgar Meyer (double bass) - The melody of rhythm (1998). Of course, I learned about it from the podcast where Rick Rubin interviews Tyler Cowen about his favorite music.
Gabriel Fauré - Requiem op. 48, Pie Jesu, sung by a boy soprano. I’ve previously listened to some fine recordings with an adult female soprano but my composition teacher told me it’s even better with a boy soprano - and I guess, indeed, it is impossible to replicate the purity of a child’s voice.
Scriabin - late piano sonatas. Everyone knows Scriabin’s 5th sonata but the later sonatas, No. 6-10, are absolutely gorgeous too!
6th: Op. 62: Modéré: mystérieux, concentré. Noir, haunting, slow burn development.
7th: Op. 64: ‘White Mass’; Prophetique. Not my favorite, a little too explosive.
8th: Op. 66: Lento. Somewhat reminiscent of the 6th, similar mood but lighter? It’s considered one of Scriabin’s most technically challenging works.
9th: Op. 68: ‘Black Mass’. Scriabin’s most Prokofiev-like sonata, reminds me of Prokofiev’s 8th (one of the War Sonatas).
10th: Op. 70 ‘Insect Sonata’. I’ve become obsessed with this one. In Scriabin’s own words, "My Tenth Sonata is a sonata of insects. Insects are born from the sun [...] they are the kisses of the sun."
Constantinople - Bach & Khayyam, a concert in Montreal in October 2023. A soprano singing Bach's cantatas accompanied by an assortment of Renaissance/Baroque/Middle Eastern instruments is followed by a tenor singing to Omar Khayyam's poems in Farsi. I was impressed.
Eugène Ysaÿe - Violin Sonatas op. 27, performed by Ilya Kaler. Favorite movements: Sonata 2 - II. Malinconia, III. Sarabande; Sonata 4 - I. Allemande, II. Sarabande.
Alban Berg - Piano Sonata Op. 1 (Gould, Yudina). One of the most haunting openings a piano sonata ever had. More about it + additional recordings.
Bach - Allemande from Cello Suite in D major, BWV 1012. I found the perfect recording, by Jean-Guihen Queyras, with an incredible reverb and a deeply felt performance. This is the longest of all 36 movements of the cello suites, and there’s a sacred quality to it.
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Cover art courtesy of ChatGPT & DALL E3 (11/18/2023).
