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By Matthias Röder ⋅ July 29, 2006 ⋅

After weeks of abstinence I finally bought new CDs, scores, and books yesterday. For those of you who live in Berlin, check out the Kulturkaufhaus Dussmann. It has a huge collection of classical music CDs in the basement. Here is what I bought: 1) The Camerata Salzburg conducted by Sandor Vegh with Bartok’s Divertimento for Strings, SZ113, Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite, as well as Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagete. In my view the Camerata is currently the most exiting chamber orchestra in Europe: intelligent musicians, full yet highly flexible sound, perfect intonation and timing. I heard Bartok’s Divertimento for the first time last week with the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein and was taken away by it immediately. I found the rich Gegenklänge in the second movement especially impressive. 2) Finally, I have a copy of George Crumb’s Black Angels (Miro Quartet, not the sloppy Kronos Quartet recording), one of the truly fine string quartets of our time. Listening to it today in the morning I realized that there is a section where the musicians are counting in German, just like in Stockhausen’s Helikopterstreichquartett where the poor performers have to count in glissandos while being flown around in helicopters. Crazy Karlheinz. 3) The divine Maurizio Pollini playing Luigi Nono’s como una ola de fuerza y luz (with Slavka Taskova, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Claudio Abbado), sofferte onde serene, and Giacomo Manzoni’s Masse: Omaggio a Edgar Varese (with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sinopoli). “Who’s Manzoni?” I asked myself when I saw the CD sitting on the shelf. The new New Grove has the answer: Italian pianist, editor (Il Diapason), music critic (for the left-wing L’Unita), Adorno and Schoenberg translator, teacher (Milano, Bologna), and of course composer. Masse is an impressive and massive piece, at times it reminds me of Andriessen, Rihm, or Schoenberg. Sounds weired, I know. 4) A score of Mahler’s Ninth. Thanks again Joshua for supplying the impetus. 5) The Zelter - Goethe correspondence. Münchner Ausgabe, 3 volumes. Complete, comprehensive, critical.