« The Chinese economic stimulus package | Main | Understanding Fiscal Policy During the Great Depression »
The meta-lists, this time for classical music
The end of the year is coming and so I will digest the numerous "best of" lists for you once again. These picks are for classical music CDs and they are from Fanfare, the number one source of criticism for new classical releases. Here are the CDs that appeared more than once on their reviewers' "best of the year" lists:
Vincent Persichetti: Piano Sonatas; knotty American piano music.
Morton Feldman: The Viola in My Life, I-IV.
Alkan Organ Works, vol.II, by Kevin Bowyer
Bach, Brandenburg Concerti, rerecorded by Trevor Pinnock.
Brahms, Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano, by Manasse and Nakamatsu.
Thomas Simaku, String Quartets; intense, from Albania.
As usual, classical "best of" lists give disproportionate weight to material which had not previously been recorded, in this case the Persichetti which of all the entries is named the most often. The Brahms is the one most likely to please you, or the Pinnock. I can vouch for the quality of the others but when it comes to genre they won't convert the unpersuaded.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 10, 2008 at 06:56 AM in Music | Permalink
Comments
Does Gramophone not have much of a following in the US, or do you not rate it? I thought their awards were worth taking note of; I have been enjoying the Paul Lewis Beethoven series, and La Venexiana are excellent.
On the American side of things, should Hilary Hahn get a mention? To tenuously link it back to economics, you could claim a merit good argument for the Sibelius/Schoenberg coupling!
Posted by: Andrew UK at Nov 10, 2008 9:19:32 AM
Oh, and with further economic content, I notice the Pinnock is basically $33 dollars for me, a UK resident, whilst amazon.co.uk can get it to me for £22, making an implied exchange rate of £1 = $1.5. Close enough for one price?
Posted by: Andrew UK at Nov 10, 2008 9:26:18 AM
Good list. Morton Feldman -- nice.
Posted by: Michael Drake at Nov 10, 2008 10:21:14 AM
Check on the Simaku. The opening piece, Voci Celesti, is everything you'd ever wished theremin music could be: ethereal, strange, fascinating. The Soliloquy pieces will remind most people of the Kronos Quartet's version of White Man Sleeps by Volans.
Posted by: StreetWalker at Nov 10, 2008 10:36:35 AM
Morton Feldman is God. Thanks for pointing to Simaku. His website has several lengthy MP3 extracts and he is terrific. Does anyone know of recordings of Ernst Krenek's very late compositions?
Posted by: Lee A. Arnold at Nov 10, 2008 6:00:06 PM
So have you ever wanted to try to make your facebook page unique? It's pretty hard considering you can't change colours of your background or text. I decided to do some research and see if I could add some cool pictures or something to make my profile stand out,than I came across a site www.hypster.com that let you make a free account and add music players to your facebook page! not only that but you can change the colours to! so not only will your new facebook profile be playing one of your favourite songs but it will be your favourite colour or colours! please take a look! And if you don't have facebook, this site's codes also work for myspace, bebo, piczo etc. take a look at www.hypster.com
Posted by: john at Nov 12, 2008 4:16:39 AM
